Iron Faith Ulm

[SurvivalistMerc]

I find that with earth boots and summon earthpower I can still get blade wind out of the IF black priests.

I don't usually make my black priests 2 E, 2 of their random pick. I usually only give additional earth power to the priests I'm using for blade wind. Now, I do take really good care of my priests that end up with earth as a random pick. Because they are really, really good at blade wind...just like your traditional smiths. And they don't ever cast those annoying magma bolts when you end up massing HI against supercombatants.

A lot of folks don't like to use eyes of aiming on their good commanders. I sprinkle them liberally on my blade winders. (But not everyone casts blade wind. About half the priests get scripted with Sermon of Courage.) The ones with blade wind get earth boots and eyes of aiming. I don't think that really makes them look like Toys R Us. Because you have to have earth magic to use the boots...and that isn't all that common among the other races' magi. Sure...Pangea and Vanheim will like earth boots, but they don't really need them.

And I would love to watch a powerful assassin get two eyes of aiming. Of course, the owner of the assassin could prevent that by just having two misc items on the assassin already...but if the assassin dies I will get those.

The variety of items your IF priests can craft, especially with items that increase their random, is astounding.

You can get into blood magic with random blood magi. It's really cool to play IF once you get your research up a bit. And independent magi are still as good as they always were.

The only picks I would go up to 4 in with IF are earth (2 benefits: reinvig for your magi and makes your pretender immune to the air spell that takes commanders to the caster) and death (lesser fear on the black templars is nice and I think you will pick death 3 anyway to make sure you find the death sites because you really need death gems for research).

IF may not work that well in MP, but it's really enjoyable in SP. A lot of the nicer spells in certain spheres, such as air, do not require more than 1 level of skill. Orb lightning. That false horror spell.

One question: can rocks attack? Or just defend? Because the preaching of IF is so good against hostile dominion that you can easily put a rock in +3 (for you) dominion to reduce his hps and kill it.

[ywl]

My experience ain't much - but I'll weigh in my two cents just for the fun of it . Some random points:

1) The additional 1 fire for the Master smith is quite critical because it gives you access to "Magma Bolt", "Magma Eruption" and forging "Elemental Armor". All are very useful.

2) Rainbow mage works only when you play with non-aggressive players. You need the help of the pretender for early expansion in most games - even for Ulm. If you need to add variety to the standard Ulm theme, it's better to pick a durable pretender with Blood, Death or Nature on it.

3) I don't think that IF is very weak. The Mastersmith is nice but the additional magic variety from the Black Priest could be a big boost. And they're cheap and could be built anywhere. If you could get Earth Boot, and have some lucky pick (not very hard because the Priests are cheap), you won't lose that many spells. As SurvivalistMerc said, you can always get "Blade Wind" with Earth Boot and "Summon Earth Power", not hard with the large Earth Gem income for Ulm.

4) I don't think IF should pick drain 3.
Drain 1 is too much . The nation points is attractive but the research will be too slow.

5) Black Templars are fun for SP but seem to be expensive to be practical. I'll be happy to be proved wrong on this...

[aldin]

Zen,

The 2E2? was mostly a grins and giggles comment. I only boost mages when I need to for certain functions (1D to 2D for Skulls is an IF MUST).

ywl,

May as well do drain 3. You HAVE to do drain 1 to access IF. Since your mages are gonna be stuck at 1 research regardless, take the 3 and the points.

~Aldin

[PDF]

Ywl, some thoughts about yours
1/ I agree, the random pick makes the difference between standard, rigid Ulm and a much more versatile Ulm IF
2/ I disagree on this one : as I've said I'm playing Ulm currently in MP with a RB, and did expand at the same rate than others- except one nasty Abysian SC (and played by Pocus !)
The standard Ulmish troops, with some Guardians for morale, some extra-ulmish archers, a merc band and a couple mages are enough.
3/ Maybe, I think that my first tries were disappointments because I played IF as if it was standard Ulm - big mistake undoubtly ! However I can't find any incentive for playing IF...
4/ Yes, I even think that Magic 0+ is a good idea with IF
5/ Ok too, you can't build a MP game around a dozen of Templars avoiding casualties ...

[Pocus]

actually its not a SC, its a rainbow mage* which has a bad temper.


* : try the ghost king. He is awesome.

[aldin]

Originally posted by PDF:
4/ Yes, I even think that Magic 0+ is a good idea with IF

I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing something. Doesn't IF require a scale of at least -1?

~Aldin

[ywl]

Originally posted by PDF:
Ywl, some thoughts about yours

2/ I disagree on this one : as I've said I'm playing Ulm currently in MP with a RB, and did expand at the same rate than others- except one nasty Abysian SC (and played by Pocus !)
The standard Ulmish troops, with some Guardians for morale, some extra-ulmish archers, a merc band and a couple mages are enough.

I have the suspicion that you're not play with very aggressive players . Well, I don't know unless I can see your game. Let's use a benchmark - has anybody got 15 province by turn 11 to 12?

Mercenary of course could be big help to Ulm's expansion but you don't always get the good ones.

[ywl]

Originally posted by aldin:
Zen,

ywl,

May as well do drain 3. You HAVE to do drain 1 to access IF. Since your mages are gonna be stuck at 1 research regardless, take the 3 and the points.

~Aldin

3 research points at Drain 1 and 1 research point at drain 3 is a big difference... For Ulm, you can easily have 10+ Black Priests, which will be 30+ points versus 10+ points - though, if you're lucky, you could find fire or death gems to forge research item early enough. But to me, that's not a very safe bet.

[SurvivalistMerc]

I have always found death sites to be plentiful, even more so if I have at least 3 picks in death. And there are a number of other sphere sites that generate death gems also.

I find that if I take both air and death on a rainbow type mage then I can safely go to drain 3 with ulm IF. Because you will get random air magi capable of making owl quills. And I think you are certain to get one or the other of death or air gems early in the game. (There have been games where I didn't get air early on but never where I didn't get death.)

Construction 6 takes a very long time to reach with just your pretender doing the research. Those lanterns are nice...but they aren't much help early on as they are construction-6.

I have had success with drain 3 every time except my initial experiment when I didn't know what I was doing. The way I look at it...the extra points from the drain scale paid for my RB mage's death and air picks, which more than makes up for it.

If Stone Idols weren't high construction, I suppose you could use them in your research province (secondary castle) early on.

[PDF]

Originally posted by ywl:

quote:

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Originally posted by PDF:
Ywl, some thoughts about yours

2/ I disagree on this one : as I've said I'm playing Ulm currently in MP with a RB, and did expand at the same rate than others- except one nasty Abysian SC (and played by Pocus !)
The standard Ulmish troops, with some Guardians for morale, some extra-ulmish archers, a merc band and a couple mages are enough.

I have the suspicion that you're not play with very aggressive players . Well, I don't know unless I can see your game. Let's use a benchmark - has anybody got 15 province by turn 11 to 12?

Mercenary of course could be big help to Ulm's expansion but you don't always get the good ones.

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As for the benchmark, we are under that - less than 10 provinces each - but the map only has some 56 provinces for 7 players, so ...

And I admit I was dreaming about IF magic scale - indeed Drain-1 is a req... this should kill the theme