MA Ulm Pretender

[Baalz]

My goodness this is rather silly, you're being a bit abrasive and I don't really feel like playing "in theory" vs constantly changing scenarios. My comment about being second was in response to the assertion that Ulm always seems to die early, I felt that was relevant. Arrow fend? I thought we were talking about early rushes. If we're talking about 6th level spells lets see how mammoths fare against 15 magma eruption spammers with crusher linebackers. I ran a simple scenario to show that it was quite possible for Ulm to win vs a large group of elephants supported by astrologers in year one without a SC pretender and I didn't use particularly fancy tactics on either side. You're entitled to go on believing whatever the heck you want.

[Shovah32]

I'm with Baalz here. We could probably run through specific tactics and counter tactics all day without finding something unbeatable when both sides have equal resources(research time ect). I also think Ulm can survive through the early game - even against elephants.

[Endoperez]

I like Ulm. I'd like to see Ulm as a viable choice. But Ulm can't rush itself, except perhaps with a pretender. Because of that, rushing Ulm is safe. Ulm can react, but it can't counter-rush you.

I have never rushed with elephants, or been rushed against with them. From Tuidjy's post, I think he knows very well how to do it, and what one should have available before considering a rush. He's stating something, and Baalz/Shovah and sometimes me - we are reacting, giving counter-examples to the SPESIFIC example Tuidjy gave. We can always come up with something, given a while, but we'd have had to prepare for it from turn 1 if this were about a real game. We wouldn't know which NATION attacks us, much less about the counters. But rushing? It's easy, just do what you normally do to expand? He'd know what's the best Ulm can throw, it's mages, it's spells, how it's PD is organized and how it moves, what units are available and how they're usually used.

Unless Ulm has something going in for it that would force Tuidjy to change his tactic, we and Ulm is the reactor, the passive side, and the rusher is the aggressor, and the aggressor is in better situation. Tuidjy's plan is, basically "build elephants, research Thaumaturgy, rush". Ulm needs Thaumaturgy for Bonds of Fire to counter an early rush, Evocation for battle whammies and Conjuration or Construction for Summon Earth Power or Earth Boots before it's able to use most of them. Tuidjy can concentrate on Thaumaturgy and get the high Thaumaturgy spells much faster than Ulm can get anything better than Magma Bolts.
It seems to me that unless Ulm gets vastly superior numbers of elite units or of mages, it's trying to negate it's opponents' advantages instead of building on its own strengths. Again, that's passive, that's reacting, that's bad.

If Ulm can actually throw up castles faster than other nations and out-produce others in troops and mages and research; or if there's some as-of-yet undiscovered tactic that's going to make Ulm an early rusher, Ulm's going to be the reactor, the passive one, the one that is rushed, the one that can be killed off early.

I think Tuidjy is right, even though I don't like it. I doubt he likes it either - everyone seems to have a soft spot for Ulm, who are supposed to be awesome but aren't. Ulm is easy to kill in a rush. Good player can beat you, but it's harder than for some other nations.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Good post Endoperez. I agree with that.

I too would like to see ulm a better nation because it is is a cool idea.

If ulm could build castles faster, it may be enough to balance it. And by faster I mean being able to build a forest fortess in 1 turn, and a castle in 2 turns.
As is, it is hard for ulm can not build enough troops, (or smiths) in the early game to be competitive.

Baalz. You if anyone will be able to instruct people to play ulm as effectivly as possible. But the problem is the other nation can use tactics that are just as strong. Ulm could win yes. But that comes down to player skil mattering more then the nation. If the opponent is equally skilled, ulm is at a disadvantage.

[Zeldor]

Tuidjy:

But would it be true for like 60-70% other nations that either have no bless, no elephants etc? In MA for example TC, Man, C'tis, etc.

[Shovah32]

Man can throw lightning bolts early on, which do alot of damage.
Tien Chi has access to alot of artillery spells too.
Man and Tien Chi both have nice archers which are very handy.

Ctis has frighten/terror, along with skelespam to keep them busy.

All of those nations also have more magic than Ulm, meaning a very versatile(magically) pretender isn't as necessary.

[AreaOfEffect]

I've been following this post for some time. Given all that has been said, I would have to say that Endoperez has so far made the wisest observation.

Personally I don't think Ulm needs an awakened SC god. Then again, 'need' is on a case-by-case basis.

I think the first thing the original poster wanted to see was if the new changes to Ulm revised most player's pretender gods. In my case it didn't. My Middle Age Ulm strategy is still an awakened blood fountain with order, production, a little growth, drain, and a little earth magic.

The second thing the original poster wanted to know has evolved into a full blown discussion of rush and anti-rush strategies. The final point of that discussion being that Ulm lacks an aggressive strategy of it's own that can be used to rush with.

Do I agree with this? Not really. However, it is hard to point out any 'big gun', like Ulm's calvary, that isn't extremely limited in production.

