2761

One subtle effect of insanity is that it’s creates a scout catching machine. No 10mr scout will survive long in a Ryleh dominion, as it will eventually go crazy, do something stupid, and get caught.

2762

It’s pretty good, but Ulm is pretty good too. Those vampire counts generate morale-16 units in numbers that somewhat track with dominion strength. I have way more cannon fodder than I need. Ulm also gets the wolfherds to summon free wolves, which are good stealthy cannon fodder/light cavalry. Pile a dozen vampire counts in one province, you’ve got an army of thralls in short order - and you’re not constrained by the insane commanders or self-destructive dominion.

Mix all that in with undead spam, which Black Forest Ulm gets easily, and you’ve got a lot of crap to throw at the enemy.

Edit: and speaking of scout catching machines, hordes of thralls patrolling the blood hunt provinces work really good too.

2763

Anybody know if it’s still possible to wish for artifacts?

2764

IIRC Yes. I think it may even take them out of the hands of whomever currently holds the artifact in the world. So I don’t think you can have multiple copies of the same artifact.

Not that I’ve ever done this, or been in a position to cast Wish, mind you.

2765

I did this in dom2 just wasn’t sure if it was still possible… thanks!

2766

Hey bommerlunder is up again…

2767

Andro: Abyssia:

Bah, the Ulmish termites have gone underground again. The reconquering continues (nice feeling grinding under Ulmish AI/troops at no cost). The big news is that Abyssia is about to turn the key on the 2 blocks on the southeastern continent.

Was thinking I was climbing up the learning curve rather well till I read rollory’s post. Yikes.

2768

At this point, I don’t mind letting it die either. I’ve pretty much proven what I wanted to test with this game, that LE Ermor is a much weakened power from the Dom2 days. In terms of my current position in Lictor, I’m just a minor power clinging to a small group of provinces with no tricks up my sleeve except freespawns. I’ve got a big research lag behind the majors powers too, so it won’t break my heart to call Lictor over.

Since it looks like Clark is MIA and not responding even to people offering to sub, I think we should only continue this game if Stormbinder thinks his Rlyeh position strong enough to challenge Ulm.

2769

Actually, having played Ryleh in Lictor, i’m very suprised that Ulm is claiming victory.

2770

One other thing I want to point out about late age Ulm - Sanguine Heritage (the vampire count summoning spell) is level 0. I did essentially zero research for the first 10 turns. Started off with a D5/B4 vampire queen, first turn recruited a 2nd-tier illuminati (I got lucky with him, he got the 10% bonus path, and in this case it was blood!), and had my first count by turn 6 IIRC. Sent out lots of fortune tellers to do site searching relatively early, though in retrospect I could and should have sent more and started earlier. As of this turn I have still done zero blood research (though I could get up there pretty fast with my current research rates) - all my blood has been going into path-boosting items, boots of youth to keep the various bonus-path illuminati from suffering from old age, and, particularly, vampire counts. I think that’s really the key to Black Forest Ulm - focus 100% on the blood hunting and summoning, use regular/free troops for everything else - those wolves are good patrollers early on, you get lots of thrall cannon fodder later, and the rangers are a solid core to any force.

The vampire counts really are good units.

Late age Ulm also definitely lends itself to being manipulative and underhanded. The Illuminati are awesome spies (though I never had a good opportunity to start an unrest war) and vampire counts leading wolf/ranger armies (with maybe some ghosts and fiends of darkness added in) makes for really powerful forces that nobody can see moving right up to their border. (Main thing to remember is to keep the counts’ first squad slot empty, so the thralls spawn into the province army pool rather than into the count’s command and un-stealthing him.)

2771

Cool, let’s see what Stormbinder says :-) If I’m wrong it’ll be an interesting fight :-)

2772

Alot of what you say is true about Ulm but neither wolves nor thralls are particularly powerful, and for the LE, they’re rather weak. Although Thralls are a great unit that allow some odd tricks - they help bolster the morale of Ulm Infantry sqads when mixed up together with them, for ex. Over at the Shrapnel forums they seem to think LE Ulm is the weakest (or one of the weakest) LE factions, so it’s cool that you’ve done so well using them.

The loss of the ethereal tag really hurt all vampires, and where previously Counts could be a low-end thugs they really are reduced to being leaders and spellcasters now in Dom3. The Illuminati are one of my favorite units in the game, but they still aren’t the strongest casters.

I love LE Ulm so i’m glad to see you do well with them and enjoy them at the same time :) (and not just see LE Ulm as a vehicle for SC Pretender spam).

2773

Boy, I wouldn’t even bother with that. Far as I’m concerned, thralls are pure cannon fodder - there to die for a few rounds and slow the enemy down some. (Though I HAVE been knocking off Jotun PD easily enough with pure thrall forces)

Of course they’re not a powerful unit. They’re a NUMEROUS unit. Wolves aren’t powerful either but they’re stealthy and cheap. The role of both is to provide great clouds of frustration up on the front lines while the real forces in the back do their thing.

The loss of the ethereal tag really hurt all vampires, and where previously Counts could be a low-end thugs

Since I never was a fan of thugs, I don’t miss that.

The Illuminati are one of my favorite units in the game, but they still aren’t the strongest casters.

Like I said, I’m kinda curious to see what I can do with a communion of 50 of them.

Also, they are good enough (with some path boosting items, and maybe an empowerment) to cast the high-level blood/astral stuff. I’d really like to try spamming Horror Seed at enemy armies and see just what it does …

2774

I would really prefer that we find sub for R’leyh.

I don’t think that the fate of the game has been determined yet. It is possible that Ulm will win the game at the end. But it is certainly not set in stone at this point.

2775

I’m going to have to start up a “concurrent” single player game, i think. No one has time for multiplayer anymore (including me…).

How about three games, starting in the Early Era, moving to the Late Era? All impossible AI.

I’d like to try Agartha on Dawn, since it’s a cool map, and Agartha has several interesting paths to victory on that map. Or maybe Arco, since, well, i just like Arco…

If i created a map, with scales and Pretender chosen beforehand, would anyone be interested in playing just for fun? Or would we have to make it somehow a competition?

2776

Have no idea what you are trying to describe here.

2777

Post up a Single Player game at turn 1, so that everyone has the same settigns, and then let people play it / compare for fun or whatever. So that poster A can say “wow, by turn 20, i had captured half the map”, and poster B can say “oh, man, that’s cool, i was stuck in my capital beseiged by barbs at 20…”. Since everyone has the exact same random indies, Pretender and scales, it’s just fun to compare how each other did, what strategies different players used, who won or lost the fastest, winning strategies vs. losing strategies, ect…

2778

I’d be interested in trying this (especially since I am down to only one multi-player game now).

2779

Anybody know offhand what the best summonable commander for magic beings is?

2780

No…

Ether Gate summons magical Firbolg-sized warriors, led by an Ether Lord. I bet he can lead quite a few magic beings.

I’m sure the Elemental “royalty” can lead quite a few magic beings… Fairy Queens may be able to as well…