Ulm Beginner Strategy - need help

[Tuidjy]

Shame on everyone who replied. One would think that someone would give the
newbie the one good piece of advice about playing standard/iron faith Ulm:

DO NOT.

Ulm sucks. Everyone knows it sucks late game, but against half-decent players
the obvious problems raise their ugly heads as early as turn ten. And of
course, Ulm sucks even before that, although it is less than obvious.

Just read between the lines of the 'advice' you have been given: Blacksteel
sucks because of high fatigue, slow movement, and low defense. Most troops are
overpriced. Arbalests get one good shot, and then do as much damage to your
troops as to anyone else. No priests worth mentioning... Your starting spell
requires some research before your pitiful mages can use it. Later on, you
will have a only handful of tricks, tricks for which everyone who intends to
walk over you will have prepared.

Sure, once you forsake the supercombatant, take drain, spend tons of design
points on a good castle and productivity, you will have an easy time against
indies. Big deal! A player will a decent pretender will wipe the floor with
your overrated troops, a player with cheaply massed mages (Caelum, Pythium, etc)
will show you why magic trumps steel as early as turn five, Abysia will burn
you, Ermor/C'tis will drown you in undead, R'lyeh will paralize your vulnerable
and sluggish troops, etc, etc, etc... Oh, by the way, many nations could
field better troops than you, especially if they took the kind of scales Ulm
requires.

The only thing that can delay your death in a multiplayer game is diplomacy...
diplomacy of the kind where you become some real nation's client state (i.e.
forge *****)

Fear the flying smiths with axes of sharpness killing your commanders.

[Cainehill]

Tuidjy usually gives good advice - listen to the Laird of La La Land. Don't play Ulm.

If you do : forget a lot of what you've been told. First: Unless it's been changed recently, it hasn't seemed that troops incur fatigue while walking, even if they really should. Infantry walks across the field with no fatigue; armored light bows takes five turns to start getting tired...

Logically, troops _should_ get tired wearing heavy armor, even just walking. Near as I can tell, they don't - that's why archers never get tired, and why heavy infantry doesn't fall asleep even in the rear of the battle formation.

[PvK]

Aw, I like Ulm!

Then again, my reasons aren't because I think it's stronger than others.

It does have the advantage for new players of having not so much to learn. If played against an equally-new opponent, this could be fine.

1 What are my best troops, strengths, weaknesses?

Good armor and forging bonuses are the main strengths. All the troops have pros and cons. Weaknesses are lack of magic variety and not very high morale nor magic resistance.

2 What sort of pretender is Ulm successful with? Any specific examples, or general hints?

I've had good luck with a dragon... against the AI, anyway.
Ghost King with many paths at 2+ can be good, especially with Iron Faith.

3 Are there any strategies, magic research, or item forging levels I should be looking to reach quickly?

Construction to take advantage of your forge bonus. Earth Boots and Dwarven Hammers. Try to find and conquer provinces with independent mages, so you can add magic paths to your arsenal to cover that weakness. Druids, Amazons, Wizards, etc.

4 What sort of armies should I build? (unit combinations)

If you hire arbalests, set them to fire at archers or rearmost, to avoid hurting your own men, and/or deploy them in armies different from your armies with infantry and knights.

I usually hire few if any arbalests, and most armies are a variety of infantry of Ulm, with independent shortbow archers for support, since they will rarely hurt your well-armored infantry. The infantry needs to have enough men to be a solid rock, and should be accompanied by other independent recruits who serve as fodder and distractions.

Knights can be good, but I wait until I can afford them, and then use them as flank strike Groups to complement the other armies, rather than by themselves or as direct assault forces, because that way they tend to die without doing much more than they cost, if that.

Level 3+ priests can cast Surmon of Courage to help keep your troops from routing.

Be sure to include enough troops - the more you send, the less fatigue will build up, and the less likely they are to rout.

Troops with shields are better at withstanding arrows.

5 What sort of armies/nations should I be afraid of? What sort of "" will I stack up well against?

Your Ulmish infantry will do well against most standard humanoid troops.

Against enemies who are well suited against your national troops, deploy something besides your national troops! That means using independents and summons or whatever else you can muster, against things that ignore armor such as poison gas, soul vortex, etc.

Some veterans will say that troops like Ulm's are useless once magic has been researched high enough, and say how that's only a few turns into the game. I think they are exagerating, especially if your opponent is a new player.

PvK

[Endoperez]

Tuidjy said:
One would think that someone would give thenewbie the one good piece of advice about playing standard/iron faith Ulm:
DO NOT.
Ulm sucks. Everyone knows it sucks late game, but against half-decent players the obvious problems raise their ugly heads as early as turn ten.

Sure, once you forsake the supercombatant, take drain, spend tons of design points on a good castle and productivity, you will have an easy time against indies.

Big deal! A player with a... (list of many strategies that work versus national units) will wipe the floor with
your overrated troops.

You forgot one thing. He is not playing against decent, or even half-decent players. Having easy time against independents *can* be a good reason to play Ulm, if you just started playing and would ahve otherwise!

