Here's an AAR for Ulm's short lived lifespan.
- Pre-Game Thoughts
When Pasha told me I was playing MA Ulm my first thoughts were "hhhhmmmmm MA Ulm, I know they used to be really awful, but I haven't looked at them for a year or two, wonder if they've improved". Five minutes later "Nope, still utter shiit". Seems to me MA Ulm is as MA Ulm always were, and their only chance in an MP game is to be a big nations forge bitcch until they can get a few dozen Iron Angels on-line, when they can break out of servitude for a few turns of freedom until they are squashed.
My main decision build wise was do I take the standard Awake SC and production, have a good 20 turns with mass troop armies, then die horribly to the first nation to attack me that either has mid level Evo researched, or can stand up to Ulm's troops for more than 10 rounds (at which point they self-die of fatigue). Or do I throw in an incredibly risky hand with a build that might give me some remote chance of doing something mid-late game, and rely on mostly luck and friendly neighbours to get me through the early game. I decided on the latter, mainly because I hate production scales with a passion (although have softened to them slightly since), and because I never intend playing in a game with a plan that means I know beforehand I will have no mid/late game options without huge fortune from site mages.
But then can't see how anyone can expect much playing MA Ulm in their current form anyway. They really need love. Either in the form of Sombre's armour revamp mod to make their troops useable, or move Iron Angels to Const, and/or down to Level <4. Maybe even level 0!
- The Design
In the end I settled on a Dormant Lich, A3S3D5 Dom9 (for obvious fear/awe). O1S2H2G3L3D3. Testing gave me surprisingly good returns of gems and gold with O1/L3 combo (far better for early events than O3/L3), plus Luck 3 in testing mostly gave me a turn 11 God wake up. Or turn 12 at the latest. But I stupidly failed to factor in the "Pasha's computer hates the Luck scale" theory, which was to prove costly. Also hoped that Luck would bring in much needed gem diversity. Growth 3 was a mistake in hindsight. Mainly triggered by me having taken Death 3 in the last three MP games I played, and really wanted a change from seeing my population and income dying everywhere.
My early game plan involved me relying heavily on Mercs for expansion (since I wouldn't be able to spend much money on troops with a Sloth scale) and switching to clockwork horror spam by around turn 10. Not the greatest summon, but dirt cheap for Ulm, and better than anything they can recruit I thought. I also planned to site search very early, although realised at the time (and in hindsight probably just an aid to what happened) that early gem finds would only serve to increase the first kill bulleyes on my head.
Then if all went to plan, I could maybe switch to thugs by mid-game via death, troll kings, Golums, GOR'ed Gargoyles (with rings), combined with heavy mage armies.(supplied from lots of forts) Before rushing to Iron Angels by turn 40. While my SC immortal God would hopefully be able to hold off the bigger dangers until then.(with fortune and fair winds of course) Think I got as far a turn 6 before things went wrong, although it was already looking very bad before then!
- The Game
Starting location (71) was a right sod even before finding out my neighbours. Lots of water everywhere really limited my expansion badly. Mainly because it made converging troops impossible, so my armies often had to stop and wait for reinforcements to arrive. Nice for choke points, but those are useless if you have nothing to defend choke points with. First few turns went well. Grabbed the first mercs, and had good fortune to land the A/N hero early to give me diversity and later Rainbow Armour for my God. But that hero arriving was just about the highlight of the campaign
On turn 4 I discovered who my south neighbour was. Jotunheim. "Oh nice that" I thought. Then on turn 8 I lost my entire first army for no loses to half a dozen of my northern neighbour's troops. Ashdod. "Oh wonderful, that's even better" I thought. Not only do I have one of the strongest rush nations to my south, I also have to the north the nation that's on a completely different uber power level to everyone else. It was around this time that I knew my campaign in this game was going to be incredibly short-lived.
So by turn 8 my position was already terminal, although probably fair to say it was terminal from the start given neighbours and starting location, regardless of my build. My only hope was that Ashdod wouldn't attack early for fear of being ganged (since a lot of players seem to deal with Ashdod by everyone attacking them the moment they rush anyone), and that Jotunheim wouldn't yet have scouted my location since we didn't have a border. I actually avoided capturing the province south of my capital just out of fear of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for the frosty giants. But by turn 10 it all became irrelevant as I had a 100 strong Jotunheim army sitting on my cap.
After this it all became about how long I could hold out, and how costly I could make it for my attacker. I often see people complaining about late game strategic mistakes in RAND games, but for me the biggest strategic mistakes always come early on in the game. As the moment you see an uber nation chowing on a weakling, you should be looking to attack the uber nation without delay. Can't imagine any nation/player combo being able to survive a 2-1 or 3-1 attack before turn 15. So for me it was probably Jotunheim's starting neighbours who handed Jotunheim the game by not attacking Jotunheim when Jotunheim attacked Ulm (or those who attacked Jotunheim's neighbours thereby preventing them from attacking Jotunheim). As without distractions, Jotunheim could throw everything at Ulm with impunity.
