MA Ulm Pretender

[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.