The MA Ulm issue.

[Burnsaber]

I've been reading these forums for a long time and this one question just keeps on popping up in several threads, and horribly derailing them. Besides, having parts of the discussion separated on 10+ threads makes it very hard for developers to see what is the community stand on the issue.

So, I made this thread for your MA Ulm discussion needs. The three important questions are;

1) Is MA Ulm underpowered?

2) If question1=true, is it so underpowered that it takes out the enjoyment from playing it?

3) If question2=true, how to fix this?

The summarized comments on the question1 on prior threads

For;
1) Ulm's troops (there are numerous arguments about this so I'll devide these a bit)

1a)Ulm's troops are slow (both and off-the field), which limits expansion and tactical possibilities. It also allows for their opponent's to blast them with numereous spells before they reach melee (see argument 1b)

1b)Their reliance on heavy armor and low-MR makes them vulnerable to both armor negating and MR-checking spells, which are numereous and easliy available to every nation. This makes their troops easily counterable.

1c)Arbalests make normally high-prot Ulmish troops vulnerable to friendly fire.

1d)Their high encumberance doesn't synergize with the high protection value since it diminishes the lasting power that high protection presents.

1e) Their troop selection (while allowing different weapon combinations) only consists of high resourcecost, highly armored troops, limiting army construction, and making their armies predictable.

1f) Ulm's troops have average morale (expect for guardians and Black Knights) and few means to boost it (see argument 6), diminishing their lasting power in combat.

2) Their weak mages can't allow them to be succesfull in mid and late-game. They're also borderline old age.

3) Their pretender desing is limited by being "forced" to take Production:3

4) Reliance on resource-heavy troops limits their early expansion since massing their troops early is difficult.

5) Their forging ability is diminished by not having a reliable Thug/SC chassis and their low magic ablity doesn't allow them to summon one easily.

6) No sacreds and priests to speak of.

Against
(I couldn't find too much of these, most posts were like "they're fine, but...")

1) Ulm's troops combination of high protection and high-damage weapons allows them blow through other nation's normal infantry and indepentends in (relatively) small numbers.

2) Ulm's troops are nearly immune to normal short-bows archers and have high resitance to longbows and crossbows.

3) Their forging powers allow them polital maneuvorability and survivalability.

4) Ulm's troops have wide selection of weapon choices, allowing them to choose right weapons for the right job.

5) Since Ulmish troops have Gold cost:Resource cost ratio of 1:2 / 1:3 they have lots of extra cash to crank out forts, which has numereous advantages.

Collected & summarized ideas for question 3:

- Give them low resource cost crossbow (like MA Marignon has) unit to ease early expansion and serve as gold sink.

- I'd like to remind you people that they are NOT getting their MR raised (developer comment).

- Make Ulmish troops generally tougher (more HP, streght, attack, etc..)

- Ease the vulnerabilites of Ulm's troops (higher morale, lower encumberance, higher tactical and stragedic speed)

- Allow for more magic divesity by meddling with Smith's random magic picks.

- Give them new national spells and/or troops to combat other nation's sacreds and mages. "mage/priest"-hater spells/troops seem to have popularity.

That's what I collected. If I missed something, bring it up.

EDIT1: Typo fixing & improved readability.
EDIT2: Added "crossbow"-fix idea

[Micah]

Excellent summary Burnsaber. I think the idea of adding a low-resource troop to their lineup so they have a gold sink may have been overlooked in your post though. (Crossbows were my suggestion, but something else could work too)

[Xietor]

Blade Wind< arrow fend

One way to help Ulm would be to make blade wind unaffected by arrow fend. Typically by the time Ulm gets summon earthpower and Blade Wind other races have arrow fend.

Because the way the game mechanics work, blade wind, because it is not aoe1, is affected by arrow fend.

Maybe a national spell for ulm similar in effect to blade wind-but aoe1.

As I said in another thread, less magical diversity and more earth. Remove extra pick and old age from smiths and give them 3e 1f and a 10 percent chance for 4e. Adding petrify/earth attack would help them.

[Baalz]

One thing that would go a long way towards helping Ulm would be to change the smiths from being 1f 2e +10%fesa to 1f 1e +100%fea +10%bsnd.

[Sandman]

A long lasting debate indeed. I've suggested many different things over the years, including magic weapons, an assassin, high MR on the elites, a 'worker' mage and a standard bearer.

These are all pretty small tweaks. We could always go for broke and give Ulm a Grand Master Smith. 3 earth, 2 fire and one random. The potential of such a mage is enormous, single-handedly turning Ulm into a top-tier nation.

[Burnsaber]

I don't think that adding any new superunit(s) will be good fixes.

Adding some superunit to magically fix Ulm's problems would just warp all of their available stragedies to that certain unit. I can see a future Ulm stragedy thread;

"How do I play the new Ulm?"
"Dude, just make Unit X accompanied by leader Y. Save the rest of the gold to make new forts for more X's and Y's"

IMHO, currently Ulmish troops have too many weaknessess compared to their strenghts. I think that some of these have to be removed or made less drastic.

[dmentd]

I think two changes could change MA Ulm sufficiently to be worth playing. Add one additional, high probability random elemental (75%) to the smiths and up their cost by 25 or 30 gold. This helps forging potential and direct combat potential. The second is to give the black lord significantly more hit points (25 hp total) using the "great endurance" rationale. This makes these guys potential thugs.

These two changes make MA Ulm a middle of the road nation and possible to play in MP. It also follows thematically with the nation. Of course, I have only played two MP games, neither of which are finished yet, so please take my suggestions with the proverbial grain of salt.

[Nikolai]

> [1) Ulm's troops combination of high protection and high-damage weapons allows them blow through other nation's normal infantry and indepentends in (relatively) small numbers.

So so. Fresh recruit infantrymen, maybe. Good national troops, no way. Almost any human nation has defense 13-16 troops, and those often have armour 15-17. And THEY have encumberance 5-7, not 7-10. Good luck killing these with Ulm... you will be crawling exhausted before that.

And anyone good kills indies without dead. Give me principles, longbowmen, defenders... not even talking about vans and centaurs.

> 2) Ulm's troops are nearly immune to normal short-bows archers and have high resitance to longbows and crossbows.

Yes. But so do anyone those with shields. The tower shield helps tons more against a crossbow that armour 20 (Ulm's best) and everyone almost gets tower shields.

> 3) Their forging powers allow them polital maneuvorability and survivalability.

Yup, it's called being client nation (smith *****). Until they decide you've done with utility, being so damn limited.

> 4) Ulm's troops have wide selection of weapon choices, allowing them to choose right weapons for the right job.

As long the job's killing small number, low defense humans - maybe. No high attack weapons, no high defense weapons. Ulm needs rediscover swords and light shields/armour.

> 5) Since Ulmish troops have Gold cost:Resource cost ratio of 1:2 / 1:3 they have lots of extra cash to crank out forts, which has numereous advantages.

Yeah. Ulm gets castles, to make more crap :-)

I am not arguing with Burnsaber, but with the positions listed. Ulm needs help.

And Burnsaber's right, giving superunits is a bad fix. Just tune the existing up, and make smiths smarter.

[Edratman]

As a minor aside, why is there such a fervent love/hate relationship with MA Ulm? It reminds me of my trips to Japan, where everyone believes that they are superior to any and all other non-Japanese, but almost eveybody has a t-shirt on with the logo of an American sports team or some other American product.

No other nation gets anywhere the number of posts that MA Ulm does. I concur that it is one of the weaker nations, but the other contenders for weakest nation honors seldom get mentioned. Was Ulm a favored nation in Dom2 and players still remember that?

[MarcusSmythe]

Ulm is a good 'jump into' nation. As far back as Dominions PPP, its focus on troops over magic and formations over SCs made it very accessible to the new player, and gives it a very different feel than other nations.

Thus, alot of us have happy early memories of Ulm.

As another thing, Ulm is the closest thing to a nation able to just 'make war'. No mutliple blesses, no SCs and hordes of mages, no 'tricks'. Ulm has its core troops as its backbone, rather than a bless rush or a giant pile of mages+clams casting various flavours of 'I win and you all die, and I get gems for it'. Thus, its very different, flavour-wise, from alot of nations, and is appealing to people who like that flavour.

Unfortunately, its a flavour that just doesnt perform well in the current environment, so alot of virtual ink is spilled discussing the problems.

[Burnsaber]

Besides, MA Ulm is totally badass.

They fight terrible magical enemies with only steel and will. Like Conan the Barbarian, for example. It's just that their troops blow, unlike Conan.

From Dr.Praetorious
"Ulm is a nation of men, with human failings (and then some, but that's a distinct question), fighting against hordes of magic wielding demons, evil animated statues and malevolent warlocks, with only steel and sinew, and some magic available in a limited, supporting role."


EDIT; http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif, stole Xietor's Conan analogy. Oops.

[Xietor]

You stole my Conan analogy!

Here it is from another thread:

I also agree with that concept-but KO does not.

I think mr should go to magical races like Pangaea-and to races that "shun" magic. Maybe their god is the god of war-the god of steel. Think Conan the Barbarian and Crom. Crom favors his people with great mr, morale in battle, prowess in battle-in return for not delving into magic. The forge ability ties into strong earth magic with a touch of fire.

A boost for Ulm could include limiting their magic diversity to 3 Earth 1 fire only, with a 10 percent chance to get 4 earth(petrify, earth attack), remove old age for smiths, increase hps, mr, and morale. This limits their diversity even further, but makes them stronger in Earth-which is thematic.

The nation of steel should not be subpar in combat to almost every other nation. I would give their black knights a 1h sword of sharpness as well. MA Ulm's warriors should be feared-not ridiculed.

The resource cost to make these units, and their slow speed, keep them from being overpowered.

[Micah]

Oh, Xietor, I like the sharpness idea, it's also completely thematic that semi-magical high-quality steel could be sharp enough to give AP. I'd much prefer to see the swords on a new unit instead of the knights, since they're still too expensive for their MR fragility, but the idea is excellent.

[DrPraetorious]

The dom2 history is worth a lot - people have a lot of affection for the nations that were in previous games. Also, people like Ulm for the schtick - which I think it is important to preserve.

Marverni is probably even more troubled than Ulm, but it is a strong magic nation, so the fix (better magic) is less controversial.

There is general agreement that other underpowered nations *exist*, but not what they are. I myself vascillate a lot:
- I used to think Bandar Log and MA Agartha were underpowered. In MP games I feel that I have been proved wrong IN THE FACE, which is the best way to be proven wrong, no question.
- I've lost a lot of respect for Patala. But it's in the late age, and I don't play in the late age that much.

That said, I think that Ulm and Marverni are the only nations so weak that some kind of fix is needed. There are other slightly weak nations, but good luck with a slightly weak nation puts you in a better position than average luck with a decent nation, so they are close enough to balanced.

For MA Ulm, I propose:
* A national version of Legions of Steel that benefits the entire battlefield - both sides. This punishes summoned units (natural Prot isn't boosted) to some extent, and is a good combo with...
* A national version of Weapons of Sharpness that benefits your entire army at once.
* A national version of Haste for your entire army at once.
* A spell that removes fatigue and possibly heals damage from your troops. I'm not sure how well the computer would target it so this needs experimentation.
* Efficient single target damage spells to deal with raiding supercombatants (and supercombatants generally).
* National spells that inflict feeblemind, to deal with enemy mages, evening the field in that respect.
* National spells that inflict detrimental conditions on hostile sacred units, so that they fight on an even field with your national troops.
* A national spell that puts up a City, lower research level and easier to cast than Wizards' Tower.
* "Mechanical" national summons for *non-combat roles* - ritual spell-casting, preventing bad events, protecting stacks from mindhunt, etc.

With this arsenal of spells (all located in Constr and Thaum), Ulm remains a nation of Men, but has the resourced needed to, at least theoretically, fight all the monsters and sorcerers on something of an equal footing, and with no changes in the army list *at all*.

[Warhammer]

What if, instead of wholesale changes, we just give Ulmish troops some reinvigoration? This would refelect their super increased training since they shun magic. Or, alternately, give them a national spell that removes fatigue from the troops.

[Burnsaber]

DrPraetorious said:
..*lots of stuff*..
with no changes in the army list *at all*.



Hmm. Those are not certainly bad ideas, but I really think that Ulm shouldn't rely on his mages in order to have his troops "not suck". It'be like this;

Ulm soldier: Damn we hate mages. They're like vile and stuff.
*enemy attacks*
Ulm Soldier: Where are our Mages? We need buffs to not run away/ die to exhaustion/to hit opponents! We are DOOMED!

Besides, I don't that AP weapons are necessary. Ulm troops already have high damage weapons and good strenght. They just need to actually hit troops.

