Ulm vs New Era

[PrinzMegaherz]

From the first looks, NE is quite superior to Ulm.

Lets do a quick comparison:
Battle:
Grove Guards are very strong against Ulm. Trampling makes ulmish steel worthless and allows the Grove Guard to kill multiple enemies in one battle turn, while Ulm's HI will have a hard time wounding a grove guard. Arbalestes do damage, but trampling often brings the grove guards in the middle of the enemy, so the arbalestes will hit friend and foe alike. Grove Guards are strong enough (str 17, damage 9 axe) to hurt the ulmish knights.

Magic:
Ulm is better in research due to their smiths immunity against drain scale. You can build 2 smiths for one pan. However, NE has higher paths available, and the pans are capable of producing the items needed to boost those (earth boots, thistle mace). Ulm has no means to boost its fire magic. In addition, nature magic seems to be more helpfull for a nation that uses huge amounts of troops than fire.

Forging:
While Smiths have a forge bonus, the range of things they can actually forge is quite small. In addition, Ulm lacks commanders worth equipping. On the other hand, NE has everything to make their Grove Guards excellent fighters: Ring of regeneration, Black Steel Armor, Midget Smasher, Boots of the messenger and the cauldron. Especially regeneration is usefull for those high hp grove guards.

Stealth:
NE has some stealthy troops, although they are inferior tho those of other stealth nations.

Holy:
Both nations suck.

Scales:
Order 3 Productivity 3 is recommendet for both nations. Ulm has some more points to spend because of the drain 3.

What did I miss? Maybe the more experienced players could point out a few things in Ulm's favour.

[ August 05, 2004, 23:16: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

[Vicious Love]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:

Grove Guards are very strong against Ulm. Trampling makes ulmish steel worthless

I thought armor still protected against trampling? If so, tramplers would be particularly effective against high defense units, but not low defense, high protection Ulmish infantry.

Ulm's HI will have a hard time wounding a grove guard.

Not THAT hard, with damage 9 mauls and battleaxes. Not to mention STR 12 elites with damage 10 halberds. Keep in mind that a group of tramplers that doesn't rout a trampled enemy regiment will almost invariably end up surrounded and ready for a humbling countersmackdown.
Beyond that, not even a grove guard can withstand an Ulmish cavalry charge, and cavalry usually end up striking first.

Arbalestes do damage,

And how!

but trampling often brings the grove guards in the middle of the enemy, so the arbalestes will hit friend and foe alike.

Well, yeah, but the grove guards are bigger and less expendable.

NE has higher paths available, and the pans are capable of producing the items needed to boost those (earth boots, thistle mace).

At full cost.

Ulm has no means to boost its fire magic.

Point taken. I imagine the easiest way is to have your pretender forge both a Fire Helmet and a Skull of Fire, outfit a smith with both, and have him forge more Fire Helmets. Or you could always skip the skulls and get Forge of the Ancients Online.
Neither option is all that efficient.

Ulm lacks commanders worth equipping.

Um. Knights? I mean, c'mon, knights. No shoes, or anything, but footwear nonwithstanding, knights!
I agree that Ulmish smiths can forge precious few items(And many aren't all that useful to Ulm), unless you actually bother to empower one in a new path. Then again, Ulm's innate forge bonus and easy access to Dwarven Hammers, the Forge of the Ancients, and the Hammer of the Forge Lord all ensure that empowerment eventually pays for itself.

Most of your points are definitely valid and, having played neither nation in multiplayer, I honestly can't say whether one is more powerful than the other, either in general or against each other.
Still, I do suspect you've sold Ulm short.

Update: Speaking of which, you've disregarded Ulm's sappers, their guardians' castle defense bonus, and their production bonus. Not a bad set set of perks.

[ August 05, 2004, 23:46: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]

[Boron]

well pan NE has starting income of 5N no earth .

against ulm pan NE might probably win but a problem with a grove guard :
7 encumberance so it fatigues out quick .

