Iron Faith Ulm

[SurvivalistMerc]

I would love to know the strategies others have used with Ulm Iron Faith as it is my next project.

My pretender is a lich with earth-4, death-4, air-4, and fire-4. Order 3, misfortune 3. (Yes...I like this combination though I know some of you don't.) Growth 0, Productivity 2, Drain 3. Dominion 4. I wanted a castle but could only afford a fortress.

My thoughts: I need to find fire gems for those research lanterns, and that might not happen at fire-1 for my default inquisitors. I was hesitant in taking the drain dominion but found that it helped produce points and...well...since I stink at magic...it would be nice if everyone else got extra fatigue while invading me.

Having a lich will let my pretender participate in combat virtually risk-free. I might need him since I otherwise don't really have a mage I can count on. With 4 earth, I'm immune to that air spell that sucks you into enemy domain to be killed.

The magic picks are strong enough to have bless effects, which I thought would be useful to have since you have bless units with iron faith. They are based around my need for research (finding death and fire gems for skull mentors and those research lanterns) and having some offensive magic... I think I can get hyperaccurate blade wind (air for eyes of aiming) and earth is necessary since my inquisitors are earth-1. I can get one of them to the point of making earth boots by making the first pair with my pretender and then empowering an inquisitor to earth-2. Wearing the boots made by my pretender, he can forge more.

I'd love to know what other folks have done to make Iron Faith Ulm work. And how they dealt with the absence of decent researchers and extremely low magic skills.

I have a couple of questions on your design decisions.

1.) Do you only fight in your domain with your lich? Since you have such a low initial dominion (4) it will be hard to fight inside it a good % of the time unless you are being attacked quite a bit. Your dominion can also be pushed around fairly easily, and if you are playing the AI, they usually have high dominion pretenders as a standard.

2.) Who is going to be doing your research if not your pretender (who you said is fighting) and Drain 3 with Black Faith priests? If you are not going to focus on magic, why so many picks in magic and searching?

3.) Hand in hand with question 2. If you are going to research. Why use Fire lanters (Construction 6) when you have Skull Mentors (Construction 4) and Owl Quills (Construction 2) more availiable.

[ December 18, 2003, 20:53: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Gandalf Parker]

there are other research bonuses than the lanterns. air and death gems can make two that I can think of

[SurvivalistMerc]

I always go high in construction with ulm as I love the mechanical men. They work so well against the electrical, fire, and poison creatures produced by many other races.

Yes...I fight only within my own dominion with my lich. But my dominion, though weak initially, will grow strong as more temples are constructed. The lich will become a defensive combatant after that.

Initially, your domain spreads unless there is an opponent very nearby. My plan was to have the pretender do research unless I get lucky and find sages, at least until construction 4. Then he goes out to find some death gems and make skull mentors for some inquisitors unless I've found something better to research for me.

With inquisitors, it should be fairly easy to reverse enemy dominions as they will have a priest level of 5 for that effect.

Fire lanterns are constructable by my native mages...the skull mentors can only be made by my pretender...again unless I find something else able to construct them. Hopefully, I will eventually be able to summon something else to do this. Of course there will be skull mentors before there are lanterns, but eventually there will be researchers with lanterns who do not have skull mentors until I can summon something to make them.

I prefer to save my air gems for eyes of aiming. Without these, blade wind is much less effective.

The picks in magic are for the magic that I will need in order to best maximize the national mages, which after all are the only mages I know for a fact that I will get. The reason for going up to 4 is so that I will have some bless effect.

What have you done with Iron Faith, Zen? I know you are someone who has experimented with it in the past if I recall your Posts correctly.

(I have been having luck with a great sage and Ulm, and I also want to test out different pretenders.)

[Keir Maxwell]

Interesting design. I don't know IF or Ulm well but I do in principle like using magic rich pretenders for Ulm. As I see it the biggest thing they give is gems, indie mages and summonging sites from searching and their research value is high early. However I'm not sure the Lich is the best choice due to cost. Here is my attempt at your idea.

IF Ulm
Great Sage - Earth 4, Fire 4, Death 4, Air 3, Nature 2, Water 1, Astral 1.
or
Great Sage - Earth 4, Fire 3, Death 2, Air 3, Nature 2, Astral 3, Blood 2
Orde and prod +3, misfortune and drain 3, Dominion 4, Castle.

I choose the Sage as he really kicks butt with research and as you were using 4 paths he is alot cheaper than a Lich even though he does require protection - body guards and a robe/amulet missile protection while searching and lots of accompanying commanders as time goes on. I dropped air to 3 as the bless effect didn't seem important to Ulm and I grabbed some more cheap magic paths to aid searching and research. Upgradd to castle and Prod +3 - which is pretty fundamental to Ulm.

Research construction for a couple of turns and then go searching for awhile before returning to researching once you've got a decent gem income. Hopefully you will find sites that can produce good indie mages and you are away. You weak dominion will allow you to research outside your drain effect with your main research team boosted by skulls.

