Ulm, Ulm and more Ulm !!!!

[Hawkmoon]

Ok...I must begin this by stating I am a complete newbie to the whole Dom1/Dom 2 world but I love it all very much.

Now...Ulm is bad ***. I love them...their units are rock solid albeit a bit pricey and except for the lack of decent spell power, I am very happy with them. I'm still getting my feet wet and am playing on easy so don't flame me too hard but these are a few of the things I've been doing that haev enabled success...please tell me how these are great strats or insanely crappy ones when I go against a good friend this friday on Aran.
First, I take a sage Pretender, give him 1 Fire, 2's across the board, except for 3 or 4 Astral, 1 Earth, and 3 or 4 in Nature and Wind. I then build 3 or 4 black plate axemen and have him research...now...this lets me have a small hard force that search territory very effectively. Every turn I'm pumping out a master smith until I have 8 and a few priests in my capital. All of the gems I am now getting will be used to empower a stay at home smith into a Magic Item producing factory. I then outfit BlackLords and other baddies with the best that I can...which is typically very good. As I'm going through and gaining territory, I raise the defences as much as possible...to at least 31 in most cases, I've gone as high as 92 in one game. How do I fund this? With the excess of Gems that I am producing. I grow much slower than my computer rivals but rarely lose territory and they always get a helluva bloody nose waltzing around my lands. The only guys who consistently put the smack down on me ar the damm squid heads. I hate them and am planning a nationwide fishfry in their honor one day soon!
Anyway, I know I can do better but Ulm is rock solid thus far...I mean I fought Ermor with some thing like 3 Priests, My Pretender, 4 Master Smiths, a Black Lord, 16 Black Knights and 30 Black Plate Axemen, he had his Wight Lord and 12 other commander, 32 regular units and 662 Undead. At the end of the battle-(I lost by the way)-I lost my Black Lord and roughly half my knights and foot troops, he lost none of his commanders, 16 of the 32 regular units and 447 Undead...those are damm fine numbers. You guys should have seen the ridiculousness of 3 or 4 Blade Winds every turn...it was a thin black line holding back this monstrous horde...truly the stuff of legends. That battle sold me on Ulm...they might need a little tweaking here and there and I would love Iron Faith to actually be worth something but for now...I plan on riding them out...tell me yuo don't trembl when the comp or a buddy shows up on your doorstep with a solid block of 30 Black Plate Infantry with two gGroups of 20 Black Knights on each Flank...there will be death that day!!! I look forward to the responses.

[apoger]

Everything I am about to state is opinion only. Everyone plays differently.


>and except for the lack of decent spell power

That's the main problem with Ulm.


>First, I take a sage Pretender

I'm not a fan of mage pretenders.

As a new Ulm player try a Great Mother.
Start her with at least 3 in earth. At game start have her behind the main troops and have her cast Legions of Steel. It starts pre-researched. This will help early expansion a lot. Later have the Smiths make the GM a set of magic equipment. She gets pretty fierce when equiped well.

For serious abuse try her with air-3 earth-3+. Give her a cloak of shadows, pendent of luck, charcoal shield, main gauch of parrying, boots of the messenger, horror helmet, and amulet of resilience. On entering combat have her cast Invulnerability, Mist Form, and Elemental Fortitude. She can still be killed, but it isn't easy.


>I raise the defences as much as possible...to at least 31 in most cases, I've gone as high as 92 in one game.

Ulm has very good province defense (arguably the best), but don't blow all your expansion gold on it or human players will outpace you handily.


>You guys should have seen the ridiculousness of 3 or 4 Blade Winds every turn

Research conjuration-3 for Summon Earth Power. Then all your Smiths can cast Blade Wind. (and legions of steel, strength of giants, and magma eruption)


For a simple and effective earth summons try the Clockwork Horrors (construction-5).

Also try adding in a bunch of archers from an indy province. They can barely scratch your armored troops, but can really help versus light troops... such as Ermonian undead.

[ November 20, 2003, 16:26: Message edited by: apoger ]

[Truper]

For a simple and effective earth summons try the Clockwork Horrors (construction-5).

I think the description of these guys is hilarious! Excuse me, I need to go find some Hoburgs...

[Hawkmoon]

Ugg...Earth Mother? I know most of this game takes place in our brains...heh heh heh...my imagination can outshine the latest graphics cards...but jeez...just something not in character about Ulm being led by a fat green chick...what about a cyclpos instead...that one eye thing bothers me though....how easy is it to get blinded ?

Clockwork? I love those guys...the description is funny too...I was just spanked by R'Lyeh?-(sp?) again but nearthe end i started using masses of clockwork and they tore through them pretty good....

Earth Power is cool...I tried doing the specific spell thing but it didn't cast what I wanted...is there something I did wrong? My spells all showed up in the parantheses and everything.

