MA Ulm - you called me a forge what?

[cleveland]

Major complaint:
This guide isn't linked in your sig!

Awesome stuff, as usual.

If I can humbly suggest adding a mention of Living Statues:
Compared to Mechanical Men, Living Statues have nearly double the HP, higher Attack, higher Protection, lower AP (a bonus when employed as blockers), a MUCH better shield, and a longer weapon while still having strat move 3 and being mindless/lifeless. In other words, they make awesome offensive linemen (blockers to the non-US folks). Sure they lack lack fire resistance, but that doesn't help vs. friendly Magma Eruptions anyway.

Especially if you're taking A4E4 on your pretender, you can make the oft-forgotten Staff of Elemental Mastery...give one to that pretender, add Earth Boots & a Ring of Wizardry for E7, and each 20E Enliven Statues casting gives you 14 Living Statues, which is conveniently more efficient than Mechanical Men.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by cleveland

Major complaint:
If I can humbly suggest adding a mention of Living Statues:
Compared to Mechanical Men, Living Statues ....

Yeah, the thing is one of the big advantages of mechanical men is the synergy with your research goals. Cons-6 is one of your first research goals, one more level buys you golems, weapons of sharpness, and mechanical men - all very beneficial. And the other real benefit to mechanical men is that they're immune to most magic. Certainly there are some nations that can counter them easily enough, but there are plenty of nations reliant on elemental damage who don't really have much at all to throw at a bunch of mechanical men buffed with weapons of sharpness - which is oh so conveniently unlocked at the same time.

Living statues on the other hand are all the way out at ench-6, which you're probably not going to pick up very early (the only real thing you want down there is Deep Well, and it's not an early target). They can be taken down by anything from lightning strike to frozen heart to falling fires and basically fill the same niche as Ulm's infantry - tough things for the bad guys to whack on in melee but who won't last too long against a magical barrage.

Throw in the possibility of several different battlefield enchantments (heat from hell, etc) which are not an option for living statues) and they just don't seem in the same league IMO.

[OmikronWarrior]

Well, I messed around with this guide trying to create a pretender to specification. In order to buy all the paths recommended on an Enchantress I had to pick up Heat and Misfortune while leaving dominion at a mere 2. I agree with Endoporez that some scaling back on paths is necessary and you do not loose much in the process. F3 from F4 is obvious, especially when your pretender will already have death to build a flaming skull, and you plan on empowering a Smith with death anyways. I also shudder at the thought of spending the 82 points to give a nation strong with Earth magic E4 on their pretender to help create a marginal thug when there are other ways to get revigoration (items and Earthpower). Similarly, N4 to get 5% regeneration on a low HP unit is probably also a waste. N3 should be all you need for diversity.

When messing around with early expansion, I noticed gold was already almost always a bottle neck. Switching to Turmoil-3 Luck-3 might be viable, and in the long term gives Ulm a lot more magic gems and helps him avoid the crippling plague events. Use the 40 points saved to bring your temp scales closer to normal.

Of course, this is just based on an hour of play last night and I assume Baalz has put a lot more time into developing his strategy.

[Alpine Joe]

I agree that Turmoil-Luck is a good choice with MA ulm, particularly if you are playing CBM. Ulm has relatively cheap mages and troops, and a forging strategy loves more gems. It also gives you some more design points to play with and taking death becomes a lot more attractive.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Alpine Joe

I agree that Turmoil-Luck is a good choice with MA ulm, particularly if you are playing CBM. Ulm has relatively cheap mages and troops, and a forging strategy loves more gems. It also gives you some more design points to play with and taking death becomes a lot more attractive.

I disagree, even though I usually stay clear away from Misfortune.

While more gems are good and Ulm's mages and units are cheap, Ulm needs castles, and since the mundane armies are slow you preferably want to have several, and since research is slow you preferably want secondary research center up as soon as possible. Without Order 3, you just can't afford new castles fast enough.

Luck really helps Ulm, especially if you get coastal provinces, since there are events that easily produce betweeen 15 and 25 water gems or blood slaves (huge number of water gems have been blown ashore// a slave ship was captured) - but you need the castles more, and even Order1/Luck3 builds don't get enough many reliably.