Guide LA Ulm: Goths Gone Wild! or, Flying Immortal Vampire Harbingers of Dooooooooooooooom! - Page 2

Tolkien · #11 February 5th, 2009, 08:36 PM

Well, I'll toy around with it. Sloth though is something that doesn't work too well, considering LA Ulm has some very good heavy infantry, and you'll need some resources to mass them up.

And Kissblade: missed the Arrow Fend part. If you're into the mid-game and have put up the necessary forts and started cranking up magic research, just stop using rangers. They're good, yes, but it never really pays to be a one-trick pony (in my opinion): diversify your armies. Arrow Fend is Enchantment-6, so it's difficult to put the research, so you probably won't face Arrow Fended armies in the first 6-12 turns, especially if they weren't focused on getting it immediately. If you want strategies around it if they've got it early and you don't have evocation (and don't have any Zweihanders or other heavy infantry), there are ways to get around it. If you got Construction-4, give a ranger captain a Secepter of Authority and Crown of Command, and send an army of 85 rangers to attack his rear provinces. He can't station a mage in EVERY province, give them all enough gems to cast arrow fend, and still get enough PD to beat you in melee, and if you raid and turn taxes up to 200%, he'll draw back his main army to try and crush your guerilla force. No one wants to fight a war that will leave them badly drained monetarily and weaker then before: it leaves them ripe for others to attack. So use diplomacy to your advantage. Besides that, send a small ranger group to attack their main army and make their scripted caster use up their gems casting it on a force set to fire and retreat. If they only planned to cast it once, it means they just lost their arrow fend in the next battle. Also, bring up counts if you need to. Later in the game, you shouldn't be relying on Rangers for everything: your infantry is still excellent (if not as heavily armored as MA Ulm, at least they have Broad Swords now). Rangers make an excellent harassing force: they can do both melee and range well, and should be used as such in raiding. Really, delay and harass them until you've fully shifted to heavy infantry and got your Iron Blizzards and Counts in sufficient number.

licker · #12 February 5th, 2009, 11:37 PM

Sloth is your friend.

You don't need that slow heavy infantry at all, or just a few shield carrying arrow catchers.

LA Ulms strength is NOT in its infantry.

Blood, blood, and more blood. And then you probably will want a side of blood to go with it.

Renojustin · #13 February 6th, 2009, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by licker

Sloth is your friend.

You don't need that slow heavy infantry at all, or just a few shield carrying arrow catchers.

LA Ulms strength is NOT in its infantry.

Blood, blood, and more blood. And then you probably will want a side of blood to go with it.

Licker's absolutely right here. You can easily take sloth, and you should seek more leverage via luck-turmoil, or the more conservative order-misfortune.

licker · #14 February 6th, 2009, 12:55 AM

Order misfortune is also less than optimal in my opinion.

You really don't need cash the way other nations do.

Misfortune can really screw you hard early game anyway. This is true for most nations, but I just don't see taking order when you are going to crap on your provinces with blood hunters eventually anyway being that useful.

Luck on the other hand...

LA Ulm does have a couple interesting heros, and getting members of the 3rd teir can really help you when you are missing boosters.

Illuminated One · #15 February 7th, 2009, 06:37 PM

Agreed.
I have played with order 3/misfortune 2 in mp and lost. Gold is really not so much an issue after a certain time. Luck will give you gems from time to time which are quite nice considering that you don't have a starting gem income for most of your paths and your smiths are good forgers.

I also think Kissblade is right, drain is bad. You have only cheap mages. If you take drain it will hurt you more than a nation with expensive mages that will also try to win the research race.
Order 3 gives you +21% gold which means theoretically +21% research.
Magic 1 vs Drain 2 on the other hand gives every mage you recruit +2 rp which is +40% on a 5 rp mage, more on the lower mages.

One thing that caught my attention when reading the LA Man guide: Ulm can be pretty good at castle warfare, too, maybe even better than Man, if properly prepared. Vampires (not the counts, the normal ones) have a good strength and are flying. One summoning (22 blood slaves, 8 vamps) are almost as good as a Magister of Man in defending a castle and they are flying and stealthy right from the start. And you get lots of freespawn via stealthy commanders. So while Man needs to use valuable commanders to defend a castle you could only use troops/summons/freespawn while having your commanders research inside the castle.

KissBlade · #16 February 8th, 2009, 10:59 PM

I don't think we should dismiss order 3 (especially in base vanilla game) because ranger floods can be expensive and LA Ulm actually has nice non cap mages (cheapie and very useful) as a result, you can never have too much gold.

licker · #17 February 9th, 2009, 12:19 AM

I wouldn't dismiss O3, but the advantage of T3 (besides 240 design points...) is that you get more events early, more gem diversity early when you need it most.

Ranger floods are all fine and well in a small map perhaps, but in larger maps ranger floods are just so much chaff to be brushed aside if you want to use them once counters are available, and at that point, your money doesn't help you as much because you can't buy your way out of the problem.

Well your money still goes far enough to recruit your mages at all your castles, and your castles were built when you hit luck events as well.

There is certainly a balance to be struck depending on your play style, but 240 design points is huge. At least I assume you aren't paying for your order scale by taking misfortune, because I think that would be a really bad idea for LA Ulm.

Dedas · #18 February 9th, 2009, 03:09 AM

Rangers work quite well because most players don't have the sense to deploy counter archers. Remember that rangers don't have any shields, no helmets and only protection 8 leather armours. As they only shoot every other turn they get eaten by the standard tactic: one group of armoured missile units front, another group of cheap standard archers back. Trust me, I've been there. Facing shielded infantry is another thing they are bad at.
No I rather use them in small hidden groups following your army instead (ranger captain + 10 rangers). That way your enemy won't anticipate them and they can slaughter freely. The ranger captain with his high precision could also be fitted with a cool missile weapon to make him a mini ranged thugs. 4 or 5 of them with accompanying rangers. Perfect for that extra unexpected umpfh to your army.

JimMorrison · #19 February 9th, 2009, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dedas

Rangers work quite well because most players don't have the sense to deploy counter archers. Remember that rangers don't have any shields, no helmets and only protection 8 leather armours. As they only shoot every other turn they get eaten by the standard tactic: one group of armoured missile units front, another group of cheap standard archers back. Trust me, I've been there. Facing shielded infantry is another thing they are bad at.

The only problem is that the 10g/4r basic archer is all but extinct in LA, and Woodsmen and Deer Tribe are also much less common than before.

But it's true, it seems that massed crossbowmen should have many ways to counter them. They'll get some kills, that's for sure, but a skilled opponent should be able to wipe them out - BUT, it is always always always good to make your opponent shift gears.

It's worth noting that with proper support, those Woodsmen are still pretty good against most targets (far better against shields than mere bows), while if you force your enemy to make tons of cheap archers - those men are all pretty useless against any infantry that Ulm produces.

Of course, bearing in mind that the suggestion is that you supplement your Sloth with Order so you can swarm with Rangers, and I have to wonder if the Rangers are -it-, or if there is some clever plan to get a mountain of steel crashing down on the foe as well.

KissBlade · #20 February 9th, 2009, 01:30 PM

Rangers have quite some lasting power compared to other troops. They're able patrollers and stealth raiders when counters start to get fielded. Plus you guys must've never seen wind guided/flame arrowed xbows because that thing gets dangerous even when something like storm gets fielded because there's just so many of those projectiles in the air. Plus Ulm has the points to field Order and Turmoil doesn't give you 240 free points because you wanted to take luck 3 with it while Order isn't necessarily 120 because Misfortune 1-2 is easily doable with Fortune Tellers.