[Sombre]

I think messing with Ulmish base stats is not something KO would go for. He likes only a slight difference from other humans - see Firbolg - bigger but only slightly better stats. Same deal with Ulmish - they get an extra 1 hp and that's about it :]

On the other hand, I think their special blacksteel armour could justifiably be 1 or so less encumbering, or even stronger, because it's supposed to be special and because the troops would clearly have trained in it often, building up the muscle needed to carry it around without tiring instantly.

I like Dr Ps idea to give them spells themed on legions of steel and weapons of sharpness (though not necessarily the exact spells he suggests). You could also give them a construction school spell which reduces enc, removes fatigue or gives reinvig, explaining that it reminds the Ulmish of their proud heritage and lightens the weight of the armour. Of course you can't allow the mages to go spamming this on themselves.

I think a standard unit would be fine.

I totally disagree with any suggestion to give Ulm a cheap crossbow unit, because then they'll just build crossbow armies with a handful of the cheapest tower shield guys at the front. Doesn't encourage use of their diverse (and sadly rather crappy) infantry at all.

On the subject of actually hitting stuff - Ulm could justifiably have superior versions of basic weapons. Blacksteel flail, blacksteel sword, Ulmish hammer etc. These could carry att 1 def 1 or whatever, representing the kind of quality seen in the Jomonese weapons.

[Lord_Bob]

I really don't see why you can't just buff their standard troops quite a bit.

Increase the gold cost of the troops, and give them better stats to go with all that VERY VERY HIGH resource cost equipment. Principes are AWESOME compared to the "Infantry Of Ulm". Map Move 2 + Tower Shield + Very High Defense

The difference is the Pythium Infantry is just "buying time" from the Pythium Communion Mages to unleash magical fury. The Ulm infrantry is "buying time" for themselves to become exhausted.

[CUnknown]

Since I am the only one defending MA Ulm here (I am the one "Ulm is not underpowered" vote), let me go ahead and state my case.

First off, let me preface by saying that Ulm clearly isn't a top tier nation. I'd say they're somewhere in the middle, but since I am their top supporter apparently, the truth is that they are probably in the lower 50% in terms of power. But, is that a problem? I mean, -someone- has to be in the lower 50%. Are they -so- unbalanced that you just can't win with them against good players? Certainly not, I've won with them before, and I've come in 2nd place several times with MA Ulm (well, to be honest, it was Dom2 Ulm). 2nd place out of like 10 people is pretty dang good. By the logic of "Ulm is compelte crap!", you all would have to argue that I would have won those games with ease if I was playing Vanheim, say, which I don't think is the case.

Now about the specifics Burnsaber mentioned.

1a)Ulm's troops are slow, both tactically and map-move-wise.

It is a disadvantage, sure. Balanced races have disadvantages. Tactically, this is not even worth mentioning as a disadvantage -- your incredibly cheap pin-cushion units are getting pinned. So what? I think you guys view Ulm's units in a different light than I do. They're the toughest and cheapest cannon-fodder in the game, they don't kill much stuff without buffs (such as Weapons of Sharpness), their real function is to absorb damage cheaply. Ulmish warriors do not hope to come back alive, their only purpose is to die in your service!!

1b) AN attacks and MR negates attacks make their troops easily counterable.

See above. If you are speaking about Black Knights instead of standard troops, surely, there are counters available against them. Again... so what? Black Knights are a great mid-game unit, but towards the end-game I never build them. They have their moment of usefulness where they can really turn the tide of a battle. When the counters arrive, you stop building them.

1c)Arbalests make normally high-prot Ulmish troops vulnerable to friendly fire.

A minor side-effect to having the best missile troop in the game (with the possible exception of Jomon's longbows). Again, see the "Ulmish troops are there to die for you" comment above.

1d)Their high encumberance doesn't synergize with the high protection value since it diminishes the lasting power that high protection presents.

I am just repeating myself here. See above.

1e) Their troop selection (while allowing different weapon combinations) only consists of high resourcecost, highly armored troops, limiting army construction, and making their armies predictable.

Why would you build anything else besides heavily-armored troops when you have them available for 10 gold? If this is a comment on the lack of early-game expansion power of Ulm, I think that is greatly exaggerated. Buy mercenaries and independent troops and you will expand with the best of them. You are guarenteed to get just about all the mercenaries for the first 10 turns.

1f) Ulm's troops have average morale (expect for guardians and Black Knights) and few means to boost it (see argument 6), diminishing their lasting power in combat.

Yes, this is a problem that I would like to see addressed. But one generally of minor importance.

2) Their weak mages can't allow them to be succesfull in mid and late-game. They're also borderline old age.

Ulm's mages are great! They only cost 140 gold and they can all cast Blade Wind and Magma Eruption! What else is there? I'm being semi-serious, too! Weakness of their mages is not an issue, but lack of magic diversity is. Ulm's mages are very potent at what they do.

3) Their pretender design is limited by being "forced" to take Production:3

Yes, but you get Production-3! And you can take Drain-3 to pay for it without losing anything of significance.

4) Reliance on resource-heavy troops limits their early expansion since massing their troops early is difficult.

It's not at all difficult if you take Production-3. I think MA Ulm has an excellent early game, as long as we're just talking about indies here. A nearby human with a bless rush can ruin anyone's day.

5) Their forging ability is diminished by not having a reliable Thug/SC chassis and their low magic ablity doesn't allow them to summon one easily.

Black Lords are actually pretty good thugs. If you gave them a much better thug than that, Ulm would quickly catapult into a top or second-tier faction.

6) No sacreds and priests to speak of.

So don't take a bless, this isn't a problem.


Done with Burnsaber's list, now to add some of my own points.

1) Spies + Lots of early castles = good

2a) Forging. Give any other nation an undispelable Forge of the Ancients and see how good they are.

2b) Forging for other people. You can make serious bank by selling items as Ulm. Or you can get tight with an ally by doing the same thing. Despite people's distaste for this, it really is a great advantage.

2c) Empowering and forging Blood items. Other races might want to do this, but with Ulm you are silly if you -don't- do it, it's so good.

2d) Research ability. Lightless lanterns put Ulm as a good research race. I think people don't realize how good the boost from these items are, and how cheaply and quickly Ulm can forge huge numbers of them. Combined with the blood stones from 2c) and the large numbers of castles mentioned above, and you've got yourself the ingrediants for a good turtle race.

2e) Little commander zap wands. I love these things. Given that you are going to have a large number of commanders ferrying around the huge numbers of troops you make as Ulm, giving your guys flame wands is a fun game. Later, you can upgrade them to fireball wands or the Rods of the Phoenix which are very powerful.

2f) Artifacts. Get 'em all. You know you've got the construction magic before anyone else.

3) Arbelests. I just wanted to prove my assertion earlier that Arbelests are the best missile weapon. Here are the stats (assuming no random numbers and that every shot is a hit.. which is of course false, take this with a grain of salt):

Weapon -- DPR (Prot 10) -- DPR (Prot 12) -- DPR (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 0 -- 0 -- 0
Longbow -- 3 -- 1 -- 0
Crossbow -- 2.5 -- 2 -- 1
Arbelest -- 3 -- 2.67 -- 2

Anything with a prot less than 10 can be killed easily by your hoards of indy shortbows. At 10, Longbows and Arbelests are equal in terms of DPR (damage per combat round). At protection 12, Arbelests are head and shoulders above Longbows, and higher than that it's just not comparable, Arbelests are the King.

Arbelests have an additional advantage in that they fire on the first turn (not the second or the third, for example) so that your damage is heavily front-loaded. Therefore, on any particular round of combat, arbelests will have done much more damage then they are "supposed" to have done.

[Xietor]

"Besides, I don't that AP weapons are necessary. Ulm troops already have high damage weapons and good strength. They just need to actually hit troops."

I do. MA man's KOA have ap. Vans may as well have it as you will never see one without an ap double attack.

Why should a nation who relies on steel and has a forge bonus be unable to forge an ap weapon for its best soldiers?

[Nikolai]

> Are they -so- unbalanced that you just can't win with them against good players? Certainly not, I've won with them before,

News flash! They were NOT good player, if they lost with Ulm. Unless by "won with them" you mean - I was someone's smith ***** since turn one, and we ganged a real nation.

Ulm is helpless to blesses, SCs, tramplers, and even good human infantry supported by priest (on turn 1) If you get a SC to stop them, you sacrifice diversity... and because you need scales, their SC is better anyway.

[PyroStock]

The nation of steel should not be subpar in combat to almost every other nation. I would give their black knights a 1h sword of sharpness as well. MA Ulm's warriors should be feared-not ridiculed.



"Mechanical" national summons for *non-combat roles* - ritual spell-casting, preventing bad events, protecting stacks from mindhunt, etc.



their special blacksteel armour could justifiably be 1 or so less encumbering, or even stronger, because it's supposed to be special and because the troops would clearly have trained in it often, building up the muscle needed to carry it around without tiring instantly.
On the subject of actually hitting stuff - Ulm could justifiably have superior versions of basic weapons. Blacksteel flail, blacksteel sword, Ulmish hammer etc. These could carry att 1 def 1 or whatever, representing the kind of quality seen in the Jomonese weapons.



I like these best.

The AP swords, even if sometimes unnecessary in troop battles would make them a little more threatening against SCs. Similiar to what Micah mentioned in the Most Useful Research thread about weapons of sharpness, except Ulm's black knights wouldn't need a mage to cast weapons of sharpness.

If some feel Dr.P's constructs/summons are "too magical for Ulm" then maybe a high cost/resource national unit. Expanding on the anti-mind attack idea, perhaps an expensive immobile/slow unit that acts like a giant lightning rod or dome (low % based on balance) since they fear magic so much. An Ulm only dome spell with a low research requirement is another idea.

[Frostmourne27]

For brevity, I won't mention it if I agree. Yes, I know it makes me look harsh and critical. Sorry. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, although it probably looks that way.


CUnknown said:

1a)Ulm's troops are slow, both tactically and map-move-wise.

It is a disadvantage, sure. Balanced races have disadvantages. Tactically, this is not even worth mentioning as a disadvantage -- your incredibly cheap pin-cushion units are getting pinned. So what? I think you guys view Ulm's units in a different light than I do. They're the toughest and cheapest cannon-fodder in the game, they don't kill much stuff without buffs (such as Weapons of Sharpness), their real function is to absorb damage cheaply. Ulmish warriors do not hope to come back alive, their only purpose is to die in your service!!




--> True. You can hold the enemy up for several turns. And... Oh crap. You can blade wind, if you forewnet construction, got conjuration 2, AND evocation 4. Not impossible, but arrow fend makes this totally useless. Also, BW is crap against anything with prot over 15, and weak vs. 12-15. You really need better stuff. Like Magma eruption, except that its even harder to get. And when you run into an SC? DOn't even start. You can't petrify, you can't get your own, you can't really bladewind it, since it probably wears armour, and magma erruption isn't that likely to kill it. And, of course, if four high seraphs reduce your infantry to toasted marshmallows in two turns, there isn't much for your mages to do other than run like hell. A few distraction units, and you probably won't kill much.



1d)Their high encumberance doesn't synergize with the high protection value since it diminishes the lasting power that high protection presents.

I am just repeating myself here. See above.




-->You miss the point I think, and I don't like your 'cannon-fodder' explination, but this isn't a disadvantage. EVERYONE with high protection has encumberance problems, except for the undead, and they have other problems.



1e) Their troop selection (while allowing different weapon combinations) only consists of high resourcecost, highly armored troops, limiting army construction, and making their armies predictable.

Why would you build anything else besides heavily-armored troops when you have them available for 10 gold? If this is a comment on the lack of early-game expansion power of Ulm, I think that is greatly exaggerated. Buy mercenaries and independent troops and you will expand with the best of them. You are guarenteed to get just about all the mercenaries for the first 10 turns.




I fail to see how you will get anymore mercs than anyone else with order 3. With the above mentioned prod 3, you will probably be able to spend most of your gold on recruitables, if you want to. Ulm of course, may NOT want to, since mercs are better that your troops at least 25% of the time.



2) Their weak mages can't allow them to be succesfull in mid and late-game. They're also borderline old age.

Ulm's mages are great! They only cost 140 gold and they can all cast Blade Wind and Magma Eruption! What else is there? I'm being semi-serious, too! Weakness of their mages is not an issue, but lack of magic diversity is. Ulm's mages are very potent at what they do.




--> They're cheap 'cause they're wortheless. Compare to Ktonian necromancers, which are 200, and LATE era. Necromacers have MORE magic, can get three in two paths, and TWO emore paths than smiths (death and some astral - as much as ulm gets air). Which, theoretically, means that the other nations get weaker mages. LE agartha, I should mention, has troops not vastly dissimilar to ulm's.



4) Reliance on resource-heavy troops limits their early expansion since massing their troops early is difficult.

It's not at all difficult if you take Production-3. I think MA Ulm has an excellent early game, as long as we're just talking about indies here. A nearby human with a bless rush can ruin anyone's day.




