Iron Faith Ulm

[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".

[SurvivalistMerc]

Apoger,

I myself learned (what I know) about Dominions by playing Ulm.

I haven't taken a stab at MP yet. My guess is that rainbow ulm would be more viable if your opponents couldn't see your gem income (graphs disabled). I hadn't considered that aspect...but you're right. If one of my neighbors had a much higher gem income than another...all else being equal I'd want to take over some of it.

I sort of see the managing production and limited magic as a way to teach new players about basic game mechanics of units before getting too deeply involved in magic, which with the way it is structured in non-intuitive schools with some spells requiring multiple magic types, is confusing initial yet ultimately wonderful in its complelxity.

The player knows the rigid strategy because you tell it to him when you say to try Ulm.

Of course, it's quite likely this ulm strategy won't work all that well in MP as you point out.

[aldin]

On the 'Ulm for n00bs' discussion:

As best I can tell, basic Ulm is the easiest nation to wrap your brain around. Build strong armies, research construction, go beat everyone else up. With a Combat Pretender (an MP liability I'm sure, but fine for SP) it's even simpler because you inherit the smithy goal of clothing your pretender for war. As such, I'd say it's almost Dominions Lite and imminently suitable for dragging someone into the game.

Since that's what I did, I know it works for getting into the game. It does have SERIOUS cons though. Things I'm finding as I expand out:
1) You wind up with almost no concept of what priests are supposed to do.
2) You have very little concept of what mages are supposed to do.
3) You have a skewed, high-resource perspective on what it takes to build an army.
4) You have a skewed, too-confident perspective on how hardy an infantry unit ought to be.
5) You have a skewed, too-weak perspective on how effective archery is.
6) You have a tendancy to want to look at Construction for solutions to your problems.

Still, Ulm is what got me here. Therefore I immediately abandoned my Caelum game (geh, the best troops have no mobility) and tried to set up an IF game.

I think I got a lucky start. I decided to go with a Great Sage pretender with 4 in everything but Blood. Dominion 5; Order, Production, Heat, Misfortune and Drain were mostly maxxed (Heat 2 mebbe). I got a Fortress, cheapest 30 Admin.

The goal was to use mercs to clear the surrounding territories while the Sage researched (30+/turn on Drain3) and the Templars were built. By the time the surrounding territories were cleared I had a dozen templars, a 4 Holy Prophet, and quite a bit of research accomplished.

The 4 Holy is the key. I can split the templars into two wings that get blessed with the battlefield bless. And the whole battlefield gets morale support too. The pretender is in the process of spinning through the adjacent territories and my gem income is skyrocketing. The army is unstoppable, one opponent in home siege with no other territories and another only a few turns away from the same thing (it's only turn 20 or so).

As a standard, I'd probably take five of the seven magics and try to preserve my scales a bit, mebbe upgrade to a Castle. As it is, and I think I was lucky, IF looks very viable as a nation that can rapidly build a devestating force.

~Aldin