Why am I not able to win the Orania Map ?

[Ironhawk]

JimKnopf said:
Now to my curent setup

....

Any stupid choices in your opinion ?

You've made some odd scale choices for a Pretender which was clearly designed to be focused on Dominion. In particular, you note that you cannot keep your troop production up with the AI, and yet you have neither Order nor Productivity. Keep in mind that in head-to-head combat, Arco troops are better than average. So even if you went for a purely military victory vs the AI, you should have decent chances. To me, this indicates that you may be recruiting the wrong troops or be deploying your armies with bad makeups?

My suggestion for you is to use a "canned" setup and playstyle for Arco. Then, after you win a full game with that setup, you will have plenty of experience to continue on with any other SP game (as Arco or other nation). But first a few points when playing the AI.

1) The AI percieves low PD provinces as "weak" and will attack them. Keep good PD in your border provinces (say 11-15pd).
2) The AI percieves your overall strength only by number of troops. Consult the stats constantly and do not let yourself fall behind. Build garbage troops (like slingers or militia) to boost your numbers and keep yourself in the 2nd or 3rd rank of troop numbers.
3) AI never declares peace but may turn its attention elsewhere (like to fighting a different AI). Watch your neighbors carefully and if it looks like an AI is letting up on you, then you may be safe to let up on them for a while.

As for the canned setup, try something like this:
Inidies: 6
Sites: 75
A Strong Combat Pretender, like a Wyrm or Red Dragon to help with initial expansion.
Order 3, Prod 3, Death 3, Misf 3, Magic 3
(Order 3 minimizes Misf 3. Death3 is safe base dom2)

Early Game:
Build hypaptists and elephants in a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio and group them in the same squad (high hypaptist morale keeps the elephants from routing). Fill out the rest of your ranks with hypaptists or (if you are low on resources) the javelin-wielding inf that arco gets. Spearhead formation with the elephant/hyp squad at the front. Focus on your research and buy Mystics non-stop to try and get Mystic with 3 magic in a single path.

Mid Game:
Same troop loadout as before but augmented with Mystics to employ the Arco battlemagic. Research level 3 conj (i believe?) to get the combat magic path booster spells and then as much Evocation as you can. The spells you want are: Blade Wind (incredible vs. the ai), Falling Fires, Falling Frost, Fireball, etc. Use Gifts from Heaven or Lightning spells only vs heavy armor troops. Cast quickness if you can. Forge booster items for your 3magic mystics to get them to 4 and 5 (do not risk these mystics in combat!!).

Late Game:
Use your boosted Mystics to summon the Elemental Royalty and forge up equipment for them to be SCs. Additionally you should now be able to cast the mega artillery spells like Murdering Winter and Flames from the Sky. These spells in particular will devastate the ai which relys on troop numbers and cannot adapt its strategy to avoid bombardment.

[Vicious Love]

What, no astrologers? Magical versatility may be Arcoscephale's greatest strength, but raw astral oomph really isn't that far behind. And can be remarkably synergistic with their elemental magic.

[Ironhawk]

Astrologers are great, but he's playing vs the AI so he needs AoE spells, not single target. I suppose I could have covered some astral buffs but I was trying to trim things down to the bare minimum for a new player.

[Arker]

I'm having similar troubles. I can win Brittania pretty reliable, in a 3 nation game, with any nation I pick. But Orania kicks my butt.

Currently playing it as Ulm. My pretender is also an oracle, with 3-5-5 earth astral nature and 10 dominion. I tend to play pretenders like this, simply because they're easier for me to get value from. With mobile pretenders, I agonise over whether it's worth the risk to use him in this battle, worth the lost research to move him over here, etc. With an oracle, I can't move him, so I don't need to worry about it. I max the dominion, because my (admittedly limited) experience with the game tells me dominion is very important. How many times have I lost my entire army and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when I gave the storm fort order? But I've found if I just keep him under siege and use preachers and temples with a very high dominion pretender, he'll evaporate. This particular pretender was built so that he'd be able to cast some important spells, acashic record, gift of health, the firbolg summoning spell, I forget the other one... I research acashic record first, then gift of health, then throw research into construction.

