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

[licker]

To each their own.

Playing Ulm that way is not my cup of tea. I see no reason to bother with slow infantry who will only be useful in defense! The whole goal is to not have to defend, as then your castle is useless, you cannot recruit, you cannot blood hunt, ...

I agree though that if you are going to play it that way you need more castles since you will need to constantly be rebuilding your infantry at the front. The problem is that once the front moves or disappears that infantry is now nearly useless for several turns while you reposition it.

Though the issue isn't whether or not to use the infantry, the issue is how much infantry do you need, and do you need to take O3 to accomplish this goal. You also don't need O3 to afford several castles, and anyway, you reach a point where your new castles are not ones you actually have to pay to build right...

My personal experience says you don't need O3, but that isn't to say that there is not more than one way to skin a cat.

[Dedas]

I understand you.

You ask how much infantry you need. I say a lot but not as much as you think assigned to a defensive role. Thanks to castle defence bonus of Ghoul Guardians and Halberdiers you effectively halve (and more) that number. But it will cost you some upkeep, most of which is covered by the fortress administration bonus on income of course, but that is thanks to order.

Another question is do you need defence in your castles? I would say yes, and that is because you've built a lot of them. Else you'll be giving your intelligent opponent a safe way into your kingdom.

You think that you will mostly be needing defence in your frontier fortresses but in a game like with stealth and teleportation I would rather be safe than sorry. 20 Halberdiers (that will count as 40 with strength 11) in each fortress is not a huge cost and it will buy much needed time for you troops to reach them. Or why not just tie your enemy up while you attack their land? In the meantime you can harass the besieging enemy with nasty blood magic, Vampires or other summons.

But to answer your last question. Is order 3 needed? Well, no. But it will speed everything up for LA Ulm. That is because this dog does not do one trick only, you need a bit of everything to beat a strong opponent. Fortresses, troops, combat mages, blood magic economy, patrollers the list goes on. If you take turmoil and luck you might or might not afford what you need, that makes it hard to plan ahead. LA Ulm is all about planning ahead like almost every slow moving nation. You could try to ignore this and try to play it more extremely by focusing on one of the faster aspects like rangers but that will make you very vulnerable if the enemy has good intel (like one should).
You want to reach the point where castles cost nothing and summons rule the earth, but to do that and be best at it you need a big and stable ground to stand on. Some nations get this by speedy scream attack troops and by a nimble defence that allows them to have more room between fewer fortresses. Turmoil/Luck goes will with them as when they have gold they can ship their new troops fast to the front. Ulm however... well they need time to get to that point, and any setback they will feel double, so to make that time shorter and safer they need a lot of steady gold.

[chrispedersen]

Ulmish heavy infantry moves 1.

Units sitting at home waiting for someone to attack - only help you when someone actually attacks. You lack readily available mages to transport your heavy infantry.

On top of that, ulms heavy troops generally have poor magic resistance, and are slow on the battlefield as well - ripe targets for ironbanes, acid mists, or master enslaves.

Which would you rather have.. 250 ulmish heavy infantry .. or 100vampires. Flying, move 3, immortal, stealthy, thrall summoning, Highly MR, vampires.

Until I meet Marignon in a dark ally.. I'll generally choose the vampires.

Side benefit: turmoil/luck = great chance for national heroes.

Growth scales. Blood hunt your capitol. Prophetize your first vampire count. Reanimate your unrested dead.

[Dedas]

My point is that you can have both. Having just one will make you too unpredictable. There are extremely good counters to undead you know, but with a mixed force your opponent need to choose.

As for Halberdiers defending your castles, they are not supposed to fight, only stop or slow down sieges.

[chrispedersen]

I got that they're not supposed to fight. And while they're *not* fighting they still require upkeep.

And with that in mind.. I"m announcing the All Ulm contest. We've all had opinions - now lets test them on the field of battle! May the best vampire - um man win.

Look for Ulmish Wars under multiplayer...

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Which would you rather have.. 250 ulmish heavy infantry .. or 100vampires. Flying, move 3, immortal, stealthy, thrall summoning, Highly MR, vampires.

When I find out how to get 3300 (or 4400 in vanilla!) Blood Slaves for the cost of even 250 Zweihanders, I will become a god at this game, so certainly that is what I would prefer.

My question is (and I'm hoping it is "no") do Thralls cost upkeep? I didn't think they do. If they do not, then the more and faster your Count count (ha!) rises, the more you can feel free to have some of them bounce around your territory, depositing squads of Thralls to at least help slow down any sieges.

[KissBlade]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

When I find out how to get 3300 (or 4400 in vanilla!) Blood Slaves for the cost of even 250 Zweihanders, I will become a god at this game, so certainly that is what I would prefer.

I was trying to figure out how getting vampires prevents you from accessing infantry too but I see I'm not the only one confused.

Also vampires suck ***, I assume he meant vampire counts.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by KissBlade

I was trying to figure out how getting vampires prevents you from accessing infantry too but I see I'm not the only one confused.

Also vampires suck ***, I assume he meant vampire counts.

I couldn't agree less that vampires suck. Sure, their prot sucks. First, ulm has steps to redress that, should it really want to...

But more importantly.. they're immortal, and fly. And undead.
That last point is sometimes a disadvantage but it can also be used to your advantage.

Consider: Wailing winds, blood rain, darkness, nether darts, rigor mortis - all just off the top of my head are going to have reduced or *no* effect against your vampires.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

When I find out how to get 3300 (or 4400 in vanilla!) Blood Slaves for the cost of even 250 Zweihanders, I will become a god at this game, so certainly that is what I would prefer.

Well Jim, now thats an interesting proposition.
You can't buy vampires with gold. Now, 250 Zweihanders is 10,800resources. So how many turns do you think is reasonable to amass that many zweihanders - especially presuming you may be money limited - and want to buy some other units ....

And if I can show you how to amass that many vampires oh say in 40 turns - would you kow tow and admit *I'm* a dominions god

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Well Jim, now thats an interesting proposition.
You can't buy vampires with gold. Now, 250 Zweihanders is 10,800resources. So how many turns do you think is reasonable to amass that many zweihanders - especially presuming you may be money limited - and want to buy some other units ....

And if I can show you how to amass that many vampires oh say in 40 turns - would you kow tow and admit *I'm* a dominions god

40 turns? Wouldn't that be an average of 110 slaves/turn? That's a good income, but I'm not sure about "godly".

10,800 you say? I know in CBM they are 36res, which would be 9000. Not sure on vanilla. But I'll tell you what, I can do THAT faster than 40 turns, that's for sure.