MA Ulm Pretender

[B0rsuk]

Baalz inspired me to run a test.

Arcoscephale: blue dragon, dom 10.
Ulm: awake rainbow pretender, dom4.

I forgot to appoint prophets. For simplicity sake I didn't move Ulm army out of capital, it was set on Defend anyway.
The dom10 blue dragon attacks 25 Ulm PD at capital on turn 4. Orders are 'attack rear'. (Perhaps I could do better, I never did such things before)
All arbalests miss.
The blue dragon attacks and hits the melee infantry group. Arbalests don't fire, they walk forward and engage the dragon in melee.
Halberds and pikes deal some damage. Arbalests fire again.
The Dragon retreats into enemy territory and dies. This was on the first try, I didn't do any more tests. I could've backed up the turn files, I guess.

Moral of the story: beating 25 Ulm PD is not trivial for a dom10 blue dragon. It's a gamble.

[Baalz]

thejeff said:
Definitely seems like we're changing the rules from step to step here. Is there a worst case scenario where Ulm can't win? Sure. True for everyone. Is Ulm completely doomed without an awake SC pretender? No.

You've now set up a scenario where they have to start within a few provinces of an elephant nation with a flying Monster pretender, who happens to send his starting scout out in the right direction, or accidentally land his dragon on Ulm's capital in a blind jump. (Do people actually attack blind with flying pretenders? Guaranteed death on a retreat and no idea what you're facing?)

Right, exactly my point. A SC pretender is a perfectly fine choice, my point is Ulm is viable without one. I will take issue though with the fact that I suggested a strategy based on scraping up what I can on turn 4 worst case scenario and now its morphed into astrologers teleporting in (a thaum-3 spell...while having no pretender to research) and elephants on top of the dragon by turn 6. That storm is a bit too perfect I think, and I don't think a SC pretender is going to help too much if the deck is so stacked against you.

[Xietor]

I guess my MP experience is a small sample, but Ulm is typically the 1st to die in every game i have played. Shrug.

Why is that if they are so good?

[Baalz]

No arguments that they are a bit trickier to play than most nations. A newbie can pick up Arco and be stomping around with elephants and doing a reasonable job pretty quickly. A slightly more experience guy can figure out to take a W/F bless and put up some impressive numbers with Vanheim. Ulm doesn't have a quick and easy strength, and it's also got some fairly obvious weaknesses which require subtlety to compensate for. I don't think I'd classify myself as a hall of fame player, but I do think most players tend to miss the more subtle strengths of nations. If you just try and march out with your strongest Ulmish troops like you would with elephants or dual blessed Vans you're gonna get horribly spanked - no argument. Same for Atlantis. Same for Eriu. Same for Marverni. Same for several more nations. Successfully playing these nations requires a different type of gameplay and it's not nearly as obvious. That would be my guess as to why these nations generally do pretty poorly though I don't personally feel like they're underpowered.

[Xietor]

Arcos is not easy to play In fact MA Arcos has never won a mp game according to the hall of fame kept by Tyrant. They may be a strong starter, but elephants become obsolete by midgame, and Arcos has no castle bought troops that are worth buying in the midgame.

Arcos has terrible national summons, and there are few good s summons.

Now I will admit, mind hunt can be a killer to the handful of MA Nations that do not have s mages. But the vast majority of MA Nations have s mages, so are immune to mind hunt if played smartly.

But I do not want to hijack the Ulm thread. However, I do take exception to arcos being a "easy race to win with."
It takes planning to survive the mid and late game with arcos, and that planning needs to occur before the game begins.

You cannot win a mp game against good players just by stomping around with elephants. In fact, in both games I played with gameextremeist, he got off to great starts, but did not end up winning those games(though he made sure some other races did not win them either before he went down).

[Endoperez]

I think Ulm dies mostly because they can't rush. If you find Ulm, you know that they'll have lots of arbalests, but no sacred troops, no stealthy units, you know what mages they have (E2F1) and you know their troops and armies will both move slowly.

Ulm's trick isn't as good as some other nations' tricks, but more importantly, they have just one trick. Your pretender has to provide another. SC pretender can easily do it, but I think a rainbow's research could also work, if you knew what you were doing.

[Baalz]

I did not mean to disparage Arco as being easy to play, but I do think Arco is one of the stronger nations if played right. I was referring to the opening turns in response to your question about why Ulm doesn't tend to last very long. Coincidentally enough the game I tied for second as Ulm in was won by MA Arcoscephale, guess it didn't get added to the hall of fame.

[Tuidjy]

Coincidentally, being second in a game means exactly nothing. If you are Ulm,
and start next to my Pythium, you can be second by just saying "I'll be your
forge *****, no need for your big bad Lord of Fertily to fertilize me". There
is one spot that matters in Dominions. And it is not number two.

