Dominions 6 MA Ulm National Overview

[@Victor-zi8wr]

Good overview! Haven't seen your channel before, but like your tightly scripted presentation. One thing to note is that don't think the hammers reduce the cost of 5 +5 gem items by 4 in each path, just the total (unless that's been changed going into dom6). So a master smith with a hammer would create golden barding/firebrand for 6 gems instead of 2 gems in total.

[@ChazzyBurger]

Despite my years of playing I always had it in my head that it was a minus for every path, yet after testing yep you're right! And here I was thinking it was just a bug for Dominions 6, guess it was just wishful thinking! Thanks for pointing that out and I'll try and get your comment to the top so others will see it!

[@ogaburan]

Wow, this is leas of an overview and more of a bloody manual for the nation! 30m video with no rambling... Is setting new standards for the community! Ever since Perun left us for rl war covarage i havent seen such high standards for these overviews. Its usually 30m explainng what a shield is and then 5 seconds on magics and maybe mentioning an item... I really appreciate these videos!

[@dumbduck6804]

Agreed, honestly I massively appreciate the level of effort Chazzy puts in to the videos, It's nice to have someone who puts in the extra effort to edit out the silence, makes it much easier and more pleasant to watch/listen too.

[@blackleon1708]

Everyone seems to recommend MA Ulm to noobs, but you do it with professional voice, very good

[@ChazzyBurger]

MA Ulm has been the standard faction to recommend new players for as long as I can remember, just purely because they have good troops and simplish mages, so you can get used to the basic mechanics of the game. Once you have a good grasp of the games basics then you can get into the more obscure parts of the nation or move onto others as you see fit! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@ketschop3948]

​@@ChazzyBurger A funny thing with Ulm in my mind is the spell "Mass flight" in round 3 to buff your troops and than fly with your ulmish hard Army into the closed Combat 😂 😁

[@vinsinar3887]

A truly great National overview. Detailed with great examples and all the information you need as a new player to get started with a nation. Hopefully we will see nation overviews for some EA nations like Fomoria, Helheim and the newer nations like Muspelheim and Pyrene. I do think a national overview and then a small play through of turn 12 to see expansion is helpful for new players.

[@ogaburan]

Or MA Nidavangr... to keep on the theme, i still don't know how to deal with their sacrades and am trying them as a horde nation to some success...

[@kirkparsons7323]

Thanks, Chazzy, great video! Was very happy to find this one on MA Ulm, as I'm just getting into the game and this filled out a lot of the fundamentals for me. I imagine something more complex will be welcome in the future (although maybe you've already created?). Cheers and thanks again!

[@ChazzyBurger]

Hi Kirk, glad you enjoyed it! What content are you looking for? I have a few national overviews up for some of the nations in the game, otherwise if you haven't had a look, check the quick tips or deep dives playlists for some additional explanations on some of the mechanics. If you're looking for something else, let me know and I'll get back to you!

[@affonsoroppa]

Hey, @ChazzyBurguer, thank you very much for all your Dominions 6 guides and videos!! I really liked ALL your guides, they are VERY VERY VERY helpful! I played Conquest of Elysium for many years, never to try Dominions because of the difficulty to learn all the mechanics of the game. I even bought Dominions 5 and requested a refund some time ago... But when youtube suggested your videos and i started to understand that Dominions is not the monster that i thought it was before, I did not waited one minute to buy Dominions 6! This was the very first video that i watched, the very first nation I played using a "rainbow" pretender so i could search for all magic structures (never liked the big snake used in your tutorials haha) I hope you keep making these cool Dominions 6 videos!

[@ChazzyBurger]

Hey glad to hear they've been helpful! That's exactly what I wanted them to do, be helpful for newer players or people that were put off by the games lack of a tutorial. The fact they helped you is fantastic! Gotta love a rainbow pretender, and good on you for using them! There's a lot of choices when you have that much magical access, but at the end of the day, try everything, see what you like and most importantly have fun! Of course I intend to keep going for some time now! If you haven't seen them already, check out some of the other creators, Zan, BabelBuilder, AOReaper, LucidTactics and the others for different views on the game, they'll help you learn as well! Thanks for watching!

[@affonsoroppa]

@@ChazzyBurger I will check their content! Thanks again!

[@josiekitter8595]

Great video! Love the idea of shrouding wight mages. I’m gonna have to try that out soon

[@ChazzyBurger]

Yeah it's very effective if you've made a caster bless, or something that will help mages perform, especially with the astral access you have!

