Starting setup for LA Ulm

[mathusalem]

@Olive and how do you start your Vampire count factory with an Emprisonned Pretendant ?
a major drawback isn'it ?


ps : sorry for the up, But I need ideas about LA Ulm

[vfb]

I'm really liking LA Ulm. Just to be different I went with this pretender:

Great Sage (Body 251, 10 hits)
Magic: Fire 1 Earth 2 Astral 4 Death 4 Blood 4
Dominion 6
Scales: Turmoil 3 Growth 1 Fortune 3 Drain 2
Awake

The Sage researches Thaum 2, Enchant 1, Const 4, Enchant 3, and would also kick off blood hunting except with Luck 3 I always get a hero early enough to do that with the hero instead. S4 is dangerous, actually overall the god is weak, but he's a scholar, not a fighter. S4D4B4 is a pretty meh bless for the ghouls, but they're just a little bonus with higher MR, the real focus is on getting xbows, a few more shields if I need them, and Counts Counts Counts! And more Counts!

I grab fortune tellers to start, totally cancels the few bad events I might get from turmoil. Plus the rangers are cheap enough in both gold and resources, and pack enough punch that I can still take a province a turn at the start.

Thaum 2 is for the S2s to Mind Burn anything spectacularly nasty I might run into early.

Drain 2 is nice for the points and for MR. My death gems go into skulls to make up for the low research on my fortune tellers.

I don't recruit a whole lot of 2nd tier dudes, mostly I stick with the fortune tellers. And I find I'm hiring a lot of the H2 priests after the first year to ensure I've got positive dominion everywhere. I haven't managed to find a good use for the massive stealth on the mages yet. Any ideas there?

I could probably drop the F1 since I never end up making Soul Contracts when I could be making another Count. But I've got 10 free points in the build, so ... there it goes.

I've tried a Dom7, Drain3 variation of this too, and it's not bad either.

[mathusalem]

@vfb but your research is very slow, with drain 2 or 3 !
You have poor researchers yet, your sage is enough to counterbalance the drain scales ?

[vfb]

Yep, the great sage is awake and generating 24 points of research a turn. Recruiting one fortune teller a turn, that's a total of 522 research after 12 months. Const 4 is only 360 points, but I am getting Thaum 2 and Enchant 1 first, for a total of 500 points needed.

Once I've got Const 4, it's 1 turn for the sage to forge a skull staff and hand it to a S1D1 fortune teller to make skulls every 4 or 5 turns. The staff gets borrowed by the first Count out the gate when he needs to make more Counts.

[thejeff]

The stealthy mages are spies, right?

[vfb]

Thanks! I never noticed that. Yep, they give commander reports and can instill uprisings. Cool, even the cheap 80 gold 1st tier (S1 illuminated ones) are spies. Unmindhuntable spies! (pardon my German).

I was already happy with LA Ulm's raw army power, Counts, and inquisitor priests. Spies just makes them even cooler!

[VedalkenBear]

Personally, given their write-up and the fact that it's hard to justify wasting mages on spying, I should think that they should get a 'genderless' seduction ability. Think of it as Mind Control. It would also be a way for them to diversify their magic.