Re: Most powerful nation
 

MA Ulm really does need a boost. I'm pretty sure that if a poll was taken of MP players of the worst nation MA Ulm would be in the bottom three nations - if not the very bottom.

I think simply making them have excellent MR and morale stats (instead of the the crappy ones they have now) would even things out dramatically and even work thematically. It'd be kinda cool to see a nation that produces troops with a very high natural MR.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

The developers have said, repeatedly, that Ulm's low magic resistance is here to
stay. A friend of mine says that Ulm is the way someone is working out his
frustration with Germany and Germans :-) MA Ulm needs help, more than anyone else.

Here is what I would do, and I am not sure it would be enough, anyway.

1. A boost to some basic stats - strength, hit points, morale, and endurance.
The last means low basic encumberance - they're hardy and carry their armour well.

2. A bonus to the specific Ulm equipment. Lighter armour, more damage to weapons.

3. Recruitable troops that are not burdened by heavy equipment.

4. All restrictions lifted from the extra magic pick. Let them have everything but blood.

5. An extra 10% earth pick.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

They could lose the old age on their mages too.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Am I the ony one that thinks Bandor Log (MA)is seriously under rated?

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Bandar Log is my favorite MA nation. Great troop diversity, great troop cost/resource options, recruitable anywhere sacreds, good magic paths and good magic diversity for MA nation. Troops also have good movement. The only negative is weak priests, but no nation is strong in every single catgory.

I've always been surprised that Bandar Log has not been more highly regarded in the forum. Of course I am SP only and it is obvious from the forums that there is limited correspondence between SP and MP. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Bandar Log is a nation that looks mediocre on paper and turns out to be quite strong.

I think that the way to fix Ulm is to give them national spells that play to their existing strengths - and to the weaknesses of existing enemies, especially astral nations and sacred troops, which, since their official job in life is to hate magicians and priests, works fine.

I put together a list of them for my spells mod, and added more - they made Ulm decently fierce, at least in tests.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

Not quite the only negative: MR is a serious problem for most of their recruitable troops.

Re: Most powerful nation
 

I find Bandar Log to be quite strange. They have longbows that don't fit well with their low prec.
Anyway I always thought that Indian archers used to pull even greater bows, using their feets. Changing this could give them a great strategic diversity(and specificity), bad shooters being at worst dangerous for your own low prot, low shield troops(and at best not justifying their cost). Another point that renders most of their units pointless : what is the use of a 20 gold maceman ?
Hard to mass, ill equipped people haren't a great army.
I find them to lack all that gives Lanka it's power.
If you nonetheless survive to mid game, you can always cast gift of health, so you can reppel ennemies without too much looses.(I think astral/nature are good long term magics)

Re: Most powerful nation
 

MA Ulm is a good candidate for the turmoil/luck trick since their troops cost so little (taking 3order/3prod with Ulm give you an almost unlimited supply of gold). Turmoil/luck provides hundreds of extra gems over the course of a game, and getting 30+ a turn is not uncommon.

Taking 2 Drain, 3 Prod, 3 Turmoil, 3 Luck, and making a powerful SC pretender with many paths, should cover most of your bases with Ulm.

I'm a fan of 9-Path Titan pretenders, but only when you're not sacrificing too much long-term magical diversity. Since Ulm's problem is almost by definintion magical diversity, your Pretender has to take up the slack, and there aren't any sacred troops to bother with anyway.

Re: \"Fixes\" to Ulm
 

About the various "fixes" proposed for MA Ulm.. Well first of all I don't agree that Ulm is broken, or that it needs any sort of fix. Ulm is my favorite, and I think it is a decent nation, with strengths and weaknesses as are appropriate. Ulm has already been upgraded from Dom2 -- the random picks on master smiths are a godsend.

But, at the same time, even I admit that Ulm is not among the top tier of nations by any means. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif So, some small improvements aren't a bad idea.

1) The idea about cheap Marignon-style x-bows.

This would help early expansion for MA Ulm, and I think it's a great idea. Certainly not unbalancing, and it would provide a boost. However, I should note that the arbelest is one of the best missile troops in the game, and the cheap x-bows probably wouldn't be used much outside of the first 5-10 turns or so.

2) "A boost to some basic stats - strength, hit points, morale, and endurance."

Not a bad idea, but their troops are already very good. Improving this sort of thing doesn't address Ulm's weaknesses, so I don't see much of a reason to do it.

3) "A bonus to the specific Ulm equipment. Lighter armour, more damage to weapons."

Same as above.

4) "Recruitable troops that are not burdened by heavy equipment."

Same as above.

5) "All restrictions lifted from the extra magic pick. Let them have everything but blood."

Sounds absolutely delicious. This would address a basic weakness of Ulm, which is magic diversity. Wouldn't be overbalancing (because the random is only 10%). Let's do it!

6) Give a +10% chance at a random earth pick.

Same as above. With these last two things, Ulm would clearly become at least a middle-tier faction (especially with the cheap x-bows too), imo, because their forging would go for merely excellent to absolutely out of control good.