Help, I suck with Ulm!

[Sly Frog]

Okay, I suck with damn near anything, but I've done my share of reading the Boards, playing in some multiplayer, etc., and I just do not get Ulm. The current game, I have been generally left alone. I build up a nice force of blackplate, get my mages hooked up with Construction 6 and Evocation 4 for the cool magic items and the blade winds, and I'm ready to go, right? I search about 10 provinces that I own with my 3-3-3-3-3-3 (maybe there's one extra 3 there) rainbow alchemist. I turn up a decent gem income, but no special sites other than sages (i.e. no independent decent mages).

Wrong. I get attacked by a Tuauatha themed Man player. His mages just tear the **** out of my guys. Storm on the battle and wrathful skies, and I'm getting slaughtered. My blade wind flinging mages kill off pretty much all of his ordinary guys, but that doesn't say much. Meanwhile, my blackplate infantry, painfully built up over time, is simply blown away by his spells, and his ordinary sidhe troops are better overall than my costlier black plate knights and other units. I guess I don't get Ulm.

I wondering the following:

1. Does Ulm have a chance if it does not attempt to steamroll nearby human opponents very early on? The lack of magic and available opponent countermagic seems to bring horrible devastation to the supposedly tough blackplate infantry even at the early-midpoint of the game.

2. What the hell good is Ulm's supposedly wonderful forging skill when Ulm doesn't have any decent commanders to put the forged items on? Is researching Conjuration, to get some decent SCs, mandatory for Ulm? If so, isn't it a fair bit to ask, that Ulm get high Construction, Evocation, and Conjuration levels fairly early on to have a chance of hanging into mid-game? The best commander I can see is the black knight commander, and he is certainly no great shakes. Everything else seems to suck, particularly the generic infantry commanders who are, well, about the same as the underlying infantry.

[ July 02, 2004, 00:46: Message edited by: Sly Frog ]

[Norfleet]

Welcome to the club. I can't really make base Ulm work well for me, either.

Ulm does seem slightly dependent on steamrolling people early - the problem being, Black Plate Infantries are by no means the supreme groundpounders, having a number of ordinary nationals that mow them down easily without the aid of magic.

All in all, I find that Ulm is very much dependent on finding indy mages, and Ulm's wonderful forging skill falls a little short when you realize that your smiths can only forge the same things, having no randoms. IF Ulm is slightly less constricted, but loses the drain immunity and thus either must give up the drain points, or suffer.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Sly Frog:
I build up a nice force of blackplate, get my mages hooked up with Construction 6

[Snip]

His mages just tear the **** out of my guys. Storm on the battle and wrathful skies,

An extra level of construction would give you an efficient counter to this strategy.

[Sly Frog]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sly Frog:
I build up a nice force of blackplate, get my mages hooked up with Construction 6

[Snip]

His mages just tear the **** out of my guys. Storm on the battle and wrathful skies,

An extra level of construction would give you an efficient counter to this strategy.

---

Well, I'm researching that, but level 7 construction is a long way to research fairly early in the game just to avoid being mauled.

[NTJedi]

His Sidhe troops must have some awesome blessings... because ULM's black knights should be winning. Unless you only have two or three against 50 of his.

[ July 01, 2004, 23:30: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Sly Frog]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
His Sidhe troops must have some awesome blessings... because ULM's black knights should be winning. Unless you only have two or three against 50 of his.

It wasn't only 2 or 3 against 50, but he had a fair bit more Sidhe (turn is past now, and I can't go back and see it), probably on the order of 30 to 7 or 8 black knights.

That's not the point, however; if you are playing any respectable opponent against whom you can obtain an equal number of black knights as they can get sidhe, I'd like to know your secret.


I might add that this is an issue for me because I really like the idea of Ulm; in a game of magic, having a side that is steel and drain is pretty cool, but they should be able to hang tough with the magic Users, which they seem incapable of (I understand I'm a novice player, but I so far I haven't seen any other great advice). It seems as though what is supposed to be their main strength, the much vaunted black plate infantry and knights, isn't really that great. They don't hold out that much longer (if at all, when you factor in magic), as other nations troops, particularly such as hoplites, which have pretty decent armor themselves, at a lower cost.

