Frechdachs Game - Finished

[Dimaz]

So, here is the promised AAR.

Nation choice

I had several reasons to choose Ulm. First, I just got smashed by Ulm in Artifacts game and wanted to show that Ulm can play well even without Gatestone. Second, Ulm is one of the few nations I played in MP before. Third, Ulm seems strong with these map settings

Pretender design

Ulm has no sacreds, so bless strategy is unavailable. Cyclop seemed very good for this game because he can take provinces by himself from turn 1 and a good SC in middle-game. But even Cyclop cannot win the wars, so I decided to put more points in scales then in pretender. Also Ulm troops are very expensive resource-wise, so I decided to take Wizard’s Tower as a castle (I wanted to build second castle on turn 5-6, also extra admin). So I ended with 33-1123. Now it was time to choose magic paths. E3 default, W2 for quickness and going underwater – important for Urgaia, N2 for personal regen and searching and forging regen-reinvigor items.
Some minuses in this design: no teleport (although I had a thought of empowering with air from the beginning), vulnerability to eye loss (regen helps here).

Game and research plan.

I made couple 10-turn tests before the start and figured following plan:
First turn forging boots with trample with pretender, then attacking on turn 2 and then search-attack-search etc. Attacking with initial army and building reinforcements/second army (well, it’s not unusual I think). Researching Quickness, Personal Regen, Constr 4.
After first 10 turns it’s not so easy to plan exactly, but general research priorities were lamps for research (constr 6), summon earthpower, bladewind, then royalties and artifacts.

The game itself

First turns went close to the plan. Then I noticed Obscuro (air mage) among the mercenaries, and that was really the turning point. I bought him and found some a sites and then very soon I found site with AS sorceresses. Almost at this time I found sages on the “neck” province that connects left and right halves of the map. And it was the time when I realized that I was alone on the right half. So I decided “hm, I can actually win in this game”.
The first sorceress had a death pick and she found the site with necromancers at the same province. And soon my death income was greater then earth. So I made some death skulls that give +9 research and it was a real boost with my 5-research smiths. It was the time of war with C’tis that fought very well and resisted for some time, but my armies of x-bowmen and necromancers with death staff, boots of messenger and girdle of might were stronger.
Well, then it was not so hard. I figured that I can hire tomb guards and FD mages in C’tis and there was a province with Jade amazons near, so I researched Ench6 (relief, undead archers, statues) and built many of them.
Some interesting moments.
After I researched Fire arrows I empowered one of the smiths to F2 and then realized that light infantry is very powerful with f.a., and with mod I was able to buy 30 of them in 1 turn for 150 gold! They really helped me.
The first wound received by Cyclop was the chest wound. After that it was hard to use him in big battles because of fatigue. I gave him boots of messenger and amulet of resilience, and also he had summon earthpower, but even then it was impossible to use quickness, until I forged blood heart.