[@TheMelnTeam]

Great for messing about in SP. Brutal nation to play as 1st in MP simply due to the awful map movement + logistics needed. Guardians with point buffs tend to solve enemy thugs in armies, you need ~SC levels of investment to not die to them. Even then, stuff that's sacred will struggle. Even non sacreds don't really like taking 33 slash/pierce magic damage though. In addition to communion stuff (this includes just casting mist form and such with your national mages + matrix) and point buffing strength + sharpness on your guys, earth boots on a master smith that randoms the extra earth path means E4, with summon earth power getting you to 5. This allows them to cast petrify from alteration...it is very hard to SC against that, and any time they don't need it they can do a lot with E5 generally (magma eruption's fatigue cost is pretty low for example). Definitely worth setting up. Gifts is great vs blood bond. Thaum is situational but there is some reason to go there sometimes. Mostly for prison of fire vs non-resists and the attack/morale buffs, especially if you're fighting things that can be repelled. I think rather than paying for astral on pretender, you can just empower a random to 2 for 30 gems and forget boosters (coin + hat) to get as high as 4. The rainbow guy is good. Earth snake is ok, but I'd rather have green dragon for the paths (can make thistle mace to give to indy guy to make more and cast PR). Dracolich, Fenrir and boar are reasonable too among monsters.

[@ChazzyBurger]

Yeah that's the inherent weakness of Ulm, lack of easily accessed magical phase attacks and overall troop movement. You need to think multiple turns ahead in order to not be stuck moving your armies chasing foes. Good point on the petrification! A hard spell to cast but as you said with the randoms can be very effective. I usually find with Ulm casting spells the opponent doesn't think you can will always catch them off guard and usually win you a fight or two. Gifts is a fantastic spell, I love it, though I always remember a mp game as MA tien chi where I killed half of my troops due to some of my mages losing their eyes and having no precision, which was fun! Earth Snek is not a great pretender I agree, but I find him to be the most forgiving and fire and forget out of the monsters just because of his tankyness, he'll beat pretty much any province except large barbarians in my experience. Green Dragons are good but the nerfs to barkskin are pretty tough for getting it's protection high enough to expand willynilly. Overall the Dom 2 categories with their -1 to forging does make them quite a bit weaker I find for forging in comparison. Thanks for watching!

[@TheSupajee]

I'm going to take MA Ulm for my next multiplayer game and I've experimented quite a bit with Mother of Storms recently, brilliant pretender all in all. Your build intrigued my interest and I'm likely going to give it a shot. :) Traditionally I have went for higher scales and dominion (so that I can spread my good scales faster), but like you, I am not quite sure how much Growth is needed nowadays in Dominions 6. So I'm willing to risk it and put more weigh of my nation for the pretender. Among other Ulm titans I've experimented with Keeper of the Bridge (high order=more cavalry), Tiwaz of War (cheap SC that sacrifices little to cast Eternal Pyre and earth globals) and Son of the Sea. I love the underwater and sailing mechanics thematically, but when would you put those abilities for use in practice over Flying+Air Site that Mother of Storms offers? I am big fan of Astral and Nature for Ulm, but at the very least both Death and Glamour are decent enough alternatives.

[@ChazzyBurger]

I wish you good luck in your game, hopefully it goes well! For the Son of the Sea, his sailing is really the biggest benefit to Ulm, being able to move your normally slow troops multiple provinces in a single turn can really catch people off guard, especially if they're not expecting it. Obviously the limits are to coastal provinces which makes it not an auto take but it is a nice to have. The largest benefit that the Son of the Sea has in my mind is the fact that he can take troops underwater, and while your troops aren't very good down there, it does give you a way of at least giving underwater nations pause for thought for just bullying your coastline, something that's fairly difficult to get as Ulm. The mother of the storms is also decent at this though, that extra air gem income will let you make a barrel of air or other item to get troops under the water if you need to. If you can find any indie water mages, just going down there with water elementals will make up for your not so great troops, at least enough to bloody an UW nation's nose so that they leave you alone.

[@TheSupajee]

My last multiplayer game started ok, but I ran out of gas near the end. I went with max scales Imprisoned Keeper of the Bridge that had taken some astral too. My lobby felt the idea was fine, just a tad bit too greedy for that specific game and I should probably be more aggressive next game since Ulmish troops should keep the nation secure early on. While Dormant titan could work very well, what do you think of the following ideas? Awake Thrice Horned Boar E6N4 with Hard Skin and Reinvigoration Dom5 O1P3H1G0L1D3 I took the boar in my current game and it's looking far better now than with titan, since I am ahead of others around turn 40 (last game I was pretty much out around turn 30). Expansion was safe&smooth, and now the boar is mostly being used as a big earth global caster and potentially nature buffer in battles. He also managed to craft a thistle mace for an independent N1 mage, who could then proceed to craft more of them for other mages. Growth does not feel as mandatory in Dominions 6 for many nations now, although it would be nice to have. So I have another potential idea, for this I got some inspiration from elsewhere: Dormant Arch Mage F6E5N2 with Superior Morale, Inspirational Presence and 3 x Reinvigoration (flexible bless, fire/poison resistance are options too for example) Dom4 O2P3C1G2L2D3 More of a scales build with more specialized rainbow. The nation can site search easily for earth and fire gems, but is quite lackluster at using them. So we build a pretender for it that can toss out some big fire+earth globals quickly (only needs Earth Boots) and then pretty much chills at capital throwing out rituals, his job done. Enchantment 7 and Construction 7 important to research fast, so that we can spam out Lightless Lanterns and get ahead of others. Can also craft a Thistle Mace for an indy N1 mage just like the boar. Very tempting to try out the Svartalf Mastersmith in the future, feels like he could mix some good ideas of expander and rainbow without sacrificing too much. :)