--> As mentionned above, compare to pythium. Pythium has easier expansion and a hell of a lot better magic.



6) No sacreds and priests to speak of.

So don't take a bless, this isn't a problem.




-->This limits options, but isn't really a disadvantage. Black Knights are comparable to moderatly blessed sacreds from the nations that don't have awesome sacreds. E.g. Pythium.



Done with Burnsaber's list, now to add some of my own points.

1) Spies + Lots of early castles = good

2a) Forging. Give any other nation an undispelable Forge of the Ancients and see how good they are.

2b) Forging for other people. You can make serious bank by selling items as Ulm. Or you can get tight with an ally by doing the same thing. Despite people's distaste for this, it really is a great advantage.

2c) Empowering and forging Blood items. Other races might want to do this, but with Ulm you are silly if you -don't- do it, it's so good.

2d) Research ability. Lightless lanterns put Ulm as a good research race. I think people don't realize how good the boost from these items are, and how cheaply and quickly Ulm can forge huge numbers of them. Combined with the blood stones from 2c) and the large numbers of castles mentioned above, and you've got yourself the ingrediants for a good turtle race.

2e) Little commander zap wands. I love these things. Given that you are going to have a large number of commanders ferrying around the huge numbers of troops you make as Ulm, giving your guys flame wands is a fun game. Later, you can upgrade them to fireball wands or the Rods of the Phoenix which are very powerful.

2f) Artifacts. Get 'em all. You know you've got the construction magic before anyone else.




-->Spies and castles ARE good. Of course, marignon could get the same, and just as easily.

-->Forging: You do NOT get a permanent forge of the ancients. Your mages don't get +1 in their known paths for forging. They also get 25% off, not 50, which is the forge bonus, IMHO. Oddly, Ulm also has a difficult time get the forge up. Honestly, making it an Ulm national might go a long way to solving ulm's problems.

--> The rest of your points are valid, but assume you research construction, which precludes the above mentioned evocation-smiths of doom. Also, they aren't that limited to Ulm. Lightless lanterns aren't THAT expensive.

[CUnknown]

For brevity, I won't mention it if I agree. Yes, I know it makes me look harsh and critical. Sorry. I'm not trying to be antagonistic, although it probably looks that way.



No worries! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


... You can blade wind, if you forewnet construction, got conjuration 2, AND evocation 4. Not impossible, but arrow fend makes this totally useless. Also, BW is crap against anything with prot over 15, and weak vs. 12-15. You really need better stuff. Like Magma eruption, except that its even harder to get. And when you run into an SC? DOn't even start.



Let's see.. I mean.. Are there counters to Ulm's units? Yes. Are there counters to Ulm's magic? Yes. Why is that an issue? There are counters to just about everything out there. About the SC stuff.. I just disagree.. Ulm can both make and counter SCs and thugs. I'm not sure how to argue that point except just to contradict you, though. Other factions can get/counter them easier, but Ulm can certainly get/counter them. I'm not trying to argue that Ulm is in the upper 50% of factions.


I fail to see how you will get anymore mercs than anyone else with order 3.



Because you have far more available money than anyone else in the early game.


Their weak mages can't allow them to be succesfull in mid and late-game. They're also borderline old age.


They're cheap 'cause they're wortheless.





Um... no? We just disagree.


As mentionned above, compare to pythium. Pythium has easier expansion and a hell of a lot better magic.



I'm not arguing that Pythium isn't better than Ulm.


-->Forging: You do NOT get a permanent forge of the ancients. Your mages don't get +1 in their known paths for forging. They also get 25% off, not 50, which is the forge bonus, IMHO. Oddly, Ulm also has a difficult time get the forge up. Honestly, making it an Ulm national might go a long way to solving ulm's problems.



I never build the Forge as Ulm because there's no point to it. Ulm's forging abilities are equivalent to the Forge, and I have other uses for my earth gems.

[Panpiper]

CUnknown said:I never build the Forge as Ulm because there's no point to it. Ulm's forging abilities are equivalent to the Forge, and I have other uses for my earth gems.



In my experience, the forge bonus of the smiths stacks with the forge bonus of the global, making items that much less costly in terms of gems. The bonus of plus one to the caster spell level for the purposes of forging also saves you from having to do that one last empowering on each of your specialty smiths, which saves a lot of gems, far more gems get saved from this that are spent on casting the global.

The idea of making that spell a national spell for Ulm is interesting. I rely (completely) on forging to keep Ulm competitive (though I only play SP).

[Xietor]

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5857/satyrhoplitebg8.th.jpg (http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=satyrhoplitebg8.jpg)


good infantry.


Bad infantry-look at ulm.

Pangaea's infantry is not the best, but it is solid. 23 resources. 13 gold. 14 defense. Some of Ulm's infantry have defenses of 5 and 7. difference of 4 in mr. Pangaea has more hps.

Also MA Pangaea can boost the average morale of their infantry with their priests. Ulm cannot. And with recuperation, pangaea's infantry are much more likely to be useful after 4 or 5 battles and have experience stars that boost morale and stats.

Then we could compare the Black Knight to the Centaur Cataphract. The centaur is cheaper, and its recuperation and mr make it the more desirable unit. 32 resources v a whooping 68 resources. 40 gold v 55. 20 hps to 15. 13 mr to 9. Same str, same defense. Knight has 1 more protection, 2 better attack and a bit more punch to its attacks. Knight has 15 morale to 11 for pangaea's.

Ulm, the nation of steel, seems to be weak melee v melee. And that should not be. And I will not even compare arcos infantry to ulm's. And Arcos has elephants and good magic.

[Valandil]

I was hoping that would be a hoburg. You disappoint me.

As regards to Ulmish forging:
Err? You have a 25% discount on forging with an E2 F1 mage. This is in no way, shape, or form equivalent to forge of the ancients, which is twice as effective, and gives +1 in all known paths.

However, with a dwarven hammer, and the forge, master smiths can make items for free. This is usefull.

Ulm has no particular expansion ability compared to any nation except Agartha (and a few others, I guess).

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

A couple points with regards to the Pangean comparison...

'difference of 4 in MR'
Although it requires research in Thau 5, Ulm gets the amazingly inexpensive "Tempering the Will", providing all your units +4 MR. Because of its low fatigue, you can cast it even with a level 2 earth mage, even if you don't research conjuration or construction ... though that is a bit unlikely.

And while Thau 5 is a bit pricey, at a aggregate cost of 620, it can fit in your research budget easily, later on.

The defense hurts... but Ulm can get Tower Shields. While they're fairly easy to bypass in melee...

Shield (Pan) 4 parry
Tower Shield (Ulm) 7 parry

attacker generally rolls DRN+6
At the start of a battle, before melee causes fatigue...
Pan: 10+DRN (Diff of 4, or 18%)
Ulm: 16+DRN (Diff of 10, or 3%) CORRECTION EDIT

I am curious what spells these missile hit mathematics apply to. Blade of wind certainly, possibly even fire spells... Page 77 certainly implies that many fire spells count as missile weapons, though I don't know about splash damage. Can a shield parry lightning?

Anyways, before you even factor protection into the equation, you're getting hit only half as much, even by crossbows.

The cost for Infantry of Ulm (not Black Plate)? 10, 26. The lack of recuperation is notable, but where as the hoplite has a dinky little spear (dam3), Ulm has access to various weapons. The one I'm looking at has a hammer, with 7 damage.
Attack, Prot
Pan/Ulm 14+DRN versus 17+DRN
Ulm/Pan 18+DRN versus 15(body)+DRN

This is balanced by the variety of factors the Satyr Hoplite has in its advantage, such as defence and recuperation. And while the encumberance is equal (8) with these two units, fatigue decreases defense twice as fast as attack, which works in Ulm's favor in this matchup. In this particular matchup with the shield we get a defense of 11, which while inferior isn't as dramatically ineffective as a defense of five, especially while facing an attack of 11.

A small correction to Valandil. According to what I've read off of the forum, there is no free forging. The minimum is 10% cost.

I don't have enough Ulm or Pangaea experience to say who has the better infantry, but it isn't quite as one sided as you make it seem.

MA Pangaea generally has much inferior weaponry for a similar cost. I mean, EA Agartha uses spears... And we know what a super power their strong and hearty Pale Ones are. The War Minotaur is another story and price range, but spears really are of little comparison to the advantages of hammers and morningstars. Can someone refresh me as to what flails and morningstars, have as a special ability? I've forgotten.

EDIT:

--> True. You can hold the enemy up for several turns. And... Oh crap. You can blade wind, if you forewnet construction, got conjuration 2, AND evocation 4. Not impossible, but arrow fend makes this totally useless. Also, BW is crap against anything with prot over 15, and weak vs. 12-15. You really need better stuff. Like Magma eruption, except that its even harder to get.



Really, you don't need conjuration 2 for Blade Wind or Magma Eruption. You don't have a heck of a lot to spend gems on other then forging. At a measly 30 fatigue, you can spend a single gem on it. With Blade Wind, you can boost your path temporarily with one gem. Not economical in the long run, but in the short term, Blade Wind and Magma Eruption are viable even without booster magic or items. In fact, you can think of one pair of earth boots as being equal to 7 Magma Eruptions.

It's even more costly, but you also have access to fire three spells with a gem cost of 2 or less in combat. Pheonix Power can be cast with a spare gem, taking you up to two, and thereafter, you can cast 22 damage, ap flame bolts for hardened targets with Evo 1. Very late game, after you've capped construction, you can cast Pillar of Fire for 20 fatigue (f2) at Evo 8. 34 Armor piercing damage will threaten even a cyclops pretender.

As no one expects to need magic resistance against Ulm, you may even be able to pull of something with Hydrophobia, also an extremely inconvenient Thau 8. It's also more effective in a hostile empire with positive magic scales for a penalty to MR.

More practically speaking, Rage and Prison of Fire are also along the research path to Tempering the Will. They aren't world shattering, but they are effectively research free, unless you're ignoring Tempering the Will.

If you ARE going for BladeWind and summon Earth Power (EP first), you'll get Pheonix Power as well, and plenty of fire spells will be opened up along the way.

As well, you have Destruction, Strength of Giants, and Legions of Steel readily available. early. Making their fewer attacks that hit much more deadly, and more survivable.

Yes, Ulm's magic variety and power still is quite poor. But you do have a few more options available at all stages of the game than just Blade Wind and Magma Eruption. The magical victory still goes to other nations.

[Panpiper]

Valandil said:
However, with a dwarven hammer, and the forge, master smiths can make items for free. This is usefull.



Er... With the Forge of the Ancients cast and no other equipment in hand, my master smith makes a Cloak of Invulnerability for 30 earth gems. If he equips a dwarven hammer, it costs him 20 gems. If I give him the Hammer of the Forge Lord, it cost him 10 gems. In no case is it free. The bonuses stack, but it is not purely additive.

[Chris_Byler]

I think Ulmish troops need either a few more points of skill, or a slight reduction in blacksteel armor encumbrance/defense penalties, or both. If that isn't enough, maybe a couple more HP and another point of strength.

If they're only going to do one thing well, let them do it *really* well.

A national spell that gives a squad of troops/all friendly troops 50% resistance to all elements would be very nice, too. They have Tempering the Will to counter MR-negates spells, but nothing much to deal with Falling Fires/Frost or Orb Lightning (the regular counters to those elements require paths Ulm doesn't get easily). I realize this would basically duplicate Gaea's Blessing, but - Ulm *needs* to be able to counter other people's counter to armor, because they don't really have a Plan B.

One way to deal with the morale issue would be to give them commanders with Standard. If Strategoi and Legati Legionarum (if that's the correct plural, been a long time since I took Latin) can lead their men to greater valor, I don't see why Ulmsmen can't learn to command that well too.

A way to get enough Nature magic for Relief would be nice too, but might be too big a change to the nation because of all the other applications that nature magic would have.

[Cor2]

For me the problem would be solved by rasing the castle resource bonus from 25% to say 75%.

My complaint is not the MR or the slowness, I see that as central to the theme. My problem is I cannot crank out enough troops to keep up early game.

Should be pretty easy to mod, I might do that.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Oh... and before I forget...

While Arbalests open Ulm up to friendly fire, I'm not aware of the game taking any special considerations into account. That is, Tower Shields should be just as effective against friendly fire as hostile fire, with maybe only an 3% hit rate at the outset, climbing as high as 14% with 99 fatigue. If you recruit shielded infantry, you shouldn't really need worry about friendly fire so much as wasted ammo.

[Sombre]

You know it's sort of like putting a band aid on a festering axe wound, but Ulm could simply have their resource bonus in forts increased. It's currently 25% I believe. If it was 50% they would at least be able to produce their troops in bulk and some people might be tempted away from prod 3.

[Cor2]

Sombre said:
You know it's sort of like putting a band aid on a festering axe wound, but Ulm could simply have their resource bonus in forts increased. It's currently 25% I believe. If it was 50% they would at least be able to produce their troops in bulk and some people might be tempted away from prod 3.



