MA Ulm Pretender

[Jazzepi]

vfb said:
I had big plans to Dust to Dust a PoD built almost exactly like Jazzepi's (but not 2x Bracers of Protection ... are you sure they stack?). But my mages set on Dust to Dust went berserk and charged, oops . Then I got lucky and Smited the PoD to death.

In my testing they did. The 2nd pair was only worth like +1 protection, but I'm a protection whore you know, and since it's relatively inexpensive to forge I threw it on there.

I had TERRIBLE LUCK with dust to dust against your stupid PoD in the first mega game D:

Jazzepi

[Dedas]

vfb said:
I had big plans to Dust to Dust a PoD built almost exactly like Jazzepi's (but not 2x Bracers of Protection ... are you sure they stack?). But my mages set on Dust to Dust went berserk and charged, oops . Then I got lucky and Smited the PoD to death.

It was a PoD built by Jazzepi!



I was so close to crushing your last skeleton spamming mages defending your capitol - *bam*, smited.

[Twan]

Out of duels against elephants or small rush friendly maps I would prefer a rainbow great sage offering real magic diversity and curing the real weakness of the nation : without him the magic race is lost.

my build : great sage F3 A2 W2 S3 E2 D2 N3 B1, dom 5, order 3, prod 2, misf 2, growth 1, drain 3, heat 1

26 RP / turn may look a negligible advantage but having them since the beginning can snowballs more than being one of the numerous players with a totally unimaginative awake SC chassis.

4 forts with lab (economize on temples) must be built as soon as possible, and researchers the priority, even if the price is taking just one province/turn when ennemies take 2 or 3 the first year.

Evo 3 and thaum 2 will be researched fast so priest smiths and others start to be usefull on the battlefield and can cast gnome lore (and augury sometimes), then Con 6 for lanterns and powerful boosters, Evocation 6, enchantment *or* conjuration 6 to be able to summon some thugs -or if you have nature or astral income early, target a gem producing global the sage can cast with boosters, ench 7 for stellar focus or alt 5 for mother oak, but don't search levels 5+ in more than one school out of conjuration & evocation-, and then go for construction 8 before other endgame magics.

With construction 6 reached around turn 20-25 and many lanterns forged as soon it's possible (fire gems may be the problem, and so should be the first trade objective) only nations taking magic 3 may beat you in the magic race, even if the sage now forge boosters or search sites.

Also reaching construction 6 fast and being able to forge items of many paths is an huge diplomatic advantage. You can furnish what your neighbour need and can't forge and you have a small territory but hard to take with all your forts, you don't look like a threat and your weak dominion don't spoils neighbours magic scales. You must be really unlucky if someone attack you with all these goods reasons to take on someone else.

As other nations will often research level 5+ in more than 3 schools because their mages have more possibilities, or go for a level 8 in another school first, the artefact race should be won (or at least you should be one of the first, with a lot to forge).

Once you can make artefacts the difference between a rainbow and a PoD shines : with the boosters you had been able to make you can forge a lot of things at -45% cost with the master smiths having one random, and more with the sage himself. Also a smith with an astral pick can summon golems with the two astral boosters. And the iron angels are summonable with some effort.

And once you have researched conjuration with a booster you have the same capacity to summon spectres (and then liches and tartarians, if you have D2, you'll have D7) but as you are also able to forge nature boosters and the magic rings, you will be able to GoR your tartarians far more easily (and eventually some powerful constructs can also worth to be GoRed before you have access to tartarians).

ps : of course it's a weak strategy
- if someone rush you
- if you have to fight an astral or other MR spells using nation in midgame (no temper the will)
- if your sage die and lose 8 magic levels, killed by the archer of Bogus team the first time he goes out to search some sites near the capitol (happened to me :" )

[Shovah32]

Once spells like dust to dust start flying around it's probably best to retire your Prince of Death to casting, forging and possibly raiding.

[Jazzepi]

Shovah32 said:
Once spells like dust to dust start flying around it's probably best to retire your Prince of Death to casting, forging and possibly raiding.

You can raid with her all day long, even after DTD starts being cast.

Jazzepi

[Endoperez]

Jazzepi said:
You can raid with her all day long, even after DTD starts being cast.

Mmm, Princess of Death! Does she wear an Ankh around her neck?

[Shovah32]

Don't worry, Jazzepi is just a little gender confused .

And my worries about raiding were: teleporting mages with dust to dust along with the fact that alot of nations with dust to dust could also have death mages with their PD.

[Xietor]

Again, if you are Ulm and facing an elephant rush you need your pretender to fight, not forge etc. and solar rays can be researched very quickly. And the pod cannot stand up to solar rays.

That is why, in my humble opinion, the best pretender for withstanding an early elephant rush is Father of Winters. D magic is easy to tie in to. you do not really have to have a death pretender to end up with tartarians in the endgame.

[Tuidjy]

Tawn, a great sage is better than anything but a rainbow ghost king unless you
are attacked. By taking one, you guarantee that if you are attacked in the
first twenty turns, you will lose the game. It is not just elephants that will
tear your armies up. A SC pretender backed up by a decent army and high level
priests will also make short work of Ulm's smiths and troops.