Many nations have better troops than Ulm, all have better mages, almost all have more cost-efficient mages, many have cheaper mages... but Ulm is the simple nation. So simple it has a hard time against most others, if the other nations are played by someone who knows every trick of the game. But it is also the simplest nation to learn the game with: Recruit, Conquer, Repeat, Win.

Also, most Ulmish units are cheap in gold. The resource costs are very high, but resources and gold are used for different things.

[Arralen]

If I calculated right, with the following pretender you'll be able to forge any path booster item eventually:

Crone

F3
A3
W2
S3
D2
N2
Order 2
Produc 3
Growth 1
Magic -3
DOM4
Castle 40/100
5 left

Important items which Ulm can forge cheaply, but which are overlook often:
- Sceptre of Authority
- Girdle of Might
- Stinger
- Blood Stone (needs Blood)

Place Shortbow-Archers or Slingers behind you main line (which should be set to "hold and attack", or even "guard commander" with some heavy inf commanders among them). Set the archers to "fire at nearest". They wouldn't be able to hurt you prot 23 troops, but will hurt any less armored enemy.

[Sly Frog]

With Ulm, it really is all about getting an explosive start, which might include taking out a weak nation to get a second capital. Ulm does not necessarily have to win early to win, but it must get enough of a leg up early to put itself in a position that offsets its weaker late game. In other words, you can hang around in the late game, but only if you acquired more resources than everyone else in the early game to offset your weakness.

Blade wind is a must, but understand that it will stop working at some point when other forces get creatures with protection levels as high as yours. Magma eruption should work, but the casting seems spotty and inaccurate, and I have often taken out more of my own units than the enemy. The magical constructs are okay, but are very fragile. They are likely your only hope against air magic, however (see below). Get the global that brings extra earth gems up (forget its exact name right now). Get the Earth Kings, and start hammering the other side's bastard spell casters with earth attacks, a relatively cheap (especially if you are getting heavy earth gem income from the global) assassination spell. Ulm is very pretender oriented (they are always important, but particularly for Ulm). I agree with the earlier posters - an SC is nice, but Ulm desperately needs additional magic paths, and they are likely to only come from your pretender (at least until your pretender can summon other creatures with magic paths).

That said, I do believe that Ulm is underpowered/overpriced. All of the forged items (one of your two main strenghts) are nice; good luck finding some place useful to put them. Your lack of magical paths mean that you won't have access to the SC summons that can actually hold the items without being easy pickings (and thus merely transfer the items to another player when the holder dies). You will be absolutely slaughtered by air magic, in particular the grossly overpowered/too easily available wrathful skies. The descriptions of Ulm make a big deal out of their drain resistance; don't expect this to have any real impact on the battlefield (it would be cool if fighting Ulm did really impact the opponents spell casting, but it doesn't).

[SurvivalistMerc]

I learned with Ulm. And while I don't play much MP, I think Ulm does have things to recommend it. The strategies are rather simple for a beginning player.

Forging decent items in appropriate numbers is easiest to learn when you are forging items for half cost with dwarven hammers. I like to use eyes of aiming on my smiths. You can see the difference that makes with blade wind.

I find Ulm useful for learning the strengths of the various independent magi. And for using a rainbow pretender. Those Ulmish troops start to totally rock when combined with Gift of Health and spells such as level-9 mechanical militia.

I find that extra fortresses benefit Ulm as they do almost no other nation. Because they allow recruitment of your strong national troops anywhere.

I find pikeneers useful against abyssia. My usual recruitment is black plate pikeneers or morningstars. Depending on the force I'm facing.

Ulm is fun.

[Tuna-Fish]

Against air magic, mechanical men work quite well as a front and a shield, but the need to protect your commanders/mages will kill you. I prefer Iron Faith/Black forest to standard ulm any day. IF is probaly the best forger in the game, even if it loses the 120 points for free drain scale. Summon the creatures to use the items with pretender . BF gets the always-as-cool mile-wide mass of Vampires, that while not exactly a winning strategy, will provide you with defence that is nearly impossible to (Really) kill and will likely cause heavy casualties on any attackers who come too close, securing you time to prepare another strategies. Add battle fortune/will of the fates/haste/mass protection/antimagic to help dealing with enemy magic.

[TheKDawg]

Just wanted to update you all on my game:

It's turn 50 something, and I (Ulm) am the dominant force in the game. I started out 3 provinces from C'tis, whom my BP infantry, crossbows, and master smiths were able to crush rather easily. I focused on getting summon earthpower and bladewind as my first tasks, and they work wonderfully. Even better now that my smiths are using the eye of aiming.

I was able to crush my opponents (Rl'yeh) largest army. I took heavy casualties, but I was able to out produce him with my more provinces and more fortresses. I mass produced independant, cheap militia and ichthyids, and his Illithids spent their time killing them off while my blade winds and Black Knights were able to get behind and inflict massive casualties behind the lines. I have two secondary forces holding off Man and Marignon, and I'm beating them too.

Thanks for the strategies. One Last question: What is the best way to get a large Ulmish force underwater? Forging magic pills and beathing amulets?(I was able to find a magic site with air sorceresses, so I can forge them en-masse if I need.

Thank you all for the help. I think I'm on the brink of winning if I don't make too many mistakes. First to master Ulm, then to work on Marignon.