Iron Faith Ulm

[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.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I agree that IF is weaker overall than standard Ulm. But to me that just makes it more of a challenge to make it work.

I got very unlucky in my initial battle...lost my starting troops and some barbarian mercenaries to a smaller number of independent barbarians (fewer indie barbarians than mercenary barbarians mind you). That doesn't happen every day. I didn't realize that my priests would cast that silly earth spell...throw inaccurate stones or something...instead of sermon of courage because Abyssian priests don't behave that way. Morale is a major boost for ulm troops.

Still, I've rebounded nicely. And I didn't remember that my mages with IF were earth 1, ? 1. The random pick is nice in that you will have mages capable of forging all the basic items of each sphere if you are selective about whom you send to the front lines.

I completely agree that these mages need to be able to research in a drain environment. But I'm not holding my breath. (I'm actually wondering why they can't...maybe it was an oversight...maybe it is to compensate for the wider array of magical items craftable at reduced cost in IF ulm.) I've also given thought to a death/nature pretender with this theme. Death for fear and nature for berserk (though that's going to make the defense really low on the templars). I'm also imagining life after death for ulm templars...and smiling. I just don't think ulm will support two level-9 blessings due to its other "requirements" for success as a nation.

The more I think about nature-9 the less I like its bonuses on sacred mages. I don't want my mages to turn berserk and stay on the battlefield. (Maybe this particular "bonus" could be made applicable only to non-mages?)

I also agree with those who said that a drain scale is rough for IF ulm. Ulm seems to me to be much more dependent than average on the sites you are able to find. I think that is why the great rainbow sage works so well for them.

I find myself wishing I could use a scorpion king as a pretender for Ulm. Fire-9, earth-9 would be devastating. Especially when you remember that a decent number of indie mages are sacred.

[PDF]

Originally posted by 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.

I don't agree with that : Ulm is good for training as it is relatively easy to play.
I don't find it subpar , but is not flexible, you have to follow a relatively rigid strategy :
* Research/Sage pretender to keep research at a good level on early game, then to find sites
* Try to get indy sages asap
* Focus research in Construction first
* Forge Earth Boots and Dw Hammer asap to maximize item production (funny : the Hammer even works for Blood items !!)
In MP the forge bonus is also very useful to get good trades and keep allies - you build at 50% cost, can sell at 80% and get profit !
* Once your smiths have Earth boots they can use Summon Earthpower to get Earth-3 and summon Elementals, and use nice support spells.

[apoger]

Ulm:

Has major issues with production.
Has very inflexible and limited magic.

This makes Ulm poor for training (IMHO).


>you have to follow a relatively rigid strategy

And how are new players supposed to know that ridgid strategy? Hence... not good for training.


>* Research/Sage pretender

Rainbow pretenders as a training tool? Only if you want blood to drip from the players ears as their brain overloads.

How about demonstrating basic economics, military, and national magics, before exploding into this sort of complication?

Remember this is all in the context of "Training".


>* Research/Sage pretender to keep research at a good level on early game, then to find sites
>* Try to get indy sages asap
>* Focus research in Construction first
>* Forge Earth Boots and Dw Hammer asap to maximize item production

This sort of strategy in multiplayer will turn you nation into a juicy gem treasure chest which will be savaged by it's neighbors.

It's not my intention to be mean or contentious... but this (again IMHO) isn't a good way for new players to go. Arco and Man are both easily recognized human themes. They both have flexible magics and low resource troops. Ulm "looks" easy but it really isn't. The Last thing that players need is even more frustration when they get into this duanting game. I suggest Arco or Man rather than Ulm for new players.

I understand that you have found some strength in Ulm. That's all well and good. However, just becuase it's potency can be cultivated, does not equate with "good for training".