Hey I just said that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Sombre]

Yeah, sorry, I didn't see :]

It's very easy to mod, if anyone wanted to test it out.

You just need to #selectnation (MA Ulm's number) then #castleprod 50 or 75 or whatever. Then #end :]


Just as a sidenote: Arbalests aren't the best missile weapons in the game. They're worse than crossbows imo. And Ulm's arbalests cost a load of resources, making them far harder to mass than say Marig's crossbows.

[Xietor]

the only bad thing about cranking 300 Ulm Infantry and an army of Black knights. Then a mage teleports in with a runesmasher, eye void, spell focus and casts master enslave and that person owns your army.

Yeah you can cast tempering the will if you have the luxury of going to thau. 5. That raises the mr from 9 to? I had commanders with 24 mr get enslaved in alpaca. heh. what chance does mr 9 have?

Of course you may get your commanders mind hunted, and be stuck with no one to cast tempering the will. Then it is pretty much automatic enslavement.

Maybe master enslave needs toned down a bit. But that is for a different thread. It is potent now though, and Ulm is last in being able to defend against it.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well, none really... but Master Enslave is a Thuamaturgy 9 spell, requiring an S8 mage, something thats not necessarily common. It's not the worlds fairest comparison. Tempering of the Will can be helpful against plenty of other spells, though.

620 RP versus 4600 on standard... That's CORRECTION: 1/7th of the effort required. If you're not facing anything that require you to boost your resistance earlier than that, then you're quite lucky. You'll have better odds than many 10 or 11 MR nations....

Regards to mind hunt, you've still got the not-quite effective enough lead shields. Though your Master Smiths will have a decent chance of surviving, the cost of mind hunt is obscenely low.

Even if you can't wipe them out, it may be worth finding the time to kill a level 8/9 astral pretender early, a couple of times. It'll stop wishery.

[KissBlade]

This will probably come as a surprise for most people but IMO MA Ulm isn't as terrible as it's made out to be. I think most people are either feeling the after effects of Dom II (where they are the worst nation) or the CB where Earth boots got bumped in cost and blade wind nerfed. In base, MA TC and MA Argatha are both in a worse off position (just going off the top of my head) with MA Oceania not doing too great either. Ulm troops are decent if you spread them out to avoid them clustering (and as a result eating up) too many magic attacks. Their mages, while unversatile, are actually decent in battle between earth buffs, decent prot, blade wind + magna spells. Arbalests are crappy but sappers are actually usable for their bonus + xbows. Drain 1 isn't too terrible compared to magic 3 in base if you're relying on indie mage research and drain 3 is just free points if you're planning on ending the game pre turn 50.

[DrPraetorious]

I disagree about MA Agartha. Certainly it isn't the strongest position early on, and the lack of crossbows can be comically painful - but in terms of combat magic, a golem crafter is just like a master smith except that he also has a water. We can have theoretical arguments all day - but the fact is, I've seen MA Agartha have a lot more success in a significant number of games, such that I doubt it's a fluke.

I agree about MA T'ien Ch'i - but MA T'ien Ch'i is very different from Ulm, and a fix is in the works from the devs.

[Salamander8]

I concur with Doctor Praetorius about MA Agartha compared to MA Ulm. MA Agartha is far from the strongest, and has some glaring weaknesses, but is functionally better than MA Ulm is. The infantry is somewhat similar, if lacking solid weaponry, but is less easily exhausted, has at least average MR, and has darkvision. MA Agartha's mages and priests are more diverse and they have some solid national summons as well. MA Agartha's golem cult effect can make a large difference for not only it's national statues, but for other construction summons as well. In Chinchilla, in which I am MA Agartha, I repeatedly beat MA Tien Chi's arrow swarms between my infantry's shields, and my statues' high protection and hit points to the point where he called off the war. I would of course still rank MA Agartha as not the best out there, but certainly a better performer than MA Ulm.

I've always liked MA Ulm's idea, but in practice they have so many problems. Slow and heavy infantry with bad MR get eaten alive by battlefield magic before they can even close the gap. As MA R'Lyeh fighting them for an example, I have my artillery brigades of ilithids mind blast away while my infantry blocks hold and attack and am often able to force Ulm to rout before they ever get to melee. The Arbalests fire so slowly and from such extreme range (and I usually split my ilithid groups into fire closest and fire archers as well), that they have little to no effect on even my poorly armored lobo guard chaff. I would like to see exactly what Dr. Praetorius was asking for: force the enemy, somehow, to meet Ulm on Ulm's terms.

On a related note, I was under the impression that shields did not help troops from friendly fire since the shields are in front and the projectiles hit you in the back and thusly provided no bonus against them. Is this not the case?

[Arralen]

Instead of argueing what-ifs, simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :

[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=514325&page=0)

[Sandman]

I'd say MA T'ien Ch'i isn't worse either. They're not exactly a powerhouse, but they've got enough magical and troop diversity to keep the enemy on their toes.

[Meglobob]

Arralen said:
Instead of argueing what-ifs, simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :

[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=514325&page=0)



The only problem with this, is in MP haven't ALL the players got to download the mod to play the game? Which further complicates setting up MP games.

However good mod Arralen. Lets hope Illwinter get the, 'hint' with MA Ulm and spice it up a bit in vanilla sometime soon.

Need to get Kristoffer or Johan to play MA Ulm in a MP game. It will then get loads of patch goodness, just like MA Mictlan + others will get in this next patch.

Its a fun way to get the devs to 'upgrade' a nation.

[Meglobob]

Well we are talking about MA Ulm, if MA Ulm is lucky enough to make it into the mid game, would Riches From Beneath help Ulm alot?

I have never cast Riches From Beneath but I always thought it may help Ulm considerably.

[CelestialGoblyn]

I'm not very experienced, but in my opinion all those could be done:
-Lower all armour's encumberance. Justify it with Ulmish armour being of higher technology than others.
-Give them some affordable bowman unit. If they're a nation of humans, why would they ignore the obvious advantage of having bowmen support the arbalets? Maybe something similar to LA Ulm's villain?
-Give them a good standart bearer. It will boost morale and be thematic.
-Give their priests a national anti-magic spell that would stack with 'tempering the will'.
-Increase the resource bonus in castles
-National Construction summon - steam golem.

edit: And how about a non-magical commander that can heal troops? A field surgeon perhaps. The same guy could also provide a supply bonus.

[Velusion]

Meglobob said:
Well we are talking about MA Ulm, if MA Ulm is lucky enough to make it into the mid game, would Riches From Beneath help Ulm alot?

I have never cast Riches From Beneath but I always thought it may help Ulm considerably.



I think Ulm might benifit from this more than many other nations... however...

In the mid game I'm trying to set myself up for the late game - where my infantry really won't be used much at all. I'm not sure I could ever justify casting this spell in that case when there are so many other better globals for entering the late game. Maybe if there were lots of global slots open and I could cast it for the base cost I'd consider it... but I wouldn't spend much more than than the base cost.

Now if I could somehow cast this in the early game I think it would be a very good deal for Ulm. IMHO RFB should probably be easier to cast anyway since it is barely ever used.

[Velusion]

Some nations peak (or don't) at very differnt times IMHO...

MA Ulm:
Average/Poor Early game
Average Mid game
Poor Late game

MA Agartha:
Poor Early Game
Average Mid Game
Good/Excellent Late Game

[CUnknown]

Sombre said:


Just as a sidenote: Arbalests aren't the best missile weapons in the game. They're worse than crossbows imo. And Ulm's arbalests cost a load of resources, making them far harder to mass than say Marig's crossbows.



The resource issue is a different one, there you are debating whether or not you want to pay for plate mail on your archers. However, the fact that arbelests are the best missile weapon in the game is not debatable, unless you are trying to argue that shooting protection 5 guys is way more important than shooting protection 12+ guys.

Arbelests simply do the most damage per combat round, as I have shown, so it's not up for debate.

[Frostmourne27]

CUnknown said:

The resource issue is a different one, there you are debating whether or not you want to pay for plate mail on your archers. However, the fact that arbelests are the best missile weapon in the game is not debatable, unless you are trying to argue that shooting protection 5 guys is way more important than shooting protection 12+ guys.

Arbelests simply do the most damage per combat round, as I have shown, so it's not up for debate.



I don't believe that you factored prescision differences in, but I think you are somwhat right regardless. Massed crossbowmen are highly overrated. Sure, C'tis might want them, but marignon is not better than Ulm because it has crossbows and not arbalests. Besides, the arbalest is the only nom-poison, non-magic ranged weapon that is halfway teolerable vs. thugs/SCs.

[Meglobob]

When you initially expand as MA Ulm, you are best off using pure 17 prot inf. Those slice through indies with ease. Ignore arblests and crossbows as they only kill your own army.

Around 30-40 infantry can easily take a indie. So you can get 2-4 armies going in the 1st year to grab alot of indies. When you meet other players then recruit arbalests/crossbows in droves. Put your inf on guard commander in front of your massed arbalests/crossbows and make the enemy come to you.

It may get you through to turn 30 or so if you are lucky.

[Lord_Bob]

What makes MA Argatha great in late game?

Darkvision? Marble Golems?

[RamsHead]

I'm guessing Umbrals.

[Velusion]

Lord_Bob said:
What makes MA Argatha great in late game?

Darkvision? Marble Golems?



"Great" is maybe an exaggeration. Let's stick with good. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Darkvision is nice (especially if Utterdark goes up). You also have:

Decent/good magic varity
Excellent Umbrals
Decent/good national summonable sacreds units
Mages that can take a lot of damage

If (and thats a big if) they manage to make it to the late game I'd say they are probably in as better position than most other equivalent sized MA nations.

However they do suck pretty badly in the early game - which is why don't see em win much.

[Meglobob]

I think Velusion and Dr P. have been influenced by how well MA Agartha has done in the mega game, Perpetuality, which has been surprising. Congratulations to atul who has been playing MA Agartha. Perhaps he will share his thoughts on how he has managed to do so well?

MA Agartha is still very weak in the early game however.

[atul]

Heh, thanks for congrats, Meglobob.

Perpetuality's just one game, and I've been thus far exceptionally lucky with my neighbours - up until attacking Man&C'tis I've been up against people who've had also their own neighbours to worry about.

At least one thing I've learnt to respect with MA Agartha are the Pale Ones. Abysmal troops - until you cast Darkness. After that, they're the tin can opener that destroys any walls in an instant and actually manages to be useful in a big fight, too.

I agree with Velusion's assesment. Umbrals are good, but they suffer from being 1) on different research path than national statues and 2) requiring Cap-only move 1 mage to summon. But, they're great. My current favorite's GoRed one with Black Heart.

Ancient Oracles are as great as earth mages come, Marble Oracles make surprisingly strong thugs as they're immune to Charm and fear, with actual magic variety you need indies as you get only level 1 on FWD on your mages, barring the 10% on capital-onlys.

But, early game sucked. I paid thousand gold and more in bribes to be left alone, but I guess it was worth it. Having immortal hp100+ pretender might have helped, weak nation suddenly seems a lot less weak when it has a recurring thug of its own.

[Sombre]

CUnknown: It is entirely debatable. Where have you 'shown' that arbalests deal the most damage per combat round of any missile weapon? I'm talking about tests here, not simply saying "look at their damage stat". Several people have noted that the arbalests fire first at extreme range and usually don't do much, then sit around reloading for two turns. Their second volley obviously does a lot better, but by the time they reach their third and fourth volleys crossbows, longbows and composites have put out a whole lot more fire. And yes, generally I believe crossbows are better, because I find the combination of firing more often and still having good AP damage (useful vs mid level prot) more worthwhile than being able to hurt the high prot guys who usually have shields.

It's worth noting that if we ignore body/head prot and just talk about shields, a parry is a parry and ignores the strength of the missile attack (I have tested and confirmed this - shield prot isn't factored in). Arbalests are no better than crossbows if the stumbling block is shielded enemies - indeed they are worse, as they produce less chances to get by the shield.

If they fired at the same speed as crossbows and cost the same amount of resources (the weapons themselves cost 4 as opposed to 3) but had better damage and range, you could say there can be no debate that they are better than crossbows. But that isn't the case. To my mind it's obvious arbalests and crossbows and longbows are all for different things - you can't say that Arbalests are simply the best and there can be no argument, because in so many cases (using fire arrows, against effective shields, against mid or lower prot, against enemies that will reach you before the second volley etc) they are not.

Ignoring all other factors, such as the resource and gold cost of the unit carrying the weapon - I would take crossbows over arbalests. They put out more fire (important for fire arrows, vs mid/low prot, vs shields) and still have the AP to do what I need (kill and injure non uber prot units). Note I'm not saying there can be no argument that Arbalests are better. There can. It will have to point out why the instances where they are better (vs high prot, high hp etc) are more important than the instances where crossbows are better. Actually since you said they're the best ranged weapon, no argument possible, you'll have to compare them with longbows, javs, throwing axes, mind burn etc etc.

