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[Gateway103]

Originally posted by VALENT:
i don't understand, i'm french:Make what you dont have AND the mercs dont have. If you hire bows, make a mage. If you hire a mage, make scout and bows.(????)

Defence: always get 1. 7 can help against spells later which might attack with wolves or birds. what is it 1.7? mercs?
i have seen the jotun thread, thinks very much.
if you can help me about this little problem for a great chief like gandalf.....i was happy .
all the provinces i win by battle, i have to protect by defences? or by mercenaries?but they cost gold, and only for 3 months.wher does i put this mercenaries? on my castle province?
thinks to respond please.
phil

He means,

"Spend your money to build troops and spend money to hire mercenaries, so that you will have more troops & armies to use."

"If you already have bowmans, spend the money on making mages. Then when you have enough mages, spend the money to make scouts and bowman."

(Of course, this does not apply to bowmans and mages only. In general, it means you want to build both commanders and troops. So if you lack commanders, build them, if you lack troops, build them. You cannot fight without troops, but they cannot fight effectively without commanders, you need both.)

"Always set up at least 1 Province Defense. In later games, increase it to 7 to fight off certain spells."

Hope this helps.

-Gateway103

[ April 03, 2004, 07:21: Message edited by: Gateway103 ]

[Murph]

Early in the game, I don't find province defence to be that important. But when I first started playing Dom2, I was trying to garrison provinces, each with a little defensive army. This DOES NOT WORK.

I tend to defend my borders in 2 ways, first, I try to have castles within one province of my borders. This is not always possible, but is to be tried for. Then, keep a decent reaction force at your border castle. If enemy armies come up to your border, you can try to anticipate and intercept them.

Buy a bit of province defence in your border provinces to buff up your rapid response force and prevent pesky Call of the Winds or Wolves or Whatevers from taking your provinces, but don't pay big money unless it's a very important province or a chokepoint.

The other way to defend your provinces is to go kill enemy armies. If your enemies have no troops, they cannot conquer your provinces.

People who play Ermor or Carrion Woods have a different technique, wherein they kill pretty much everyone in the provinces they control. At that point, you *CAN* conquer their areas, if you have enough food with you, but a fat lot of good it will do you.

My recommendation to you, as I recall from playing Ulm as a newbie (well, more of a newbie) is, build armies, go after enemy castles (Ulm knocks down castles like nobody else) and focus on killing their armies. Province control is important, but not essential. And experiment with priests and spreading Dominion, that is actually more useful, IMO.

[Gandalf Parker]

I do not protect all my provinces. Only important ones.

Some provinces you can make useful troops. So I often have a small army nearby if someone surprises my and takes a province.

[VALENT]

thinks murph.
a little question more , can you give some informations about what i can do after the tutorial ULM? which strategy apply?
"Buy a bit of province defence in your border provinces to buff up your rapid response force and prevent pesky Call of the Winds or Wolves or Whatevers " what do you mean? province defence with elements in my castle or in my province?
thinks to somebody can explain and respond me.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by VALENT:
thinks murph.
a little question more , can you give some informations about what i can do after the tutorial ULM? which strategy apply?
"Buy a bit of province defence in your border provinces to buff up your rapid response force and prevent pesky Call of the Winds or Wolves or Whatevers " what do you mean? province defence with elements in my castle or in my province?
thinks to somebody can explain and respond me.

The first 20 points of Province Defense for Ulm are Arbalest: very deadly, with a very low rate of fire and not as helpless as other archers in melee. Going over 20 PD is NOT recommended; you should stop way before that (21 gets you a second PD commander, though). The PD starts hunting for sneaky enemies at 11, IIRC.

So, if you have a decent amount of PD (11 costs 66 gold), you may want to supplement them with some local independent troops: a few archers, or a few HI, something like that.

The two main early "conquest" spells are Call of the Wild (Wolves) and Call of the Winds (Hawks). Call of the Winds is more or less a joke, IMHO, as the hawks rout very, very easily, but the wolves sometimes do some damage (plus, if they do take a province, they can sneak afterward, so you may have trouble catching them). In MP, you may want to have enough PD to beat the "armies" generated by these spells (though I'm not sure how much Ulm PD this would be). (In SP, the AI doesn't try very hard to play with your weakly defended provinces)

[PDF]

PhilD, only the first 10 points of Ulm PD are Arbalest (not 20). The 10 next points are Ulm Infantry : so 20 pts of Ulm PD makes a very nice and effective force.
With 15 points you have a small screen of 5 nvy inf, but with 10 you have only missile troops and a unarmored priest, so that's relatively fragile ..

[Psitticine]

One thing about Ulm is that they don't have anything but Earth magic "built-in", so to speak. Because of that, just about any magic you want to put on your Pretender will be useful. Some, such as Nature, might be more useful than others, but you can feel a bit freer to play with just whatever looks like fun. If you go with Earth on your Pretender, get it at 4+ so it'll make a difference compared to your Master Smiths. Otherwise, just grab a fun-looking combo and dive in. The subtlties can come later, especially since Ulm runs more on muscle than magic.

A good high-Admin castle is a good idea though, as are tipping the scales for Order and Productivity in a positive manner. Ulm needs a lot of money, resources, and supply to be 100% effective.

[PhilD]

Originally posted by PDF:
PhilD, only the first 10 points of Ulm PD are Arbalest (not 20). The 10 next points are Ulm Infantry : so 20 pts of Ulm PD makes a very nice and effective force.

That's not what the manual (p9) says: it lists "Crossbowmen" as the unit from 1 to 19, and "Heavy Infantry" 20+

And in a current game, I have 11 Ulm PD everywhere, and when I get attacked, I'm almost positive that only the Mechanical Militiamen rush to the front.

Edit: I have the game running right now. 11 Crossbowmen it is, plus a Priest and 11 Mechanical Men, one of them a commander (all provided by my Mechanical Militia, of course). That's with 11 PD.

[ April 03, 2004, 21:31: Message edited by: PhilD ]

[Psitticine]

Ulm Crossbowmen use Arbalests, which are really just big cranked-up crossbows.

I just finished a sort of experimental SP game where I played Ulm. I saw my PD tested many times, and Ulmish PD definitely packs a whollop. Offhand, I'm not sure there are any better, save for those of Jotunheim.

Anyway, getting a Crossbow per point up to 20 and then an Infantryman per point after that matches what I was seeing. Lots of bolts flying across the screen and a few of those little Ulmish blue-clad guys chasing after them towards the enemy.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Also, iirc, you get your second comm at 20, not 21. You'll notice Ulm gets its Commander (or the Priest, but I could swear it's the Commander) at exactly 20 PD.

And I think Jotunheim is an absolute waste after 20 PD. 1/2 a Hurler? LAME.



The first 19 kick, tho

Wyatt