Weaknesses of MA Ulm

[Shoulin]

I played for and against Ulm and got the impression that they have no serious disadvantages that could be used for a confident victory over them. Does anyone know how to deal with them effectively, for example, playing for Tien Chi?

[Causk]

MA Ulm is a bit of a few trick pony.
They have superb troops, but with the fatal flaw (at least later in the game) of very reduced mr (magic resistance). They dont have any sacreds troops(but get very neat cap only anti sacred ones), which makes customizing troops versus specific threats impossible for them (most common thing would be resistances versus shock and poison)
They have a very decent mage, but with very set paths and thus very predicatable tricks they will bring. Earthmagic buffs and evocations. For any magic resistance at all, they are dependant upon indie mages or their pretender.
The easiest way to deal with a MA Ulm is generally to have poison resistant troops or pretender and cast the enchantment 5 foul vapor spells, while being tough enough not to die to ulmite troops. Spells that target the troops poor mr is also a good approach (f.e. wind of death, sleep cloud, death evocations, ...).
Lastly TC has one fo the most cost efficient/useful mage in the game in the geomancer.
IF you buff your own troops (glaive guys seem good for this) with strength of giants (later weapons of sharpness) youll get to the point where they can damage the ulmish armor, and if you buff your troops with things like luck, marble warrior they will last a while also.
the geomancer also has ideal communion paths that would allow them to spamm a pretty destructive spell callled gift of heaven (evo 5) at troops,

[Shoulin]

Originally posted by Causk:

MA Ulm is a bit of a few trick pony.
They have superb troops, but with the fatal flaw (at least later in the game) of very reduced mr (magic resistance). They dont have any sacreds troops(but get very neat cap only anti sacred ones), which makes customizing troops versus specific threats impossible for them (most common thing would be resistances versus shock and poison)
They have a very decent mage, but with very set paths and thus very predicatable tricks they will bring. Earthmagic buffs and evocations. For any magic resistance at all, they are dependant upon indie mages or their pretender.
The easiest way to deal with a MA Ulm is generally to have poison resistant troops or pretender and cast the enchantment 5 foul vapor spells, while being tough enough not to die to ulmite troops. Spells that target the troops poor mr is also a good approach (f.e. wind of death, sleep cloud, death evocations, ...).
Lastly TC has one fo the most cost efficient/useful mage in the game in the geomancer.
IF you buff your own troops (glaive guys seem good for this) with strength of giants (later weapons of sharpness) youll get to the point where they can damage the ulmish armor, and if you buff your troops with things like luck, marble warrior they will last a while also.
the geomancer also has ideal communion paths that would allow them to spamm a pretty destructive spell callled gift of heaven (evo 5) at troops,

wow, I didn't think that someone would write so much useful, thank you very much

[terve886]

First things first: MA Ulm is really strong, they don't really have too apparent weaknesses besides having lower than average MR which is patched by their national MR spell to some extend.

MA Ulm has access to 3 recruitment point castles, their infrantry is really solid and takes buffs really well which Ulm has good access to. Ma Ulm doesn't really have sacred troops, but this just means more points can be spent on scales or awake expander because the base toops are already good enough that they expand fine without any blesses.

MA Ulm has also extremely strong national spells, like iron blizzard that easily wipes many late game summons due to the excessive amount of AP projectiles it fires while also dealing double damage against magical beings like elemental royalty or elementals. The only thing limiting iron blizzard spam is black priests being cap only. The guardians also aren't a joking matter as they are effective anti sacred troops that can counter sacreds you spent your design points to rely on.

Of course this is all boosted my the fact that Ulm has master smiths with forge bonus 2 that if combined with dwrarven hammers leads to 5 gem costing items cost only 1.

That being said, even with all the armor Ulmites carry Ulm still has the basic weakness to AN attacks like thunderstrike, poison cloud and mind burn. You should also favor heavy attackers to ensure you get past their protection, but trying to tank with high protection values against Ulm likely won't help you as all their troops hit rather hard and Ulm has easily access to Strength of Giants. It is better to avoid the damage all together with things like Ethereal. Still stack as many layers of protection for your frontline units as you can so your mages get more time to kill the Ulmites, but do realize that you most likely won't be winning Ulm in their own game.