[Valandil]

The best missile weapon in the game? Gaze of death! Enslave mind! Theft of Reason! you name it...

I think he meant something like ...'best mundane bow' or something. Even poison bow might be better.

[CUnknown]

Yeah, I was talking about 'best mundane bow'.. although Sauromatia's poison bows may in fact be better, I forgot about them.


Where have you 'shown' that arbalests deal the most damage per combat round of any missile weapon?



I did earlier on in the thread:


Weapon -- DPR (Prot 10) -- DPR (Prot 12) -- DPR (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 0 -- 0 -- 0
Longbow -- 3 -- 1 -- 0
Crossbow -- 2.5 -- 2 -- 1
Arbelest -- 3 -- 2.67 -- 2




Arbalests are no better than crossbows if the stumbling block is shielded enemies - indeed they are worse, as they produce less chances to get by the shield.



Shields are irrelevant in this dicussion because they affect crossbows and arbelests equally. It doesn't matter that "they have more chances to get through the shield" since that when arbelests -do- get through, they do more than enough damage to make up for not getting through last time. Just look at the damage numbers.

Fire arrows is a different matter, when that spell is cast, the DPR changes:

Weapon -- DPR (Prot 10) -- DPR (Prot 12) -- DPR (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 3 -- 2 -- 0
Longbow -- 6 -- 3 -- 0
Crossbow -- 4 -- 3 -- 1
Arbelest -- 4 -- 3.33 -- 2

In this case, you can't really tell which one is better.. Longbows are definitely the best against anything lower than 12 protection with fire arrows up, but arbelests still do pretty good, and are still the best against higher protections. But, admittedly, the lead has shrunk a lot, since even a shortbow has a good chance of damaging a 16 prot guy if it's flaming.

Without flame arrows, arbelests are just better. Now, there may be some issues with the first volley missing due to range (although arbelests have a nice range and precision stat), and that is more a problem with unit placement before the battle than with the arbelest itself anyway.

Here are the total damage numbers with the first volley completely missing (no flame arrows), through 5 combat rounds:

Damage x5 rounds (first missing): (Prot 10) -- (Prot 12) -- (Prot 16)

Shortbow -- 0 -- 0 -- 0
Longbow -- 12 -- 4 -- 0
Crossbow -- 10 -- 8 -- 2
Arbelest -- 9 -- 8 -- 6

This is a little more debatable, since the longbow has a nice edge against 10 protection or below. Also, the arbelest doesn't do any damage whatsoever until the 4th round.. but still, on the 4th round the arbelest catches up in a big way against anything over 12 protection.

I guess the take home lesson is to not put your arbelests in the far back, because they might miss the first round, and then they're much closer in power to the other mundane bows.

[Tuidjy]

> Arbelests simply do the most damage per combat round, as I have shown, so it's
> not up for debate.

CUnknown, you are an arrogant prick, but that's not the problem - after all, so
am I. The problem is that you are wrong, and by touting your misconceptions, and
generating as much noise as everyone else together, you may deceive people into
thinking that the community is more divided on this subject than it actually is.

You have not shown [censored]. First of all, your numerical analysis is totally
worthless for every single reason under the sun. I cannot even accuse you of
being deliberately obtuse, because your bad assumptions swing both ways - some
lend power to your argument, some fail to address the arbalest's strengths.
No, you are simply ignorant. And you analysis sucks. I am repeating myself,
and typing slowly, because I know you do not get things right away.

First your analysis reduces everything to a worthless DPR value. According to
you the damage per round of a short bow firing at a protection 10 unit is 0.
When you cannot deal negative damage, and your average is 0, all your values are
zero. And all this time I have been building short bow archers...

Second your analysis shows that you have no understanding of how damage is
computed. You are grossly underestimating crossbows and arbalests. I'll
enlighten you, no worries. Read on.

Third, disregarding precision, range, rate of fire, presence of shields, and
army orders is lame. The assumption that your opponent's as bad as you are
is also unjustified.

And last, production capacity and marching speed does matter. The high resource
cost and low strategy movement devalues arbalests. Real players fight real
battles, and in real battles, you use only what you manage to bring to the field.

OK, I'm almost done with insulting CUnknown...

CUnknown, I once crushed your Ulm with the race you believed was weakest,
in 15 turns, without blessing or tramplers. I am ready to do it again,
with any Dominions II land race. If you intend to answer this post, please
do it by proving my math wrong, or by picking up my challenge. I'm tired
of non-substantiated nonsense.

Now, I'm done. The rest will be worth reading, I promise!

Lets remember how damage is computed. Once a hit has occured, both the damage
dealt and the armour value get two open ended dice added to them. The average
value for such a roll is 8.5 (I will not back up my math here. Anyone who doubts
it will have to bathe in my vitriol in a different post)

Thus when firing at a protection 10 unit, damage 10 short bows will fail to
do damage about half the time. 18.5 vs 18.5 - it's a wash. Now consider a
damage 10 crossbow. The average case is 18.5 armour-piercing (AP) damage versus
13.5 armour. Five points of damage are dealt when the rolls match.

Next I'll throw some numbers at you. I will consider five armour levels, and
examine how four different weapons affect them. I will be tracking kills,
no damage hits, and the average damage for all remaining hits.

Armour levels: 0 (none), 10 (light), 15 (heavy), 17 (elite), 20 (black plate)
Weapons: short bow, longbow, crossbow, arbalest
The targeted enemies are assumed to have 10 hit points.

First case: Unarmoured targets. Remember, we are tracking only hits

short bow (10) ---- Kills: 46.0% -- No damage: 6.7% --- Hits: 47.3%(6.79)
longbow (13) ------ Kills: 68.4% -- No damage: 3.2% --- Hits: 28.4%(7.09)
crossbow (10AP) - Kills: 46.0% -- No damage: 6.7% --- Hits: 47.3%(6.77)
arbalest (14AP) --- Kills: 74.4% -- No damage: 2.5% --- Hits: 23.1%(7.12)

Once we adjust for rate of fire, it becomes clear that against unarmoured targets
arbalests are simply abysmal - about three times worse kill rate than longbows,
and nearly twice as bad as short bows.

Second case: Lightly armoured targets (armour 10)

short bow (10) ---- Kills: _5.2% -- No damage: 54.0% --- Hits:40.8%(4.07)
longbow (13) ------ Kills: 10.6% -- No damage: 31.6% --- Hits:57.8%(4.67)
crossbow (10AP) - Kills: 16.8% -- No damage: 20.7% --- Hits:62.5%(5.31)
arbalest (14AP) --- Kills: 38.5% -- No damage: _8.4% --- Hits:53.1%(6.59)

After adjusting for rate of fire, the arbalest kill rate is slightly better
than that of the longbow. But if we combine the kills and hits that did damage,
the arbalest is twice as bad. And the latter is what determines whether most
enemies will break. Furthermore, when you have three times the hits, and the
average hit is 4-5 points of damage, the kills add up. Thus, longbows and
regular crossbows soundly beat the arbalest in this case.

Third case: Heavily armoured targets (armour 15)

short bow (10) ---- Kills: _1.5% Misses: 83.2% Hits: 15.2%(3.80)
longbow (13) ------ Kills: _3.2% Misses: 68.4% Hits: 28.4%(3.93)
crossbow (10AP) - Kills: 10.7% Misses: 31.6% Hits: 57.6%(4.17)
arbalest (14AP) --- Kills: 25.6% Misses: 13.4% Hits: 61.0%(5.52)

Finally, the crossbows start to shine. Even adjusted for rate of fire, the
bows cannot compare. But the regular crossbow still has a much better combined
total for kills and hits than the arbalest.

Fourth case: Knights, elite infantry (armour 17)

short bow (10) ---- Kills: _0.9% No damage: 89.3% Hits: _9.8%(3.73)
longbow (13) ------ Kills: _1.9% No damage: 79.2% Hits: 18.9%(3.85)
crossbow (10AP) - Kills: _8.4% No damage: 38.5% Hits: 53.0%(3.92)
arbalest (14AP) --- Kills: 20.7% No damage: 16.8% Hits: 62.6%(5.18)

After adjusting for rate of fire, the crossbow's combined total is still higher
than the arbalest's. The arbalest may be better in this case, as even when the
crossbow does wound, the damage is lowish, and even multiple hits will not result
in many kills. But it's close. 4.2% kills vs 6.9 and 26.5% wounds vs 20.9%.

Fifth case: Black plate of Ulm (armour 20)

short bow (10) ---- Kills: _0.4% Misses: 94.8% Hits: _4.8%(3.67)
longbow (13) ------ Kills: _0.9% Misses: 89.3% Hits: _9.8%(3.73)
crossbow (10AP) - Kills: _5.2% Misses: 54.0% Hits: 40.8%(4.08)
arbalest (14AP) --- Kills: 13.4% Misses: 25.6% Hits: 61.0%(4.98)

No argument here. The arbalest has no equal for shooting (in the back) those who
wear Umlish armour. The crossbows may inflict a few wounds, but only the
arbalest will get rid of those pesky Black Plate infantry.


So far we have established that even when we oversimplify the analysis, the
arbalest may be better than the crossbow only against armour 17 and higher.

But everything else plays against the arbalest.

Its higher range results in a badly aimed first salvo, and by the time they have
reloaded, the enemy is either in melee with other Ulmish troops, or engaging
the crossbowmen themselves.

The high resource costs mean that one cannot produce many arbalests in the first
few turns, and that gold gathers unused until more castles can be built. Once
those go up, the low strategic move prevents the crossbowmen from being where
they are needed.

When "Flaming Arrows" comes around, arbalests benefit the least from it, due to
their abysmal rate of fire.

And of course, if your opponent is worth anything, he will draw the enemy fire
with low resource troops with shields. Pythium and Ermor's Velites, Tien Chi's
footmen, Machaka's warriors, etc, etc, etc... all of these are cheap and are
best dispersed with a higher rate of fire which the arbalests lacks. The
arbalest's high damage is perfectly unnecessary here. Once again, its only
purpose is to kill friendlies.

And now, if any retard comes and tells me that the arbalests are the best ranged
weapons and that it's not subject to discussion... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

[KissBlade]

I should probably backup why I view MA Argatha and MA TC as "weaker" than MA Ulm. Assuming all equal player skills, MA Ulm doesn't share several notable problems with MA Argatha/MA TC. MA Ulm can effectively research only evocation to help with its military. You can branch off into construction for diplomacy but for the most part, they have a very straight forward approach when it comes to preparing for war. Its early game, while not spectacular due to the lack of archers, is decent since most of its troops match well against indies in MA. (Xbows/Cavs/Knights are rare in MA) You get a decent amount of free points from Drain to spend on your pretender and you don't need to make him a thug right off the bat since thugs are often used to help with fast exp/harrassment. Also smiths (if I recall) can take an arrow better than most mages. This lets you shuffle them closer to the front lines which is important to help aiming spells.

MA Argatha does have strengths in umbrals and golems but as you've already mentioned they're in seperate skill trees. Worse Umbrals require death gems and you don't start with any of them in generation not to mention your only death gem searcher has d1 AND costs 400g's. Very hefty and deftly not something that lets you flow in death gems early game. Statues are great but slow to acquire. Thus your initial few turns generally will feel very clunky especially due to the subpar attack/precision on your troops. This means in most games, you feel the heat pretty early on as the first few turns are often the land grab turns and you'll be left behind if you don't invest in an awakened pretender. Which is even less points for you to have especially since you are mostly likely going with magic 3 to get your summons up asap. I'm not arguing against what results you may have encountered, I'm simply stating my view of the situation. I have seen MA Argatha do decent and I have seen them flop. But the same I could say for MA Ulm.

MA TC is already realized by many to be problematic so I won't go too indepth with it. While they may look magically diverse, they are actually not very. Their path synergies to almost nothing useful at all especially since their best capital only mages are easily astral dueled away AND often the main things you're hoping for is the A3 thunderstrikers which are pretty damn rare. Summon wise, they are also pretty poor since they lack death magic and only possess minimum nature magic. They can craft nice items with their skill tree, which is decent since you're going to need a SC chassis with them. Sadly enough, MA TC's main strat is consort spamming and that simply doesn't suffice for the mid => late game scenarios where call of the wind is cheap and easy.

[Maraxus]

Judging from the shortbow damage, you have not considered the random number. That's bringing a fault into the calculation (through it obviously makes the calculation a lot easier. - I'd say calculateable. I have no idea, how one can calculate the distributions of open ended d6s.)