[Baalz]

See, the thing is I think this discussion is generally discounting the risk of rushing. Rushing has obvious advantages, which have been pointed out here. It also has *disadvantages* which are not taken into account. An elephant rush, as presented here, is not simply a bonus on top of what you were doing anyway to expand. If you're really pressing an early rush you're doing it at the expense of other expansion - pushing into another player's territory instead of taking easy indies. If you're supporting it with a pretender push you're sacrificing the other things a pretender could be doing for you. The relevant point here is that if the rush is successfully repulsed the rusher is now at a significant disadvantage. If you attack with a dragon pretender on turn 4 and I kill him, you're fairly crippled (long term). If you attack with 25 elephants and I manage to beat them with minimal losses you've just sacrificed 5+ expansion parties and all the relevant opportunity costs. The defender has several built in advantages. PD is an obvious one. Better research/income is generally another as the rusher uses mage turns and design points for rushing rather than growth. Having a chance to react is another one: if elephants attack my border territories I almost certainly have a turn or two to recruit/research specific counters before they threaten my capital. The rusher has advantages, the defender has different ones.

I think it's obvious that in a contest between equally skilled opponents you'll lose more than half the time if your opponent successfully applies a national strength (a strong early rush) against one of your national weaknesses (a slower start). I don't think this means that any nation with a slower start is horribly crippled, it's just one of the weaknesses that you have to consider in your overall plan. Some nations are fairly screwed if they are targeted by an early rush. Some nations have weak research and no astral/death magic and are screwed if they don't take an early lead. Some nations have very specific counters like anti undead/demon spells so they're very screwed if they happen to have a certain type of opponent at a certain stage of the game. Every nation has strengths and weaknesses and some of them are easier to use than others.

Not being able to rush/counter-rush does not mean a nation is crippled. In my experience there's a fairly good mix between the initial fast expander being able to translate that into a win and the tortoises being able to pass the gasping sprinters as they brightly burn out. Being the defender has it's own advantages, and if you're able to capitalize on them you can show the rusher what he's given up to be able to rush.

[Endoperez]

Baalz said:
See, the thing is I think this discussion is generally discounting the risk of rushing. Rushing has obvious advantages, which have been pointed out here. It also has *disadvantages* which are not taken into account. An elephant rush, as presented here, is not simply a bonus on top of what you were doing anyway to expand. If you're really pressing an early rush you're doing it at the expense of other expansion - pushing into another player's territory instead of taking easy indies. If you're supporting it with a pretender push you're sacrificing the other things a pretender could be doing for you. The relevant point here is that if the rush is successfully repulsed the rusher is now at a significant disadvantage. If you attack with a dragon pretender on turn 4 and I kill him, you're fairly crippled (long term). If you attack with 25 elephants and I manage to beat them with minimal losses you've just sacrificed 5+ expansion parties and all the relevant opportunity costs. The defender has several built in advantages. PD is an obvious one. Better research/income is generally another as the rusher uses mage turns and design points for rushing rather than growth. Having a chance to react is another one: if elephants attack my border territories I almost certainly have a turn or two to recruit/research specific counters before they threaten my capital. The rusher has advantages, the defender has different ones.

Turn or two of time to react isn't enough, and furhtermore, AFAIK elephant rush is very easy to convert from expansion to rush. It will take few turns to move about half of your armies (the ones expanding into the other direction) towards the rushe�, and unless your mages can teleport/cloud trapeze/fly you lose some research while they move. Unfortunately, Arcoscephale's fast-moving armies and teleporting mages aren't really slowed down.

If Cave Drakes were viable, they MIGHT work. They are big and have lots of hp, all Ulm's researchers can cast the spell, Ulm has the gems to summon them and Ulm wants Summon Earth Power any way - but spending gems on those is still a waste. 8 gems for 1? You'd probably need about as many as your enemy has elephants, and even 20 elephants would require you to spend 160 gems... Even if you did survive the rush, spending gems against gold will probably cost you the game in the long run.

EDIT: even equal numbers of cave drakes are just massacred by the elephants.

[Baalz]

Endoperez said:
Turn or two of time to react isn't enough, and furhtermore, AFAIK elephant rush is very easy to convert from expansion to rush. It will take few turns to move about half of your armies (the ones expanding into the other direction) towards the rushe�, and unless your mages can teleport/cloud trapeze/fly you lose some research while they move. Unfortunately, Arcoscephale's fast-moving armies and teleporting mages aren't really slowed down.

If Cave Drakes were viable, they MIGHT work. They are big and have lots of hp, all Ulm's researchers can cast the spell, Ulm has the gems to summon them and Ulm wants Summon Earth Power any way - but spending gems on those is still a waste. 8 gems for 1? You'd probably need about as many as your enemy has elephants, and even 20 elephants would require you to spend 160 gems... Even if you did survive the rush, spending gems against gold will probably cost you the game in the long run.

EDIT: even equal numbers of cave drakes are just massacred by the elephants.

Well, I disagree, a few turns to react is significant. If I've got 2 castles up and production-3 scales and my opponent takes 2 turns to gather his forces and 2 more to reach the point he's threatening my capital it's not unreasonable to think I've got 100+ troops recruited specifically to counter him and been able to research a level or two in one path. And again we're getting into this too perfect storm. You can't have an awake expansion pretender, a bunch of gold dumped into elephants, mages marching with the army and thaum-3 researched (teleport keeps being brought up) if you're talking about attacking me on turn 6.

Gah, I seem to have gotten sucked back into playing "in theory". I will comment though that cave drakes can be reasonably effective if you realize that they're not there to kill the elephants, they're there to trip them up and stall the charge to give smiths and arbalests time to do the killing. You don't need anywhere near 1:1 for this, more like 1:5. Elephants generally don't do so well if you can get them to hold still on the front line for just a couple turns which is where you want to aim for a counter.