"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.

[Scott Hebert]

Having proposed a question, and hearing the arguments on both sides, I have done what any sane person would do in this case; I took both options.

And thus begins the saga of....

Irma, Queen that Hungers, Sovereign of Sin
Water 3, Earth 3, Death 3, Blood 4
Order 1, Death 1, Misfortune 1, Magic 3
Dominion 5
Castle: Fortress

14 players (all but Ermor/Atlantis/R'lyeh) on the Inland map.
Starting number of provinces: 1
Indep Strength: 5
Special Site Freq: 50
Richness: Normal
Random Event: Rare
Score Graph: Disabled

"And so it begins..."

The keep had fallen, as Irma knew it would. The hunger wrought by the Malediction filled her, as it did all the nobles left in the kingdom. Well, in her case, 'noble' would be overstepping matters a bit. Her darkest secret was that she was the heir to the legacy of the Master Smiths, who had been put to the sword (or the stake) by the Inquisitors of the Black Temple; heir to the knowledge of the Forge that the Inquisitors had stolen; heir to the true strength of Ulm.

For her part, her rise in power was based upon the blood of the Inquisitors. Not that it was pure enough for magical ends. Indeed not. No, she fed upon them, as they had fed upon the Smiths. And now, she was coming to bring the blessing of the Malediction upon the world.

Okay, so I start in Province 19. Doesn't mean a thing to me, but it might to those of you who have played the Inland map a lot. Looking around, I have the plains of Cun Aral, the plains of Fenatice, the mountainous Waywoods, the Cacevic Highlands, and the plains of Dotian surrounding me. Not bad as a beginning location. Hopefully I will be able to blood hunt in one of the plains adjacent to the capital while reaping the rewards of the mountains to the south.

On to the commanders. Karl, the Commander of Ulm, is going to become Irma's prophet, spreading the Malediction to all. Nan Bagor, our humble Wolfherd, is going to check more closely on the inhabitants of the Cun Aral plains. Finally, Irma is going to research Alteration magic.

As for initial expenditures, Rexor's Barbarians are up for hire, so I bid 155 gold for their services. As for more... reliable minions, I pay for a Fortuneteller (90), and 12 Rangers of Ulm (144).

Status Report:

Treasury: 11
Income: 182
Upkeep: 16
Gems: 1S3D1N (+1S+3D+1N)

Bayushi Tasogare

[SelfishGene]

I will be following this thread with interest as i find Black Forest Ulm to be a painfully weak and insipid theme.

From what ive gathered from other threads, most like Black Forest because of Vampire Counts and their ability to rout independents. Well, that must be all that Ulm has.

Having only the generic priest available for duty means you cannot cast any morale support without your prophet. Having no sacred units means you can't ever build for bless effects. Virtually every unit has a mere 10 morale, which is downright terrible and makes Ulm the equal in morale weakness with the worst civs. Having only 1 Blood, 160 gold, non-sacred mages means you HAVE to use scouts, meaning you have to blood hunt the whole country and spend dozens of turns building scouts.

Personally, imo, i don't see the point. Its a theme built around a specific Pretender.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
Having only the generic priest available for duty means you cannot cast any morale support without your prophet.

Fortune tellers can forge horns of valor which will solve all of your morale problems.

Having only 1 Blood, 160 gold, non-sacred mages means you HAVE to use scouts, meaning you have to blood hunt the whole country and spend dozens of turns building scouts.

Scouts are more efficient for blood hunting than almost any other blood hunters, so this isn't a real weakness.

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
I will be following this thread with interest as i find Black Forest Ulm to be a painfully weak and insipid theme.

From what ive gathered from other threads, most like Black Forest because of Vampire Counts and their ability to rout independents. Well, that must be all that Ulm has.

You could not be more wrong here. BF is possibly one of the most powerfull themes there if you know how to use their strengths. And it's actually even easier to use it for beginners then default Ulm. One of their best strengths are rangers. You can build masses of them just like man can build longbows, but rangers use armor piercing crossbows which are better at taking HI and HC which helps incredibly at early expansion. Heck, in MP you have a chance to take out 2 players out before real magic starts to kick in. You don't know how powerfull they are until you play against it in MP and you suddenly face large masses of rangers (who have high accuracy by the way) that start to effectively erase you troops backed up by a hard to penetrate wall of Ulm HI.
The really scary part is that BF can recruit those rangers really, really fast so you will probably face them much sooner then you can build effective defense.

BF also allows you to take Misfortune 3 and get away with it. Just build dozens of Fortunetellers and keep them in capitol. Chances for bad events are capitol based IIRC, and it will suppress most of bad events. Of course, that will mean that you don't get national heroes either, but you do get lots of nice design points.

You don't need to rush VC to play this theme effectively. And it DOES allow you to get Ice Devils later on, which normal Ulm wouldn't be able to, at least not easily.

Having only the generic priest available for duty means you cannot cast any morale support without your prophet. Having no sacred units means you can't ever build for bless effects. Virtually every unit has a mere 10 morale, which is downright terrible and makes Ulm the equal in morale weakness with the worst civs.

All this is true for normal Ulm as well, so this is not really weakness of BF but Ulm in general. As Graeme Dice said, there are workarounds to tackle these problems, but in the beginning your prophet is going to have to carry the burden of sustaining morale of your troops.

Having only 1 Blood, 160 gold, non-sacred mages means you HAVE to use scouts, meaning you have to blood hunt the whole country and spend dozens of turns building scouts.

That is why it's important to have a pretender with Blood magic to speed up the things (like VQ).