Dominions 3: The Awakening/Nations/Ulm, Forges of Ulm

The Forges of Ulm is the height of the kingdom of steel-worshipers. Their arms and armor are unequalled, but magic is discouraged and only used by the Master Smiths.

Units
Ulm features the heaviest units in the game. Generally speaking however, armor is good, but expensive and easily countered by magic (Ulm has lower magic defense then other nations).

Ulm Heavy Infantry has great armor and more hit points than average HI, but also some weaknesses like high encumbrance, average morale and low magic resistance.

Pikeneers are a good choice when you don't know what you'll fight. Not weak against anything. Once you know what troops you'll fight, produce counters.

The Black Plate cavalry and Black Plate infantry get a base armor rating of 20, giving them the highest base armor of any normal troops of the age. To make them, you need extremely high resources as with most of your troops, so make sure to take all of the lands surrounding your castle as soon as possible.

A mix of Pikeneers and Heavy Infantrymen are nearly unstoppable by normal infantry, and are armored enough to ignore most missile fire. Put these troops as far forward as possible, potentially with some flanking Knights on the sides. The Pikeneers excel at repelling (they have max weapon length), and the HI can usually even penetrate enemy knights. Technically, some weapons are better than others against particular opponent types. Also, depending of your playing style, you will want either to have a weapon which makes more damages but gives less defence, or the reverse. It is somehow a personal issue here. To keep it simple, you could also mix them all.


 * Flail: two weak attacks and a defense penalty. Meant to dispatch hordes of light infantry.
 * Morning star: bonus against shield. If your opponent has shielded infantry use this one.
 * Hammer or Maul : the maul makes more damage but you get a def penalty and no shield, the hammer makes slightly less damage but you can keep a tower shield.
 * Pike: will ask a moral check from the opponent, use against low moral troops (Ctis infantry, barbarians, etc). They slow the enemy attack, so use them if you plan to have a front line holding while your crossbows fire.

Ulm's Crossbowmen use Arbalests, which are slow and less accurate but shoot further and for more damage than crossbows. Arbalests are so strong they are capable of killing their own troops if you don’t pay attention however. So you'll probably buy long- or shortbowmen in some independent provinces instead.

Local defense: Ulm has militia (crossbowmen and HI) that is actually worth buying to 10 or so if you have the money.

Commanders

 * Unit: Gold x, Resources y
 * Description

Heroes
Barthulf, the best leadership of Ulm, "was dubbed a Black Knight at the age of thirteen. He appeared as a mystery knight at the great tourney of Black Keep and emerged victorious. After this deed he became known throughout the realm and soon men from near and far came to challenge him. Barthulf has never lost a challenge and is the pride of the Black Keep".

Hildegard "was the only child of the late Hochmeister of the Black Order. Her father taught her how to fight and wanted her to join the order, but she was a strong-willed young woman who didn't like the strict hierarchical organization of the order. She decided to become a freelance warrior, and as such she has become known and respected. During her more adventurous years Hildegard befriended a black unicorn that has followed her since". She is one of the fastest commander of the game, and her defense is so high that she is nearly intouchable in close combat.

Raterik, almost as fast as Hildegard but wearing a full plate armor, "is a strange and secretive knight. As a youth he befriended a black unicorn, and the magical steed has given the peasant boy the opportunity to join the Black Order. Several of the older members of the order complained about the peasant but so far he has not failed in his tasks. Raterik has proven himself a resourceful and able commander". He has recuperation, a very useful ability for a knight.

Starting Sites
The Keep of Ulm: Can recruit Lord Guardians and Guardians here.

The Forge of Ulm: Produces 5 Earth gems per turn.

Magic
Ulm has a weak and narrow magic.

Use Master Smiths and Priest Smiths for research, since they have the ability to tolerate the drain: they get a +2 research bonus minimum (so even in a +3 drain, they have 5 research points each – in a neutral or positive magic dominion they get the same bonus as all other mages). Keep in mind that all other mages, including your pretender, do not benefit from this drain immunity, however (this could be a good reason to take a weak dominion: build a lab in a border province, where your drain dominion is weaker, and regroup your other mages there). Priest Smiths are more expensive, but are sacred and their upkeep is halved; actually, a Priest Smith is cheaper than a Master Smith after 13 turns. Also, it is useful to get mages for searching sites if you don't have a mage pretender.

Both Master Smiths and Priest Smiths get a 25% gems discount on forging magic items, so if possible consider equipping them with many items to increase their skills (for exemple, with a Dwarven Hammer, a Master Smith can forge for half price). Try to use them over the pretender, so you save those gems.

They are decent support mages and generally are unable to penetrate the armor of their own troops, so friendly fire is negligible until Magma Bolts/Iron Darts, and even then is not very great. They have more armor than other mages, and have a good amount of command skill. With "Summon Earthpower" they have several nice level 3 spells available, like "Legions of Steel" (Ulm start spell), or "Blade Wind" which decimates light troops (or unprotected etheral units like seasonal spirits) but does not penetrate Ulm's super thick armors.

