MP: Pointy Sticks MA started

[Mightypeon]

I would prefer Shinuyama over Shangi La to be honest.

However, I should perhaps explain what Black Rose Ulm gets compared to normal MA Ulm:
-All of Black Rose Ulms troops have 14-15 MR. They are costed around 15 gold, compared to 11 gold for normal MA Ulm troops.
-Black Rose Ulm gets troop summons, either 9 earth gems for 9 Guardian like Warriors at construction 3, 15 Fire gems for 5 Heavily Armoured Morale 30 guys with Flambeaus at enchantment 5 or 6, or 15 astral gems for 5 guys with "Elf bane Mauls" and Ethereal at Alteration 6.
-Black Rose Ulm can summon various Generals. These are mediocre Thugs -> good light SCs. They also autocast battle field wide buffs (Relief, Will of the Fates, Blessing of Gaia, Solar Brilliance and growing fury) in the beginning of a battle. Solar brilliance and growing fury can harm Ulm more than they aid it, the other 3 are highly usefull though.
-One of those commanders is actually a quite powerfull mage who gets Ulm into guaranteed Death and perhaps Nature or Blood. At 35 Hammers he is rather pricy to blood hunt with though.
-Ulm gets battle field magic to cast Legions of Steel on everbody, pimp everybodys magic resistance and, fairly high up, destroy the enemies non magic armour.

-Compared to normal MA Ulm, they do not have the "forge of Ulm", they have worse randoms on Mage Smiths (10% instead of 20%) and they dont have the low level priest extra priest spells. I also think that Black Rose Ulms Black priests are not drain immune.

Nevertheless, Black Rose is significantly stronger than Normal MA Ulm.

I took a look at Shangri la, and I honestly cant see a weakness.
They have composite Bows with Map move 2, Heavy infantry almost up to Ulmish levels, but with Map move 2, cheap stealthy and good (defense 15) raiders with map move 2 and mages to die for.
Their Sacred units are nothing particularly special, but other than that...
They get sacred 1A2S1D +110 AESD (so, Lighting Bolt/communion thunder strikes or nether bolts or more nether bolts), sacred 1A2E2S +110AESF (Blade wind, gift from heaven spamm), and those are the recruit anywhere guys.
All of them are sacred.
Hidden Masters can get A4 by themselfs with some luck, and otherwise, well sacred A2E2S2 is actually quite damned scary. Especially on a STEALTHY FLYER!!!
I think the nation has enough Strength for 3 different (EA, MA, LA) incarnations mixed in 1.

[tratorix]

Yeah, but all Shangri-La's mages are around 250 gold (Cap only hidden masters are 400 gold each!)They better be damn good at those prices. Crazy good diversity though. Two of their recruit anywhere lama ones have old age as well. I mean, they're good, but there are a lot of ways to kill human mages. What I'm basically saying is I think I can take 'em.

[shatner]

It's not that the mages are under-priced (for the most part they aren't, though some are skirting the line), it's that this nation has recruit-anywhere mages which are the equivalent to most MA nation's cap-only mages... in addition to having what is arguably the best top-of-the-line mage in the Middle Age.

Pythium has the most powerful mage of the base game for MA (the arch theurge) which is path-equivalent to the Hidden Master (a 10.1 caster). And for a mere 20 gold more than an arch theurge you get stealth, flight, cold resistance, the ability to throw lightning (not that you'd often use it) and massively less age penalties. And I believe most people would happily trade in the arch theurge's water access for earth. Mictlan has another 400 gold cap-only mage-priest (the Couatl). However, they are only an 8.1 caster with access to only air, nature, astral and holy. Also, they have terrible slots, possessing only a head and 2 misc slots. Plus cold blooded is only a bad thing unless you have paths in death (for the jade mask).

But alright, some nations have crazy-go-nuts casters. After all, the 2nd best caster of the era is the Bakemono Sorcerer who is a beefy, recruit-anywhere, 9.1 paths, map move-2, sacred caster for 300 gold. Granted he's older than dirt but most nations would sell their teeth for a mage-priest like that. However, the armies of Shinuyama aren't nearly so nice or versatile as Shangri-la's. It looks like they modeled Shangri-la's army after MA T'ien Ch'i, since it has a good combination of spear, sword, glaive and bow units in both light, medium and heavy varieties plus nice, multi-purpose cavalry. However, they have both the composite bows of T'ien Ch'i and the dirt cheap, stealthy short bows of Shinuyama. Many troops also carry a slightly better than average shield (parry of 5 instead of 4) for no discernible reason.

This nation has:
1) the recruit-anywhere mage strength of Shinuyama (who has the best of the age), but WAAAY more diverse in it's paths
2) the super capital mage strength of Pythium (who has the best of the age)
3) the versatile and powerful infantry and cavalry of T'ien Ch'i (arguably the best of the age)
4) the stealthy light infantry of Shinuyama/Pangaea (those Bhopa infantry are really nice for their price)
5) the single greatest magic diversity of any nation of any age ever
6) 80 free design points from Cold-2
7) Really nice, build-anywhere move-2 elite heavy infantry
8) decent sacreds (in both human and ape flavors)
9) cold resistance/immunity and mountain survival for everything
10) some of the best heroes in the game
11) some really nice pretenders (with a rainbow immortal, a cheap immortal with high dominion and a titan with Air, Water and Earth for one of the best bless combinations in the game)
12) recruit-anywhere stealthy, astral, spy priests.

... and I still haven't bothered to look at the national summons.

Any given component about this nation is fine in comparison to what already exists in the Middle Age but all together it really strikes me as too much.

Again, tell me I'm wrong, but I'm just not seeing it.

[tratorix]

Well, this is all speculation on my part, since I've never actually used them myself. However I am in a game with Shangri-La right now, and while I haven't bumped into them, a cursory look at the graphs shows they aren't doing very well. They really strike me as being in the same situation as MA Tien Chi in that their diversity can hurt them as much as it helps.

You'll obviously want to be recruiting a Hidden Master in your cap as often as possible, so thats 400 gold per turn down the drain. You're also going to want to get up some extra forts early to recruit some of your non cap mages (the lama's, mainly), who are also around 250 gold each. Plus you'll want to recruit infantry, cavalry, archers, whatever you're using for expansion, which are either gold hungry, resource hungry or both. Gold is going to be beyond tight in the early game, even with heavy order and production.

Their magical diversity, while great on paper, could easily just end up as a distraction. They only have really good earth, air and astral access. Death, and blood come on mages who suck at research and have no guarantee of more than one in each path, limiting their usefulness, especially since they compete with the much better overall lamas. Their only nature and water access are through the Wise Ones, underwhelming cap only mages who compete with the much better Hidden Masters for a cap recruitment slot and aren't guaranteed more than one in each path.

Overall they just strike me as a nation like MA Tien Chi. Sure, they can do a lot of cool stuff. But not all at once. An extremely skilled player could no doubt wreck with them, but they could just as easily flounder and die early. Anyone playing them would need to have very narrow goals for expansion, pretender design and midgame and endgame. Overall I'd vote to allow them, you seem to be on the opposite side. Of course it's Mighty Peon's game, so I guess it's up to him.