MA Ulm Pretender

[Baalz]

Well yeah, my test was simplistic, but a decent Ulm player is likewise not going to have just a block of halberds set to be slaughtered. I'd counter that by turn 12 your suggested Mictlan force would be facing easily 80-100 halberds plus another 100+ black plate infantry from secondary castles. If you're bringing turkeys I have to insist that Ulm has several guys using gems to spam blade wind - which is not unreasonable for turn 12 with an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

Heck, I just ran some tests and even just nothing but black plate pikeneers with no support at all handily won on a gold for gold basis vs F/S jaguars (80 vs 30). Ulm's best counter to single target MR effects like mesmerize is often just to bring enough guys that it doesn't matter. 5 turkeys will hit less than 25 guys (some of them will pass the MR roll), that's not battle winning if you've got 200+ troops.

[sum1lost]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Well yeah, my test was simplistic, but a decent Ulm player is likewise not going to have just a block of halberds set to be slaughtered. I'd counter that by turn 12 your suggested Mictlan force would be facing easily 80-100 halberds plus another 100+ black plate infantry from secondary castles. If you're bringing turkeys I have to insist that Ulm has several guys using gems to spam blade wind - which is not unreasonable for turn 12 with an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

Heck, I just ran some tests and even just nothing but black plate pikeneers with no support at all handily won on a gold for gold basis vs F/S jaguars (80 vs 30). Ulm's best counter to single target MR effects like mesmerize is often just to bring enough guys that it doesn't matter. 5 turkeys will hit less than 25 guys (some of them will pass the MR roll), that's not battle winning if you've got 200+ troops.

For what it is worth, at turn 12 in my mictlan game, I had built my third fort as well- eagle warriors are incredibly cheap, and allow quick expansion and for construction. On a gold for gold basis, eagle warriors do very, very well, especially over several battles- flying means that they get away if they lose, and that enemies don't, meaning that over the course of several battles, they tend to come out on top.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Baalz

an awake rainbow pretender (who I think is by far the best way to play Ulm).

What scale/path combination do you go for? I've been trying to get Luck for all those gems, but it slows down my early game, especially the second fort - unless I get some gold events, of course. On the other hand, with Luck-generated gems, I don't feel so bad for empowering. I also seem to get lots of Water gems from events, useful for a single empowerment and lots of Staves of Corrosion and Rune Smashers afterwards.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by sum1lost

For what it is worth, at turn 12 in my mictlan game, I had built my third fort as well- eagle warriors are incredibly cheap, and allow quick expansion and for construction. On a gold for gold basis, eagle warriors do very, very well, especially over several battles- flying means that they get away if they lose, and that enemies don't, meaning that over the course of several battles, they tend to come out on top.

Well, incredibly cheap is a very relative term. 15 gold for an eagle warrior vs 10 gold for a black plate pikeneer. The eagle warriors also have several inherent costs - the fact you have to have a temple to recruit them, an expensive leader to divine bless them (eagle warriors don't do so well if you don't bless them all at once), and an expensive bless coupled with an expensive dominion score to recruit a significant number of them.

Don't get me wrong, eagle warriors can be great if you treat them right, but dirt cheap is Ulm's bread and butter. Black plate infantry is 10 gold. Smiths are 140 gold. No need to build temples unless you need to push your dominion. On a nation playing order/production.....*that* is dirt cheap.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

What scale/path combination do you go for? I've been trying to get Luck for all those gems, but it slows down my early game, especially the second fort - unless I get some gold events, of course. On the other hand, with Luck-generated gems, I don't feel so bad for empowering. I also seem to get lots of Water gems from events, useful for a single empowerment and lots of Staves of Corrosion and Rune Smashers afterwards.

Luck is nice, but what Ulm *needs* to keep it's engine running in the first year is a steady gold flow. Once you've got a couple extra castles up you're generally gonna be doing OK, but it's urgent to get those up to start pumping out your cheap yet resource hungry troops. Order, Production, Drain, and Misfortune (Ulm's PD is pretty good at repelling barbarians) along with a modest dominion score gives you plenty of points to have a nice awake rainbow pretender. Don't worry, once your critical research is done and the pretender starts site searching your gems will start to roll in...

[HoneyBadger]

By the way, what are the thoughts on using a Virtue with these guys? I'm currently using an asleep Virtue in a game, and he seems pretty good. Air 4, Death 5, Dom 10, 3 Prod, 1 Order, 2 Luck, 1 Growth, 2 Cold, and 3 Drain. So far so good, against the AI.

Not quite relevant to the conversation of Ulm vs Rushers, but I'm just getting used to actually being able to play again (sortof). Would a Virtue be a relevant choice for Ulm in MP?

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Luck is nice, but what Ulm *needs* to keep it's engine running in the first year is a steady gold flow. Once you've got a couple extra castles up you're generally gonna be doing OK, but it's urgent to get those up to start pumping out your cheap yet resource hungry troops. Order, Production, Drain, and Misfortune (Ulm's PD is pretty good at repelling barbarians) along with a modest dominion score gives you plenty of points to have a nice awake rainbow pretender. Don't worry, once your critical research is done and the pretender starts site searching your gems will start to roll in...

It is my opinion that ulm slaughters *any* blessed units on anywhere near an equal basis. And that includes ashdod, niefle, mictlan and lanka. Quite a nice balance.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, MA Ulm, once it gets rolling, seems quite powerful. All those individual units have good synergy with each other, and they can build up some serious experience. 3 stars on an arbelaster is more precision than you'd get with sacred Kailasan archers, and in a cheap, armour-piercing unit, with great armour.

Ofcourse, it takes a lot of time to get to 3 stars, but, used wisely, they have potential to last long enough to get there.

And, MA Ulm's units aren't hard to use. It's relatively straightforward to create a line of shield+morningstar infantry out front, calvalry to the side, arbelasters in back of the infantry. You can play around with the other units, adding in pike, flailers, battle-axers, etc. but the basics are almost built in.

Another cog in their engine is that you can instantly use their mage-smiths in combat. You'll want them researching, ofcourse, but when you're first establishing your empire, having 3-4 mage-smiths casting rain of stones or fire flies in the back does a lot against independents. And they're one of the few units Ulm has, that don't take a monstrous amount of resources to build.

That said, their sappers-armed with lighter crossbows-are actually a pretty good support unit. You can build them quickly, for sheer missle superiority, and use them later on in the game to break castles.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

You'll want them researching, ofcourse, but when you're first establishing your empire, having 3-4 mage-smiths casting rain of stones or fire flies in the back does a lot against independents. And they're one of the few units Ulm has, that don't take a monstrous amount of resources to build.

I hope you meant Stone Shards. If you didn't, could you PM me the details?

EDIT: I like using magic bows and Sceptres of Authority on my support commanders, very early if I get the chance. In fact, as I tend to research Construction 1 for Legions of Steel first, if I get a Fire gem event early I go for Constr 2 instead of Evocation. 5 fatigue Flame Bolts for 3 gems is hard to beat in the early game (from Sceptre of authority). Now if only Fire Bolas were an effective counter to elephants...

[HoneyBadger]

Stone shards is what I meant, rain of stones just sounds better (and I didn't have my manual handy)