Review: The CBM and LA Ulm. A different game

[Lokean]

So, before I carry on, try going and finding a few threads that discuss LA Ulm; it's okay, I'll wait. Here's a couple to start you off.

Now, a lot of the discussion about LA Ulm seems to boil down, as it often does, to pretender design and magical versatility. Now, I'll admit to being very new to Dominions, but the overall opinion seems to be that LA Ulm is a difficult nation to mobilise and leverage. Lots of references to how nasty they become given safety to expand and set the ball rolling, lots of complaining about their awful magical access.

Let me recount for you my experiences with Ulm...

I tried LA Ulm early on; I wanted to join in this 'Blood Hunting' all the cool kids were talking about and I'm far too perverse to just load up Lanka or Mictlan. I crashed. I burned. The Difficult AIs (Hey! I was still new, don't judge me!) rolled over my capital like it was a cheap thai ladyboy and they were obese american businessmen, bloated and satisfied after bending me over and tearing through my fragile defences.

I went and looked up lots of info on blood hunting and keeping a blood economy going. I beat the game with Mictlan and Impossible AIs and did a little dance on the skulls of my fallen foes.

I went back to LA Ulm with my newfound knowledge. I remembered to hire mercs for the early push to get my resources beefed up for those lovely rangers. My Pretender Awakened and kicked off my vampire counts. I started to expand, I tried summoning Lammashtas to deal with armies... And the Impossible AIs eventually rolled over my capital like it was a cheap thai ladyboy.



Now, you could just say I wasn't a very good player, after all, *you've* beaten the game with LA Ulm, how hard could it be, and you'd be right. But that's not my point. My point is that I tried the same thing again (since I'm now a big grown up SP player and would seduce those obese americans, drug them with my Mogadon coated nipples, and steal their kidneys to pay for my hormones and surgery) with the CBM enabled.

Since it's the entire purpose of the CBM to make previously unpopular or unworkable possibilities slightly more tenable I decided to try something different. I had an awake Fountain of Blood with dominion 9 and 1F3D6B. I started surrounded by barbarians, heavy cavalry and crossbowmen. I forgot to hire mercernaries. By turn 13 I had a vampire count up and running. The lack of magical diversity was eventually solved by bootstrapping up through the paths with summons and independants. I not only won, I won handily, I stole the AI's livers, lungs and hearts as well as their precious, precious kidneys. And y'know what? I may have won handily, but I had to work for it, and I had to change tactics as I went, and I really, really enjoyed it.

I realise this is old news to most of the people on the boards, but I still think it's worth stating. The CBM doesn't just shift a few numbers around, it succeeds in opening up avenues of play that simply wouldn't have been possible with the 'vanilla' game. It might not strictly make the game better (In that I enjoyed it just as much playing the vanilla version as Mictlan, or R'lyeh, or Jotunheim) but it does make the game different enough to try things you've never tried before, and makes doing so a whole new experience of an old nation.

Go give it a try...