MA Ulm using Blood Magic

[Renojustin]

People think MA Ulm is vulnerable to a rush but they have a lot of things going for them for use against one. Great troops, great PD and uh... well, great troops. Troops that become of less and less value as the game goes on. So while unsuited to rushing on their own, they are fairly well equipped to handle an incoming one.

The only thing you'd really have to put special effort against, even specialize against, is tramplers. If they do that, you have to go with massed crossbowmen, research Earth Bind and immobility spells, probably take an awake SC pretender from the start as many will say is necessary with MA Ulm.

Love your bloodstone factory, AOE. Great strategy post.

[Endoperez]

The Thaumaturgy spell Bonds of Fire is also good against tramplers, especially Elephants. It's tests against morale, not strength, so even if it's not AoE it will last much longer.

[Baalz]

FYI here's a looooong discussion about Ulm beating back rushes (which is why I didn't want to get into it again).

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Number=586724

[AreaOfEffect]

Indeed, thank you Baalz. The 'rushing against Ulm' topic is more appropriately discussed their. Here I would rather focus on Ulm's best uses of blood magic. Also, thank you Renojustin. Your the first person so far to compliment me on these forums. I value that.

[Renojustin]

It's a way of playing MA Ulm that I've never heard or considered. Having just learned the uses of bloodstones myself, it was pretty nice to see a strategy for them. Sacred mages, cheap, and E2 can be a real powerful combination with bloodstones. I see Pangaea can make very good use of this as well.

What are some of the more powerful Earth spells that cost gems that you can access with E4? (Smith + Earth Boots + Summon Earthpower) Because that's going to be your bread and butter with this strategy. Think of some specific combinations and let me know what you come up with? I know about Rain of Stones, which can be devastating...

[AreaOfEffect]

Petrify - E5 - 0 gems One of my favorite spells. It's an AoE 1 death effect that paralyzes those that make the save. I can't stress how devastating this spell is. The only way around it is to be one of the few creatures that are immune by virtue of being stone already. This spell doesn't need gems.

Army of Gold - E4 - 3 gems This is a nice spell for your army in general. However, I generally don't script it unless I'm facing off with someone using a lot of fire magic, like Abysia.

Army of Lead - E5 - 3 gems A much better spell for Ulm then army of gold. It's an earth spell that grants MR and more protection. A good spell to script.

Earthquake - E4 - 3 gems Here is a good spell to cast and retreat with in my opinion. It's a defense check to avoid the AP damage so your regular troops will be at a disadvantage.

Tempering the Will - E3 - 0 gems I know this isn't a 4+ Earth spell but it's worth noting that a smith with boots + stone + earth gem can cast this at the start of battle and get an additional point of penetration before you even cast Summon Earthpower. Stack on a Spell Focus and the spell really becomes worth it as a first round spell.

[Belac]

To follow up on this with another angle...

I've designed an Ulmish rainbow pretender which has 26 points left over. My choices are to take a negative scale and use the 66 points for something or to take Blood2. Would this be worth it just for random searches and a possible side strategy? OTOH, since 25 of those points come from the cheaper cost of the Great Sage in the CBM, and now blood stones are apparently unique items, does that sufficiently weaken the strategy?

EDIT: Another pretty unrelated question, but it's about Ulm so I will ask it here: Ulmish troops are cheap. Is it a viable strategy to go Turmoil/Luck, or just Turmoil and use the points for other things?

[Trumanator]

No bloodstones pretty significantly weakens the advantages of blood for Ulm. As for T/L, you're going to want to spam castles and mages like crazy, so probably not.

[rdonj]

Every player here will tell you to always take order, unless maybe you're playing with pangaea. There are times when productivity can really shine though, especially if you can afford to take it on top of order. I would argue that MA ulm is one nation where it makes at least a moderate amount of sense to take productivity, as they have the amazing sacred-killing guardians, which are cap only and take quite a few resources. Productivity is also very useful for kicking off your starting expansion if you don't have a good bless strategy or early recruitable thugs.

People will tell you that resources become useless when you have a certain number of forts and to an extent that is true, because once you are hiring 4+ mages a turn you probably will not have lots of spare money. But early in the game, the resources and the GOLD that you get by not taking sloth can really help sometimes. And if you're planning to mass a cap-only recruitable... well, more castles are really not going to help. You should still almost always take order first though.

For the record, I hate playing under turmoil. If you're not very lucky with gold events you will be much poorer than you would be with order. However, if you can find the points, I have found order-0 luck-3 to be tolerable to play under.

[vfb]

Who? Me? No I will not tell you to take order! Every player here except me, maybe.