[@ChazzyBurger]

Thrice horned boar is a good pretender for expansion, I agree! It does hurt a little if you want to use more sappers or black knights due to only having order 1 for your forts, but he has a little more late game potential than earth snek due to his nature path. If you wanted a potentially more useful pretender than that, an awake earth mother with E6 N4 D5O2P3H2G0L0D3 hardskin reinvig could be a better shout, you have full slots to use with her for giving her the items you forge, she has inbuilt regen and can trample the same as a boar. She has 14 natural protection with hardskin and earth magic, but you can give her a full black plate to even that out, and she can cast personal regeneration for 20% regen a turn total while having even more hp. She can't go beserk, but that means she's harder for the enemy to break script with as well, so she can do more later in the game. Because she can hold all items, she can use the thistle mace into treelords staff to get you to the point of nature 6 spells and if you're really wanting to push the envelope, give her a copper arm to hold both at once and boom, you've got a gift of nature's bounty caster should you want it. As for growth on Ulm, sure it's a nice to have but I think you are better off spending the points for either more magic diversity or scales, it just doesn't do quite enough. If it had more immediate effect on income I'd suggest it, but it's too late into the game, and as Ulm you want to be getting ahead sooner rather than banking on coming back later. As for your archmage, it's a decent build I agree! Though I'd prefer to get some astral on your pretender to secure iron angels, to help you remain in play in the later stages of the game, and to help bootstrap your master smiths ability to form Sky Matrix Crystals and Slave crystals, at least until you get some astral randoms, so you can use communions more. I'd suggest instead of the arch mage using the master alchemist dormant with F4A1W2E4S4N2G3 Inspirational Presence 3x reinvig and farcaster with D4O2P3C2G2L2D3 as a better idea. He gives you more magic diversity, which is always nice, farcaster for your priest smiths and evocations and let's you craft the fire, water, astral, nature and glamour boosters for himself to play around with. It also opens up death access for you through fay princes if you want to with the Unseelie. His scales are a little worse with C2, but for the magical access you can get later into the game to stay relevent I think its worth it, your income isn't negative and it should hurt your early expansion as the turns will turn to summer for the extra heat scales before winter, so you should expand well enough in the first couple of turns to cover that gold loss in the later part of the year. But choose whatever you think is best obviously, my opinion is just one of many! The Svartalf mastersmith I love, he's great in that he's always in play, you just need to carefully decide how powerful you want him to be vs how good your scales are. He's an expander and a dormant sitesearcher/forger/researcher rolled into one, but he'll never be good as either choice in their respective field. I still love him though. Good luck in your next game!

[@TheSupajee]

@@ChazzyBurger whoa that was detailed, thank you. :D Great Mother is interesting, I actually had something like that saved in pretender creation! Very interesting trade-off to delay expansion few turns, and in return you get all that. Could be worth it! For the rainbow my issue in my test games so far has been that I've struggled to find any other gems than Earth and Fire for the most part. I tested a site searcher rainbow, but he was being overworked since he was the only one capable of casting the rituals. All in all for MA Ulm I think I might prefer not taking Growth at all and just play it aggressive with an awake expander or dormant titan, focusing only on 2-3 magic schools. I won't lie though, Astral would be brilliant to have... but can't have everything! :)

[@Bill_Garthright]

Nice job! I only play single-player, and MA Ulm is a nation I return to whenever I don't want to think very hard. Heh, heh. I mean, it's just easy to relax and play. And I play enough complicated games that I need a break, sometimes. I was wondering if there were any differences Dom 6 made to this nation. I suppose their cavalry are even better now, since the horses are also heavily protected. (Light cavalry has really been nerfed, don't you think?) I do need to try something new, since I can't just play the same way all the time, even when I _am_ looking for a relaxing experience.