On the battlefield smiths are affected by drain scale while casting spells however (greater fatigue). Forge Earth boots (construction-4) as soon as possible, to be able to cast more Blade Winds in a battle, or to Summon Fall Bears, Contact Troll/Troll King's Court or Crusher Construction.

The priests are weak too, and Ulm has no sacred troops. Choose your prophet carefully, as he is probably your only priest able to cast Sermon of Courage. Black priests are "inquisitors" and can counter enemy dominion. If you play defensively, consider a Black priest prophet.

Special Strategy
Simple: play like a tank commander. Build heavy troops and hit people with them. Early conquest, that is. As the game lasts and new spells are researched, Ulm's edge at grabbing territory becomes less and less sharp. So go for them as soon as possible. That's one of Ulm's adavantages – steel vs. magic, you have to learn the second while the first comes built in your troops. Steel doesn't work too well versus summoned troops, though, many of them being ethereal. But on the whole it remains the best thing to invest in.

On the other hand, spells that negate armor (electrical shocks and acid attacks, plus some earth spells) or pierce armor (most fire attacks) are the worst of your enemies. You badly need to get lucky with independents to do well, since you really need some more mages to protect your soldiers with different "wards".

Dominion design
Ulm only needs to stabilise dominion inside its own territory and can use inquisitors to help, so it can get away with a dominion level of 3-5.

Scale Design
Heavy units take a lot of resources, so productivity +3 is a must. Fortunately, your capital is a fortified city with a high administration (it drains 50% of resources from all neighbours). High Order brings you more gold, and is advisable to help put up as many forts as quickly as possible, as well as funding massive amounts of your cheap mages and troops.

Growth can really pay off in the long term for longer games as well, as your resources build with "compounding interest".

Finally, a magic drain has little effect, since your Smiths studies are unaffected. Since you have ineffective magic, make everyone else ineffective too and put drain to maximum (and possibly put dominion to maximum too if you have a chance, to affect a larger area). And the drain will increase the magic resistance of your troops – something important since your troops have the worst MR of all nations. Every drain level gives +1/2 MR point (but +10% fatigue when mages cast battle spells).

So one possible setup would be: Order 3, Productivity 3, Growth 3, Drain 3, Dominion 3

Pretender Design
A bless strategy really isn't much of an option for Ulm in this Age, as they have no national sacred troops. Rainbow pretender works well, as it allows you to get into all the magic paths you need. Without a mage, you'll be unable to cast even your "national" spells, like Sloth of Bears (needs Nature-2) or Contact Iron Angel (needs Earth-5 and Astral-2). And site searching will bring more gems.

The alchimist is a special rainbow mage who gets a x2 bonus when he makes gold out of gems (this bonus is added in to the Alchemist Stone bonus). The Great Enchantress is nice with her 1 AP income (you can convert the pearls through alchemy to whatever gems you prefer to get your start on some basic magic items), and the Crone for her inexpensive cost.

One possible pick would be any of the three above mentioned pretenders with: 2F,2A,2W,2N,2S,2D,2B. This will allow them to build most of the basic buffing magic items, as well as represent a good start towards empowering any of the magic paths as the situation allows and the appropriate gems are found.

Expansion
Imo, morale is a real problem for Ulm, and your starting forces tend to run away from combats until they have strength in numbers or you can cast Sermon of Courage. This means that it might be a good idea for your very first build on turn 1 to train a priest, then make the priest into your prophet and have him accompany your fledgling army for his SoC cast.

Early on I normally don’t bother with Black Plate units. Quantity over quality counts quite a bit early on, not only tactically in battles, but psychologically to intimidate other players. Also, you will quickly have access to spells that will boost their armor to that of black plate quality anyways, so you can get away with this pretty easy imo. All told, I seem to have the best luck with Pikemen. They advance to close with the enemy a bit faster than most Ulm troops, and their ability to repel just about everything with their long weapons seems to make up for any other deficiencies. SO I set my castle crank out 1 Smith and as many Pikes as I can afford each turn. With a second commander (indie is fine) to ferry units to the front line and keep my main force stocked with reinforcements, the war machine is set churning.

Anticipating the point where you want to attack one of the other pretender nations, start making some cavalry. Either the black knights or indie knights will do. The goal here isn’t to make a strike force, but rather a pursuit force to follow up the rout. The last thing you want to do is fight the same enemies turn after turn because they retreat and your foot soldiers can’t catch them. SO when you deploy your cavalry, have them hang back from the main combat and then charge towards the rear. Hopefully they will kill a lot of fleeing enemies.

When you have enough forts (usually about 3-4) so that your gold income per turn is spent but there is still production left, it’s time to start switching over to black plate units. Find the right balance between BP and normal units so that gold income and production income are exploited to the fullest.

One of the main barriers that can slow down or even stop your expansion into enemy territory is food. So you need to think about magical items early on that supply food. This is one of the reasons that the Enchantress as a rainbow pretender with her astral pearl income is so useful. She can convert them to nature gems if you haven't found any yet and forge some magic wineskins.