Guide: LA Ulm: Goths Gone Wild! or, Flying Immortal Vampire Harbingers of Dooooooooooooooom!

[licker]

Originally Posted by Tolkien

Well I favor patrolling when you're expanding anyway: the only problem is, having enough spare troops to actually patrol the provinces. Honestly, you don't even need to use two provinces if you are patrolling: if you are, setting one to 0% taxes and patrolling should suffice. Patrolling though is the #1 killer of population when it comes to blood hunting, and 0% taxes on a few mid-sized provinces don't hurt that much: they give 40-75 gold on 100 gold. Blood is basically based on turning gold into slaves. Since the amount of gold in the game and army sizes have increased from Dom2, the conversion rate doesn't hurt your income as much as it use to, and it means blood is actually better.

Personally, I like Second Tiers. They're more cost-effective (and recruit everywhere) researchers then the Iron Priests all in all: though the sacred part on the Priests does decrease total upkeep. Second Tiers are what you'll be using for most of your blood hunting needs until your Counts are in numbers, they're good for getting research up, and stealthy communions are %#*(ing awesome.

Which is why taking order is so counter to your actual end game goals...

If you can survive the early game with a reasonable nation size the transition into blood is incredibly quick and painless.

And if you actually plan on early counts to handle your blood hunting you do not have this upkeep or recruiting problem either.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by licker

Interesting analysis Chris.

A couple questions, was this with CBM or vanilla? Was the pretender used in my test case a true rainbow or the DB FoB?

Hey licker - I tried two approaches with yours:

Couple, where I went full rainbow, and the rest where I went your exact db Fob build.

It still boiled down that with luck you are trading income for events - and while the events are sometiems money, and soemtimes just awesome - in general the income and ease of expansion was significantly below taking order.

CBM1.44 (Mine).

[vfb]

Instead of using Counts, SD Fortune Tellers can lead 30 Ghoul Guardians, and support them with Nether Bolt or Nether Darts. I really like the Fortune Tellers, and I'm not so crazy about wolves. You should be able to recruit at least 10 Ghoul Guardians a month with sloth-1 or neutral production scales. A train of 30 Ghoul Guardians leaving your capitol every four months towards the front provides additional quick response to bad events or raids. This also helps spread your Fortune Tellers out, since more than 10 in your capitol is suboptimal for bad event mitigation.

But Order-3 Misfortune-2 is annoying with plenty of barbarians and brigands and ill omens all interfering with blood hunting, so Misfortune-1 seems like it's the max misfortune I'd want to take now. It seems a pity not to take any Misfortune at all with a Fortune Teller nation.

[Tolkien]

D random fortune tellers are one in four, but for the most part I agree with you, both with Misfortune and the Guardians. The problem is, you won't be able to get enough D-random FTs to lead them all, whereas you should have a veritable army of counts. It depends on the situation, and what you have to spare, really. Besides, I use d-random FTs to remote sight search for me: at least, the first couple. I also wish you could pick more then Misfortune-1, but the bad events are rather painful. They don't matter as much in the mid/endgame, since you should have a veritable army of immortals defending you (and thus being able to deal with any barbarians or such), but it can seriously cripple your expansion, and you need a good expansion for more forts (hence more research and more conventional units).

I just like wolves. Stealthy makes them great chaff for your Illuminated Ones when they go on their seasonal communionable stealth ambushes of death, as well as for accompanying rangers (if need be). Wolves also complement your thrall (human) production.

[chrispedersen]

I'm glad you like the wolves Tolkien, the improvement was made for exactly this reason - to make them more interesting.

I thought of making them more feral as well, but I am leery on balance issues.

[Tolkien]

Drats, I've reached my character limit on the guide.

Time to link Part two to this post then...

PART TWO
Finally:
Vampires. Ah yes, vampires. One of the primary themes of LA Ulm. Baalz has recently written a stellar guide to vampires (Here), but I'd like to go abit into Counts and how it all fits together with the rest of Black Forest. LA Ulm has the best capacity to carry out a massive vampire swarm: every one of those counts you've built can summon thralls (though do it with blood boosters for more thralls). So you not only have NATURAL access to all forms of vampires (with a pretender to kick the chain off), but you've got a great blood economy to boot. Forget 50 thralls as a minimum, you could max out your Counts and Lords with hundreds upon hundreds of thralls...every turn. LA Ulm transitions into an unassailable juggernaut once midgame sets in and you start summoning thralls (and the other blood goodies), you won't have to worry about practically anything. LA Ulm has swarms of inquisitors (who you should've been massing for research in non-cap forts) to keep up dominion inside your territory, and as long as you are fighting in your own dominion, it's suicide for practically anyone to attack, with SCs or Armies. You could swarm ANYTHING with hundreds (or thousands, depending on how late the game is) of vampires with the usual battlefield spells up. That doesn't include your Illuminated One Communions and Iron Priests (casting all those lovely Earth Buffs and Spells. Army of Gold/Marble on a Vampire Horde? BRILLIANT!).

In summary: When playing Ulm, get into the World War One mindset. Think trench warfare. The goal with LA Ulm is Bite and Hold. You're able to hold any province you take easily: with mass inquisitors to change dominion in a blink of an eye, and swarms of vampires to defend them. Slow advances are preferable to all out attacks. The latter will leave you machine-gunned in No Man's Land. The only problem with LA Ulm is difficulty spreading dominion. You've got great inquisitors: but no stealthy preachers or blood sacrifices (unlike LA Marignon or Mictlan). You can spread dominion with massive numbers of stone idols and temples and juggernauts, but it is much more difficult (leaving your vampires on a primarily defensive role). On the other hand, you've got an innate access to vampires (so you can field far, far more), and your national armies and mages can carry out your carefully planned assaults on enemy dominion. Bite and hold, mate, bite and hold (and yes, it is a pun).

In conclusion: LA Ulm is one of the under appreciated underestimated powerhouses of the Late Age. There are too many things going for them for their weaknesses to stand out. A solid expansion, impressive magic diversity, cheap research overall, stealthy communions and spies, solid national troops, plenty of chaff, and an extremely strong blood economy all come together to form a nearly impregnable and invincible dreadnaught of a mid/endgame.