MA Ulm Pretender

[sum1lost]

Actually, my experience says that it depends. Black halberds are dangerous against small sacred elites, but against lower-tier massable sacreds, they can be less effective- I used Mictlan every effectively against them, and although they did more damage than the average ulmish troop, they fell quickly as well.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by sum1lost

Actually, my experience says that it depends. Black halberds are dangerous against small sacred elites, but against lower-tier massable sacreds, they can be less effective- I used Mictlan every effectively against them, and although they did more damage than the average ulmish troop, they fell quickly as well.

That doesn't sound right. I just tested the following couple scenarios with a F/S blessed Mictlan.

40 Black Halberds vs 30 jaguar warriors - Mictlan spent a little more gold to get a priest to bless, not counting the opportunity cost of a double bless. Result - 30 dead jags, 6 dead halberds.

40 Halberds vs 50 jags - Mictlan spent a bunch more gold and managed to outrecruit the non-sacred halberds somehow. Result - 45 dead jags, 21 dead halberds.

As this is MA, considering the more likely matchup of eagle warriors - 50 eagles vs 40 halberds. 5 dead halberds, the eagles broke after 22 deaths.

Thing is, even "cheaper" sacreds are limited by your "holy" recruit points, and given the standard Ulmish prod-3 you're not going to be able to outnumber the black halberds until you've got more than 3 castles, with temples (and labs for mages)...pretty far outside the "rush" range.

[vfb]

I agree, but have to nitpick about MA Mictlan. They shouldn't be putting labs in their first expansion castles, since they just need a temple to recruit the eagles and 60-gold priests. Move the priests back to the capitol to research, and indy commanders can bus the eagles about. Capitol should always only recruit jags.

Also, Sloth-3 pays a lot towards the F/S bless.

On pure random maps though, MA Mictlan doesn't stand a chance of doing this since they need 'real' mountains to build 800-gold, 3-turn forts. All other fort choices are horrible. On a non-random map with mountains, you can have a Hillfort and temple up in turn 7, and still have been recruiting 10 jaguars per month, using something like:

Oracle
Magic: Fire 9 Astral 9
Dominion 10
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 1 Misfortune 2 Magic 1
Imprisoned

Also, Mictlan's force should include a few turkeys from the lab. They are excellent at getting to the front in no time, and are great against low-MR units with their 100-precision Mesmerize ranged weapon, which is penetration+2 according to debug:

hitunit 2124 568 dmg128 spec1216499712 ba1
spec_mr pen 12 mr 10 (unr 2124 vic 568 dmg 11 eff 128)

I think turn 12 you could be looking at 80 jags, some shield chaff, and 20 eagles.

But Mictlan's going to take significant losses and be open to a 3rd party attack, so the Halberds are probably enough of a deterrent.

[archaeolept]

Originally Posted by vfb

I agree, but have to nitpick about MA Mictlan. They shouldn't be putting labs in their first expansion castles, since they just need a temple to recruit the eagles and 60-gold priests. Move the priests back to the capitol to research, and indy commanders can bus the eagles about. Capitol should always only recruit jags.

Also, Sloth-3 pays a lot towards the F/S bless.

On pure random maps though, MA Mictlan doesn't stand a chance of doing this since they need 'real' mountains to build 800-gold, 3-turn forts. All other fort choices are horrible. On a non-random map with mountains, you can have a Hillfort and temple up in turn 7, and still have been recruiting 10 jaguars per month, using something like:

Oracle
Magic: Fire 9 Astral 9
Dominion 10
Scales: Order 3 Sloth 3 Heat 3 Growth 1 Misfortune 2 Magic 1
Imprisoned

Also, Mictlan's force should include a few turkeys from the lab. They are excellent at getting to the front in no time, and are great against low-MR units with their 100-precision Mesmerize ranged weapon, which is penetration+2 according to debug:

hitunit 2124 568 dmg128 spec1216499712 ba1
spec_mr pen 12 mr 10 (unr 2124 vic 568 dmg 11 eff 128)

I think turn 12 you could be looking at 80 jags, some shield chaff, and 20 eagles.

But Mictlan's going to take significant losses and be open to a 3rd party attack, so the Halberds are probably enough of a deterrent.

This is all correct, though i'd play with the bless some.

I'd counter that by turn 12 your suggested Mictlan force would be facing easily 80-100 halberds plus another 100+ black plate infantry from secondary castles

This is not. ulm can't move. the jag armies will run around and join together to take out the reinforcements and the breadbaskets, and be back in time to relieve any attempted siege by the un-reinforced original Ulm force.