[Big Dog]

They pretty much only have earth buffs for their units, while you get give yours water, astral, earth, nature. Str of giants + legions of steel is not as good as luck, body ethereal. quickness, barkskin, berserk, + str of giants and legions of steel.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Myocarditis:

They pretty much only have earth buffs for their units, while you get give yours water, astral, earth, nature. Str of giants + legions of steel is not as good as luck, body ethereal. quickness, barkskin, berserk, + str of giants and legions of steel.

I hadn't really reflected on this, but it's a nice touch of balance that the buffs MA Ulm has easy access too are the ones they probably want the least. They already have decently hard hitting weapons and a ton of protection, and they get exactly bonuses to those two areas. Imagine if MA Ulm had native nature/air mages or something.

[terve886]

Originally posted by Myocarditis:

They pretty much only have earth buffs for their units, while you get give yours water, astral, earth, nature. Str of giants + legions of steel is not as good as luck, body ethereal. quickness, barkskin, berserk, + str of giants and legions of steel.

Don't forget Ironskin and marble warriors. Having 33 protection with ironskin and legion of steel is no joke. Even TC cityguards with their 22 damage struggle to do any real damage and that is before shields come into play. Luck + ethereal makes a nice 1/16 chance to survive deathblow, but Ulm has troops with multiple weapon attacks and the 33 protection alone achieves stronger effect than 1/16 if the incoming attack damage is low enough.
For example, the chance of doing 1 damage is 2% if the difference between attack damage and protection is 12 to protections advantage. Of course piercing damage and critical hits come into play when talking about protection which the exploding die probability doesn't take into account , but generally the chances of getting damage through 33 protection is next to nonexistant if the base damage is less than 20.

[TheMeInTeam]

If you want to mess up Ulm with Tien Chi in MA, use foul vapors, sleep clouds, gifts from heaven, ethereal/luck, enslave mind.

Later on you might summon a troll shaman or something and put up rigor mortis/do fatigue plays.

[Twogun]

Massed Thunder strike really messes up Ulm. Back in the older dom days, it got so bad I cried to the devs and they added Ground Army. But that's not always on the research paths an Ulmish player might be taking.

The problem with massed T strike is, only a few MA nations can pull it off(Van, Caelum etc). That said, it absolutely owns Ulm still unless the Ulmish player has a hard counter.

I always thought using a fatigue spell and lots of chaff might work as well. That armor is awfully heavy.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally posted by Twogun:

Massed Thunder strike really messes up Ulm. Back in the older dom days, it got so bad I cried to the devs and they added Ground Army. But that's not always on the research paths an Ulmish player might be taking.

The problem with massed T strike is, only a few MA nations can pull it off(Van, Caelum etc). That said, it absolutely owns Ulm still unless the Ulmish player has a hard counter.

I always thought using a fatigue spell and lots of chaff might work as well. That armor is awfully heavy.

If you can put SR on your own army, MA TC can do wrathful skies. I don't like that as much as foul vapors, however, because MA Ulm can put up 5 SR on whole army using its earth paths. In fact with their good research they can mix luck + SR 5 using the same tech path (alteration, especially alt 8) and really limit the damage from tstrike spam too, so if you want to tstrike spam them you want to hit before they get their research ramped up. Ulm is one of the fastest researching nations in the game, so you have less of a window for that than you would against other nations.

Poison is harder for them, because they can't use native paths to resist it. Fatigue plays should work as well, it's similarly hard for them to get relief up. Just have to watch out for mass flight, earthquake, or other things that can knock out a rigor mortis caster quickly.

[Twogun]

Originally posted by TheMeInTeam:

Originally posted by Twogun:

Massed Thunder strike really messes up Ulm. Back in the older dom days, it got so bad I cried to the devs and they added Ground Army. But that's not always on the research paths an Ulmish player might be taking.

The problem with massed T strike is, only a few MA nations can pull it off(Van, Caelum etc). That said, it absolutely owns Ulm still unless the Ulmish player has a hard counter.

I always thought using a fatigue spell and lots of chaff might work as well. That armor is awfully heavy.

If you can put SR on your own army, MA TC can do wrathful skies. I don't like that as much as foul vapors, however, because MA Ulm can put up 5 SR on whole army using its earth paths. In fact with their good research they can mix luck + SR 5 using the same tech path (alteration, especially alt 8) and really limit the damage from tstrike spam too, so if you want to tstrike spam them you want to hit before they get their research ramped up. Ulm is one of the fastest researching nations in the game, so you have less of a window for that than you would against other nations.