1 strat movement sucks too .

ulm will research faster than you . you are almost forced growth 3 prod 3 order 3 with pan NE .

ulm can still afford a nasty cyclops e.g. or something else while you have less points for your pretender .

a grove guard is size 3 .
a ulm knight too . so it can't trample .

your grove guard : att 10 def 8 , 17 str + 9 battle axe damage , 18 prot

ulm knight : 24 prot , att 12 def 9 strength 13 , 6 damage morning star +1 initial lance attack .

gold + resource costs are about equal .

normally you should beat an ulm knight but only short . if you want to besiege him though you have to take lots of fodder with you while he can just take some sappers . you may have a slight advantage over ulm but nothing big .

if you have to fight any races with blood :
devils and the like are size 3 so no trample and e.g. an arch devil with att 18 def 16 will win most likely even a one vs 2 grove guards .

i think pan NE is just not worth it you have only your grove guards but nothing else for a long time . if you make a strong sc pretender you sacrifice your other abilities .

research will be a pain . if you had still maenads as fodder it may perhaps be nice but as it is it is not good .
i would only try them at urgaia and the like .

[Boron]

PrinzMegaherz did you already think out a basic strat for pan NE ?
i would be interested in a complete pretender design with scales + magic paths etc.

i think Vicious Love has some good points too . the 18 protection protect him quite a bit but he has so low defense that most ulm infantries will hit him too . they have high strength + wpn damage too so they will quite damage him .

finally with E2F1 the ulm smiths have some good battle spells especially midgame magma eruption may be quite devastating .

finally you have no missile weapons so while you advance x-bows ( sappers ) , arlabests and some smiths doing battle magic may already cost you a heavy bloodtoll .


i think it is even with ulm a hard war and againt any other nations impossible .
i haven't tried them yet though so if you have a nice plan please share and i try to find weaknesses or say i am impressed and didn't think on that

[PrinzMegaherz]

Originaly posted by Vicious Love
Speaking of which, you've disregarded Ulm's sappers, their guardians' castle defense bonus, and their production bonus. Not a bad set set of perks.

Sappers are good if your enemy is castleling. In my comparison both nations use rather expensiv fortifications, so castleling is not an option. Same goes for castle defense bonus. If your expensiv castles are under siege, something is wrong.
But against other nations those points count of course.

Originally posted by Vicious Love
I thought armor still protected against trampling? If so, tramplers would be particularly effective against high defense units, but not low defense, high protection Ulmish infantry.

I'm not sure. I thought I read here in the forum that trampling does special damage, propably armor piercing

Originally posted by Boron
finally you have no missile weapons so while you advance x-bows ( sappers ) , arlabests and some smiths doing battle magic may already cost you a heavy bloodtoll .

Satyrs are cheap and make good chaff. Put one Size 3 thing in their group so the arbalestes which have the "fire large creature" command will attack them too. Place your other tramplers a little bit behind and you should survive the first volley with no losses to the main group. Maybe there are enough satyrs left to take the cavalery charge.

Originally posted by Boron PrinzMegaherz did you already think out a basic strat for pan NE ?

Hm, I use the earth mother with fortified city, dominion 6, Earth and Nature 4, Order 3 Productivity 3, Drain 1.
You don't need a blessing, and you can upgrade her with earth boots and treelord's staff to earth 5 nature 6 if you want her to do the magics, or give her amulet of reinvigoration + boots of the messenger and some decent armor and let her go.

Alternativly, you could keep neutral magic and have a dominion of 4. Pan has cheap temple so this might balance the weak dominion.

[ August 06, 2004, 01:52: Message edited by: PrinzMegaherz ]

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Boron:

ulm will research faster than you . you are almost forced growth 3 prod 3 order 3 with pan NE .

Why do you think NE Pan has to take growth? I've won a mutant game with NE; I have another NE game going now. In neither case did I see a need to take growth.

For supplies? You're _Pangaea_! You don't need growth for that! You have supply generating dryads and Pans, and easy ability to forge wineskins and such.

If you think you need O/P/G all at 3, no wonder you think you can't afford a good pretender.