MA Ulm Pretender, because I'm crazy

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Vanilla has a large number of components which are significantly not cost effective compared to others so are never used by competitive players.

As does CBM, though they are different ones, to be sure.
Specifically for Ulm, though, CBM raises forge bonus of a Forge Lord to be 50%, so here you may want to try it. On the other hand, current CBM version effectively bans gem producing items, including the Earth one. And this is very important for Ulm in MP, especially as it is also one of the few Earth boosters... well, so it goes.
Also, I sometimes tried Luck/Turmoil for Ulm (of course, it may be counter to your vision of it). It's better not to go all-out for Turmoil, though. Luck gets you a number of various gems, which can be useful, though less so than in conjunction with Magic.
As for Dragon, it is definitely better with 9-10 Dominion, though this is not crucial - I once had quite a good position with a Dragon with Dom 5-7 iirc. However, such a build is usually aimed at getting a single high bless in a nation with relatively good sacreds, but not so good as to base an entire strategies on them. Dragon helps with expansion and switches to raiding and artillery support by midgame. This isn't so useful for MA Ulm. Though I wouldn't say it won't work. But Dominion shouldn't be as low as 4 - if nothing else, it will require you to make lots of priests and preach a lot and it's not as if you have lots of hold just lying around or your priests have nothing better to do. Plus, remember that if province doesn't have your Dominion, it gets no bonus from your scales...

[Jarkko]

My choice for MA Ulm pretender currently with CBM would be a Great Sage with rainbow paths (preferably with F3W2(and the rest at 1 or 2) so that you can craft a staff of elements later on with the help of RoW and other and a water or earth booster (plus the runic hammer for some penetration goodness) and the ability to cast Strands of Arcane Power. You'll want to research Evocation anyway for the Iron Blizzard, and you'll get SoAP up as a collateral thing. SoAP will accomplish two things:
1) More special sites (hopefully with varied mages)
2) You'll be even less of a prefered target for a mid-game war (although once people figure out you have Iron Darts (not to mention Iron Blizzard) tends to make them think twice if it is *really* worthwhile to attack Ulm)

Sure, one could say it depends lots on luck (that you will find some good sites with SoAP), but even if you found just some gem sites, it would still allow your Great Sage to utilise the rainbow paths.