EA Ulm - Flying Conans of Doom

[Dedas]

One thing I think you missed to cover is the extremely low magic resistance on EA Ulm troops. Yes, it is 8. One small solution to that problem could be to take an astral bless for your steel warriors so at least you have one unit that can stand up in the magic heavy early age. Combine that with earth for nice effect.

Also, one shouldn't look down on the axe throwers as they will give immense pain to anything when they are massed. It doesn't matter that they can't hit as you got masses of them, and you could easily throw wind guide (balancing the -4 to precision) with your warrior smiths.

Another thing not to look down at is the broad sword/axe type warrior. Why? Because you have only length 1 weapons on all your other units (except iron and steel warrior). Short sword and axes will not have the upper hand against the very common short sword of early age, broad sword is length 2 however and will. All of them including iron (maul) and (great sword) steel warrior will have problem with the even more common spear. Only the shield maiden with her high defence and morale will have it easier when facing masses of spears, but with only a short sword, one attack and lower strength than the warriors she won't punch through heavy armour such as Abysias. In that case I would definitely go with the double wielding high strength and cheap axe throwing maniacs. Anything with no shield (no high parry) and medium to low defence (but maybe high protection) should get an axe to the head.

Another thing to take notice to is the very high HP (for humans) that EA Ulm has on their units. For maidens 12, for warriors 13. That don't totally makes up for few shields, short weapons and medium to low protection but it comes close. I say recruit in numbers. 10 gold for 13 HP is pretty good when you meet EA spear wielding (3 damage) 10 strength humans or short bow archers, it means you survive with only 8 body protection (good prot 15 helmet though).

[quantum_mechani]

I'm sorry to hear the normal male ulmish warriors are still not an attractive choice after round of boosts in the last CB version. I'm really not sure what more to do with them, they already hit at nearly full attack with both axes and I don't think I can thematically make them cheaper than the basic women archers.

Also, there is the additional difficulty that the sword + axe guys are by nature so much worse than those with just axes (the sword being longer makes it harder to hit, and does less damage, and they lack throwing axes- the +2 defense does not make up for this).

EDIT: Heh, interesting crosspost with Dedas.

[pyg]

Thanks! EA Ulm is the one nation from my SP adventures that I dearly love but do terribly with against the AIs. It might be helpful to point out that the Steel Warriors are map move 1 which with the cap only recruitment and relatively light weight, most advice I've read so far says their effective use is limited to early game. The big earth bless still sounds like a good idea though for the shamans. Also you mention using a lot of skellispam but you only have a small chance (~3%) at getting a D2 shaman. Am I missing something or are boosters part of the plan?

[Maraxus]

But I like axes!!!
That is Forrest Warriors in combination with archers (The better armor is useful on friendly fire), or the cheap 10 gold axe warriors, that are stealthy and fast like the maidens...

A quiz. What is that: "13 - 11 - 9 - ouch - arg - owww"?
Correct, it's a Niefel Giant's defence dropping before the ugly 19 damage attacks finally cut him somewhat more efficient then the 16 damage attacks by the Steel Maidens. And that is after they have thrown their Axes ... Which are not sooo good sadly. 12 range and 6 effective precission is very close to a 90° cone in front of them and the usual situations for them will likely mean that you can't affort an air2 guy for them (don't forget that only 1/32 of your warrior smiths have that and you will want to recruit some Shamans, too. And the 1/32 A2 guys are also needed for Auspecs and some forging).

But the point about Axe warriors is still, that they are so cheap and can inflict so much damage against big or defence-weak troops, they are the perfect calculated casualties. Abysia? Niefelheim? Agartha? These guys are the best choise.
...
And as far as I see it, they are also the best choise against tramplers, althought in this case, I'd say they are the best of many bad choises.
Do you have a better idea?

1 Arcos Chariot against what:
1.8 Steel Warriors
3.2 Steel Maidens
4.5 Axe Warriors
0.24 Shamans (minus whatever the equipment might be worth)

Okay, the best might be some shamans /antlered shamans casting Earth Meld plus whatever troop you choose - but still what might that be?

[Tifone]

@qm - btw, why did the basic woman archer go down to mapmovement1 if I can ask?

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Tifone

@qm - btw, why did the basic woman archer go down to mapmovement1 if I can ask?

Just an attempt to counteract some of her ridiculous uberness base game (for a thematic explanation, from the description they are supposed to be defending their home villages).

[Baalz]

Oh, actually QM it didn't occur to me to re-evaluate the ulmish males, I made my call based on looking at them before. Looking at them now I actually would say the 10 gold Ulmish male is probably a better value for general use than the 14 gold steel maiden. Their combat values are probably roughly comparable (swapping damage for a lower attack), and they're both stealthy with map move 2 but she's 40% more costly. I also concede that the axe throwers will have their use, particularly with strength of giants.

@Pyg - yes, you'll be forging lots of boosters for all your mages and supplementing with gems. Combat mages are a central theme here so make sure to invest in them.

[Maraxus]

Well, it really depends ... Ermor will go through the Axe warriors like a hot knife through butter.
There, a few Shield Maidens to suck the Javelins and a Steel Maiden for each Principe is the way to go, I think. (Okay, your Steel Warriors with Earth + half Nature Bless are even better but for your non-capitol castles it should be the maidens.)

[Tifone]

Would you mind providing some (very basic and indicative of course) research progression, to understand which early/mid/late objectives you have in mind for this strategy? 'Cuz I like to read about the tactics but I have some problems understanding in which order you'd achieve which boosters, evocs, buffs... (Of course I know some objectives can come before or later depending on what you're facing, so just a "line of thought" is needed )

[licker]

Is E9 really necessary though...

I mean clearly the cap only steel warriors with strat move 1 are going to become rather niche quickly, and while the boost to your shamen seems terrific, if you are going to be casting a buff do you really gain that much?

As opposed to what you gain by taking E6 or E8 perhaps? I've been toying with a similar kind of bless for Tir na n'og, who has more commanders who definitely benefit from the E9 bless, but even so, I've found it to be seemingly easier to get around it in other ways, and free up enough design points to either go with even better scales, or a sleeping (or in some cases awake) pretender.

I guess you can try feary trod to move things around, but it's still rather map dependent.