The second option is drop death to 2 (you can make items to go to 3) and Fire to 3 (I would recommend this) and use the points to boost other paths. This gives the Sage 28 research points a turn plus phenomenal site searching and indie mage finding - which is the key to long term success. Ability to construct magic items is also somehting outrageous which is nice and will in time open up pretty much every field of magic.

Cheers

Keir

[apoger]

The only reason to take IF is if the player is looking to exploit the Templars. Otherwise I would advise taking basic Ulm.

On the assumption that we are taking IF in order to exploit the Templars, then we need to make a pretender that can boost them via blessing effect. If you are looking for a rainbow pretender... I suggest going back to basic Ulm.

For a pretender that has some synergy with Ulm and provides good blessing effects I recommend the Great Mother.

Try:
Great Mother
Earth - 6
Nature - 6
Order-3 Prod-2 Grow-2 Misf-3 Drain-3
Dominion-5
Wizards Tower (ulm needs production)

The Great Mother can start the game following the troops and casting Legions of Steel. Later on once you get her some magic items, she can become a very potent combatant. In the meantime your Templars (when blessed) get some nice boosts.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Apoger,

I agree with you...the only utility of IF is to exploit the templars...and that you get sermon of courage if you think you are going against a race which casts spells like panic on you a lot.

I'm taking IF for a different reason...because the first time I took it...I did very, very poorly. And I want to redeem myself.

I've also always been using a great sage with Ulm...which works very well but gets old.

I agree with you that ulm desparately needs production. Having to go down to a fortress to get bless effects is truly giving up something. And I could reduce the lich to air-3 instead of -4 and lose only a 20% air shield but gain a normal castle.

I do have one question regarding your setup: Why take growth? For the gold bonus?

I know the great mother is a good pretender. I just can't get past the way she looks, though. Hehe.

SM,

When you pick IF, you are looking at two things.

1.) You have no combat mages to speak of. Even if you get lucky, they are going to be piss poor and cost alot to invest them to make them so.

2.) You are playing standard Ulm but trying ot maximize a blessing effect. Like Alex said, the only reason to take IF is for the Bless effects otherwise Base Ulm is far superior.

A rainbow is counterproductive to bless effects. I don't know if I'd pick earth either, since it's bless effect really doesn't shine until 9 unless you have combat mages. Reinvigoration on heavy and expensive templar doesn't do as much for me as say, Berserk, or +Att and Flaming weapons.

I have been in the middle of a game so I haven't really had time to respond I'll have more time for an in depth response a little later.

Alright now that I'm done, and I've had a chance to think about it.

I'd either go all out for a bless effect or I wouldn't play IF.

Since Black Templar already have high protection (24) I wouldn't really worry about that. They have lower hit points (15) and other minimal stats 13 str, 11 att, 10 def, 10 mr.

My choice would be either to go for a Water, Fire, or Nature blessing of 9.

Nature
+3 Berserk and Regen/Poison resist nets you with a Templar with 3 hp Regen a turn (out of 15) 27 Prot, 16 str, 14 att, 7 defense.

Fire
+4 Att and Flaming weapons (8 AP damage). That means 15 att and 3 Attacks first round 2 attacks second round with 8 AP damage included.

Water
+4 Defense and Quickness (50%). That means 14 Def, 5 attacks first round, 4 attacks second round.

Now those don't really mean anything unless you decide how you are going to use your Black Templar. they are too expensive to make a majority of your force, and considering the investment into a Bless Effect they have to be able to stand up to summons as you will have only clockworks and maybe some crusher/Iron Dragons late in the game. Even if you invested in 9 Astral you'd only get +3 MR for a total of 13 so you are still weak against magic.

You can chance it and take Water9 and use your templars as rear killers and hope to get a commander if not tear up archers.

Be safe and take Fire9 and use your templars to kill summons, though you are going to have a problem with fire summons.

Play the stat game and go Nature9 and hope that high protection will save you enough each round for you to regen.

None of them look very promising and for that reason it's hard to play IF. Maybe if the Priests had Drain immunity like the smiths; but as it is; they are IMO useless for anything but sermoning.

And no matter which I took I'd take Order 3, Production 3, Misfortune 3, and Drain 1 (at minimum) and a Castle. With such expensive Sacreds, you are probably not ever going to be able to make more than 4 or 5 a turn.

[ December 19, 2003, 03:21: Message edited by: Zen ]

[apoger]

>I'm taking IF for a different reason...because the first time I took it...I did very, very poorly. And I want to redeem myself.

Perfectly good reason.


>I do have one question regarding your setup: Why take growth? For the gold bonus?

Absolutely. Ulm needs every ounce it can get. It doesn't win with it's magic.


>I know the great mother is a good pretender. I just can't get past the way she looks, though. Hehe.

As an easy alternate you could go with a Dragon (take fire-9 or nature-9) with just one less dominion strength.