Iron Faith Ulm

[PDF]

Alex (apoger),
I *do* use that strategy just right now in MP, and with some serious gamers .. up to now successfully, but it's only turn 25
Obviously one also has to get wise in diplomacy and careful about the "stated" gem income - income from trade and items doesn't count !
But maybe I'm wrong and will get bLasted... Well, life will tell !

As for the "training" part, just note that it's *harder* to find a strategy with a more versatile nation... In fact when playing Ulm you discover step by step "the" strategy you can use, and so you get a grasp at how to use more "rich" nations strategy-wise.
In fact my first Dom1 game was with Pangea : I didn't succeed in anything and had no idea on how to use their troops and magic. Then I tried Man, it wasn't much better. Then Arco, I did learn much but was *very* bad with magic, because Arco has mostly "random" paths for mages. I played my first pbem with Arco, and was trounced on the first fight with another player, even with 4:1 odds on my side , just because I was waaaay behind in magic and had no idea on how to use it effectively...
Then I played Ulm, and finally was able to put it all together and define at least a strategy : units, spies, mages, items, spells - mostly because the choices were narrower, (only 2 magic paths, no sacred units, etc..) !
So my experience matches Aldin's, and I still would suggest a new player to train with Ulm !

Note : No offense taken, nor meant

[SurvivalistMerc]

I'm doing much better with IF this time.

I did wind up using those owl quills early on. If only to free up my pretender to site search. Converting 1 rp to 4 rp in a drain 3 dominion is a good thing. Well worth the 3 air gems it will cost you once you have a black priest with a random air.

I'm really enjoying getting the random picks. And I can squeeze blade wind out of these priests. The ones with two earth (due to a random earth) are going to be as good at blade wind as traditional smiths.

It does seem that it takes a while longer to get to blade wind due to slower research than with standard ulm, but I'm almost there by turn 30 or so.

I had a difficult time with Caelum as my neighbor since the AI is fairly adept at using Caelum's flying to target my least defended provinces and casts that black hawks spell quite a bit.

Looking back, I'm very glad I took picks in air since that enabled the owl quills (and it can be hard to find air sites with just a random 1 air, which you might have to build a bunch of mages to get). I'm also glad I took picks in death as the skull mentors kicking in at construction-4 really makes your research take off. And finding death gems if you have death-4 is a lot more reliable than finding sages.

The AI (Caelum) seems to have found some wizards for me. 3 random picks on those guys, and they have research-10. At around 150 or so gold each, that seems to be a better deal than sages in my dominion and will give me some new magic combinations to play with.

It is a slower start, but the more I think about not having magma bolts friendly fire later in the game once all scripted spells are cast in long battles...the more I'm starting to like IF. The slow start you can get with this nation I think makes it a bit more of a challenge.

I'd love to hear other folks' experience.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I just noticed how great those inquisitors are preaching against enemy dominion.

I was storming Caelum's capital. (Payback!) While seiging, I just had my priests (about 4 of them) preach for 2 rounds. With their pretender (a dragon posing as a sage) in their castle, it only took two turns to go from Dominion -6 to Dominion +3. The dragon's hps in my +3 dominion were laughable and turned it into an easy kill. When those SC pretenders drop in hps, they take afflictions quite often.

In the process of killing him, he became weakened, chest wounded, limp, and feebleminded. I'm especially happy with the "feebleminded." I wonder if those bird-brains will be smart enough to notice they are worshipping a feebleminded moron. Probably not.

[PDF]

Owl Quills ? For standard Ulm Fire Lanterns (Cons6, Fire 1) are much better (+6 RP), aren't more expensive, can be built by any smith and use (often) more readily available Fire gems.
With IF you only have "random" Fire mages, but I still think lanterns are a best bet- keep air gems for Robe of shadows or stuff like this !

[aldin]

Originally posted by PDF:
Owl Quills ? For standard Ulm Fire Lanterns (Cons6, Fire 1) are much better (+6 RP), aren't more expensive, can be built by any smith and use (often) more readily available Fire gems.
With IF you only have "random" Fire mages, but I still think lanterns are a best bet- keep air gems for Robe of shadows or stuff like this !

Owl quills are available at Construction 2. Lanterns need a hefty Con 6! Since the IF goal is to free the pretender from researching (since they're the only one who has more than research 1) Owl Quills are the best, first bet. At Con 4 you can have your pretender craft a Skull Staff to give to a researcher with a Death pick who then switches to crafting Skull Mentors (better than the lanterns anyway) and Champion's skulls. Waiting til Con 6 for your pretender to leave home puts too large a strain on searching for gem sites.

~Aldin

[SurvivalistMerc]

I've experimented a bit more with this and concluded that the templars are just distraction. It's the change to your mages that is important. And I think the same kind of rainbow sage that works with vanilla ulm works with IF. Sure...you may only have a reinvig bonus for your magi if you took earth 4 and the rest a rainbow...but you need a variety of gems to make your research work. Especially if you take drain 3 which I still find wise.

My thinking is that if you take a decent bless effect, you are in effect ignoring your nation's research or other needs. (Such as productivity/order).

Thoughts?

Well; you have to consider what you're getting. You're getting a 1 earth, 1 random mage for your mages. And you are using them to create your magic. Now I don't know how many other nations you've played successfully; but that is quite a limitation.

I personally would not play IF for it's mages. The only reason that I would play IF would be either for ****s and giggles to say I have (which I have done) or to try to create some blessing effect.

Under no circumstances would I not play (In MP) Order/Production/Misfortune. Otherwise you are not taking advantage of one of Ulm's strengths and might as well be playing a different race.

Edit: Owl Quills are excellent all around; unless you are saving your Air gem income for something specific a 5 gem Quill for 3 more research a turn is an excellent tradeoff.

[ December 21, 2003, 17:03: Message edited by: Zen ]