- Some Reflections
Think I did a reasonable job at keeping Micah out of my cap for 14 turns. I survived two storm attempts, and managed to prevent/regain control of my cap province a few times. Think I could even have launched a good counter-attack if Micah had had another enemy to deal with. But one on one I stood no chance, as even without the gulf in nation / player level, Micah could always throw all his troops at me, and easily rebuild from his casualties which I couldn't do (although that's the standard price of being on the backfoot). Main turning point of my defence came when the Quickened Shroud wearing Skratti's turned up. As with Gladiator Gloves they had 14 attacks per round, which made absolute mincemeat out of my Lich.
It's odd that I actually lost my capital by mistakenly trying to kill things. Since the battles involving my Lich often came down to him being immune to regular Jotunheim troops, but going straight down the moment a Skratti got to him. So if I had duel shielded my Lich, there's a fair chance he would have held out in the fort until the auto-route kicked in for the attacker (as fair chance the Skratti's would've been stuck all battle in the attack queue outside the gate). Although that's a pretty lame way to win fights, so actually glad I didn't do it in the end (not that I thought about it at the time).
This game also probably signalled the last time I take Luck 3, as I had more early unrest events in this game than I've ever had with Misfortune 2. I had unrest events on turn 5, 6 (at my capital, which was a killer), 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, and 23. I even had to laugh that at one point I was down to just 2 provinces, but still had an unrest event!
Of course this could be just down to Pasha's anti-Luck scale computer. I did get a few good events this time as well, but nothing like 200 design points worth.
I did have hopes at the end of running into the water and taking pot shots at Jotunheim (until Davy Jones the Skratti turned up to put a stop to it), but real life abruptly intervened around this point when work went from taking up 90% of my time, to taking up 1000% of my time, which brought all my Dom activity to an instant halt. (not that it mattered much in this game by that stage).
- Turn by Turn Account
Here's a random turn by turn account of the Ulm campaign.
Turn 1 - Starting at 71. Arse.
Turn 4 - Found Jotunheim to my south. Oh feck.
Turn 5 - A/N hero turned up. Hurray!
Turn 6 - Lost control of Xbow mercs. Damn TC.
Turn 7 - Splashed into the water using Mercs. The oceans are mine!
Turn 8 - Lost entire army to Ashdod. Oh feckety feck. And just when I had stepped up to taking 2 provinces per turn. Switched to recruiting Ghouls to fight sacreds.
Turn 9 - Jotun appeared on south border.with 100 strong army. Well, that's the end of this game then.
Turn 10 - Jotun attack capital. 25 PD killed nothing. Jotun sitting on capital with 100 troops. Walls just about hold. No sign of God. Send all Scouts home and start mass forging items for them to prepare for the attack on the capital. Lost footmen mercs to TC. Will you feck off with the bloody merc pinching TC!
Turn 11 - Walls breached. Gods start waking. No sign of my bastard God though. Suspect Jotunheim will attempt to cut off my cap retreat provinces when they storm, so attack Indy's to secure new one.
Turn 12 - Survived first fort storm, Losses are light for both sides (Jotunheim lose barb mercs in the storm). Good old narrow entranced Fortified Cities
Jotunheim grab all retreat provinces as predicted. Lost my last army to Indy's who had a load more HCav than I wanted to see. Still no sign of God. Does God exist? Fecking Pasha's Luck scale hatred.
Turn 13 - Nation rejoices. About fecking time you showed up. Did you have a good kip you lazy bastard God. Jotunheim forces return. Walls broken again. Decide to keep God as surprise for Jotunheim instead of trying to break out.
Turn 14 - Survived second fort storm. Lucky to hold, as good enemy scripting with delayed attack orders meant my troops left the fort to engage the enemy. God saves the day though. Severe loses for Ulm though. Turn is re-hosted to deal with Caelum going AI. Hold again, still bad loses though.
Turn 15 - Broke out with God to token siege force. Jotunheim regroup.
Turn 16 - Re-took a province. Finally hit Const 3. Start pumping out Clocky Horrors. Send mage underwater to build temple to try and increase God attack options, and start UW infrastructure for when capital falls.
Turn 17 - God prevents Jotunheim from retaking capital province.
Turn 18 - Grabbed back two provinces with God and Clocky Horrors.
