MA Ulm Pretender, because I'm crazy

[sector24]

Originally Posted by Tyr_Doshan

New to the threads, long time player of Dom III. Let me start with a quick intro: My original infatuation with MA Ulm was primarily spurred by the similarity of the nation with a fantasy setting I've been hand designing for quite a few years now: Rugged human beings clad in black metal armor, brought up in an extremely harsh environment, no concept of light infantry, minimal concept of supporting magic, resource heavy (both in what they use and what they can produce). It was love at first sight and I've been playing the guys pretty extensively with breaks to play other nations from time to time.

Moving along. This is the pretender I tend to use. I am well aware that it will be considered an unorthodox (if not outright moronic) design, but I play for fun and have yet to truly indulge myself in what would likely be a short lived MP game.

Pretender Type: Red Dragon
Magic: Fire 7, Earth 4
Domain Strength 4, 2 Order, 3 Production, 2 Heat, 3 Drain.

I cannot rightly explain my strategy with this particular creature, as it very often depends on the nature of the map itself, what the settings of the game are and if I am playing with human friends. Rest assured there is a lot of gem hunting and Black Priest interrogation involved early on.

Any and all critique is welcome.

Welcome to the forums! I'll try to give you some advice without completely changing your pretender or design choices. The dragons are certainly not popular choices for optimized play, but hey they're fun. Players who are more MP oriented will give you more drastic advice to be sure.

First, you Fire Dragon has Fire 7. The bless benefits come at 4, 6, 8, and 10 so I would at least drop it to 6. However, Ulm is not a bless nation and on a pretender I doubt your Fire magic needs to be above 4, which is where you can forge a fire booster.

Your dominion strength is very low. Not a big deal in SP to be honest, but in multiplayer you'd need at least 6.

Your scales are thematic, but Heat 2 is not ideal. There is a recent post that calculates the income penalty for different heat levels and if you take Heat 2 you may as well take Heat 3. But your troops will be melting in their armor and fatiguing out like crazy so I would actually remove it if possible. Heat 1 at the maximum.

Personally I take Order 3 in pretty much every game as income is king. You probably can't afford this without dropping your production, so it's up to you whether you want to keep the theme of Ulm or go for a little more optimization.

There are two guides for MA Ulm on the wiki here: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Forges_of_Ulm

They will certainly give you better optimization but without regard to theme.