Questions regarding my strategies

[Dedas]

That is why you support those hordes of units with powerful buffs and thugs. Overwhelming an enemy late game can be pretty devastating if done well.

[Endoperez]

How soon do you start building a second castle? It isn't too hard to conquer two provinces, the second not next to your capital, and have you scout start building a castle in the second one on turn 4, as MA Ulm. If you get lucky, you can have three or four castles by turn 16. Then you can churn out researcher-mages to get on to the magic race.

Read Baalz's guide to Marverni, posted about a week or so ago. It details very nicely what a magic-heavy nation can do in the endgame. Pythium can do that in addition to having strong military; Ulms usually have more trouble.

[Dedas]

I always build my second fortress on turn 3 as MA Ulm to take advantage of Ulm's fortress production bonus. It also helps in defense as most of your units have map move 1. The third castle I place a little further away so to maximize the other two. My motto is: "no province without a fortress should have left over resources"; unless there is something I want to build there of course.

[Endoperez]

So you build a fort on the first province you conquer? Hm. Do you do that even if there are no resource-heavy provinces around you?

Oh, and I did all my tests without a combat pretender. I wanted to see how good expansion I could get out of Ulm without pretender's help.

[Dedas]

If I'm very unlucky and the adjacent provinces to my capitol are barren wastelands, I would not build my second fortress so close. This is rarely the case though.

I have found out that getting that second fort up and running as fast as actually possible helps Ulm immensely with both expansion and research. I would even go as far and say that it is in fact necessary when Ulm against great players.

Good fortresses is one of the thing Ulm is good at so one should try to maximize that. Do not go for the cheapest fortress but rather the best mix of administration, cost, defense and build time. In Ulm's case that would be the citadel and to peg-castle. If placed correctly you will get great many resources and awesome defense, buying you time to get your slow troops into position if you are attacked.

[Sombre]

I think the defense value is irrelevant - your enemy won't sit there sieging your second castle, they'll continue to raid your provinces or go right for the cap. I'm really not sure paying attention to the admin is worth it either - even the worst fort still unlocks the resources in the province itself and being cheaper and faster to build than those with admin, you can simply get more of them. More forts means more mages and even with the admin disparity, probably more troops overall too.

[Dedas]

The thing with Ulm is that your capitol isn't that valuable. It won't matter what fortress the enemy goes for he won't be able to break any of them fast as they all got high defense.

Raiding provinces won't be so effective against Ulm either because when you got some fortresses up your troops and mages cost almost nothing in gold.

Citadel has admin 40 meaning that if you place it will it can pull lots of resources from adjacent provinces plus unlocking the resources in the province it is in. Compare that to building 800 gold fortresses with admin 5 on every province. Yes, much, much more gold is needed, and that gold you need to expand your territory.

Every fortress you build also has what I call a command sphere, extending 1 province in every direction. This is very important to Ulm who has such slow units. I always try to build the fortresses so that they overlap each others spheres shaping a defensive net and also sucking any resources in between; so no need for low admin forts. The fortresses also has enough defense to withstand one turns sieging, enough for the other fortresses with overlapping spheres to help out. This systems also makes raiding a nightmare for the enemy.

Thanks to the great admin you always have supplies for your troops when you steamroll your enemy slowly to death, erecting fortresses every second province.

As for enemy SC's and small thug teams they aren't such a biggie as they hardly scratch your fortresses. Yes they can lock them down but you have so many that such strategy is mostly a waste of time.

I've tested these tactics in several MP games (on the net and off) with great success.

[superdestructo]

Hm, thanks for input so far.


Concerning dom-kill of oceania;
In my game against them, I was using EA Ulm. I basically built a line of forts along the coast. Each of these had a temple and most of them had a priest or two preaching. I'm not sure how Dom-kill works, but I could basically only get enough priests to hold my own dominion.

I like to use a very productive dominion. Max growth and income almost always...


Regarding armies unbeatable by mortal troops... what if you just flat out avoid them and attack elsewhere? Basically swarm over whatever territory the unbeatable armies cannot protect? I don't think i've encountered any flat out unbeatable armies, but when a very strong army starts to invade I will try to "smother" the army by isolating it and building defense around it. Meanwhile, i'll be attacking as many opposing provinces per turn as possible. By my discretion, I may pillage things and destroy temples, labs and forts... has anyone successfully employed these sort of tactics in games with good players? Armies I typically avoid have things like lots of Living Statues, Ether Lords, spellcasters, and other summons. I usually have to make specialized armies to deal with such armies... or swarm them in huge numbers...




I also usually have -2 on the magic scale because I put the points elsewhere and it seems to help against enemy mages who invade my territory. Would it be good to go to -3 for defense? I think the -2 research bonus is a little too far. Other times I will go with +1 research scale to get the +1 research bonus...

About expansion... I usually hire mercenaries early. I try to maximize troop output and don't really build forts until I find a good location. Generally, i'll have several armies capable of beating independents without incurring high losses. I'll map out how I'm going to attack and I will attempt to obtain lands that would give me a minimum number of borders to defend. Then I build defense and forts there. Usually, I will be gaining at least 4 territories per turn by turn 10 and have the largest army... from there i just... keep up the advantage. I dunno if this is the best way, but works for me...

I like EA Ulm for their stealthy 2-speed troops. Archers + fodder from outside provinces early, other types later on to limit upkeep. I like to sneak them into enemy territory before attacking, attack as many provinces at once as possible, and basically cut off a big piece of territory at a key spot or chokepoint. Divide and conquer?

Stealthy armies also seem useful because they can sneak into castles to help defend or sneak out and stay alive and in a unit if the castle will fall. I think since they are stealthy and hide, it helps fool the opposition as well. The only problem is it seems that if you sneak them into a province on the turn the castle is being stormed, they won't help the defense?

As I said, I like to use massed troops... early on i often have supply trouble... later commanders will carry a bag of wine and sometimes a summer sword. (though i prefer a ranged weapon)

Also, wolves from werewolves don't cost any upkeep, right?

[Sombre]

You don't need to worry about armies getting killed in castle storming. Just script them to retreat. Or script them to retreat and order 'break the siege'. I believe either way they will end up in another province.