Turn 19 - Stale turn. Real Life was being a complete pain, and I had already told Pasha to stale me in advance if I missed the deadline. Which he duly did.(as I was seriously taking the piss with delay requests to deal with all the crap happening in my RL) Stale wasn't fatal as Jotunheim didn't attack my capital, but certainly a turn I could have made good use of for forgings and counter attacking had RL not been interfering so badly
Turn 20 - Still no Jotunheim attack. Start to accept end is near as guess Jotunheim is not attacking due to waiting for some key research that will kill my God. Plus nobody shows even the slightest interest in distracting Jotuheim by attacking them. Caelum decide to grab one of my provinces though, which is obviously a great help to my dying cause (to go along with Ermor 'help' a few turns early by grabbing a province). All of which ensures I have less money to buy cap mages each turn. Thanks for helping Jotunheim guys! Annoyingly, I lose to a single Caelum Thunderstriker because the Clocky Horrors can't be targeted, so only target available is my army magic troop leading mage
Turn 21 - My underwater temple has given me stronger dominion to my south, so decide to counter attack towards Jotunheim in that direction. (didn't attack south earlier as with only 1 dom there, I didn't fancy risking a Jotunheim preacher taking that away before the fight, hence cancelling out my Lich's immortality). Knew attacking could be a trap, especially as Jotun had just moved all his troops away from there. But thought it worth the risk, as if I did lose, at least I might find out what it is that Jotun had been delaying his attack for. (and so give me a turn to find an reply). Hit Const 4 which gives me better items for my God. Also laugh that it took me ages to win a tough UW province, succeeding last turn, and the moment I did a Kraken King turned up this turn and took it from me
Turn 22 - God gets slaughtered by Quickened Skratti's wearing shrouds. Plus Clocky Horrors turn out to be less effective than I thought as my army of them is also slaughtered by a Quickened Skratti. End is in sight as I come up with no answer to the Skratti.
Turn 23 - Live in hope that the Const 4 items will provide a defence to the Skratti's as my God attempts to hold my cap province. No chance. God is eaten alive by the Skratti's. Walls instantly breached and no reason not to expect a storm attempt. Hitting Alt 3 this turn though, so leave my God scripted with two free casts of his choice and prey he chooses the due-to-be-researched Mistform and Body Ethereal.
Turn 24 - Jotun take the Ulm capital. God does cast the correct buff spells, and for a while is holding the fort easily after parking himself in the gateway. But the result of him killing off a load of Woodsmen is a Skratti in the face, who once again smashes my Lich's to pieces. Some consolation is that I ordered an attack from the water the previous turn with some Ichtyid's, which was successful, and meant that the few that did survive the fort attack had somewhere to retreat to (since Micah's ruthless MO had made sure to cut off my other retreats). My A/N Hero survives and correctly retreats to the water (which I gave him amulet for especially). Hope he finds a kelp fortress before a Skratti submerges. As predict Jotun might struggle to do UW siege without putting in an annoying amount of troop/gem investment.
Turn 25 - My surviving army starts it run for the hills (or the lands Ermor took off me as I called them). A/N Hero finds no Kelp Fortress
And here RL called a halt to proceedings. OP says Ulm died on turn 30, which I'm guessing means a Skratti or two put some diving gear on to round up the remains of Ulm.
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I could probably make a few suggestions for improving RAND games if I thought about the issue. (eg. Like I've said many times in the past, please please stop aiding rush nations by VP marking capitals) One thing I would say, from chatting with Micah on the IRC, Ermor's attack on Mictlan certainly sounded like a classic insta-win for Jotunheim. Especially as Jotun were already fighting TC, hence a sure sign that it's a good time to attack them, and surely better than attacking a nation that wasn't at war (since I gather neither Mictlan or Ermor were fighting a major nation at the time, unlike Jotun)
There's never an obvious right or wrong move in a RAND game, and I think that is one of the things that attracts the vets to them so much. There's also no obvious solution as to how to deal with an obvious leader. From experience though, I'd say my mistake in the Dawn RAND game was waiting far too long on Ermor to attack Atlantis (the leader), and indeed in the end Ermor ended up attacking the wrong nation entirely (just like Mictlan in this game).
So I've come to the conclusion that sometimes a leap of faith is needed by someone. I see several people saying they weren't going to attack Jotunheim first/alone, but in a RAND game someone has to be the one to attack the leader first/alone, so just do it and trust in the other players to view it as their cue to strike as well. It might be more costly to you than to the others (if the leader takes his revenge on you), but the alternative is just do nothing and hand the leader the win. Hell if you are going to do nothing you may as well save everyone the time and effort by just calling the game then and there. "Pasha, I'm not going to attack the leader at all, so you may as well declare that player the winner now".
Of course having some experience of the MO's of the actual players left in the game helps loads at this stage, along with experience of RAND games themselves. But even if someone does stupidly attack the player who showed faith by attacking the leader (ie. instead of joining the attack on the leader), at least you'll know that you did do the right thing in trying to stop the nation running away with the game from actually winning it, instead of what seemed to happen here which is everyone waiting for everyone else to make the first move. (which nobody did, and was, so it sounds, a situation then made impossible by Ermor attacking Mictlan).
I know I for one hope the RAND games and format continue (albeit I guess with a few tweaks), since I'd still rather RAND games than the hassle of spending hours and hours doing diplomacy.
I'll end with saying another big thank you to Pasha for selflessly hosting yet another one of his fine RAND games. And of course many congratulations to Micah for winning the game
....and on a personal note, for being the first player ever in my MP career to actually defeat me in a war. Well aware it wasn't the greatest record though, as I hadn't exactly mingled with real players too often by that stage, but still a milestone for me. Knew I had to lose a war in an MP game eventually though, and good to know I lost to the best in the business
(Although I'll try my best to have a better nation next time Micah so that I can at least try to fight back
)
Re: Land Rand - Jotunheim Wins!
Linear Mode