As for spell power...it is slow and arduous but empowerment seems to be working good for me so far. The crazy T'ienChi monkeys and the squid faces are still troublesome to me. T'ien Chi kept whacking me with fatige inducing spells...is there a counter for that ?

My buddy plays Abyssia...I ave absolutely destroyed the comp Abyssia time and time again. He's a bit smart than that though...Any item combos that I give heroes or Black Lords that will let them stand a chance against his Demon Lords? As a rule I go hard for Construction 6 and Evo 6..then split the rest of my points between the rest...

Thank you for the detailed response by the way...these Boards are by far the best I've been on.

[Nerfix]

I kinda afree with you on that...
I haven't realy used Cyclops, so i can't tell how easily they lose their eyes.

Maybe the mage found a better spell to cast?

Kill the mages who cast those spells.

In a nutshell:No
A long answer:Forbidden Ligth could help, but the Horror will eat you before you see the Demon Lords. Just summon big critters like Iron Dragons.

[ November 20, 2003, 18:22: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Taqwus]

Demon Lords are pretty buff, and make decent battle mages, but they can't wear armor and are just as vulnerable to Curse (Increases affliction chance, no MR check, requires Astral/Nature) / Vision's Foe (Takes out an eye, no MR check; requires Death/Air) / Bow of Botulf (Feeblemind, no MR check; requires death magic) as anybody else. Curse is a nice counter for supers in that it greatly increases the chance of getting an affliction when wounded, and it doesn't matter that much how powerful you are if you're blind and feebleminded.
They'll still be KO'd by Magebane, but that's an artifact...

[PvK]

I quite enjoy playing Ulm, too. My most successful games of Doms I and Doms II vs. the AI are using Ulm. Though, it fits my play style, and I have the most experience with it. However it's pretty clear that magic isn't their strong suit, and magic can get megapowerful in the late game. Convince your opponent to use slow research speed setting for the game, and you'll be in a much better position.

Some specific ideas:

* I only recruited two Master Smiths in my Doms I game, because they could make plenty of equipment at the rate with which I hired new commanders to use it (and the rate at which I got new earth gems for them to use). I did empower one of them and got him some Earth Boots, though. I also found a great library so I had sages for the other magic disciplines. Having a mage pretender with plenty of magic can go a long way to make up for lack of mages, for some purposes anyway. I chose a dragon, myself.

* On the other hand, it sounds like Earth Power plus blade winds can turn a bunch of Iron Smiths into a blade hurricane, so that might be worthwhile. It might be a way to deal with some of those squids and anti-mages, though it sounds expensive to me. I'd probably use mercenaries, summons, and cannon-fodder light infantry like tribals against them, sparing my Ulmish troops, since their strengths wouldn't help much against them.

* My Doms II Ulm game is with Iron Faith, and they seem about as good as regular Ulm. You mainly want to use the Black Templars to take advantage of it, I think. Start the pretender with magic that gives some nice bless bonuses, and then have blessed Templars as an evil flanking/mop up force in cooperation with your Ulmish infantry and some cannon fodder, and you have a very nice early-game army. Templars end up being much cheaper than Black Knights because they are holy units so they cost half to maintain - same deal for the Black Priests, and the Black Priests give you random magic skills too, so you can get some diversity unavailable in the main Ulm theme.

* Guardians are very butch. Lord Guardian commanders have the best basic skills of the Ulmish infantry commanders.

* Try to use more mercenaries and cannon fodder against things that can overcome your armor, such as Jotuns, squids, poison gas, miasma, etc.

* Get Dwarven hammers and use them for practically all forging except when you really need more items immediately.

* Forge of the Ancients can get you masses of cheap and powerful items. If you cast it, be sure to invest in items which increase magic power when held, before someone dispells it.

PvK

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Hawkmoon:
I raise the defences as much as possible...to at least 31 in most cases, I've gone as high as 92 in one game.

Damn, how rich you are! 31 defenses costs 496 gold, and 92 costs... 4278 gold!!! Do you realize you could have bought a few castles and zounds of troops for the same price?

[apoger]

>what about a cyclpos instead...that one eye thing bothers me though....how easy is it to get blinded ?


Too easy. I never use the Cyclops.

I was put off by the Great Mothers appearance as well. However I got over it since she kicks so much butt.

If you want something that looks cool and is still effective (and Human themed), try the Titan. Have him take 6-9 air magic. In combat have him cast Mist Form and Mirror Image. Combined with magic items this wil make him pretty tough. Once you do some evocation he can abuse Orb Lightning. Later on, he can slam armies with Cloud Trapeze/Storms/Wrathful Skies.

[Joonie73]

I was attracted to them in the beginning but I don't find them very good now in the end game. They are too limited in the end game, as are the Niefel theme Jotunheim.