Re: Dud nations
 

If you give Ulm lots of religious stuff they become just like Marignon. Their primary difference is that they lack the crazy religious crap, at least in the middle era.

-- edit: I said Ermor instead of Ulm. Sorry, was typing fast. --

How's about this for spells? It's from Vision of Escaflowne (an anime):

Construct Prognostication Engine, The Mage Smiths of Ulm have little patience for numerology or for squiting at specks in the celestial firmament. They construct prognostication engines, great steal contraptions driven by clockwork and magic, to perform such tasks for them.

Const 3, EEE, 15 gems, gives an immobile, drain-immune, inanimate astral-2 mage with a +2 research bonus, immunity to drain dominion and the ability to avert bad events.

Also - I hesitate to suggest this because I'm not sure if it's moddable, but how about a national spell that triggers a resource increasing event? This would prevent Ulm from going on a rampage early but would boost your production enough to let you stay competitive with summoned armies in the mid game, I would think.

Re: Dud nations
 

great ideas, dr.

But Ulm needs a melee thug. That is a thematic. Endoperez warlord is good, except he either needs better mr, or unique construction items to boost his absurdly low mr. that do not require astral magic.

(Ermor MA has level 3 priests btw. I did not make that race heh. so i cannot answer why they have high level priests. But Ermor is fine as is, i just used them as an example of a race with level 3 priests).

I also think all pikemen, not just Ulms, should get a significant attack bonus against mounted units. Can you imagine charging into a wall of set pikes? Yes the 1st wall of pike would take big losses from the charge bonus, but charging into set pikes would also take a big toll on the 1st wave of calvary units.

maybe a 1st strike ability, with a high attack by the pike when facing a calvary unit?

I also think the warlord should have his leadership increased to 80. If the nobleman's morale is to be left at 8, he should have leadership zero. Not many of the ulm warriors of steel would follow a coward.

Re: Dud nations
 

Should Abysia be prevented from casting water spells, LA Ermor from nature, etc.?

The concept of pretenders does not dictate that the pretender must stick to such things that are thematic to the nation. It is a being of power that uses a nation to get what it wants, why should it care about it's servants not liking like magic? Giving Ulm more thematic pretender choices would be good, but I see no reason to take away the possibility to cast unthematic spells.

Re: Dud nations
 

Teraswaerto:

Why should Ulm rely on unthematic pretenders to get the job done ? Why not just improve existing pretenders ?

-----

Balancing Ulm sounds very hard. If you improve their national units too much, you'll end up with another Vanheim. No matter what you do to national units, all of them are available from the start.

It sounds like Ulm's best hope is to attack early before enemies accumulate mages and research. This is directly in conflict with the idea of fighting only in your own dominion !

Some thematic improvements:
- assassins with unusually high MR and perhaps even 20-ish elemental resistance. They can even be supernatural or something. Someone already came up with this idea before.

- Perhaps give them 20 percent discount when bidding for mercenaries ?

- Standard bearers/Horn blowers with enchanted standards/horns. Increases MR of nearby units !

- Allow them to alchemize (captured) magic items into gems.

- make their PD scary

- change Black Plate so that it provides MR bonus

- do something !

Re: Dud nations
 

As a similar alternative repels could ignore the mounted defense bonus. If the horse stops because it's threatened then it doesn't matter if the rider is harder to hit.

Re: Dud nations
 

Allowing them to alchemize all magic items into gems would be a nice ability for them. Kind of dull but hey-it'd be useful.

Re: Dud nations
 

Improving Ulm as Endoperez has done with his mod, PLUS giving the warlord commander 12-13 mr, 80 leadership, and raising all of ulms mr from 9 to 10, would not make them vanaheim at all.

In a blitz game, their units would still be trampled by elephants, with no way to capitalize on the elephants low mr, against pangaea, even with the improvements, their infantry would not best pangaea's infantry, their arablests would not outduel the 20 hp longbows, and their size 2 infantry would still be trampled by minotaurs. Arcos hoplites would still be far far superior, ulms units still would have trouble hitting vans.

They would not be overpowered, and still would not be in many people's top 10 races to play ME.

As the game progressed, their lack of magic would still be a major obstacle, and their level 1 priests, a handicap.

Re: Dud nations
 

That's a good point, Teraswaerto. If a nation is restricted for no good reason other than theme, then it also restricts the different ways it can be played, and in the end makes it a less viable nation. Just because you're a Niefel Jarl doesn't mean you can't empower levels of fire magic and start casting fireballs. It may not be a good idea, 99% of the time, but it's possible, it's there.

Re: Dud nations
 

I would actually like to see ulm, at around construction 7, get a cannon, that could fire at a decent range and not so great accuracy, but would have a substantial physical impact to anyone in the aoe range.

The cannon would have a map movement of 1, and a battle movement of zero. Meaning if you retreated, you lose the cannons. I also think it would take a unit like the siege engineer to operate it, and if he was killed, the cannon could not be fired on moved from the province it was in.

cannons would be most devastating in castle defense. But they would have ammo of only 6 per battle, and the number of cannons one could use would be limited by the siege engineers you had. In other words if you had 10 cannon, but 3 siege engineers, you would only have 3 cannons in use for that battle.

maybe the siege engineers would also have to be summoned, and have a fairly high gem cost(20).

Re: Dud nations
 

I really think cannons would be a very bad idea.

There's a ton of technology out there that doesn't require gunpowder, and I think that should be drawn upon, and guns avoided, hands down.

It would just hurt the game, in the end.