[@ChazzyBurger]

MA Ulm always has a special place in my heart for this exact reason, definitely the best fire and forget in terms of your units, the depth's there if you really want to min max it but it has a low skill floor if you don't! I would say that in a sense there's been some indirect buffs for Ulm in Dominions 6, the increase of population and gold means it's easier for them to mass troops because they're much less likely to be recruitment point blocked and changes to resistances giving a percentage reduction to overall damage means that the army buffs for things like flame ward do a lot more for the Ulmish troops. I do think that black knights are currently very strong and have the advantage of not being sacred so not needing a high dominion to pump out. Very terrain dependent though, if you can get a fort with high recruitment points and resources they're very good against normal troops. Additionally I think black lords as well are quite a bit better on their mounts and are slightly better at a light thugging role than before, just due to the cheap costs of items for Ulm and their good base equipment. If you wanted a nation that's different but still slightly similar to MA Ulm that needs a little more thought I've always been partial to MA Machaka, who are actually surprisingly good now with their black hunters and have a lot more magic diversity than Ulm so you can do more fun stuff with scripting!

[@Bill_Garthright]

@@ChazzyBurger Thanks for the suggestion! I did play MA Ulm as my first game of Dom 6, and I had so much money, I didn't know what to do with it. Heh, heh. As you say, the increase in population made it just ridiculous.

[@daniillevchuk6128]

Afaik, your reduction of 4 applied to total amount of gems required, not each gem type individually if multiple.

[@ChazzyBurger]

You are right indeed! If I can workout how to make a popup on the video I'll add that in, I was sure that was the way it worked previously but it was not!

[@williammclyr3330]

If nothing changed from dom5 I'd recommend to ignore all infantry variants except for pikes for expansion, due to how horrendously bad ulmish defense skill is, they are extremely easy to repel, so anything with spears are hard to kill efficiently while pikeneers just ignore enemy repel for 99% of the time. Though later on all infantry variants will have it's niche

[@ChazzyBurger]

I'd agree, though at attack skill 10 you can't rely on repelling for your pikeneers unfortunately, especially with higher numbers of indies. I really like the flails due to their two attacks on a single target, so they're likely to kill the enemy they strike, and the fact they get +2 to attacks versus shields, which most militia style indies use. Pikeneers do have a really nice role against barbarians though, that repel can save them where their protection can't!

[@williammclyr3330]

@@ChazzyBurger yeah 10 attack isn't enough to repel consistently but it still helps. Overall I think not getting repelled themselves part is more important for pikeneer, though maybe in dom6 it's easier to buff up morale to ignore repels that way

[@JOnatanKERtis]

Allfather / Dormant A4/D5/G4 D5/O2/P3/H1/__/__/D2 Far Caster Stygian Flesh Heroism

[@ChazzyBurger]

A nice build, I do wish the Allfather didn't give the +1 limit to magic scales, i quite enjoyed using him as a fairly wide magic path titan in Dominions 5, just can't squeeze out the points anymore!

[@Benjaminy2k]

Drain 3 is a bad scale because it opens you to negative events that destroy magic gems.

[@ChazzyBurger]

That is true, but it's trade off, personally I'm happy enough to risk potentially losing gems later in the game if I can help pay for my production scales, obviously it sucks when it happens though and you wish you never took it!

[@ketschop3948]

Can you make ma marignon ? 😁

[@Vimdraa]

Hey Chazzy, I love your videos but please do not start a series with MA Ulm... Every single tutorial video for this game plays either EA Ulm, or MA Ulm. Please play someone that is actually complex so that us new players can learn how to play something more complicated than Ulm... Ulm is so boring...

[@ChazzyBurger]

Not an issue Joe, we have already played a series as MA Ulm for dominions 6 as a series targeted for new players, so I wanted to put this out just as a continuation of that. I have a new series planned to start soon that should hopefully be a better stepping off point to go into some higher skill level game play. Though this will have to wait to get properlly started as I'm out in the hills at the moment! Glad you've enjoyed the videos so far!

[@ogaburan]

lol, too late... What is this about Ulm being boring, Ulm is one of the nations that stands out: an anti-magic anti-bless nation in a game mostly about magic and blesses.

[@Vimdraa]

From a purely mechanical point of view, Ulm is very out of the box. Your starting units can expand without issue and they can mostly avoid the more complicated mechanics (like magic) and just punch away. Meanwhile the harder mechanics, like blood, astral, communions, death and summon-heavy or squishy standing army nations don't get a spotlight in guides. :) Thankfully that's changing a bit now in the new series

[@Vimdraa]

I saw your new video drop on the Nidavangr, and I'm super excited for it. Very curious to see more complicated concepts like blood and magic

[@williammclyr3330]

​@@VimdraaI think ulm is more of easy to learn hard to master type of nations. Yes you can just print units and hope to beat enemies in straight up fight with some buffs from mages. But you can also start learning thugging with great gem efficiency of ulmish crafting. Or you can try to do something interesting matrices and communions