LA Utgard guide

[Zeldor]

Yeah, I was very surprised when Ermor did cast it in EHII. Kristoffer seems to be also surprised it works that way.

[Huzurdaddi]

Awesome a strategy post on my favorite nation!

re Thugs: If you have sufficient castles (always a problem) you can consider going with Herses. At 60 gold they are about as expensive as other nations sacreds but far harder to kill (except for the MR, always a problem). Give them the least expensive weapon in the game, the Flesh Eater, and you have a decent unit for the rock bottom cost of 60 gold and 5 blood, and one mage turn to forge the item.

PS: So how much does 5 blood + 1 mage cost in gold terms?

Cost of 5 Blood:
~70 gold for the province (makes ~14 blood / turn )
~35 gold for maintainance for the 2 skratti
7.5 gold for 1 blood.

~16 gold maintanance for the 1 skratti to forge the item
so the item costs: about 53 gold.

[Twan]

Yes forgot to mention the flesh eater, just a little inferior to frost band in attack, but only costing blood.

[Twan]

Finished the thug part.

[Twan]

Huzurdaddi said:
Cost of 5 Blood:
~70 gold for the province (makes ~14 blood / turn )
~35 gold for maintainance for the 2 skratti
7.5 gold for 1 blood.

~16 gold maintanance for the 1 skratti to forge the item
so the item costs: about 53 gold.

It's even better : skrattis staying in werewolf (or wolf) form cost zero upkeep.

So all werewolves thugs, and skrattis forging low level items they can make in werewolf form (up to blood 2 / water 2 for some of them) are maintainance free.

(it's an advantage the jotuns share with other nations using multi-shapes units, like Machaka whose sacred are free once the rider is destroyed - it may be WAD or a mistake to have forgoten gold cost on some units-)

Trying to use this can be the base of an interesting low-upkeep strategy with magic 3 (as level 1/1 werewolves with 6 rp are good enough researchers) : a seithkna cost 90g + 6g of upkeep for 7 rp, so after 27 turns of research cost more than a skratti staying in werewolf shape (who produce the same number of rp in 32 turns, not an huge difference).

[Sombre]

I personally feel most mounts like the giant hunter spiders should be tmpshapes that vanish after battle. Of course the sacred would have to be cheaper to reflect this.

Also skrattis in shifted form should probably at least cost /some/ upkeep, if not all.

[Twan]

I would prefer to have werewolves remaining upkeep free, but with the new "devour population" effect -it's added for new nations in next patch- or very high glutony (50+ to start to be a problem), more thematic for them.

(also Machaka would be a very weak nation without the ability to keep the hunter spiders, I'd rather see the rider replaced -meaning upkeep but better MR in the beginning of each fight- than the spider disappearing if it survives ; even with a lower gold cost, losing ressources intensive + capitol only spider knights if the rider suffer 10 dmg would remove Machaka from the list of the good bless nations)

[sansanjuan]

Twan,
Nice guide. You may want to add that vine shields (and tangle vines) are ineffective against flying creatures. Learned the hard way recently.
-SSJ

[Viajero]

Hi there,

New to Dominions and also to LA Utgard. This thread looks great and Im learning lots here. The thread seems old so I wonder if any of the former posters are still around. I am looking for proposed building orders for the first, say, 5 to 10 turns so to optimize expansion at the beginning, asuming a N9W9 bless srtagey.

In this case I am not sure if going straight for thugs (construction research up to 6 whic takes a long time) is better than going for woodmen expansion.

Every time I start a game with LA Utgard I never seem to strike the most appropriate balance between expansion and thug construction.

Any suggestions on building order welcome?

Thanks,

[Dragar]

I'm playing Utgard in a couple of games atm with an E9N8 build, similar build orders should apply

Troop wise go for Woodsmen each turn. They are cheap on resources so it's easy to get numbers out, and they are very effective at early expansion. Their being cap only, their main limitation, is irrelevant in the early turns.

My typical start:

Turn 1:
• Recruit skratti
• Recruit as many woodsmen as possible
• Scout goes scouting
• Research to evoc
• Commander patrols, tax to 130%

Turn 2
• Make skratti prophet
• Recruit seithkona
• Recruit more woodsmen

Turn 3
• Skratti and commander take your troops out expanding
• Recruit seithkona

Keep going like this, recruiting seithkona each turn until you can afford norna, then switch to them. Somewhere in the first bunch of turns recruit a skratti to site search water manually to get you primed.

When you have enough woodsmen for another expansion party recruit a Jotun Jarl to lead them, rinse and repeat and your expansion will be pretty quick. Any excess resources go for a jotun hirdmen, spearman or maybe javelinists.

When you hit evoc 2, set a seithkona casting arcane probing and switch to thaumaturgy. When you hit Thaum 2 set an N2 norna to cast haruspex, then switch to conjuration up to 3 for dark knowledge and then voice of apsu. Then probably alteration to 3 for quickness and body ethereal, and then head down construction, hopefully with a nicely growing gem income to fund your equipping of thugs.

Try and get a fortress and lab up as early as you can, seithkona are awesome researchers.

You have the power for an early rush if you find a suitable opponent nearby, the woodsmen are very tough. Using the water bless try and keep them in big groups against decent early armies, they should have the power to obliterate almost anything, but if you get dragged into a prolonged conflict with smaller groups of woodsmen the fatigue will get you.