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MA Ulm - Crusaders of the Arcane; New guide in the 4.23 manual
Topic Started: Apr 13 2016, 02:18 PM (1,308 Views)
Zonk
Dom 5 Beta Team
The 4.23 version of the manual now has a MA Ulm guide, starting at page 131.

I am curious to know what you think about it.

Some highlights

- It suggests pikemen & morningstar + shield troops as the main troops, and calls Arbalests & Sappers 'poor options'.
- Drain 3 is advised against because of the potential for gemloss events, even with Luck 3.
- Suggests forging Fires in a Jar, Owl Quills, and perhaps ranged offensive spell items (it does say they can be forged in advance, as any scout could use them safely)
- Suggested pretender is dormant Allfather with A4S5D4E4 Dom6 Order 3 Misfortune 2 Productivity 3 Drain 2, meant to use Mound Fiends, Liches and Golems.
- Iron angels are not mentioned, but Ogres and Bane Lord (to use forged combat items) are.
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Itwastuesday
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It uses information pre-pretender patch, so the Allfather is differently priced and pays 40 points instead of 30 for new magic paths. Also I tried a titan pretender (Son of the Sea) for Ulm and while it was useful in cloud trapezing for a throne rush, my early expansion wasn't as consistent as I would like, I neither had the time to sitesearch/craft/cast rituals with it as much as I had hoped nor did I dare to use it offensively for fear of some random thing offing it's 10 hp. A titan provides a super unit Ulm doesn't have access to and depth of paths/diversity. It might also sabotage your early-midgame you're looking to press into somebody else's face.

Misfortune sucks for Ulm as it has low mobility. This is just a theory I have. Low mobility factions should avoid misfortune as it's like being perma-raided by Pangaea or something. When you're being actually raided too, it gets fun. Further, Ulm can use a ton of different kinds of gems for something. You probably don't have points for luck if you run a monster/rainbow/whatever, but I'd leave it at neutral for the least possible events.

I don't agree with the idea of not building either of the ulmish missile troops, unless you build your castles on the 10/7 indie crossbow variety. Against elite troops the damage Arbalests inflict is horrific, and the Sapper counts as 50 gold worth of unit in sieges while having regular crossbows, armor and a melee weapon. Doesn't like bindar build 18 gold longbowmen? Why won't Ulm, a faction overflowing with gold, build superior 20 gold crossbowmen?

If you don't plunge into misfortune, you can take your Drain 3 for the MR and having everybody fatigue in their spellcasting faster, which should favour you with the cheapness and reinvig of your battle casters + many of the earth spells are so high fatigue it doesn't even matter. If you absolutely fear gem loss events which I've never had, put your gems on indie commanders or something for the horrible micro fun. In any case you're gonna spend a lot of your gems on war so fast it doesn't matter.

I just skimmed, but I didn't see mention of Destruction or Gifts of Heaven. The S random master smiths are probably the most cost-effective GoH casters in the game.

I feel like more emphasis should be put on Ulm being a strong mid-game evocation nation rather than elite troops nation.

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Zonk
Dom 5 Beta Team
I reported the pretender issue in the Manual thread on Desura (which I hope will get a version on Steam too) - thanks, I somehow had managed to not notice that.

One of the arguments the guide makes against crossbows & arbalests is that, you have far less to worry about friendly fire - which I still see as a potential issue even with the bonus precision.
It does suggest recruiting indie archers.

It's possible the guide is also based on pre-change event probabilities.
Weren't gemloss more common in the past?

You are correct neither Gift from Heaven nor Destruction are mentioned.
The attack spells mentioned are the magma ones and Iron Blizzard - guide spends a lot of text praising them.
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alexsa2015sa
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While my MP experience is limited, I did play Ulm in a fair amount of SP games.

1. For me, pikemen+morningstar are the main melee troops, too. Hammer infantry is one of the most crappiest, because they have short weapon and low defense, so while they live long, they don't kill anything unlike morningstar ones who get +2 against shields and less repels against swordsmen. Non-shield infantry is less durable, but does more damage, so if you don't use arbalests and thus suffer no friendly fire, they will do, though spearmen repel them quite often due to average morale and def. Guardians are also valuable for having magic weapons, which the manual fails to mention - so etheral and mistform troops can be countered with them as well.

