Guide LA Ulm: Goths Gone Wild! or, Flying Immortal Vampire Harbingers of Dooooooooooooooom! - Page 5

Dedas · #1 February 11th, 2009, 04:12 AM

They are 36 res in vanilla as well. Say you build around 8 fortresses in good locations, which is not unreasonable for Ulm (you can do it quite fast with order 3 and patrolling), and considering the 25% production bonus for Ulm in every castle you should have around 300 resources in each (try to build the cost effective citadel as they have high admin). 300 x 8 = 2400. 9000/2400 = 3.75 turns. And even if you had abysmal luck with terrain you should be able to build them in 5 turns.

If you want to do a search I have posted a lot about Ulm and fortress placement over the years.

KissBlade · #2 February 11th, 2009, 04:44 PM

LA Ulm infantry is not bad. The lofty MR weakness that gets touted over them only comes into play against late game astral. Their h igh protection is still helpful against most other stuff. As for MR, /most/ nationals have that problem anyway so meh.

Dedas · #3 February 11th, 2009, 05:06 PM

Additionally, if you want to offset the subnormal MR on LA Ulm's troops you can take a healthy drain 2. That will at least give you normal MR in your own dominion and that isn't so bad considering their slow movement. Push slow and hard, hold what you take (build fortresses there). That is Ulm for you.

Redeyes · #4 February 11th, 2009, 05:16 PM

LA Ulm has easy access to anti-magic in their build anywhere Member of the Second tier.
If Astral nations are destroying you, that should be your remedy

Ghoul Guardians come with fairly good MR, though they arguably need it the most.

Dedas · #5 February 11th, 2009, 06:58 PM

And besides astral anti-magic you also have Tempering the Will that will add an additional +4 MR (if you're lucky). That is better than most nations could ever dream about.

Trumanator · #6 February 11th, 2009, 07:27 PM

Do Antimagic and TtW stack? I would be wary of taking drain w/LA Ulm too, as they don't have very good researchers. Do Iron priests ignore drain?

vfb · #7 February 11th, 2009, 07:28 PM

That's one of the effects that doesn't stack, unfortunately.

Cast Tempering first, and Antimagic will get cast on top of it, but it will just bump everyone's MR by +4, unless they already got boosted by Tempering.

Cast Antimagic first, and Tempering won't even get cast.

Ulm can build skull Mentors to make up for Drain, but it's still difficult to keep up in the research race. They get no research bonus in a drain dominion.

Dedas · #8 February 11th, 2009, 07:32 PM

Oh, didn't know that. I supposed they stacked because they are different spells. Thanks for clearing it up, vfb!

licker · #9 February 11th, 2009, 07:49 PM

Again, if the main advantage of ghoul gardians is that they count 2x as defense then why the #@$# would you buy them again? (they are also undead right?)
Because their upkeep is lower for the amount of defense you get? You can't reliably patrol with them anyway, since if you lose they will not be in your castle defending anyway...

That is if you need patrolers you are going to use wolves or thralls or whatever free chaff you can come up with.

And to mass them quickly you NEED not just order (which you still don't really need, but whatever) you NEED to take production which further cuts into the real advantage LA Ulm has. Production becomes more and more useless the longer the game goes on anyway, no amount of ulmish infantry is going to stand up to proper SCs or likely even a handful of thugs designed to counter them. Their magic resistance isn't even the issue, it's still their mobility which makes them expensive targets who are unlikely to be where you actually need them. And if nothing else, provide no kind of strategic problem for your opponents, who are more than happy (at least i would be) to see you turtle up in your 'impregnable' fortresses while they just do whatever they want. On a small map I can see them providing enough of an early advantage that different scales may be warrented. On mid-large maps, not so much.

But I think Chris has the right idea with his test game, though I'm not so sure about the 100 counts in 40 turns, but what the hell, even half that would still be giving you a ton of chaff and rapid defense/offense.

You don't need to give your counts much equipment to make them reliable raiders afterall, and Ulm (even LA) can still manage to out forge just about anyone else.

Dedas · #10 February 11th, 2009, 08:12 PM

High production is a given if you want to use the strategy I have outlined.

As for Ghoul Guardians, you buy them all the time, marching them up to your front fortresses to tie up the enemy while he attacks you as he sees you as an harmless turtle. At the same time you slowly grind away at him with your own army of summons and faster troops, building fortresses as you go along, stuffing them with those cheap defence troops. And if he attacks your main army you just fall back to your fortresses while you attack on another spot. Mobility and defence combined.