I'f used Excel to calculate it and the result was as follows:

Damage per hit:

Prot 10 -- 12 -- 16
Shortbow -- 1.37 -- 0.593 -- 0.043
Longbow -- 3.35 -- 1.93 -- 0.353
Crossbow -- 5.1 -- 4.19 -- 2.59
Arbelest -- 9 -- 8 -- 6.04

Multiply this with the number of shots per interval of your choise.
...
Okay, I do and see, that the DRNs don't make to much diffrence. The open-endedness comes on top of this but should not chance that much more.

Well, at least, it shows, that at Protection 12, the Longbow is still quite en par with the crossbow but nobody can argue away the heavy loose in damage once Prot>Damage



Of course, this was in reswponse to CUnknown. Tuidjy has given more important points.
I would not value hits as high because routing enemies will often come back again but one should definitly not ignore this point, too.

Oh and of course one thing you can put into a formular even less well:
If you shoot fast enough, you will more likely catch the opponent in the ideal distance. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[CUnknown]

I'm sorry, Tuidjy, you're overcomplicating things and for all that not even calculating damage. All "hits" are not equal. It's better to keep it simple and leave out the random numbers, imo. Against 14 protection and over, the arbelest is the clear winner. Even against 12 protection, it is better than any other as has been shown.

Although for sure, the community isn't divided on the Ulm issue, I know and will admit that. It's just that the common knowledge is a little off in this case. People seem to think that Ulm is some outlier, as if it's horribly underpowered. The truth is that it's very similar in power to any other faction in the bottom tier or two (that is, like almost half the factions out there).

[Sombre]

Yeah how silly of him to overcomplicate things by using the same factors the game does to calculate damage. Let's just forget the game, it makes the math too complex.

Your argument that arbalests are hands down the best mundane missile weapon now appears to be "Arbalests do the most damage per hit". Great. I think we can safely say that this is no longer up for debate, because you're the only person arguing that Arbalests are the best and your argument doesn't deserve a sensible reply (you'd ignore or dismiss it anyway, judging by your response to Tuidjy).

I was going to run some ingame tests with crossbows and arbalests, behind a wall of Ulmish heavy infantry, vs various enemies to see which one was generally more useful. But now I can see there would be no point, because Arbalests do the most damage per hit. Heh.

[Tuidjy]

> All "hits" are not equal.

I know that, which is why I have divided them into kills and damaging hits, and
have displayed the average damage.

> It's better to keep it simple

We have computers so we can crunch the numbers. We have brains so we can
analyze results. This is simple.

> and leave out the random numbers, imo.

No, we should not, because the spread is very significant. I know that my
intuition misleads me when I think about open ended dice. I am pretty sure
yours is no better.

> Against 14 protection and over, the arbelest is the clear winner.

Did you bother reading what I wrote? How the Hell can you say that it is a
clear winner when pure numbers are ambivalent, everything else favors the
crossbow, and protection 14 units are not the what the arbalests will most likely
be shooting at, unless you count your own troops?!

> Even against 12 protection, it is better than any other as has been shown.

What has been shown? Against an enemy of infinite health and protection 12 the
freaking longbow has three times as many landing hits, and 54% chance of dealing
an average of 5.49 points of damage. The arbalest hits have a 89.3% chance to
deal an average of 9.39 points of damage. The hard numbers slightly (6%) favor
the longbow, and every single assumption, including the one about infinite
health, favors the arbalest! Math and English, do you read them?!

> It's just that the common knowledge is a little off in this case.

And you know this because the Pantocrator has spoken to you? Players that are
much better than you think otherwise, Ulm loses in duels no matter how well
you stack the deck in their favor, has no answer to heavy blesses or tramplers,
the numbers speak against them, no one has any suggestions for any late game...

But YOU know the common knowledge is off? I do not have a beef with
people who point out that MA C'tis and Agartha need help. But you keep talking
and talking, and have not advanced any arguments but bad math.

[Tuidjy]

I decided to test all this crap in game. Here's what I did.

80 Marignon crossbowmen,
80 Ulm crossbowmen,
80 Man longbowmen

vs

80 Tien Chi footmen (shields, low armour)
80 Tien Chi inperial footmen (armour 14)
20 Tien Chi footmen, 60 Tien Chi imperial footmen (footmen draw fire, IF flank)

I positioned the infantry as far back as possible, except for the last
combination, where I positioned them in a half way decent manner. Not in my
favorite arrangement for drawing ranged fire, mind you. I ran every combination
at least twice. The attachment is a setup which you can use to fight Man, Ulm,
Marignon and Tien Chi armies. I am too sick and sleepy to actually bother typing
it all, but basically, the longbowmen win all matchups against the infantry.
They lose to the arbalest guys, but that's because of armour, not shooting skill.

The regular crossbowmen consistently lost to the mixed squad, the guys with the
arbalests lost two and won two. They did very poorly (worse than crossbows)
while shooting, but managed to steal a victory in hand to hand. If Ulm
crossbowmen have a saving grace, it's that they are OK infantry.

Afterwards I ran a few fights with Ulm against tower guards... the tower guards
wipe the floor with any combination of the same gold cost of Ulm melee/ranged
infantry. If Ulm has arbalests, they break earlier - fewer fighters, and the
arbalests kill friends and foes indiscriminately.

Imperial guards beat Ulm even easier, and tie with tower guards - win some, lose
some. Marignon's men at arms slaugter Ulm as well... basically Ulm's 10 gold,
resource 30+ infantry loses to any gold 12-14, resource 24+ infantry, even if you
match them in cost, as opposed to numbers. By the way, heavy infantry with
shields destroys any unsupported ranged troops, but that's only normal.

Hell, try it for yourself. The mighty men of Ulm cannot beat anyone in hand to
hand combat. Their only excuse for infantry are the arbalest guys, whose only
saving grace is their heavy armour, that allows them to fight OK in hand to hand.
If they had a buckler and a crossbow instead of an arbalest, they would be quite
the soldiers... but obviously they are too dumb to understand what gear works.

[Burnsaber]

I took some time today to make some experiments regarding Ulmish Infantry. I wanted to test how they fare against the current heavy infatry favourite (Pricipe) mano'a'mano.

I bidded 20 Ulmish Black Steel troops with different weapons against 20 Pythium Pricipes. The Pricipes lost most of the fights (expect against shielded infantry), but when the Pricipes lost they inflicted heavy (7-9) casualties, and all Principes that fled, survived (expect a couple of cripples). Losses were usually 5-7 Blacksteels to 10-14 Priciples.

Then I made a bit more "realistic" test of 30 principes against 20 Blacksteel (due to resource cost you can build 1,5 principes for each blacksteel guy, gold cost is *much* less limitng factor when building troops than gold). It was brutal, not even Guardians had anything against Priciples in this case. The losses were usually 13-17 blacksteels to 8-12 Priciples.

So what does this mean? Ulmish Infantry doesn't *suck*, exactly (they have some results against *the heavy infatry*, but only when magic and resource complications are stripped) , but they're nothing too amazing either. Personally (I have nearly zero experience with Pythium/MA Ulm previously) from watching the fights, I'd take Principles over Blacksteels anyday -> They don't run away so easily, you can make more of them, they move faster, have javelins..

And I think that this is wrong. Ulmish infantry should be awesomely good and badass, since it's pretty much all they've got outside capitol. Not medicore, especially with their magic weakness. While I look at their stats I see base attack & defense 10, they're just your regular infantry in extremely heavy armor. I don't think that it would be at all unbalancing nor unthematic to give them some training bonuses. a mere +1 attack, +1 defense, -1 encumberance, +1-2 action points and +1-2 morale would proabably go a long way to make Ulmish infantry something to actually mention when talking about Ulm's strenghts.

And about Master Smths. CUunknown has a point. They don't excatly *suck* as mages. They're just not enough to give anykind of late-game power (and late-game power is the power you need to have to have chances at winning), taking a heavy-magic pretender can only take you so far. There have been many suggestion regarding twiddling with their randoms and I wholly support them.

Hmm, I just had another idea. How about giving them a slighly tweaked LA Ulm's fortune teller (without the blood pick, perhaps)? Ulmish people are a superstitious folk, afterall. It would allow a lot easier diversification.

[CUnknown]

Tuidjy, it's as if you've done your best to be misleading with the analysis you've chosen..



I know that, which is why I have divided them into kills and damaging hits, and
have displayed the average damage.



But why even bother dividing it up in this way, unless you're trying to obscure the fact that the arbelest does the most damage against a range of common protection values, even adjusted for rate of fire?

[KissBlade]

Principes are one of the best national flood troops in the game. Not to mention, they counter Ulm troops pretty solidly since their main strength is their high defense. Ulm troops are more or less used to be fast expander, walls for your indie archers/xbows/master smiths. Granted they aren't as uber as Principes, it's not too fair to match them like that.

[Ballbarian]

I by no means want to get into this discussion.
Just going to add my own simple opinion, and that is that MA Ulm does not suck.

They are one of my favorite nations and easy, early expansion is one of their strengths and not a weakness. I don't have much use for arbalests myself as I tend to recruit independent crossbow/bowmen instead and I have had no problem supplementing my beloved smiths with indy magi to good effect. My experience is limited to many single player games and a handful of multiplayer games which I am sure has shaded my own view just as each individuals view has been shaded by his/her own game experiences with them.

That is my two cents. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Sombre]

On the other hand, principes use shortswords and javs, which aren't the best for overcoming Ulm's armour. There are plenty of other national troops which would mangle them more in a fight.

[Burnsaber]

KissBlade said:
Principes are one of the best national flood troops in the game. Not to mention, they counter Ulm troops pretty solidly since their main strength is their high defense. Ulm troops are more or less used to be fast expander, walls for your indie archers/xbows/master smiths. Granted they aren't as uber as Principes, it's not too fair to match them like that.



Why shouldn't Ulmish infatry be as uber as Priciples?

Pythium has Uber-magepower, extremely good national summons and Principles.

Ulm has a *much* worse magepower, no national spells to speak of and infantry that sucks when compared to Principles.

Yeah, Ulm is fine as it is

Ok, I admit that might have been a bit overly-dramatic comparison since Pythium is a major MA power, but there is a problem when two nations in the same age cannot even be compared against each other. But the thing is, Ulmish Infatry should be able to do more tha just die slowly and "buy time". They need to be strenght of Ulm in itself. They have a huge weakness in sucky mr, they should get something to "balance" that weakness (being extremely good in non-magic battles sounds like a good strenght). Their high prot is already balanced by high encumberance, high resource cost and low def.

[Tuidjy]

> > I know that, which is why I have divided them into kills and damaging hits, and
> > have displayed the average damage.
>
> But why even bother dividing it up in this way, unless you're trying to obscure
> the fact that the arbelest does the most damage against a range of common
> protection values, even adjusted for rate of fire?

You troll. Read the post that you are quoting. It answers your question. It shows
that once again, your 'facts' aren't. I'm done talking to you, retard. If anyone
still believes that you know anything, or that you can be made to understand
anything... Well, that person is on his own.

[sum1lost]

Tuidjy, if you think that CUUnknown is a troll, you don't know what real trolling is, m'kay?

[Humakty]

Isn't the worst ennemy of mid ulm its morale, especially on commanders (10 for the basic one ?).I currently use CBM versions, and found their troops to be interesting, if they have a decent commander.
Heavy weapons can come handy against SC or big summons.Or giants.
And shouldn't we all be like a big family...Uh?..Were not on disney chanel...OOoops..

[Tuidjy]

One can be a troll without being the worst troll in existence.

By the way, I am stuck at home, sick as a dog. Anyone of those who think
that Ulm is "not that bad" wanna play a quick one on one? I'll take any
human race. Ermor, Man, Pythium, Marignon, the rather underpowered Tien Chi,
you name it.

[Humakty]

I...Well I would...But...Some work you know...Stuff and the like....May you recover promptly.
Ah, I know...I have an enormous map to test!!! Yeah this one is THE excuse.

[sum1lost]

If you knew what a troll was, you would know better than to attack one while having personal information stored under this handle on other sites.

One might call such an action retarded, especially for a programmer.

However, since I am not in the habit of calling people who disagree with me retarded, I won't.

[Tuidjy]

Petar Ivanov, MIT alum, IT Director of a company for which I do not speak,
Bulgaria People's Army hand to hand combat vice champion for 1989, twice a
world finalist in the ACM programming contest, Volvo modification enthusiast,
computer game fantatic, amateur kickboxer, archery nut, ... which one of these
should I be ashamed of, and how could you use it against me? Buddy, if I had
cared to remained anonymous, I would not have used the same handle since 1993.

[CUnknown]

I'll try to stop myself from posting anymore after this one.. We are getting angry, on a topic that's sort of a side issue anyway. I just want to be on record for a couple of things, then I will shut up.

I know that Tuidjy would kick my a$$ in a duel, especially since he's done it before. If I chose Ulm as my faction, it would probably not help my chances one bit, admittedly.

