Guide: LA Ulm: Goths Gone Wild! or, Flying Immortal Vampire Harbingers of Dooooooooooooooom!

[chrispedersen]

Ulmish heavy infantry moves 1.

Units sitting at home waiting for someone to attack - only help you when someone actually attacks. You lack readily available mages to transport your heavy infantry.

On top of that, ulms heavy troops generally have poor magic resistance, and are slow on the battlefield as well - ripe targets for ironbanes, acid mists, or master enslaves.

Which would you rather have.. 250 ulmish heavy infantry .. or 100vampires. Flying, move 3, immortal, stealthy, thrall summoning, Highly MR, vampires.

Until I meet Marignon in a dark ally.. I'll generally choose the vampires.

Side benefit: turmoil/luck = great chance for national heroes.

Growth scales. Blood hunt your capitol. Prophetize your first vampire count. Reanimate your unrested dead.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Which would you rather have.. 250 ulmish heavy infantry .. or 100vampires. Flying, move 3, immortal, stealthy, thrall summoning, Highly MR, vampires.

When I find out how to get 3300 (or 4400 in vanilla!) Blood Slaves for the cost of even 250 Zweihanders, I will become a god at this game, so certainly that is what I would prefer.

My question is (and I'm hoping it is "no") do Thralls cost upkeep? I didn't think they do. If they do not, then the more and faster your Count count (ha!) rises, the more you can feel free to have some of them bounce around your territory, depositing squads of Thralls to at least help slow down any sieges.

[KissBlade]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

When I find out how to get 3300 (or 4400 in vanilla!) Blood Slaves for the cost of even 250 Zweihanders, I will become a god at this game, so certainly that is what I would prefer.

I was trying to figure out how getting vampires prevents you from accessing infantry too but I see I'm not the only one confused.

Also vampires suck ***, I assume he meant vampire counts.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by KissBlade

I was trying to figure out how getting vampires prevents you from accessing infantry too but I see I'm not the only one confused.

Also vampires suck ***, I assume he meant vampire counts.

I couldn't agree less that vampires suck. Sure, their prot sucks. First, ulm has steps to redress that, should it really want to...

But more importantly.. they're immortal, and fly. And undead.
That last point is sometimes a disadvantage but it can also be used to your advantage.

Consider: Wailing winds, blood rain, darkness, nether darts, rigor mortis - all just off the top of my head are going to have reduced or *no* effect against your vampires.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

When I find out how to get 3300 (or 4400 in vanilla!) Blood Slaves for the cost of even 250 Zweihanders, I will become a god at this game, so certainly that is what I would prefer.

Well Jim, now thats an interesting proposition.
You can't buy vampires with gold. Now, 250 Zweihanders is 10,800resources. So how many turns do you think is reasonable to amass that many zweihanders - especially presuming you may be money limited - and want to buy some other units ....

And if I can show you how to amass that many vampires oh say in 40 turns - would you kow tow and admit *I'm* a dominions god

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Well Jim, now thats an interesting proposition.
You can't buy vampires with gold. Now, 250 Zweihanders is 10,800resources. So how many turns do you think is reasonable to amass that many zweihanders - especially presuming you may be money limited - and want to buy some other units ....

And if I can show you how to amass that many vampires oh say in 40 turns - would you kow tow and admit *I'm* a dominions god

40 turns? Wouldn't that be an average of 110 slaves/turn? That's a good income, but I'm not sure about "godly".

10,800 you say? I know in CBM they are 36res, which would be 9000. Not sure on vanilla. But I'll tell you what, I can do THAT faster than 40 turns, that's for sure.

[chrispedersen]

40 turns? Wouldn't that be an average of 110 slaves/turn? That's a good income, but I'm not sure about "godly".

10,800 you say? I know in CBM they are 36res, which would be 9000. Not sure on vanilla. But I'll tell you what, I can do THAT faster than 40 turns, that's for sure.

So what would be godly Jim =)


(And you're right about the 9000 - up two days on a court case doesn't do wonders for my math).

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

So what would be godly Jim =)


(And you're right about the 9000 - up two days on a court case doesn't do wonders for my math).

Well, assuming a province count ~20, I would be very impressed if someone could convert 7 of those provinced (as LA Ulm, of course) to hunting provinces averaging ~20 slaves/turn, and still maintain their overall economy. So, in that sort of map scale, you'd need to hit 140 slaves/turn total, and I think that would be pretty damned shocking. Of course, in CBM, that's 4+ Vampire Counts per turn, which would be very nifty indeed.

I still don't think it hugely impacts your need for infantry, though it negates the need for infantry in the backfield for defensive purposes. Since you are not Immortal outside of your Dominion, it's going to be very hard to complete a military campaign on the backs of Vampires, eventually you either subject them to possible attrition, or you resort to other means to take provinces with heavy enemy Dominion.