Ulm seems to have a significant advantage in the home-guard too... 10 points of defense is pretty meaningless with, say, Mictlan, but fairly powerful with Ulms troops.

I tend to use two different types of armies. One will be a mounted commander and several of Ulms ultra-heavy knights. Moving quickly, it's good for defense or offense, as well as squelching unrest. The other will be a foot commander, backed up by one or more master smiths, preachers, and engineers. I use sappers for my archery section (they aren't quite as good as Ulm Arbalesters or Longbowmen that I sometimes get to build when I conquer the right province, but they are fairly good and really rock for sieges as well.) Up front, three squads of troops, heavy infantry with shield and flail that can soak up plenty of missile attacks without a scratch, axemen on a flank I *try* to get in a position to flank the enemy after they are tied up on the shielded men (sometimes works) and light infantry with javelins (obviously from a conquered province, but fairly common) on the other flank and forward a bit, they're cheap to replace so I'd rather see them get hit than my axemen. Sometimes both types of armies combine, then the horsemen get stuck on a flank and told to hold/attack rear.

Generally I do quite well with battles, it seems. Lots won without a loss. But, so far, every game eventually ends with another nation bringing in an army so much bigger than anything I can field that it becomes hopeless... or else I lose my pretender, loaded with enchanted items and on top of the hall of fame, to a storm-castle command that doesn't work despite outnumbering the enemy by 10 to 1 with heavier troops, in which case I throw up my hands in disgust and quit.

I've tried with R'lyeh, Arcosephale, Mictlan, and Man so far, lost with all of them. I've conquered other maps with them fairly easily. So any tips you more experienced players might offer will be thankfully appreciated...

Oh yeah, fortresses, I've mostly used wizard towers and fortified cities in the past, this time I went with hill forts, for more defense. I generally try to place them as efficiently as possible, given that (if I'm understanding this correctly) perfect efficiency would mean every province without a fort borders one and only one province with a fort. I also weight provinces that have special troops I want to build (druids, for instance, as Ulm are a great boost, they can do everything my priests can do and a lot more.) Anyone else have insights into what fortresses to use and where to place them?

[Sandman]

Try a rainbow pretender as Ulm - a human wizard with low levels (no more than 2) of every magic path, and use them to search for sites, and later, forging rare items.

[Endoperez]

Dominions is important, but dominion 10 is probably a bit over the top. With an Oracle, you can afford it, though. If you choose to go with good dominion, you'd better invest on good scales as well. Ulm doesn't need as much money as the other nations, so I take Luck with them. The math-guys (and gal) will tell you it isn't feasible, but I like the random element. You should also max Production. Remember to take Drain 3 - your pretender is affected, but your Master Smiths can research just as well even with the drain.

Your armies sounded fairly good. However, I wouldn't use Sappers that much - they cost twice the amount of normal archers. They do have mapmove 2, which allows you to use them with your Black Knights, but I don't use them in my normal armies. I recruit indep shortbowmen for that. They can't harm your own units at all, so friendly fire is much less of an issue as long as any crossbowmen you might have aren't ordered to Fire Closest.

Breaking sieges can be hard. Did you send lone commanders in first, to see the defending force? Knowledge is power.
Why did you lose? Powerful magics? Ulm does have access to some quite powerful spells, use them. Conjuration 3 for Earth Power, and your Smiths are Earth 3. Constr 4 and Earth Boots, and they all are Earth 4. Blade Wind and Magma Eruption are the two that have the most delightfully devastating effects.

As for forts - choose something with high Admin value. That gives you more resources. The one named 'Castle' is pretty good, but 'Fortress' also works if you're short on points.