By the way, your Arco example was messed up big time. I call shenanigans. I ran
it myself, except that I forgot to assume that the Arco player is playing to
lose. I still kept your assumption that his lab burned on turn four, and kept on
burning so that he could not even research Body Ethereal. Hey, it is possible,
and more likely that MA Ulm putting up a fight that does not involve grabbing
its own knees.

First, allow me to note that my arco army was ready on turn 6, seven turns before
Ulm was, and that the elephants were used in conquest, as opposed to the
battleaxe infantry that is about the worst choice against indies. So I send them
to visit Ulm's capital, as opposed to make Ulm's troops actually move, for which
we know they are particularly unsuited. Of course, your scenario also assumed
that. It is not as if Ulm would have a chance if their smiths had to chase Arco
around as if it collected lands that did not happen to have PD 40.

Then, I actually bothered positioning and scripting Arco's forces. I did not
replace the hypaspists with something more useful for my tactics, but I still
placed 10 of them in such a way that they will draw the PD's attention, and I
ordered them to guard a commander in the upper right corner. Now if the Arco
player had a clue, these would be hoplites - heavier armour, cheaper, and mobing
slowlier, all of which are pluses in this case.

Remember, kids. PD is stupid, and cannot be scripted, so you can abuse it any
way you want. You know how fast it moves, and you know it will go for the
closest target. Thus, I positioned 10 of my elephants so that they would come
up on the infantry slowly chasing the hyps from below, and wipe them out on
contact. Using hold and attack closest, I made sure it happened as far away from
the front as possible.

The rest of the hyps and elephants were on guard commander in the bottom
rear corner. My commanders (mages which I was using as grunts, because I needed
grunts for this retarded army composition)

What happened: PD fired at the shielded infantry, and killed one, which was
lucky. Because I did not want to play unfairly, the real arbalesters were
scripted at fire large monsters. Because I did not want to lose, I did not
have elephants anywhere but in the corners, so they missed. The poor smiths,
not having any targets, proceeded to waste fatigue.

Turn 2 some arbalests fired. They did nothing. The smiths wasted some fatigue.

Turn 3 some arbalests fired, don't ask me to explain how. A smith burned a hyp.

Turn 4 lotsa arbalests fired. Two hyps died, three elephants were scratched.
Some of the pd stopped chasing my commanders' bodygaurds, and tickled some
elephants. The elephants hit the PD, killed half, and failed to rout the rest.

Turn 5 the unrouted PD keeps chasing the hyps. The 10 elephants killed
practically all of them. Some arbalests fired in that melee, to no effect. The
smiths are still firing from way too far away, doing zip.

Turn 6, my bottom row commander retreats, his bodyguards (10 hyps, 15 elephants)
attack. The 10 elephants from the top row waste time finishing off the remaining
PD. The smiths are falling asleep.

Turn 7, the PD arbalesters nail the bottom rear commander as they shoot at his
bodyguards (6 of them remain, and are still drawing fire) The commanders dead,
the bodyguards attack.

Turn 9, the 10 elephants hit the chainmail infantry. Bad luck, they barely reach
them.

Turn 11, the 3 remaining elephants rout. The infantry is nearly halved. The 15
elephants, having outdistanced the 10 hyps hit the PD arbalesters, without
having suffered any damage. The real albalesters are shooting at the melee on
the top row. At this point, Arco has three commanders left, huddling behind the
10 hyps. I am getting scared the battleaxe infantry will hit them from behind
and rout Arco.

Turn 12, the 6 bodyguards on the top row rout 30 of Ulm's infantry. The 15
elephants in Ulm's rear wipe out the arbalesters, PD or not. Ulm routs.
Too damn many smiths wave woken up, shame.

Result: disaster for Ulm. Arco loses 8 elephants, and 7 infantry. They also
lose 3 mages, which would have fared better, had they been grunt commanders.
only 6 smiths die. Could have been better.

Now, as homework, please run the same scenario with body ethereal and luck
tossed in, and with the right kind of infantry and commanders for Arco.
Or use Caelum, and Arrow Fend... Or toss in the SC that my Caelum always had.

[ComTrav]

So, newbie question (although I do like MA Ulm)--

What are the theoritical counters to some of the above situations? Besides, obviously, playing MA Arco yourself--are awake size 6 SCs (or playing a bless or elephant country) the only options?

[Xietor]

Awake size 6 sc pretender. For starters, his presence may make someone else appear to be an easier target. 2nd. Father of winters with early alt3/ench 2 buffs and some constr 0 armor is a terror.