Guide: Begginner guide to dominions MA Ulm

[Torin]

My personal suggestion for the first game after the in game tutorial:



I will share how i started and perhaps make newcomers an easier ride while first grabbing this game.

Pretender setup:
MA Ulm, Master Alchemist, imprisioned.
Give him
magic
F2 A4 W2 E3 S4 D2 N2 B2
Order 3 Prod 3 Misfortune 2 Drain 3

General
Your armies are slow to build as armor needs resources. Hence when you can build 1 or 2 other castles for more troops.
In every castle try to get many mages to research.
The best thing you get against AI is your provincial defense. even 20 points deter many AI attacks. vs large forces you need more.
In chokepoints you can pump it higher and that is probably enough to do it.

This pd thing is good vs the AI because its predictable. But a bad idea against humans. The good about this nation is that even a moderate PD works.

Tactics
Line shielded infantry in the front. Divide in 3, main group in the middle, Guard the sides against flanking moves.
Follow by unshielded infantry and back made of missiles and mages.
When you can build the heavier infantry as they cost the same gold and have more protection.
Research conj 3 and evoc level 4 so you can script for master smiths:
summon earth power, blade wind, blade wind, blade wind, blade wind.
If you reach only evoc 3 you can switch blade wind with iron darts (patch the game to access this one) can only casted by mage-priests of this nation.


Masters alchemist´s deeds
Once your pretender awakes probably you want to manual site search with him.
Check the manual for magic items. After the general list its a list with only the items that boost magic levels. That is the most important part of the manual i think its page 282. With this setup i believe you can build all of them and thus, access to any magic. Provided that your steel armies keep the enemies at bay you can experiment in your lab.


Summary:

Simple tactis in battle: Shields, pikes, missiles.
little micromanagement: less soldiers needed, PD.
Rainbow mage to experiment with items, spells.

[Quitti]

No.

And no, I won't enlighten why not. Sorry about that.

[Torin]

Yes, i can imagine how can you beat this alchemist with niefel giants so dont tell me. You probably didnt understand the point.

[Doo]

I like the pictures you add to your guides

For a beginner whats the advantages of you MA Ulm selection? Can you see any disadvantages?

[Torin]

Yes, you can get accustomed to the relative easiness to beat the AI.
The weak points of MA Ulm is magic. Specially things like shadow blast, lightning damage, thugs and supercombatants.
Check the sticky strategies for advanced ones.

[Fantomen]

A wise grey wizard once said:

Not everyone plays like everyone

[Doo]

I was meaning more why MA Ulm for beginners. Eg without explaining Smiths research is not affected by a Drain scale a raw beginner may think drain is an easy extra 120 points.

I'm being picky but to me is seems you have written a "what to do" and left out the "why your doing it".

Good to see you are doing this, this game needs guides like this written.

[Debaser8]

I don't think an imprisoned rainbow pretender is a good idea. I recommend you cut back on your scales/pretender magic paths to get him dormant.

What's the point of a rainbow pretender if you don't have a diversity of gems to use? And how are you going to have a diversity of gems to use if you haven't searched for them/summoned searchers with your rainbow pretender until 3 years into the game(given that MA ulm doesn't have great built in diversity)?

[Torin]

You are right. I didnt explain that up in the first post. Drain 3 is bad most of the time. But the master smiths and priest smiths are immune to drain penalties for research. Thats why its good to take drain 3 with ulm.

I think ulm is simple to understand. and easy to beat the AI with it.

Check my signature under links Boron's test map mod.
There you get mages with 10 in every path, unlimited gems and research. So its easy to try every spell and summon. That way you dont need to use a rainbow at all.

[Squirrelloid]

MA Ulm is an expert's only nation, and then only for masochists. I could not in good faith recommend any beginner play it.

A beginner has no way to judge, for example, the advantages of a hammer to a flail. Ulm's infantry is *complicated*. (And bad. Very very bad.) TBH, my best results were recruiting nothing but black knights and guardians... And even then your unit performance is lackluster... and units are all you have going for you!

Oh yeah, and a nation where you have to spell out deployment is your first sign that beginners shouldn't play it.

Also, Drain is a suckers choice. Especially without an awake Great Sage to kick start your research. Sure, it probably works to take Dr3 against the AI, because the AI is bad, and you can beat them with just about anything (for instance, MA Ulm).

The only sane strategy for MA Ulm in vanilla is bloodstone factory into petrify spam after an evocation opening (bladewind/ironblizzard/magma eruption). This is not something you want a beginner doing. They have no useable strategy in CBM.