"Got Blood?" -- BF Ulm AAR (Newbie)

[Scott Hebert]

Hey, everyone. I just got my full Version of the game yesterday (YAY!). My monitor blew out an hour later (BOO!). And no, that Last comment is serious... I think I live in a Misfortune Dominion or something... anyway, that notwithstanding, I plan to start a BF Ulm game, and thought to maybe use it to show a Newbie's way of 'getting a handle' on Blood Magic. I'm not playing Mictlan primarily because I don't want to die if I mishandle it.

Before I start, however, I had one major question regarding Pretender design, and may run two concurrent games to assess the difference. The current idea is to go with the following:

Vampire Queen
(3 Water OR 3 Earth), 3 Death, 4 Blood
Order 3, Productivity 0, Death 1, Misfortune 1, Magic 3.
Dominion 5 (maybe 6, can't remember)...
Fort type: Fortress

Now, obviously, the big question is whether or not to take Water or Earth magic. The way I see it, they both have their advantages, which I will try to list below.

Water Pro: Able to cast Quickness (and Breath of Winter) for early expansion.
Earth Pro: Able to cast Stoneskin for early expansion.
Advantage: All things being equal, I think Quickness is more useful here, so Water.

Water Pro: Able to cast Sea King's Court.
Earth Pro: Able to cast Troll King's Court.
Advantage: AFAICT, Sea Trolls are about the same as normal Trolls, the spells cost the same in the relevant type of gem, the Sea Trolls can enter the water, and the Sea King generates Water gems. So the advantage here is again with Water. However, this is mitigated somewhat (see below).

Water Pro: Allows Forging of Clams.
Earth Pro: Allows Forging of Bloodstones.
Advantage: While I don't want to go into a large debate over whether Clams are 'broken', I think that, for this build, Bloodstones will be superior to Clams. Bloodstones beget more Bloodstones a lot easier than Clams beget more Clams, if you're using Blood Magic anyway. So advantage here is with Earth. (The mitigating factor that I mentioned above is that, with Blood Stone production, I can probably crank out more Troll King's Courts than Sea King's Courts.)

Now, to this point, it's all pretty even. When you consider other Construction possibilities coupled with BF Ulm natural strengths, however, I think that the balance shifts to Earth. Here's why.

With Earth 3, my VQ could Forge Earth Boots, Dwarven Hammers, and Blood Stones. With Earth Boots and a Blood Stone (BTW, do 2 Blood Stones stack?), she has the 5 Earth required to cast Forge of the Ancients. Once Forge of the Ancients is up, Soul Contracts can be made for 30 Blood Slaves each (assuming a Dwarven Hammer as well). BF Ulm also has a commander (the Blood Count) who flies and can command a large number of Devils.

With Water 3, OTOH, my VQ can naturally enter water, and can summon Ice Devils naturally. Now, having just gotten the full game, I don't really know what Ice Devils are capable of, but I hear a lot of people speak highly of them. I don't know if they're worth passing up Forged Soul Contracts, however.

I would like to see discussion on which path people here think is stronger, and/or which they would like to see written up in an AAR. Also, if you would like to see concurrent AARs, I am willing to do that as well.

Anyway, thanks for reading.

Bayushi Tasogare

[Tuna-Fish]

My completely biased opinion: drop one death (can cheaply be gotten by an item) and one magic and take e3 w2. Ironskin Quickness Breath of Winter earth might VQ's rock as sc's... just give her one shield so she'll survive until the fatique removal of life drain kicks in, and she'll be fine. That way she will have the best of both worlds...

[condors]

i 2nd the option for having 3 earth 2 water

You don't even need to have 3 Earth, but 2 earth will work if you need to.

You forgot the most basic reason to have Water for a Blood Nation: Blood.

Earth + Blood = Demon Knights, Father Illearth (The first is not generally used by your Pretender, but for the sake of argument, Father Illearth is Nice but he's only 1 Summon)

Water + Blood = Frost Fiends, Ice Devil (Again, the first isn't that important, the second gives you 7 SC's)

At best your mages are going to be able to summon Fallen Angels (with items). So you have to look to your pretender as being able to fill in the gaps of your national units/mages. I'd take at least 3 Death so you can make Skull Staff/Skullface if you need and of course summoning Vampire Counts early in the game (Might drop 1 Blood as you can forge your way up to whatever you need there).

Soul Contracts vs ID's, unless I was planning on a very long game for alot of return investment I tend to stay far away from Soul Contracts. That is mostly useful for base Ulm for Blood (because it's easy to empower then equip a few smiths to make what you need to make).

[ April 02, 2004, 16:34: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Tuna-Fish]

Skull staff can be made with 2 death, right? after that, you can make a skullface.

Yes, but you can't summon a VC until you have 3D. I usually tend to summon a VC before I hit Construction 4 (so that's my preference) I also never seem to have enough Death Gems initially playing with BF because of the use of searching spells (3 Death a pop).

But if you don't plan on using VC's you don't have to worry about 3D.