MA Ulm Pretender, because I'm crazy

[Ferrosol]

If you want an awake thematic SC how about this.

Awake Virtue Dom 7
Air 4
Astral 6
Order 3
Production 3
Misfortune 1
Drain 3

A mighty archangel descended from the heavens to bring peace and prosperity to all of Ulm in a time of great need. (also makes a decent combat pretender and gives you some fun late game paths and can be fully geared to keep her relevant the whole game.)
That said I would rather have a rainbow pretender to enhance my magic diversity something like this

Sleeping Great Sage Dom6
Fire 4
Air 4
Water 2
Astral 5
Death 4
Nature 2

Order 3
Production 3
Misfortune 1
Drain 3

[Torin]

I find the master alchemist to be the most thematic for ulm. After all isnt it available only for them?
I too chosen them first when playing the game (dom1). Then my second choice was the lizardmen of ctis.

Returning to the dragon issue. Is imperative to give your dragon high dominion score. Say 9 or 10. So it gains Awe skill. Youll see when you battle opponents its the difference between loosing him or not.

Rest of the game and strategies are intuitive luckily this game is all that. With the sole exception of the eartquake spell, because flying units are not immune and the save is vs defence wich I find counter-intuitive,

[Nikelaos]

The master alchemist is also available to bogarus. I think thematically the forge lord is most thematic for ulm, after all they are all about forge bonuses and worshipping steel.

Though the forge lord is extremely counter intuitive because:
1) you already have forge bonuses
2) you already have fire/earth access
3) he's not going to be able to expand as well as a dragon or PoD early on

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by Nikelaos

The master alchemist is also available to bogarus. I think thematically the forge lord is most thematic for ulm, after all they are all about forge bonuses and worshipping steel.

Though the forge lord is extremely counter intuitive because:
1) you already have forge bonuses
2) you already have fire/earth access
3) he's not going to be able to expand as well as a dragon or PoD early on

take a forge lord as a semi rainbow, take him asleep for enough points. that way you get the best of both worlds. oh and with some items the forge lord can also be a solid SC if you absolutely need him to be, though he'd always be better off in the lab, forging mainly...

[Nikelaos]

true, though I'd rather just use a proper rainbow and hand him a hammer.

[TheDemon]

As Torin said the #1 thing you can do to make that Red Dragon more viable is give him dom strength 9 or 10 so he gets awe.

That said as others have said fire isn't a good path for Ulm nor is F7 a good ammount of fire. If you must stick with the Red Dragon, make him a proper SC build by going something like F4 domstrength 9 or 10 and drop the E magic (too costly). In battle make sure you script him fire or attack so he doesn't rack up fatigue casting. Green or Blue dragon would be better choices power-wise since they provide path diversity.

[Bonfire]

Tyr are you using cbm? It changes the pretender choices for Ulm drastically and most of the posters in this thread are probably assuming you're using it.

Also I think it's worth mentioning that Ulm has the earth income to forge Black Steel Plate on turn 1 or 2 which lets them use some pretenders that are normally too fragile to use as awake expanders like the Ghost King and Father of Winters.

[Tyr_Doshan]

CBM? Not sure.. what is that exactly?

[Fantomen]

CBM = Conceptual Balance Mod.

It's a very ambitious mod aimed to make more strategies viable, especially in the very competitive MP environment. And to balance the different nations a bit. Most MP games use it, so it can be a good idea to get familiar with it.

(sets Gandalf timer, 9, 8, 7, 6...)

[Tyr_Doshan]

I might just have to do that then. After a dozen SP games, a few light hearted LAN games and a Half Human, Half AI game that was roughly 160 territories large with over a dozen nations in the fight.. I think I'm comfortable with the standard version.

Got a hot link to the content of the mod you might share with me?