Poison is harder for them, because they can't use native paths to resist it. Fatigue plays should work as well, it's similarly hard for them to get relief up. Just have to watch out for mass flight, earthquake, or other things that can knock out a rigor mortis caster quickly.

i suppose.

but an air nation ought to be to T strike WAY before ulm hits Alt 8. Alt isn't going to be the primary path for most Ulmish builds anyway.

it's also important to remember that while Ulm has no N access, N is by FAR the easiest path to pick up. and as long as Ulm has a touch of N on its pretender, it's very easy to get them to N 3 or 4 even on indies.

so at the later stages, PR is really no problem at all for MA Ulm. At least, for me it never has been.

[TheMeInTeam]

Alt isn't a top path for Ulm? I beg to differ. It can and should be the first path they take to both 7 and to 8. They will likely go construction 6 for legions of steel + lanterns if they can get away with it. They *might* go evo 6 first, for iron blizzard, though if they're expecting to fight elves with arrow fend they might not.

Alteration is way up there. Marble warriors, fog warriors, will of the fates, and in some matchups shock resistance are all extremely valuable buffs. Along the way they also pick up maws of the earth and petrify (a subset of warrior smiths can use earth boots + earth power to cast this w/o communions), which are both valuable spells in a lot of matchups.

I agree that tstrike spam comes online before alt 8, obviously. Though Ulm doesn't always spawn near the air nation, and by 2nd war Ulm might be at or near alt 8 already. Even if they aren't, they will likely be able to do alt 5 lightning resistance + by then. Battle fortune isn't practical for them since they need to rely on matrix items to do will of fates, but doing line formation + blowing a bunch of earth gems on SR 5 will still make the fatigue-efficiency of tstrike questionable. It favors the shock nation, but it's no guarantee and you need a lot of mages casting it.

In contrast, foul vapors is a battlefield wipe. While Ulm can get N1s, they aren't likely to get N1 + matrix + enchantment 7 any time soon either. The mage commitment to wipe an army with FV is a lot less than tstrike battery.

[Twogun]

you are certainly right that it's a LOT easier to cast FV than spam T strike.

and i never said alt wasn't good for Ulm. what i said was, much of the time Ulm isn't b-lining for Alt 8.

most ulmish players go evo or even const, as i'm sure you know.

and as you stated, even if ulm IS headed up alt, T strike would be online well ahead of that goal being achieved.

and while we are mincing Ulmish builds, i've never used an Ulmish pretender that didn't have at least N2. that quickly gets one to N4 quite easily. and then FV is just as easy to negate as it is to cast.

but all of this is silly. what might work great in one game won't work in another. there are so many variables.

these discussions are like coaching clinics i go to. whoever has the chalk last wins.

none of it REALLY matter until you are in game.

unfortunately i don't have the time or ambition to play dom these days. i made an effort 6 months ago but suffered a RL calamity that basically ended the end game for me, and i don't seem to have the heart to have another go at it.

but perhaps we will have a chance to hash it all out in a game some day.

As Jack Burton says-Never Can Tell...

[Rovsea]

Ulm also suffers from being a rather slow-moving nation without as much strength in things like conjuration or ability to put up strong remote spells (aside from earth attack). So they're weaker on the strategic map than a lot of other nations, particularly in MA.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally posted by Twogun:

none of it REALLY matter until you are in game.

I would just like to single this out in particular, because I agree with it and it's important to emphasize.

Theorycrafting is fun, but theorycrafted ideas must earn their keep. To do so, they have to produce positive results in actual games. Shock and poison will both be effective plays against MA Ulm, sometimes even decisive. Sometimes, Ulm will instead have a countermeasure for them, and if that's all their opponent has...Ulm crushes them.

Sometimes, one side or the other apes the other on turn 12 or gets clapped by a PD dump. Sometimes, a perfectly laid plan gets deleted by a magic phase titan and then the other side's army walks in a straight line to the capital.

Answers in Dominions have to be narrowly tailored to their context when it comes to winning real fights, and require experience to execute properly. Still, it is useful to talk about broad threats/strategies and when they might work or not work. Being able to anticipate when something will work and why is important.