EA Ulm advice wanted

[Covenant]

You have to remember how pitiful Ulm's mages are. Unless I take a fire-casting Pretender I am likely not going to be able to reliably field any variety of fire magic whatsoever. Ulm gets only meager earth and nature spells by default! With no real mages, it's hard to pull off strategies like that.

Plus, although being trampled by Elephants would indeed be a lousy state of affairs, there's also the Van/Helheim bunch nearby. I need to have less dedicated strategies, and more effective ones overall.

IE, the information I'm seeking is more general. I see many terribly redundant troops, and many unnecessarily expensive ones (Mountain Warriors vs. Normal Warriors... no real benefit to upgrading), and a very odd Sacred that I'm just not sure what to do with.