If you go with Sandman's suggestion of a rainbow pretender (which can also be a good choice, especially with Ulm), you won't get that high paths. Acashic Record takes Astral 3, Gift of Health Nature 5 IIRC.
If you research Evocation 3 (Magma Bolts), then Conjuration 3 (Earth Power), then Evocation 4 (Blade Wind), then Construction 4 (Earth Boots, Thistle Mace) and then either Constr. 6 (Moonvine Bracelet, Ring of Sorcery, Starshine Skullcap, Staves of Elemental Mastery, Treelord's Staff) or Enchantment up to Gift of Health - you will get Gift of Health much later, but magical support much earlier. Also, initial Nature of 3 will be enough to cast the Gift of Health - Thistle Mace boosts N3 -> N4, Moonvine Bracelet N4->N5, and if needed, Treelord's Staff N5 -> N6 (as it replaces Thistle Mace, but gives +2 N).
Nature 3, Astral 3 is good for the general boosters. You want access to at least one of the Staves of Elemental Mastery - Earth/Air will take E2A3, Fire/Water F2W2. And of course, you want to be able to cast Forge of the Ancients. It will allow your mages to craft many more items. E5 is not too tough a requirement. Earth Boots and one of the Staves of the Elemental Masteries should be enough, so initial Earth 3 is enough.
Air/Earth has pretty nice items, and Earth/Astral as well, but the first Air booster is at level 3. Fire 1/Death 1 will allow for Flaming Skulls and +1 Fire, but Forge of the Ancients will let all of your Smiths to make those.

So, S3N3E3A3, D2 and/or W2 if you can afford it.
Monolith starts with S and N, and Dominion 4, but it doesn't have the slots to use the booster items, so we can't use that. And the human pretenders all have too low starting dominion values to boost it up to 10, or 9 or 8. With Great Sage, dominion of 6 allows for good scales, or for boosting one path to four, or for getting two new paths at levels 2 and 1. If you go just for scales, Production 3 and Drain 3 leave you enough points to get two other positive scales. You could go Order 3/Misfortune 1 for lots and lots of money and very few events, which will be bad more often than not but too rare to really harm you. You could go for Fortune 3/Turmoil 1 if you like to gamble, and receiving lots of good events. If you have supply problems (probably not, as Ulm builds its armies slowly, and you will get Enormous Cauldrons of Broth at Constr. 2 and Endless Vineskins at Constr. 4).

[shovah]

with ulm ive had success with a full rainbow pretender: f3a3w3d3s3n3e5(forge of the ancients ect) and possibly but usually not b3. This beast searching your provinces is almost as good as a spell costing 25 astral, he can also forge practically every avaliable item and can cast a huge number of spells (and with boosters...). If you can afford it try it on a freak lord, load him with defence and reinvig items and send him into battle casting alot of defensive buffs(and breath of winter). You can even make black lords into uber thugs like this, if its un-modde give them wraith sword, jade armour, horror helm, amulet of resilence and luck (not all of those are needed but they help) and he will carve up armies like you wouldnt believe. Since his strength isnt that high it should also be ok using CB.

[Sandman]

Personally, I'd rather get better scales than have a rainbow mage with 3 in several fields. The search advantage is minimal, and it'll be quite a while before you see any benefit.

[Endoperez]

Sandman said:
Personally, I'd rather get better scales than have a rainbow mage with 3 in several fields. The search advantage is minimal, and it'll be quite a while before you see any benefit.

I'd agree if I hadn't just posted a 4-times-3 rainbow pretender.

2 is enough for most sites, but for the items, and the initial levels and equipment slots needed to get access to both Forge of the Ancients and Gift of Health, that's the best I can come up with. If you just want to find lots of sites and play with the gems, possibly with empowering as well, then 2 is enough in most paths, and 3 should only be taken for those you'd most want to have. Fire might be a good choice for Ulm, because their Master Smiths already get a pick and it will also let you forge a booster. Flaming Helmet is a poor battle booster, but better than F2 allows for Phoenix Power, and Fire 3 is already quite powerful.

[shovah]

I just lik the fact that 1 turn from my pretender basically saves 25 astral gems. Also my rainbow with only a few boosters can summon all elemental royalty and plenty of other nastys. I also like (in sp only) to kit out various black lords as thugs (rocks vrs ermor, give charcoal shield, amulet of reinvig, ring of regen, main gauche and if playing modded dragon scale armour)+ i like having all items avaliable (also i dont empower unless i really need to)