I'm trying to defend Ulm as "not being that bad" but I know just like anyone that a small boost to their infantry, mages, or whatever couldn't hurt a thing, because they still wouldn't be in the top tier of factions even then.

I grudgingly admit that the power of arbelests is debatable.. since we've been doing just that. I thought that my simplistic analysis of "how much damage does it do?" when adjusted for rate of fire would convince people, apparently I was wrong. Tuidjy's more complicated analysis is probably more accurate for many in-game situations. But.. it subtracts away killing damage from the average damage of non-killing hits, so I think it is weighted against arbelests (since arbelests have a high % of killing hits), and I think this was done on purpose. But... yeah... if you start doing some complicated analysis and looking at it in depth, it is debatable. But certainly the arbelest is a good weapon, the best against heavily armored foes.

[sum1lost]

Tuidjy said:
Petar Ivanov, MIT alum, IT Director of a company for which I do not speak,
Bulgaria People's Army hand to hand combat vice champion for 1989, twice a
world finalist in the ACM programming contest, Volvo modification enthusiast,
computer game fantatic, amateur kickboxer, archery nut, ... which one of these
should I be ashamed of, and how could you use it against me? Buddy, if I had
cared to remained anonymous, I would not have used the same handle since 1993.



Why would you think I would use it against you? If you think I threatened you somehow, I apologize.

Edited to be less flamey.

[Tuidjy]

> But certainly the arbelest is a good weapon, the best against heavily armored foes.

That I will agree with 100%. But you see, the problem is that you do not
necessarily want this with Ulm, and you definitely do not want just that. A good
player will make sure that your arbalests first shoot at a smallish (10-15) group
of shielded, lowish armour infantry, and in that case you want something that can
break them quickly.

I would be surprised to learn that most players do not jump of joy when they get
independent crossbows or, even better, longbows with Ulm.

> I'm trying to defend Ulm as "not being that bad" but I know just like anyone that
> a small boost to their infantry, mages, or whatever couldn't hurt a thing,
> because they still wouldn't be in the top tier of factions even then.

But you see, by arguing that they have "the best missile weapon", and that their
infantry "plays its role" well, you make it that much unlikely that they will
receive that much needed boost. MA Ulm and Tien Chi need help. Maybe
Agartha does too, I do not play them. But the help comes from the devs, and
they would are more likely to listen if the players agree first.

[Kristoffer O]

We have learned not to trust players long ago http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Getting asskicked in an MP game is way better. I got trampled by elephants as Ulm a month or two ago. I designed a god with a nice blessing, only to discover I didn't have sacred troops. Thought I was playing some Iron faith version of MA Ulm http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Folket]

I did my own tests with Ulmish infantry against Principes. 40 units on each side. First Pythium attack and lost 19 units while Ulm lost 2. In the second battle Ulm attack and lost 9 units while Pythium lost 36. Both battles was in neutral dominion.

The Infantry of Ulm costs 24 resources while principes cost 21 resources. Given that Ulm have a resource bonus and principes costs 15 gold I find the battle fair if not a little edge to principes given that thay had 50% more gold in the field.

Ulm allready have a national spell that increase resistance to thier troops. That should be enough to counter thier low MR.

In general Ulm have very potent infantry and I guess that whoever tried these battles earlier only tried the black plate variaty who I consider are just inferior to the ordinary infantry of Ulm.

[llamabeast]

Surely black plate infantry being inferior is something of a design flaw? They are meant to be the awesomeist.

[Folket]

Lower encumberence of black steel full armour to 3 should make them much better. At the moment they are sitting duck, but the other infantry of Ulm are still great.

[Burnsaber]

Folket said:
I did my own tests with Ulmish infantry against Principes. 40 units on each side. First Pythium attack and lost 19 units while Ulm lost 2. In the second battle Ulm attack and lost 9 units while Pythium lost 36. Both battles was in neutral dominion.

The Infantry of Ulm costs 24 resources while principes cost 21 resources. Given that Ulm have a resource bonus and principes costs 15 gold I find the battle fair if not a little edge to principes given that thay had 50% more gold in the field.

Ulm allready have a national spell that increase resistance to thier troops. That should be enough to counter thier low MR.

In general Ulm have very potent infantry and I guess that whoever tried these battles earlier only tried the black plate variaty who I consider are just inferior to the ordinary infantry of Ulm.



Yeah, I used the Black Plate Infantry, since most complaints seemed to be directed towards them and it seemed inituative that more res.cost = more power. By the way, what weapons did your Infatry use? (I'm guessing the 2-h flails, they're very nice against high def-troops).

It really doesn't seem right to have Blacksteels suck when compared to the regular infantry (especially against elite troops like Priciples, what use are your national elites if they can't smack around other elites?). Sure, they probably can smack around low-def, low-damage troops better, but so can everything worth its salt in battle. Almost every nation gets heavy infantry (Ulm just has more options on armament), but only Ulm gets Blacksteels. They should be something special. I'm still in favor of giving them some training bonuses. I mean Ulm really can't supply Blacksteel Armors to some basic run-of-the-mill soldier who just requests for them?

[Humakty]

What makes MA Ulm really inferior to the other 'heavy' factions, is their mages. Smiths can't compare to MA Aby mages in no way but forging, and their arbalests aren't precise enougth to balance it.
You end up crawling on the battlefield, expecting a miracle with your arbalests (prec 10 ?) or your magma bolts !!
As arralens mod has shown, they do not need massive improvements before becoming viable.

[Sombre]

I'm thinking of doing a MA Ulm variant mod at some point. Same way I did Ulm Reborn as a variant of LA Ulm.

I'm thinking I'll go with kind of a semi evil Teutonic, WW1/2 germany sort of influence where religion is replaced with faith in steel (technology) and pure Ulmish stock. It is not magic so much as ritual and superstition which is hated and considered a crutch of the weak. Smiths of the Dark Forge are your main guys and are drain immune, while a special force of magic hunting anti-occult troops has been established, with good MR and resistances. Darksteel of Ulm is only granted to those who can prove the purity of their warrior heritage - perfect specimens of Ulmish breeding who emulate the warrior heroes of old, but have replaced berserk ferocity with willpower and discipline. The nation has learned much from the declining empire of ermor and deploys standards reminding the Ulmish of their superiority.

[llamabeast]

Sounds excellent Sombre. And very creepy.

[Lord_Bob]

It seems that increasing the precision of arbalests would really increase their kick. Since their arbalests throw bigger bolts that have a straighter flight path at the same range as normal arrows, giving the weapon a higher precision than crossbows is reasonable.

Arbalests could be given +1/+2 to gold cost to reflect "Do Not Kill Your Own Men" training and a corresponding boost in Precision.

I've heard that it doesn't take a big boost in precision to really cut down on the friendly fire losses.

[Humakty]

Sombre, it looks like your ideas around Ulm are excellent, giving their priests a personnality, and solving the problems of morale ulm has. (en aparte : will he rest one day ?)
Could give them normal crossbowmen/archer at 10 gold, and make the arbalest an elite sharpshooters unit.

[krpeters]

I've been having a lot of fun with MA Ulm in SP... their mages are very entertaining to use early-game against the AI's chaffe hordes. With only Const-4, Evoc-4, and Conj-3, you can do the following:
1) Have each mage give himself a pair of earth boots
2) Script "summon earth power" for his first spell
3) watch Blade Wind consume his helpless armies
Is there any other race/age combo which allows so much devestation for so little investment (140au, 10 earth gems, L4 research in three paths)?

also, how effective would this be in MP?

[Folket]

In MP I find that magma eruption is more common. It works better against armoured opponents.

[Baalz]

I don't know, I think I'm in the very small minority that doesn't think MA Ulm is bottom of the barrel. Top tier? Certainly not. Unplayable? Far from it.

I'm not contending their weaknesses, a huge laundry list of them has been pointed out and they are mostly spot on. What I'd like to point out is some strengths that people tend to overlook.

1) Best forge bonus in the game and consequent diplomatic edge. The people calling "forge *****" need to work on their trading skills.

2) Their smiths are pretty cost effective in combat early on and just get better. Destruction + blade wind is pretty ugly. Legions of Steel & Strength of Giants grow into weapons of sharpness and marble warriors ending up at army of lead. Magma bolts is not terrible in a pinch, and magma eruption is one of the best mainline evo spells. Its not hard to forge a few blood stones and your combat mages should all have earth boots so you end up with pretty stout little casters once you throw in a summon earth power - on a 140 gold unit.

3) Gold cheap troops mean more castles, which mean more smiths. People complaining extra castles just gives you the ability to churn out more crap are not using the strengths of Ulm to their advantage. For the cost, you have a hard time having enough smiths, from forging cheap stuff for your thugs and forging goodwill for your neighbors, to researching and combat effectiveness, it's a very versatile unit for its cost. Have lots of smiths helps a bit with their magic diversity as you'll have S and A forgers as well as double F and triple E (real good combat mages).

4) Because of the excess gold, Ulm should have more castles than average, which lets you crap out loads of 30gp spies when you feel like taking a break from massing smiths. This should not be underrated, crapping out 10+ spies per turn mid game can be crippling. Spare gold also lets you bid well for mercenaries, which can help with your magic diversity.

5) The recruitable units are fairly good for indie expansion, and can hold their own against most other recruitable units until a bit of research is done. Once they start laying down poison, lighting, etc. you better damn well have your own research done and start hitting back with your own combat spells and cheap thugs outfitted to be immune to whatever they're throwing down. Screw lighthing, my favorite AN spell is destruction.

6) Ulm managing to get the FOTA up is just scary. Lightless lanterns, forgable by every one of your smiths cost just 1 fire gem apiece - crap 50 of them out the turn the forge goes up and you've made back your investment even if it's immediately dispelled. Manage to keep it up and fire brands, shields of beaten gold - 1f 1e. Amulet of Antimagic, luck pendants, rings of fire/lighting all one gem. Who cares if your black knights aren't invincible, at these prices they're expendable! Use that trade income you've got to crap out golems, use the quarter price blood stones your minting to crap out mechanical men and iron dragons playing linebacker for a hoard of phoenix rod wielding scouts and 5e righteous combat mages.

[Cor2]

God. Now I have to go play a game with MA Ulm. Its all your fault, everyone who posted on this thread. I have bettre things to do...grumble grumble

Oh and Baalz,there is way too much crapping going on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[DrPraetorious]

I propose in the next team game, we put EA Ulm on the same team as EA Niefelheim, and see who's laughing now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Xietor]

someone who thinks ma ulm is "not so bad" sign up to play them in the Evermore game.

[Valandil]

Note that there is another variable too. Even the most pathetic race, if played agianst, say, me, would win easily.

[Velusion]

Baalz said:
6) Ulm managing to get the FOTA up is just scary. Lightless lanterns, forgable by every one of your smiths cost just 1 fire gem apiece - crap 50 of them out the turn the forge goes up and you've made back your investment even if it's immediately dispelled. Manage to keep it up and fire brands, shields of beaten gold - 1f 1e. Amulet of Antimagic, luck pendants, rings of fire/lighting all one gem. Who cares if your black knights aren't invincible, at these prices they're expendable! Use that trade income you've got to crap out golems, use the quarter price blood stones your minting to crap out mechanical men and iron dragons playing linebacker for a hoard of phoenix rod wielding scouts and 5e righteous combat mages.



Well you could argue that forge is actually less useful to ulm because they are actually saving less gems off of the global than another nation would....

[Cor2]

Hey i played MA Ulm in Perpetuality, and i managed to be the second eliminated. Not the first!
A real victory.

[Folket]

Velusion, that is a strange argument. You should look on how many extra items it gives.

[Baalz]

Yeah Vel, the thing is it's not so much how many gems it saves, its the utility of it. Things that cost 5 gems cost 2 gems under the forge for most nations (usually not worth a hammer to bring it down to 1 for low end items). One way to look at it is that Ulm only saves two gems (cost of 3 down to 1) - no big deal. The other way to look at it is Ulm saves 50%, you'll be able to crank out *twice* as many items. On 10 gem items (a lot of mainline SC gear) assuming you do use hammers the price for most nations is 3, for Ulm it's 2. A saving of 1 gem isn't huge, but it does translate into 50% more equipment. The strength of Ulm's forge bonus is not that they save a couple more gems on rings of wizardry, it's in mass producing mainline equipment. Plus, the forge amplifies their forge bonus in another way - it gives their smith's a wider reach of items to forge. Chainmail of displacement, starshine skullcaps, gate cleavers, winged boots, lucky coins, robes of shadows, and crystal coins can now be mass produced with no boosters, and with a couple boosters and a few bootstrapping empowerments there's not much you can't hit.

[Xietor]

Yeah but it is so easy to take that equipment away from Ulm.

That is the added bonus of starting near Ulm. Easy capital and you likely get some free hammers.

[Velusion]

Folket said:
Velusion, that is a strange argument. You should look on how many extra items it gives.



Ok... it will give more gems to a non forge nation than a forge nation (like Ulm).

