Looking for Pretender suggestions for Ulm

[SurvivalistMerc]

I am a total newb. So take this with a grain of salt.... It represents only 1 game's worth of experience, and that game is not even over.

40 Admin Castle, Great sage, Order 3, production 2, growth even, misfortune 3, drain 3.

3 in every magic skill but blood. 2 in blood. This doesn't work well with iron faith as there are no bless effects. But with standard ulm it rocks. Your great sage will start out with 30 research points. And with judicious use of smiths, you can actually be ahead in research in a drain 3 dominion.

[PDF]

Until now, in Dom1 & 2 (demo), I like to play Rainbow Mage with Ulm - the best one IMHO being the Sage (in Dom2Demo the Alchemist still costs 100 pts, it should be fixed in the next patch).

Ulm doesn't really need a fighting pretender in the early game, and having a good researcher (even with Drain3 a Sage has 20+ RPs) gives you the edge in magic initially.
So I hurry Research for Cons4, then make Earth Boots, Dwarven Hammer (forge -50% total with Smiths), and go straight to Conj4 to get Fall Bears. All this is done by turn 15. Then the Pretender goes searching for sites, letting Smiths conjures thes Bears and hopefully indy sages make the research (Evocation then Enchantment), while he makes a tour of the realm. With this Ulm now has one of the best income, forges many items at half cost, and the smiths can now accompany armies casting cool spells like Legions of Steel, Earth Elementals or Fireballs...
Eventually when facing a SC it can be pretty hard, but Ulm units are quite resistant and often can manage that (I've seen -in a solo game- an enemy Cyclops fall to my garrison crossbowmen thanks to a bolt in the eye ! )
Anyway it's pretty fun and interesting

[LordArioch]

I'd second the prince of death suggestion...throw some black steel plate on him and he routs armies easily and is hard for standard troops to hurt. He's probably the most powerful suggestion here, but rainbow mages are fun for the large variety of magic you get to play with.

[blackwulf]

Thanks for all the great suggestions

-Blackwulf

[ywl]

Originally posted by LordArioch:
I'd second the prince of death suggestion...throw some black steel plate on him and he routs armies easily and is hard for standard troops to hurt. He's probably the most powerful suggestion here, but rainbow mages are fun for the large variety of magic you get to play with.

Prince of Death is better but I think a Green Dragon with Nature 4 or 5 also works. The trick I like to use for Ulm is to have Nature and Death Summon to compensate the lack of magic diversity of Ulm. You could of course use a rainbow mage for this but you would lose a major combat unit in the beginning of the game. Blood has better summons than Nature and Death but I don't see any cheap combatant god with blood access.

[Adept]

In a diplomatic LAN multiplay of Dom 1 I played Tethior the master smith (alchemist) as rainbow mage with everything but death or blood (Some of you rolepalyers out there will get the reference).

If you are playing in a fairly civilized multiplay game, there's a lot of fun to be had by selling the cheap (and with that alchemist, versatile) magic items to other players.

The smiths of course can make earth boots for themselves, and then they make decent support spellcasters with the 'blade wind'.

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For the new Iron Faith Version, I tried the mounted arch-mage. Gave him lot's of fire and earth for armour and attack bonus, decked him in blacksteel and weapons and made him lead the knights personally. Worked really nice.

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As you can tell by now I don't really play Dominions as a mini-max wargame, but more as a RPG on a strategy scale. The archmage is the only mounted human one can get for Ulm, and the Iron Faith just seems to need a mounted human cavalry-hero for a "god".

Jolly good fun

[Riku Korhonen]

I tried this on Man, but it should work with Ulm too. Take a "Fountain of blood" as ypur god and boost it's dominion to whereever you want it to be bossted (6 or 7 should be enough). Then use all your starting points to make your race as strong as possible. Give them Order and Production and growth and fortune.
Your god should just capture slaves every turn of the game. The growth and order keep the unrest at bay and you have enrmous amounts of blood slaves to be used in magic.
Ulm has strong troops and with maximum order and production you should be able to produce them quickly.
You will be magic-poor, but hey, there is all that blood and demons