I just finished a three way MA game with Ulm against Caelum and Man. I was
extremely lucky as I found the Mirror Wall Palace, one of the enchantress forests,
and the Daoine Sidhe hill (never seen it before), and because the map placement
stuck Man between Caelum and me. Still, there was a moment in the middle game,
when my Pretender was everything that stood between Caelum's shock backed
mammoths/thugs and defeat. Yes, my sorceresses could deal with small numbers
of mammoths, and my Daoine Sidhe made fine raiders once I got enough druids to
lead/bless/berserk them. But Ulm still has a huge mid game period in which it
has nothing to throw at non-sacred thugs - Banes and Wraiths in this case.

By the way, my pretender was the air/earth titan, with 4A1W4E3D, and
Order/Production/Misfortune/Drain scales. A small map pretender, by all means,
and probably worse than Xietor's Father of Winter. Still, Ulm needs something
in MP, if the nation wants to hold its head high, as opposed to sending messages
like 'Please, please, let me live, I will forge anything you want until the
end of the game' I have gotten messages like this.

-------

By the way, I did not get a good feel of the usefulness of the new additions,
except for the holy smiths. Man went down too quickly, and my guardians did
not get a chance to kill wardens. The Iron Blizzards killed one thug, but it
was freakish good luck - he managed to get within spitting range, and ran
out of action points - he must have eaten 30 darts... that would have
probably taken out a Tartarian, let alone a wraith lord with no shield.
I did not go for Iron Angels, and as for the lightened armour, indies died to
Ulm just fine before.

But the holy smiths are Heaven sent. One can furnish a castle with lab/temple,
costs half as much to maintain, easily gets to 4E +6 reinvigoration... I love'em.
I hate hearing that they will be getting old age. Ulm is really short on design
points, and thus my Ulm will never get enough growth. Why should they be old,
anyway? Usually it is the young rebels that adopt new trends. And why the hell
are the normal smiths flirting with old age out of the box, anyway? If you're
going to age the holy smiths, make the standard ones younger.

[CUnknown]

Tuidjy -- I agree about making the regular Master Smiths younger. Let them not die of old age, it's a little silly.

Twan admitted that the rainbow strategy was weak against rushes or on small maps. On that kind of map, Ulm really does need the Prince of Darkness build or something like it.

To say that you are guarenteed to be attacked in the first 20 turns if you take a rainbow is just not true.. there's never a guarentee about anything. I agree that it makes it more likely that you will be attacked, how much more so is impossible to say.

Yet, even if you are attacked, you're not defenseless. I know you disagree, but arbelests are actually effective in dealing with people's SC gods. With the CB mod you can have your smiths cast Blindness also in the early game. I think you are seriously underestimating Ulm's power in the early game, especially with the new changes to Guardians. And the +1 morale! That is key.

Although even before, it was not hopeless. With Production-3 and the Ulm production bonus, you have a serious edge on troop production. Black Knights are one of the best non-sacred cavalry out there, and Black Lord thugs are very effective if given a magic weapon. Ulm also has a edge on the mercenary front, given the huge supply of cash they can save up in the early turns.

Elephants can ruin your day, though, no doubt.

Twan - I have a build very much like yours, except for a couple points. I prefer the Great Enchantress, because I think the +1 astral pearl per turn is far better than the research bonus. Also, I don't think that Ulm needs a 5 dominion, either. But, that is being picky. Another nitpick, I would drop Growth and also drop Heat -- Heat is -5% money, Growth is only +2%. I suppose the pop growth would pay that off eventually, but it doesn't seem worth it, imo. Also, dang... how can you get away with not taking production-3 with Ulm (and also not taking an SC god)? I am baffled.. doesn't that slow your early expansion?

Also, I try to go straight for Construction-6, if possible (for lanterns), and then on to Construction-8 if I'm not being attacked. You are in it for the long-haul with this build, and hoping not to be attacked, might as well go the whole 9 yards if you are allowed to do so.

So, the ideal is that you will build a Ring of Wizardry around turn 25 or so with your pearls you have saved up, then move on to artifacts (Hammer of the Forge Lord!), before you've even researched any other school. Pay people off to make friends, share the wealth.

Tuidjy, I know what you are thinking, that this would never work against good opponents, and maybe against the absolute best opponents in some sort of World Series of Dominions it wouldn't work. But in typical games against typical opponents in non-newbie games it usually works fine in my experience.

You seem very concerned about getting rushed early game, but generally isn't it true that you are either double-teamed or are the one double-teaming your opponent? People die when they are double-teamed and are successful when they double-team someone else. So, being worried about how Ulm would fare in a 1v1 rush is a little beside the point. I think it is best to worry about how to get on the right side of that double-team. And Ulm is well equipped with the forge bonus as a diplomatic tool to be able to do that.

Edit: I wanted to add more thing, Xietor's Father of Winter looks like a great SC god. But, I think this same god would be better suited for another faction. Not taking production scales with Ulm is just.. I don't know.. I mean, was it a random game and you were forced to pick Ulm, when you really wanted someone else?

Xietor, you say that Ulm needs an awake SC to deal with elephants and that's true. But the sort of god you threw out there just seems like the kind of god another faction would take. I think it's an attempt to shore up Ulm's weaknesses rather than a build to maximize Ulm's strengths, which I think is a mistake.

I think if you get elephant rushed as Ulm and you have no allies to back you up you just die. I am content with that and would just start another game where I'd hope to do better. Whereas your build, I think, would get you to the midgame where you'd lose just about every time. But that is just my take on it.