[ July 02, 2004, 02:19: Message edited by: Sly Frog ]

[Pirateiam]

Try these two Strategies.

1.) Pick a Cheap bully no magic pretender -
The Manticore is a good example
-Select a cheap fast building castle - I like the Fortress or Wizard tower.
-With all the extra points use great scales 3 prod, 3 Order, 2 growth etc...
-Build nothing but Guardians and a Morning star hvy inf
-expand like the plague using multiple armies and your bully Pretendar.
-As you expand castle as much as possible. In these castles build an army of aprox 20-30 spys (they have great stealth and can cause unrest).
-Now you must be aggressive - as soon as you see your first nieghbor send all your spys into his provinces - 2-3 spys per province. Set them on cause unrest.
-Now as unrest rises dramaticaly (you will be suprised how fast it rises) in your niegbors provinces bring up your armies. If he complains just keep denying it is you until you are ready to strike. Attack all along his border and even if you lose the majority of the battles the battle of attrition is on your side. Also keep a few Guardians in each castle they are great defenders. Soon his income will be next to nothing and he will not be able to replace his losses.
-work you other typical ulm strategies along with this like blade wind etc...
- Of course this does not work against undead nations.

2.) I am still trying this strategy out it is straight forward bless strategy with UlmIF. Ulm's biggest weakness is magic so -
-Create UlmIF with Oracle - Astral 9, Air 9
-This gives you Templar Knights with +4 MR and twist fate, Shock resistant 75, Airshield 75
-Now every single turn pump out Templars from you capital -
-10 Templars can take any level 6 inde I have faced
-By turn 20 you should have a main Knight Army of 30+ Knights backed up with mages it can be a devestating army, with twist of fate your lances will have a chance to hit everytime.
-Your only real combat weakness is with poison cold and fire, but what I found is poison and cold need time on the battle field to work but with all Templar Knight armies the fights will be very quick and bloody you will either win fast or lose fast. If you run across a fire heavy nation you will have to use your mages casting fire fend.

I do not state these are great strategies but they seem to work for me.

[ July 02, 2004, 03:21: Message edited by: Pirateiam ]

[Schmoe]

Heh, it's funny that the commonly perceived strongest in our current game is complaining about being ineffective. I posted here a few days ago because I feel ineffective too. It's obviously a newbie game Of course, I have a much better claim to ineffectiveness in the game than you.

Anyway, I wouldn't sweat it too hard. I think the army I ran into a turn ago could do a fair number on Man. Plus, once all of his normal troops are gone, those bladewinds are going to start chewing through his elite troops. Personally, I was very impressed by your many well-equipped commanders. I think a group of 3-5 Black Knight commanders, well-equipped, along with a small supporting cast of Black Knights, could do some serious damage. Heck, even your barbarian commanders were pretty serious powerhouses with all of the equipment. I was just lucky to have black hunters with death poison.

I don't really know a good counter to Wrathful Skies, though. What does Construction 7 give? Mechanical Men? Those are pretty nice. I have had surprisingly good success with Mechanical Militia in another game. Enchantment 5 can grant Thunder Ward, but that requires you to have an Air mage to begin with.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Sly Frog:
I might add that this is an issue for me because I really like the idea of Ulm; in a game of magic, having a side that is steel and drain is pretty cool, but they should be able to hang tough with the magic Users,

During early game and some of middle game the black knights are very lethal. However as mages become more powerful because of research the black knights overall become weaker and weaker because of spells which can weaken them and spells which can summon more powerful beings. When it comes to military units which are purchased time is against you unless the units can get a strong blessing.

[HotNifeThruButr]

I can't work with base Ulm either. Everything is so goddarn expensive.

Ironically, most players reccommend Ulm to newbies. *shrug*

Were I you, I would ignore the black plate and stick with regular infantry of ulm. Also, I would forget the rainbow alchemist in favor of a combat oriented pretender