[Baalz]

Well yeah, my test was simplistic, but a decent Ulm player is likewise not going to have just a block of halberds set to be slaughtered. I'd counter that by turn 12 your suggested Mictlan force would be facing easily 80-100 halberds plus another 100+ black plate infantry from secondary castles. If you're bringing turkeys I have to insist that Ulm has several guys using gems to spam blade wind - which is not unreasonable for turn 12 with an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

Heck, I just ran some tests and even just nothing but black plate pikeneers with no support at all handily won on a gold for gold basis vs F/S jaguars (80 vs 30). Ulm's best counter to single target MR effects like mesmerize is often just to bring enough guys that it doesn't matter. 5 turkeys will hit less than 25 guys (some of them will pass the MR roll), that's not battle winning if you've got 200+ troops.

[sum1lost]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Well yeah, my test was simplistic, but a decent Ulm player is likewise not going to have just a block of halberds set to be slaughtered. I'd counter that by turn 12 your suggested Mictlan force would be facing easily 80-100 halberds plus another 100+ black plate infantry from secondary castles. If you're bringing turkeys I have to insist that Ulm has several guys using gems to spam blade wind - which is not unreasonable for turn 12 with an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

Heck, I just ran some tests and even just nothing but black plate pikeneers with no support at all handily won on a gold for gold basis vs F/S jaguars (80 vs 30). Ulm's best counter to single target MR effects like mesmerize is often just to bring enough guys that it doesn't matter. 5 turkeys will hit less than 25 guys (some of them will pass the MR roll), that's not battle winning if you've got 200+ troops.

For what it is worth, at turn 12 in my mictlan game, I had built my third fort as well- eagle warriors are incredibly cheap, and allow quick expansion and for construction. On a gold for gold basis, eagle warriors do very, very well, especially over several battles- flying means that they get away if they lose, and that enemies don't, meaning that over the course of several battles, they tend to come out on top.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by sum1lost

For what it is worth, at turn 12 in my mictlan game, I had built my third fort as well- eagle warriors are incredibly cheap, and allow quick expansion and for construction. On a gold for gold basis, eagle warriors do very, very well, especially over several battles- flying means that they get away if they lose, and that enemies don't, meaning that over the course of several battles, they tend to come out on top.

Well, incredibly cheap is a very relative term. 15 gold for an eagle warrior vs 10 gold for a black plate pikeneer. The eagle warriors also have several inherent costs - the fact you have to have a temple to recruit them, an expensive leader to divine bless them (eagle warriors don't do so well if you don't bless them all at once), and an expensive bless coupled with an expensive dominion score to recruit a significant number of them.

Don't get me wrong, eagle warriors can be great if you treat them right, but dirt cheap is Ulm's bread and butter. Black plate infantry is 10 gold. Smiths are 140 gold. No need to build temples unless you need to push your dominion. On a nation playing order/production.....*that* is dirt cheap.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Baalz

an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

What scale/path combination do you go for? I've been trying to get Luck for all those gems, but it slows down my early game, especially the second fort - unless I get some gold events, of course. On the other hand, with Luck-generated gems, I don't feel so bad for empowering. I also seem to get lots of Water gems from events, useful for a single empowerment and lots of Staves of Corrosion and Rune Smashers afterwards.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

What scale/path combination do you go for? I've been trying to get Luck for all those gems, but it slows down my early game, especially the second fort - unless I get some gold events, of course. On the other hand, with Luck-generated gems, I don't feel so bad for empowering. I also seem to get lots of Water gems from events, useful for a single empowerment and lots of Staves of Corrosion and Rune Smashers afterwards.

Luck is nice, but what Ulm *needs* to keep it's engine running in the first year is a steady gold flow. Once you've got a couple extra castles up you're generally gonna be doing OK, but it's urgent to get those up to start pumping out your cheap yet resource hungry troops. Order, Production, Drain, and Misfortune (Ulm's PD is pretty good at repelling barbarians) along with a modest dominion score gives you plenty of points to have a nice awake rainbow pretender. Don't worry, once your critical research is done and the pretender starts site searching your gems will start to roll in...

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Luck is nice, but what Ulm *needs* to keep it's engine running in the first year is a steady gold flow. Once you've got a couple extra castles up you're generally gonna be doing OK, but it's urgent to get those up to start pumping out your cheap yet resource hungry troops. Order, Production, Drain, and Misfortune (Ulm's PD is pretty good at repelling barbarians) along with a modest dominion score gives you plenty of points to have a nice awake rainbow pretender. Don't worry, once your critical research is done and the pretender starts site searching your gems will start to roll in...

It is my opinion that ulm slaughters *any* blessed units on anywhere near an equal basis. And that includes ashdod, niefle, mictlan and lanka. Quite a nice balance.