Help, I suck with Ulm!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Hrm. That seems bogus, the spell continuing after the caster has retreated or left via spell. After all - if the spell can continue, unending, with the caster not being there, then the spell would still be going, months later.

He didn't die, so I guess the spell keeps going. Since he now can't be killed, because he's not present anymore, it'll keep going until the battle ends. It would certainly change things if the Storm and Wrathing ended when the staffbearer and caster left. This would open up other interesting SoS tricks, though.

And why would it stop after the caster's army was defeated? The troops aren't keeping the spell going, so Wrathful Skies ought to just keep going and going and going until all troops are dead.

Presumably, the wrathing could very well continue after the caster's army has been destroyed, but since the attacker no longer has any reason to remain in that locality, and the spell probably is only over a limited area since the province's population is not decimated by it, the attacking army elects to quickly flee the scene offscreen after the battle ends. Since nobody is there anymore, I suppose the caster then no longer has any incentive to continue to maintain the spell.

[Sly Frog]

Originally posted by atul:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sly Frog:
I agree with your assessment on the blade wind, but don't see alot of options for earth mages to kill high protection troops beside that.

I haven't played much Ulm, but their mages were EEF, right? Two words: Magma spells.

At Evoc3 Magma Bolts, 3 bolts with 23+ AP damage, at Evoc6 Magma Eruption, area effect 23+ AP damage.

At least in theory they should work a lot better than Blade Wind against high protection.

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You'd think so, but for some reason, I've never really seen Magma Bolts do much damage. Magma Eruption seems to suffer from being a fairly high level to research in the early-midgame, and also has taken out more of my own troops when I've tried to use it than enemy troops.

[PvK]

If your Ulmish army doesn't have enough heavy infantry, build the lesser-equipped Versions until it does, then later build the more heavily-armored ones. The Plate + Shield ones are better at surviving very powerful blows, but even the guys in chainmail with no shield can survive a lot of abuse, and they can be built about twice as fast.

I bet arbalests can do some good work in storms, because (I assume) their reload time of 3 means their net rate of fire is less effected by not being able to fire for a turn or two (since reloading probably isn't interrupted (reloading isn't even interrupted by melee, even though it should be...) - just firing).

Since Ulmish heavy troops take a long time to build, it's important to keep them alive longer by including fodder in your armies. Guys who are there mainly to get killed instead of your expensive troops.

The Black Knights (and Templars) are generally too expensive to try to make your head-on force. I've had much more luck using them as a delayed flanking force, so they don't charge straight into something too dense and deadly.

Ulm should avoid using its heavy armor against foes that bypass their heavy armor - you need to find something cheaper and without the heavy armor to throw at such threats.

PvK

[Sly Frog]

All very useful advice. I guess my general problem is that black plate is supposed to be the strength of Ulm, yet it seems to not really have that much of an advantage against other factions' normal troops, particularly in light of the cost difference. Yet the other factions certainly have a major magic advantage against Ulm.

I guess if I were to suggest a juice, which as a novice I clearly cannot say is necessary, but would seem to me to fit with the Ulm theme and have an interesting impact on play, it would be to increase the ordinary Ulmish magic resistance. In this way, you would give them a bit of a boost against their magic using counterparts, and it would fit in with the Ulmish idea of a race of iron and steel resistant to magic.

[PvK]

The heavy armor is a great advantage against most conventional troops. You just have to learn how to deploy it effectively. Again, have enough numbers, include fodder, flank with knights, and (not mentioned before here) don't have arbalests shooting into the main battle line, since they are one of the few missile types that can hurt your own men. Drain scale helps a bit with magic resistance.

While enemies may be able to out-produce your troops at first, you should generally be able to keep your troops alive longer, win more battles once you have enough of them, and they don't cost much gold, so you end up with a nice amount of extra cash, which means you can do lots of other things like hire independent mages, build castles that multiply the number of heavy ulm inf you can build, hire mercenaries, get more smiths, afford to raise and "use" a bunch of cannon fodder, hire knights, etc.

Practice makes perfect.

PvK

P.S. The other thing to realize is that like most things, Ulm units are good at some things, and not good at others. The thing to do about this is to make a point of acquiring other abilities (from research, the pretender, independents, summons, empowerment, etc.) so that you have other things with different strengths and weaknesses, so you can deal with different situations.

Removing the weaknesses will let you win without having to think (see Crusader mod), but isn't very interesting once you realize how overpowered it is. It's not a bad idea though for learning the game (a different way to give yourself an "easy" setting, I guess - just make a mod that gives Ulm units higher MR, or change Antimagic into an Earth spell. ).

[ July 03, 2004, 21:25: Message edited by: PvK ]