Quote:
Originally Posted by llamabeast
Drain Magic is meant to allow "fair fights" between mundane troops. Nations which rely heavily on demons, undead or constructs should see Ulm as a challenging opponent. This makes a lot of sense to me thematically. The "counter" is to use a different tactic, for example mundane troops, sacreds, living summons or (best of all) lots of battlefield evocations. Or raiding!
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Llama, first just want to emphasize that you are doing a great job at what is by no means an easy task.
I guess the problem I have with the particular spell that were discussing is that its just so easy for Ulm to cast. Its an extremely powerful spell that's basically castable by every single cheap mage that ulm will have plenty of. Its E4 with a cost of two gems.
E2 mage + summon E power + 3 gems
E2 mage + cheap E boots + 3 gems
So it makes it very tough to get around it with say, raiding. They can deploy it everywhere and anywhere. Spells of equivalent power usually seem to require a more specialized or cap only mage.
And the problem with the other two counters, battlefield evo and mundane troops, is that this is exactly where MA Ulm wants to fight. What you're saying is that one counter to an unresistabel spell that any one of Ulm's mages can cast is to use mundane troops against the nation with the most powerful mundane troops in the game? So yes, technically this is a counters, but it's a pretty bad one. It basically requires any nation fighting Ulm to bring significantly more resources to bear than Ulm itself is committing.
Battlefield evocs are a little better, but Ulm is not exactly a slacker when it comes to this area either. They're going to have loads of cheap summon E-power mages who just love to spam Iron blizzard, magma eruption, blade wind, earthquake, etc.
On a broader note. I think the big problem with the changes to MA Ulm is that they just all came too fast and in one big lump. Ulm went from being underpowered to crazy OP in one leap.
The biggest problem is probably the reduced encumbrance and increased attack on their troops without an equivalent cost increase. Bump the gold price up to actually be comparable to other troops of their quality and you would have much better balance in the early game.