Arbalests are nice because they don't die easily, they have excellent melee stats and can unexpectedly break the enemy even if the primary troops are slaughtered - when they enter the melee combat, piled up ENC makes them capable of killing some really elite troops, and the Smiths really tend to buff them instead of melee troops if you don't place them the right way. Moreover, short-ranged arbalest volley - utterly kills even SCs and elite troops - at least, it was E9N2 Earth Serpent who died several times on them in my game - without any buffs, so they're nothing to sneeze at. They are not pure archers, but more like Samurai Archers and the like in that regard - and unlike them, they very rarely run out of ammo.
Sappers are only valuable for their siege bonus, though, and are unsuited for melee combat. Though they are twice more efficient than militas - 20 gold against 42 for 6 points siege - they don't contribute to archery contest very much either. I prefer using Siege Engineers if I really want some siege power.

Overall, I think Ulm troops are very cheap for their combat strength, just don't run into Rust Mist and Iron Bane casters. These may really ruin Ulm, so MA Xibalba, Pangea are very annoying, while Agartha, Shinuyama and Arcoscephale have iron troops as well but can't use these spells safely without bringing in summoned troops.

2. With Ulm, gemstone loss mainly affects the ability to summon troops or forge boosters or globals - and you only really want mages and thugs. You literally can't run out of equipment for thugs once several hammers are forged. For MR though, you get Tempering The Will, very powerful E3 thaumaturgy spell, which is MR-negates, so Drain actually hampers your ability to resist magic in some way :( Overall, I think that taking Drain for dumping is more feasible than Misfortune, Sloth, or, god forbid, Turmoil, and the nation doesn't need any kind of bless, except for probably Ax or Ex for battlemages, so D3 isn't very necessary.

3. Fires in a Jar are... well, not Ulmish. It may be worth giving them to F2 Smiths to reduce the Fire Ward and Cold Resistance gem costs, if you are going through more than a single battle with heavy evocation spam, but there's not much more use for it. Quills and especially Lanterns give an edge in research, and cost ridiculously little, so unless you're keeping A gems for empowering or some other purpose, quills are really worth forging.

Offensive spell items... well, for me their selling point is having a caster who never fatigues out. You see, with 20 initial cast limit and Girdle of Might at 1 gem they get awesome 50 cast limit, which is far better than any recruitable caster can have, even most priests. Add in E4 bless, and your Black Acolyte now can cast and cast and cast... something like Fireball or Fire Pyre. These items are expensive, of course, and I don't think that's really best way to spend your 11-13 Fire gems, but they just ever stop casting. If you happen to get Skullface, it also can be used for truly unlimited skelespam instead of D boosting, though it's even more expensive tactic.

4. For pretender, I can't say for sure. One thing they probably can live without is an awake combat pretender - Arbalests can take care of enemy ones if the other troops are scattered with Black Halberds. Production is OK, but I don't think slow Ulm wants heavy Misfortune. It's more realistic to take Drain instead. Having Dominion higher than 6 actually doesn't hurt if you go heavy scales, so they actually get applied.

5. Iron Angels are very good against sacred troops, particulary thugs. Unless they are kitted with morale bonus items, they aren't going to harm them very much. Though I can't say if they appear in time to capitalize on this advantage.
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Ohlmann
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The sacred iron angels are likely to fight against tend to be the summoned one. A good portion of the strong one, like the MA Agartha statues and the ozelotls, aren't gonna be impressed by its awe. However, that don't invalidate them completely, since they still have a high protection and other good feature, like flying or kicking magic being into nothingness.

Still, their requirement basically ask for a dedicated pretender, all for something who isn't exactly stronger than a golem.
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Rejakor
*Spicy* Crew
It seems like the kind of guide a lot of new players follow that gets hammered by any sort of competent player. Doesn't really play to the strengths of Ulm.

Nothing is really wrong with it but it overlooks national strengths and playing by it would hit a massive wall in midgame that basically precludes victory.
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