Help, I suck with Ulm!

[Sly Frog]

Okay, I suck with damn near anything, but I've done my share of reading the Boards, playing in some multiplayer, etc., and I just do not get Ulm. The current game, I have been generally left alone. I build up a nice force of blackplate, get my mages hooked up with Construction 6 and Evocation 4 for the cool magic items and the blade winds, and I'm ready to go, right? I search about 10 provinces that I own with my 3-3-3-3-3-3 (maybe there's one extra 3 there) rainbow alchemist. I turn up a decent gem income, but no special sites other than sages (i.e. no independent decent mages).

Wrong. I get attacked by a Tuauatha themed Man player. His mages just tear the **** out of my guys. Storm on the battle and wrathful skies, and I'm getting slaughtered. My blade wind flinging mages kill off pretty much all of his ordinary guys, but that doesn't say much. Meanwhile, my blackplate infantry, painfully built up over time, is simply blown away by his spells, and his ordinary sidhe troops are better overall than my costlier black plate knights and other units. I guess I don't get Ulm.

I wondering the following:

1. Does Ulm have a chance if it does not attempt to steamroll nearby human opponents very early on? The lack of magic and available opponent countermagic seems to bring horrible devastation to the supposedly tough blackplate infantry even at the early-midpoint of the game.

2. What the hell good is Ulm's supposedly wonderful forging skill when Ulm doesn't have any decent commanders to put the forged items on? Is researching Conjuration, to get some decent SCs, mandatory for Ulm? If so, isn't it a fair bit to ask, that Ulm get high Construction, Evocation, and Conjuration levels fairly early on to have a chance of hanging into mid-game? The best commander I can see is the black knight commander, and he is certainly no great shakes. Everything else seems to suck, particularly the generic infantry commanders who are, well, about the same as the underlying infantry.

[ July 02, 2004, 00:46: Message edited by: Sly Frog ]

[Norfleet]

Welcome to the club. I can't really make base Ulm work well for me, either.

Ulm does seem slightly dependent on steamrolling people early - the problem being, Black Plate Infantries are by no means the supreme groundpounders, having a number of ordinary nationals that mow them down easily without the aid of magic.

All in all, I find that Ulm is very much dependent on finding indy mages, and Ulm's wonderful forging skill falls a little short when you realize that your smiths can only forge the same things, having no randoms. IF Ulm is slightly less constricted, but loses the drain immunity and thus either must give up the drain points, or suffer.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Sly Frog:
I build up a nice force of blackplate, get my mages hooked up with Construction 6

[Snip]

His mages just tear the **** out of my guys. Storm on the battle and wrathful skies,

An extra level of construction would give you an efficient counter to this strategy.

[Sly Frog]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sly Frog:
I build up a nice force of blackplate, get my mages hooked up with Construction 6

[Snip]

His mages just tear the **** out of my guys. Storm on the battle and wrathful skies,

An extra level of construction would give you an efficient counter to this strategy.

---

Well, I'm researching that, but level 7 construction is a long way to research fairly early in the game just to avoid being mauled.

[NTJedi]

His Sidhe troops must have some awesome blessings... because ULM's black knights should be winning. Unless you only have two or three against 50 of his.

[ July 01, 2004, 23:30: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Sly Frog]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
His Sidhe troops must have some awesome blessings... because ULM's black knights should be winning. Unless you only have two or three against 50 of his.

It wasn't only 2 or 3 against 50, but he had a fair bit more Sidhe (turn is past now, and I can't go back and see it), probably on the order of 30 to 7 or 8 black knights.

That's not the point, however; if you are playing any respectable opponent against whom you can obtain an equal number of black knights as they can get sidhe, I'd like to know your secret.


I might add that this is an issue for me because I really like the idea of Ulm; in a game of magic, having a side that is steel and drain is pretty cool, but they should be able to hang tough with the magic Users, which they seem incapable of (I understand I'm a novice player, but I so far I haven't seen any other great advice). It seems as though what is supposed to be their main strength, the much vaunted black plate infantry and knights, isn't really that great. They don't hold out that much longer (if at all, when you factor in magic), as other nations troops, particularly such as hoplites, which have pretty decent armor themselves, at a lower cost.

[ July 02, 2004, 02:19: Message edited by: Sly Frog ]