[Velusion]

Baalz said:
Yeah Vel, the thing is it's not so much how many gems it saves, its the utility of it. Things that cost 5 gems cost 2 gems under the forge for most nations (usually not worth a hammer to bring it down to 1 for low end items). One way to look at it is that Ulm only saves two gems (cost of 3 down to 1) - no big deal. The other way to look at it is Ulm saves 50%, you'll be able to crank out *twice* as many items. On 10 gem items (a lot of mainline SC gear) assuming you do use hammers the price for most nations is 3, for Ulm it's 2. A saving of 1 gem isn't huge, but it does translate into 50% more equipment. The strength of Ulm's forge bonus is not that they save a couple more gems on rings of wizardry, it's in mass producing mainline equipment. Plus, the forge amplifies their forge bonus in another way - it gives their smith's a wider reach of items to forge. Chainmail of displacement, starshine skullcaps, gate cleavers, winged boots, lucky coins, robes of shadows, and crystal coins can now be mass produced with no boosters, and with a couple boosters and a few bootstrapping empowerments there's not much you can't hit.



I wasn't arguing that Forge wasn't awesome... I don't see why it's any more helpful to Ulm than any other Nation.

[Velusion]

Velusion said:

Baalz said:
Yeah Vel, the thing is it's not so much how many gems it saves, its the utility of it. Things that cost 5 gems cost 2 gems under the forge for most nations (usually not worth a hammer to bring it down to 1 for low end items). One way to look at it is that Ulm only saves two gems (cost of 3 down to 1) - no big deal. The other way to look at it is Ulm saves 50%, you'll be able to crank out *twice* as many items. On 10 gem items (a lot of mainline SC gear) assuming you do use hammers the price for most nations is 3, for Ulm it's 2. A saving of 1 gem isn't huge, but it does translate into 50% more equipment. The strength of Ulm's forge bonus is not that they save a couple more gems on rings of wizardry, it's in mass producing mainline equipment. Plus, the forge amplifies their forge bonus in another way - it gives their smith's a wider reach of items to forge. Chainmail of displacement, starshine skullcaps, gate cleavers, winged boots, lucky coins, robes of shadows, and crystal coins can now be mass produced with no boosters, and with a couple boosters and a few bootstrapping empowerments there's not much you can't hit.



I wasn't arguing that Forge wasn't awesome... I just don't see why it's any more helpful to Ulm than any other Nation.

[DrPraetorious]

Suppose that if you have no forge bonuses, you can afford 10 items.

Well, if you have a 50% forge bonus, you can afford twice as many - twenty items.

If you have *two* 50% forge bonuses, you can afford four times as many - forty items.

Forge bonuses are better the more you have.

[Baalz]

I guess I look at it from a different angle. This is multiplicative to an existing advantage you're already leveraging. Look at it this way for the sake of simplicity, if you were forging 5 lightless lanterns per turn for 25 gems, you get the forge up and now they only cost 2 so you can forge 12 for 24 gems- the forge has gained you 7 lanterns this turn. With Ulm in the same situation you were forging 8 per turn @3 gems apiece for 24 gems total, and are now forging 24 @1 gem apiece...you've gained 16 lanterns per turn rather than 7 for the same investment in the forge. That's a pretty significant difference and the math works the same for any 5 gem item.

[Meglobob]

If you have 80 master smiths on average only 2 would have S1 and A1. So actually you would only be able to build 2 S or A items for 1 gem. Also that would be around turn 40'ish by the time you have the forge, have the mages.

I am still not very impressed.

EA Ulm forging bonus is far better. Also overall as a nation you are better off playing MA Caelum with there 1W forgers. LA Caelums 1E forge bonus is good as well.

[Baalz]

Oh, like I said, I'm not claiming they're super powerful, but I've had a lot of fun playing them and been able to do so fairly competitively.

[Velusion]

DrPraetorious said:

Suppose that if you have no forge bonuses, you can afford 10 items.

Well, if you have a 50% forge bonus, you can afford twice as many - twenty items.

If you have *two* 50% forge bonuses, you can afford four times as many - forty items.

Forge bonuses are better the more you have.



Let me address this and Baalz post:

#1 These bonuses don't stack. The forge ability direct stacks with the hammer - but it doesn't stack with the FotA. Lets leave off the hammer and use Pythium to compare to Ulm and see who really gets the biggest benifit from FotA.

A) Without FoTA Ulm pays 75% base cost. With FoTA Ulm pays %37 of base cost. Throw on a hammer with Forge and Ulm pays %25 of base cost.
B) Without FoTA Pythium pays 100% per item. With FoTA Pythium pays %50. Throw on a hammer with Forge and Pythium pays %37 of base cost.

Without Forge or Hammers Ulm is saving 25% more when forge wasn't up than Pythium. However that savings comparison drops to 12% once all the bonuses are applied.

#2. You better believe that Pythium wants as much SC equipment to outfit national Angels/SCs (something of which Ulm doesn't have) When you get down to 2-3 gems an item all of Pythium's forgers will be able to output items non-stop. Volume (except for the really expensive stuff) really isn't much of big deal).

#3. Does Ulm have a distinct advantage against all other nations when it comes to forging items without forge? Yes. Do they have a distinct advantage against all other nations when it comes to forging items with forge? Yes.

#4. Yes Ulm has a savings of 1 gem on small items over Pythium with the forge up. But they had just as big a savings BEFORE the forge got put up... so I don't see the advantage.

[Baalz]

Well, Pythium is arguably the strongest MA race, so lets leave angels out of this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif With regards to FotA my point was to address your question of why Ulm benefited more than other nations under the forge. Using a very simplified example, assuming you're just forging 25 gems worth of 5 gem items per turn then investing gems in the FotA for most nations will net you an extra 7 items per turn, with Ulm it'll net you an extra 16. That's (significantly) more ROI for each gem put into the forge than most nations if you're counting it as items you can forge. I think your thinking is that it doesn't matter if it costs 1 gem or 2 I can still forge all I want...well, if you're summoning expensive angels end game you're probably right that you won't have much trouble keeping up with the forging, but if you're scrabbling to bootstrap your research on a modest gem income outputting triple the lightless lanterns is significant, and every gem you save is one more for summoning something to put the items on (with your pretender or indie mages). Heck, if you save 10 gems forging a full set of gear you just got a "free" Awaken Sleeper to stick it on. If you trade it away for even more profit, heck maybe you just netted a "free" golem. I understand where you're coming from re: them not having nearly as good uses for the items as some other nations which is a valid position, but to my mind tangential to the discussion of the benefit of the FotA. The forge gives more of a benefit to Ulm, being able to capitalize on it is a different issue (though as I said, I understand what you mean).

[Velusion]

Baalz said:I think your thinking is that it doesn't matter if it costs 1 gem or 2 I can still forge all I want...well, if you're summoning expensive angels end game you're probably right that you won't have much trouble keeping up with the forging, but if you're scrabbling to bootstrap your research on a modest gem income outputting triple the lightless lanterns is significant, and every gem you save is one more for summoning something to put the items on (with your pretender or indie mages).

Heck, if you save 10 gems forging a full set of gear you just got a "free" Awaken Sleeper to stick it on. If you trade it away for even more profit, heck maybe you just netted a "free" golem. I understand where you're coming from re: them not having nearly as good uses for the items as some other nations which is a valid position, but to my mind tangential to the discussion of the benefit of the FotA. The forge gives more of a benefit to Ulm, being able to capitalize on it is a different issue (though as I said, I understand what you mean).



And I understand what you mean (I can make 3-4x more of the same items than "nation X" with Ulm), but I disagree that that is more important that base gem cost savings. If Nation X and Ulm both need 20 lightless lanterns, Nation X is going to save more games by having the forge than Ulm would save.

If gems were only used on forging, then yes it would be a significant advantage - but beyond the early research boost there are only a set number of items really needed. Obviously the larger the game the more you need (perp comes to mind). Overall I think a non-ulm nation will reap a greater advantage to FotA due to raw gems savings in the vast majority of games.

[Ming]

I am late in joining this thread and most of what I wanted to say has already been said already. It seems that there is indeed a consensus that MA Ulm is too weak. Both the arbalest and black steel plate are of dubious value. However, no consensus on how to strengthen Ulm without changing its flavor as a non-magic nation has emerged. I would like to share my views on this as I hate to see Ulm lose its current flavor in the process of being strengthened.

I share many players’ view that the arbalest and black steel armour needs to be strengthened. My proposal would be to increase the precision of the arbalest to 3 (this should reduce casualty due to friendly fire significantly and make the opening volley more effective), change the crossbowman’s short sword to dagger (even a short sword is too much extra weight if one has to carry the heavy arbalest), and increase the total resource cost of the unit by 2. For black steel plate armour, simply reduce its encumbrance by one (this includes the forged black steel plate to make it more viable).

However, in my view MA Ulm’s true weakness does not lie in its arbalest or black steel armour, but in the lack of variety of its troops. It is easy for a human opponent to bypass Ulm’s strength (high protection but usually at the expense of low defense) while it is next to impossible for the Ulm player to adequately prepare for the many possible threats that could ruin its armies. My proposed “upgrade” for Ulm is relatively simple. Hence Ulm is always much stronger in SP than in MP. However, all that is needed to rectify this, in my opinion, is to change the standard equipment of its troops. Many of the standard equipment given to Ulm’s units are sub-optimal. Given that Ulm is a non-magic nation, it needs to be the strongest in non-magic units to compensate for its relative lack of magic abilities. So there should be no reason why it should not have access to the best non-magical weapons that is widely available to many nations and independents (eg. great swords and crossbows).

My recommended changes below would make Ulm difficult to beat on non-magical battles, but the key to beating Ulm is always through magical means and this remain the case. It strengthens Ulm considerably against independents but not overwhelming so since resource restrictions would limit the size of its army early on.

First of all, black plate infantry does not benefit much from shields. Its defense is so low that the shield parry can often be bypassed. So they should be given two handed weapons or ambidextrous ability.

Going through the list of MA Ulm’s recruitable units, I would recommend that the two battleaxe units should be equipped with great swords instead. The 2 extra resources needed for great swords are barely noticeable for Ulm but the increase in attack and defense will make a difference.

Ulm doesn’t need two flail carrying units. The Infantry of Ulm flail unit should be given crossbow and short sword instead and renamed crossbowman (the arbalest carrying unit should be renamed heavy crossbowman). This should become the main Ulm missile unit while the heavy crossbowman is to counter the likes of trolls. The Black Steel flail unit can remain as is (but has one less encumbrance due to change in the stat of the black steel plate).

The Infantry of Ulm hammer and shield units should be given broadsword and shields instead. The 2 extra defense comes in handy given the lower protection of the plate cuirass. The black steel hammer and shield unit should be given glaives instead. Alternatively, change it to a cavalry unit. Ulm can do with a cheaper and lighter cavalry unit for flanking and chasing down retreating enemies. Suggest one with same equipment and resource cost as a knight, the basic stat of Ulm infantry, and cost 40G.

Mauls are inferior to greatswords (or battleaxes) in every way and are therefore redundant. The resource saving is meaningless for Ulm. Suggest giving them ambidextrous 2 and 2 hammers instead.

The infantry of Ulm morning star and shield unit can stay as is (my favourite standard Ulm unit), but the black steel infantry should be given ambidextrous 2, Morningstar, and dagger instead.

The weapons of the pike units can stay as it.

The black knight unit is a problem. Its low defense (easily hit by an opponent’s lance) and 2 less action points makes it inferior to, say, Man’s cheaper knights in many respects. I would favour the Black Knight getting a black steel morningstar that has +1 attack (+2 in total) and +2 damage (+8 in total) for the cost of 5 extra resources. Also give it 18 damage to compensate for its 2 less action points so that its lance is as potent as other cavalry.

The sapper should have their crossbows replaced by bombs (range=strength, precision=minus 2, ammo=5, 10AP area one physical damage, and attacks every other turn). This is more in line with the theme of a sapper and gives Ulm more variety to its missile attacks.

Finally, the guardian should be given a new weapon, black steel halberd. This would have the same stat as the original halberd but does 2 extra damage and cost 5 extra resource.

As to the commanders, no need to have 2 chain mail and two black steel commanders with similar weapons. Suggest having one with identical equipment as the new crossbowman, one with identical equipment as the heavy crossbowman (arbalest), one broadsword, shield, and full chainmail, and one ambidextrous 2 with 2 hammers and full plate of Ulm. The engineer should be equipped with crossbows, and the Lord Guardian black steel halberd. This should give the Ulm player far more choices to suit different situations.

I deliberately leave Ulm weak against many of its traditional counters (AP and AN attacks, ethereal, etc.) to retain the original flavor of the nation. However, with my suggested changes the Ulm player can narrow down its problems and concentrate on those.

The above are just my personal view. Any comments or criticism are welcome.