God Design For EA Ulm

[dirtywick]

I'd have put pretender, but that's kind of like admitting defeat.

So, I was compiling some stuff for a beginners guide again for EA Ulm, but I'm having trouble with a good pretender.

I've tried 5 or 6 different ones. Here's what I used:

Father of Winters - Dormant
Dominion 6
T1 P3 C1 G1 L3 Dr3
A3 W5 S5

Too much production, too much drain. Air is a good choice, as is Water and Astral I think. Gives you access to quite a bit you wouldn't normally have. I geared him up at Const 2 with some items and he killed Bogus and his crew solo, which is a good yardstick for toughness...until he was in another dominion.

Master Lich - Dormant
Dominion 8
O2 P1 C1 Mi 2 M1 (I think, can't read my handwriting)
A3 S6 D4

Again, Air and Astral. Death isn't that necessary, but it's nice because it's hard to get a mage with D2 out the box and you can forge skull staves, because D2 is like 100 times better than D1 on a mage. Order was way overkill, too much gold.

But I didn't really use him for much besides researching and forging, so I think the high dominion was a waste and I could have put points elsewhere.

Prince of Death - Dormant
Dominion 6
T1 P2 C1 G1 L2 M1
S6 D4

The scales and dominion were about right here I think. I don't know about the path choices though. You get a lot of nice options I think and fill in some gaps, but I really lack access to anything air here. There's some nice forges in there for air I think, I've got a lot of gems I don't know what to do with as a result.


I had a few other scales/path combos for the lich and Old Man Winters, but I don't think they were as good.

Lady of Rivers or whatever looks good to me, as does the Enchantress. I think Ulm really needs a pretender with high Astral or Death, and I don't think a good bless is even feasible. Or am I way off base? What do you guys think?

[johnarryn]

A good bless for Ulm is neither particularly feasible nor a particularly good idea. Your sacreds are cap only and not that great - the maidens are better melee units and archers. So don't even worry about a bless.

Your initial instinct about wanting some astral is a good idea... if you don't take any one the pretender chassis, you'll need to hope for a lucky indy find. On the other hand, you have sufficient access to earth, nature, air, water and even fire. Death is also covered by some lucky randoms, and lets you forge skulls of fire.

One game I played as EA Ulm, that I ended up winning, involved an awake cyclops with earth of at least 4, as i recall. The reinvigoration is helpful with the mages and the Cyclops kickstarts your expansion. Along with your fairly good nationals, you should look to expand quickly while building forts to churn out all the mages you'll need to get good randoms. Then site search like crazy and hope for some good indie mages.

[JimMorrison]

Well especially if it's partly for beginners, Ulm has awful magic diversity, so first pick was a full rainbow-

Enchantress - Dormant
Dom 5
O2 P1 C2 L1 M1
F2 A2 W2 E4 S4 D3 N2

Next I checked the Father of Winters, he is a cool chassis:

With Dom 4, he can be awake, with W4/S4, and same scales as above. Making him dormant gives you Dom 5 and 3 scales, which could be G3 in a longer setup, or push to O3/P3 for even faster growth, and a powerful industrial base.

Then there's a dormant Forge Lord, also Dom 5, also same scales, with F4/E4/S4.


Hope that at least gives you some more ideas to play around with.

[dirtywick]

I take it Ulm isn't that popular eh?

Thanks. Earth is a good idea, that may have been what I was missing.

[sector24]

dirtywick said:
Order was way overkill, too much gold.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about too much gold.

I think Ulm needs a pretender with mid-level magic in one or two paths, or high level magic in 1 path. However, the bless isn't very important, so Earth/Astral is a pretty good choice, or just plain Astral. Maybe an awake Cyclops with E4A4+? I wish the Lord of War was better, seeing as he is an Ulm-specific pretender.

[dirtywick]

Thanks JimMorrison. The Enchantress looks good. Ether Gate is a very good spell for Ulm I think. You can forge a bunch of stuff for the commander that comes with it, and besides Bane Lords that might be the first strong commander you get.


haha maybe not sector24! Nah, I guess building forts and more mages would have worked. It seemed kind of unnecessary though.

Probably in MP it'd be different.

[Wrana]

I got beaten when I first tried EA Ulm in MP, so take me with a grain of salt. But as I thought out and tested some more after this, it can still be of some value.
Their sacreds are good enough, but too costly & capital only with move 1. So the only bless I would now seriously consider is Earth - for their mages! A pity Smiths aren't sacred...
An awakened SC isn't really necessary I think - their national troops are pretty good for early expansion and in the game I mentioned I succeeded in beating my closest neighbor before researching anything good. So good scales would be good indeed - which means that the only awakened SC I would consider is Dom 9 Wyrm with Earth 4 & good scales.
Another possibility is to try to increase their already formidable Forging with Forge Lord. Imprisoned I have found out to be too late, so I now think that Dormant with average dominion would work better.
Otherwise we could synergize with Forging by having either a gem-producing Pretender or a Great Sage. My testing have shown that Awakened Sage with Drain & otherwise good scale allows a good enough research together with access to other paths...

[dirtywick]

Keeping an Awakened Sage, or Enchantress maybe, with at least 2 Air, wouldn't be a bad idea. Once you get a smith with an air random, you can continually forge Quills. You'd want to get the gems early, though, so the Sage would help with that by looking manually until you get the site searching spells.

But I also think they have a problem getting SC/Thug commanders, so the pretender can fill that role. You'd be sacrificing that option. You'd have to get lucky or spend a lot of gems empowering to even get a Bane Lord.

Anyway, I agree an awakened pretender isn't really necessary unless the map is really small. Their starting army is kind of crappy, but you can build a good indie conquering force quickly.

[johnarryn]

The awake pretender isn't so much to deal with indies as to deal with the ubiquitous early age rush nations... EA Ulm needs to come out the gate fast and get established quickly to be viable, I feel. Manually site searching with your mages can also be very useful.

The national troops are good, though, so as others have suggested it is possible to take a sleeping or imprisoned pretender for the sake of magical diversity.