Iron Faith Ulm

[SurvivalistMerc]

Apoger,

I agree with you...the only utility of IF is to exploit the templars...and that you get sermon of courage if you think you are going against a race which casts spells like panic on you a lot.

I'm taking IF for a different reason...because the first time I took it...I did very, very poorly. And I want to redeem myself.

I've also always been using a great sage with Ulm...which works very well but gets old.

I agree with you that ulm desparately needs production. Having to go down to a fortress to get bless effects is truly giving up something. And I could reduce the lich to air-3 instead of -4 and lose only a 20% air shield but gain a normal castle.

I do have one question regarding your setup: Why take growth? For the gold bonus?

I know the great mother is a good pretender. I just can't get past the way she looks, though. Hehe.

SM,

When you pick IF, you are looking at two things.

1.) You have no combat mages to speak of. Even if you get lucky, they are going to be piss poor and cost alot to invest them to make them so.

2.) You are playing standard Ulm but trying ot maximize a blessing effect. Like Alex said, the only reason to take IF is for the Bless effects otherwise Base Ulm is far superior.

A rainbow is counterproductive to bless effects. I don't know if I'd pick earth either, since it's bless effect really doesn't shine until 9 unless you have combat mages. Reinvigoration on heavy and expensive templar doesn't do as much for me as say, Berserk, or +Att and Flaming weapons.

I have been in the middle of a game so I haven't really had time to respond I'll have more time for an in depth response a little later.

Alright now that I'm done, and I've had a chance to think about it.

I'd either go all out for a bless effect or I wouldn't play IF.

Since Black Templar already have high protection (24) I wouldn't really worry about that. They have lower hit points (15) and other minimal stats 13 str, 11 att, 10 def, 10 mr.

My choice would be either to go for a Water, Fire, or Nature blessing of 9.

Nature
+3 Berserk and Regen/Poison resist nets you with a Templar with 3 hp Regen a turn (out of 15) 27 Prot, 16 str, 14 att, 7 defense.

Fire
+4 Att and Flaming weapons (8 AP damage). That means 15 att and 3 Attacks first round 2 attacks second round with 8 AP damage included.

Water
+4 Defense and Quickness (50%). That means 14 Def, 5 attacks first round, 4 attacks second round.

Now those don't really mean anything unless you decide how you are going to use your Black Templar. they are too expensive to make a majority of your force, and considering the investment into a Bless Effect they have to be able to stand up to summons as you will have only clockworks and maybe some crusher/Iron Dragons late in the game. Even if you invested in 9 Astral you'd only get +3 MR for a total of 13 so you are still weak against magic.

You can chance it and take Water9 and use your templars as rear killers and hope to get a commander if not tear up archers.

Be safe and take Fire9 and use your templars to kill summons, though you are going to have a problem with fire summons.

Play the stat game and go Nature9 and hope that high protection will save you enough each round for you to regen.

None of them look very promising and for that reason it's hard to play IF. Maybe if the Priests had Drain immunity like the smiths; but as it is; they are IMO useless for anything but sermoning.

And no matter which I took I'd take Order 3, Production 3, Misfortune 3, and Drain 1 (at minimum) and a Castle. With such expensive Sacreds, you are probably not ever going to be able to make more than 4 or 5 a turn.

[ December 19, 2003, 03:21: Message edited by: Zen ]

[apoger]

>I'm taking IF for a different reason...because the first time I took it...I did very, very poorly. And I want to redeem myself.

Perfectly good reason.


>I do have one question regarding your setup: Why take growth? For the gold bonus?

Absolutely. Ulm needs every ounce it can get. It doesn't win with it's magic.


>I know the great mother is a good pretender. I just can't get past the way she looks, though. Hehe.

As an easy alternate you could go with a Dragon (take fire-9 or nature-9) with just one less dominion strength.

[PDF]

IMHO taking Drain3 for IF is a mistake : you'll end up with 1 RP mages (!!), and even indy sages will have only 4... unless you take either a Sage/RB pretender or a weak dominion, but both "solutions" defeat the basic purpose of "abusing" Templars.

Overall I find IF Ulm weak ond poorly balanced : to get an effective design you need a magically strong (for bless) pretender but also needs to have it master more than one path ('cause your mages are crappy lvl 1 ...), you need Order (as everyone except undeads), Prod (Ulm is resource intensive), Magic/drain at 0 or above (as said earlier, but if you take 2 or more you blow up your MR...), Dominion, and even a decent castle (production) !
What you get are sacred lvl 1 mage-priests and sacred heavy Templars Knights, that are very expensive.
You can't count on numbers, against weak opposition they're not needed, but if faced with strong oppositions they are brittle against magic - so they are a quite risky bet !
Lastly you also lose the quite useful Forge bonus...

[apoger]

They do have the forge bonus on the IF main mage.
However I do agree that IF is a weak theme for a nation that is already sub par. Ulm is a very challenging nation and I wish people would stop recommending it to the new players. I suggest Arcoscephale or Man as better training nations.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by apoger:
However I do agree that IF is a weak theme.

One thing that buggers me with IF is you have to pass on the Guardians completely if you want to maximize Templar production. How sad.