LA Utgard guide

[Twan]

Hum my memory is bad, I should have verified.

Anyway nature 8 is better for shroud/magic based strategies.

(but I don't regret my nature 10 -even if took by mistake about its effects- in my current game : having Gift of Health up + maxed regeneration is priceless -when 2 nations try to invade me, fighting in my dominion where 90hp werewolfs with shrouds regen about 30hp/round-).

[Karlem]

N9 gives bersek +2.

5% extra regeneration of N10 is not worth (in my opinion) the big cost on desing points.

Perhaps now it's more clear .

N10 is ok for some strategies, and of course with GOH it's fantastic, but if you are Uttgarde and are playing defensively you've done something wrong . It should be situational.

[Zeldor]

Twan:

Maelstrom is castable on land.

[Huzurdaddi]

Awesome a strategy post on my favorite nation!

re Thugs: If you have sufficient castles (always a problem) you can consider going with Herses. At 60 gold they are about as expensive as other nations sacreds but far harder to kill (except for the MR, always a problem). Give them the least expensive weapon in the game, the Flesh Eater, and you have a decent unit for the rock bottom cost of 60 gold and 5 blood, and one mage turn to forge the item.

PS: So how much does 5 blood + 1 mage cost in gold terms?

Cost of 5 Blood:
~70 gold for the province (makes ~14 blood / turn )
~35 gold for maintainance for the 2 skratti
7.5 gold for 1 blood.

~16 gold maintanance for the 1 skratti to forge the item
so the item costs: about 53 gold.

[OoohSnap]

I find it a nice guide for Amateurs (Like me)
who wants to try to pick up the "Giants" nations, I can't wait for the part about Thug Equipments [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Dagger.gif[/img]

[sansanjuan]

Twan,
Nice guide. You may want to add that vine shields (and tangle vines) are ineffective against flying creatures. Learned the hard way recently.
-SSJ

[Viajero]

Hi there,

New to Dominions and also to LA Utgard. This thread looks great and Im learning lots here. The thread seems old so I wonder if any of the former posters are still around. I am looking for proposed building orders for the first, say, 5 to 10 turns so to optimize expansion at the beginning, asuming a N9W9 bless srtagey.

In this case I am not sure if going straight for thugs (construction research up to 6 whic takes a long time) is better than going for woodmen expansion.

Every time I start a game with LA Utgard I never seem to strike the most appropriate balance between expansion and thug construction.

Any suggestions on building order welcome?

Thanks,

[Dragar]

I'm playing Utgard in a couple of games atm with an E9N8 build, similar build orders should apply

Troop wise go for Woodsmen each turn. They are cheap on resources so it's easy to get numbers out, and they are very effective at early expansion. Their being cap only, their main limitation, is irrelevant in the early turns.

My typical start:

Turn 1:
• Recruit skratti
• Recruit as many woodsmen as possible
• Scout goes scouting
• Research to evoc
• Commander patrols, tax to 130%

Turn 2
• Make skratti prophet
• Recruit seithkona
• Recruit more woodsmen

Turn 3
• Skratti and commander take your troops out expanding
• Recruit seithkona

Keep going like this, recruiting seithkona each turn until you can afford norna, then switch to them. Somewhere in the first bunch of turns recruit a skratti to site search water manually to get you primed.

When you have enough woodsmen for another expansion party recruit a Jotun Jarl to lead them, rinse and repeat and your expansion will be pretty quick. Any excess resources go for a jotun hirdmen, spearman or maybe javelinists.

When you hit evoc 2, set a seithkona casting arcane probing and switch to thaumaturgy. When you hit Thaum 2 set an N2 norna to cast haruspex, then switch to conjuration up to 3 for dark knowledge and then voice of apsu. Then probably alteration to 3 for quickness and body ethereal, and then head down construction, hopefully with a nicely growing gem income to fund your equipping of thugs.

Try and get a fortress and lab up as early as you can, seithkona are awesome researchers.

You have the power for an early rush if you find a suitable opponent nearby, the woodsmen are very tough. Using the water bless try and keep them in big groups against decent early armies, they should have the power to obliterate almost anything, but if you get dragged into a prolonged conflict with smaller groups of woodsmen the fatigue will get you.

[Viajero]

cool, thanks for the BO, I ll be trying it now. the main prob I have with a N9W9 strat is that Utgard does not have water gem income from start and I am forced to alchemy to the water site search spell (voice of auspex or something like that that requires 2) or to wate a scratii for manual search.

Also, by researching first gem searching spells are not you delaying a lot research in construction?

Also, a few other questions:


1- What would your pretender look like in this case? (i.e. dominion, scales)

2- Asuming your gem search research goes well, at around what turn you tipically switch to construction research?

3- The thread suggstes strongly a thug strategy, but how do I go about effectively implementing it? i.e. do I take 3 or 4 equipped jarls or similar alone? or do I use them alongside woodmen in an army formation?

4- Castles, assuming a no problem expansion initially, when would you propose to build the second castle?

[Dragar]

I don't think using a skratti for manual search is a waste, you only need to do it to get 1 or 2 gem income, then set him back researching until you have conj 3, whereupon he casts Apsu.

Likewise I see no issue delaying construction. By running a heavy bless your woodsmen are very effectively early. And jarls are pretty effective just with the bless itself as minor thugs - your prophet skratti certainly can be. This way once you have the construction research you also have the gems to build with. Those levels of research also allow you to support with mages in combat, in particular Alteration, quickness and body ethereal make your giants substantially better

1 - I'm afg, roughly I think I have, in CBM, an imprisoned Earth Mother E9N8, Dom 6, Order 2 Sloth 3 Cold 3 Growth 1 Misfortune 1 Magic 1. That could be off slightly on either misfortune or sloth

2 - Not sure exactly, would have to check in game.. probably around the late teens, depending how aggressively you site search vs research

3 - This is situational.. for raiding purposes, against PD, an individual thug or two would suffice. In huge battles you are better off mixing with troops and mages. For medium sized battles somewhere in between.. the philosophy I've taken with sloth 3 is that I'll be relying quite heavily on thugs/mages once I'm big enough for my cap only woodsmen not to be the mainstay of my forces. Certainly given the high regen, especially skratti with a shroud, it is worth having your thugs in groups or with troops, to avoid damage getting focused, so that your regen can do its thing.

4 - Again, situational, depending on strategic needs and how much cash you are gaining from expansion. Once you can build your dom limit of woodsmen plus a norna each turn, save the excess until you can build a castle, and get cracking. It should happen within the first year. Alternately if you find a good rush target, let their capital be your second fort In both my current games I've started attacking someone before a fort is complete, and have spent spare cash on PD and indies to support the invasion. In one of them I have spent a heap of cash on amphibious and subsequently aquatic troops, starting adjacent to an inland sea bordered by no aquatic nations.