Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

Normaly Ulm are not affected by drain on the Magic/Drain scale. To get iron faith you need one step towards drain. Now to the strange part, when selecting iron faith you become affected by it. Why are Ulm with iron faith affected by drain? This means that Ulms best researcher will gain the enormous amount of 3 research points (witn 1 to drain).

/Morkul

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IOW, Iron Faith sucks. You're not the first one to make this discovery. Too bad Ulm can't (seriously) pick Golem Cult either (requires magic +1), my smiths will never build these beefed up Crushers and Iron Dragons they dream of...

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

Iron Faith doesn't get Smiths, just Black Priests. They have a random magic ability each though, which seems like a pretty good ability, especially since they're Holy (cheap to maintain). Blessed Black Templars could be potent, too, and even unblessed, their holy status makes them 25% cheaper to maintain than Black Knights. I thought the main idea of Ulm, and especially Black Faith, was that you were sacrificing magic ability for heavy metal equipment. So... it makes sense for it to be disadvantaged at magic. Black lanterns can help catch up on research.

I don't mean to claim I know they're balanced or anything - just some ideas that make them seem neat to me from my relatively newb perspective.

As for the original question of why the black priests are affected by the drain (or why they wouldn't be) ... I don't know.

PvK

[ November 06, 2003, 02:45: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yes, I think this is a big oversight. Golem Cult would be very interesting for Ulm, as it would add a very "thematic theme" for smiths. But as the theme is screwed with magic +1, then you can drop it.
I must say that as of now, I'm not that happy with themes. Many have a big potential, not necessarly in power, but in originality. But as of now, they are either underpowered, or not polished enough, with loopholes found in many places.

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

Yeah, just tried Iron Faith with Drain 3, got 1 RP Black Priests, quitted game ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
First I don't know if the fact that IF Ulm is affected by drain is a design decision or a bug, in the former case it should be documented (currently the Ulm overview tells it's unaffected..)
If it's abug it should be fixed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , else if it's a design decision, it means that you have to take neutral or magic scales to play IF Ulm (unless you really want NO magic at all... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif ). I'm not sure the new units (even if powerful)restore balance for Ulm in that case.

Can a dev explain the choice ?

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's because Ulm smiths don't get affected by drain.

Other magicians (from indipendents) get affected vry well as far as I know (from DOM1).

So "iron faith" with drain1 looks much better than standard Ulm with drain3, if you take away the smiths... .

And why can't you use "golem cult" with magic1 .. apart from having too few points in the race wizard? But than again what you're expecting - you'll have to pay for that golems somehow.

Things may be a bit unbalanced, but saying "it sucks" is a bit too much IMHO.

A.

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

Because otherwise they would be all too similar to master smiths? And the only difference would be the presence of holy units, and there would no point in taking regular Ulm then? To me it seems very thematic, as iron faith is one step even further away from magic since they now worship iron, and are even less concerned and more conservative about magic.

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Actually I designed an Ulm/GC pretender... but really, having to pay 210 points for the theme and only get +1 research on your smiths is a bit costly. Not to mention your troops have a base MR of 9, and direly miss the drain bonus.

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's because Ulm smiths don't get affected by drain.

Other magicians (from indipendents) get affected vry well as far as I know (from DOM1).

So "iron faith" with drain1 looks much better than standard Ulm with drain3, if you take away the smiths... .

And why can't you use "golem cult" with magic1 .. apart from having too few points in the race wizard? But than again what you're expecting - you'll have to pay for that golems somehow.

Things may be a bit unbalanced, but saying "it sucks" is a bit too much IMHO.

A. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe, but the Black Priests are crappy mages, and you have to pay the price of a good priest to get them ..With Drain 1 they only have 2-3 RPs, half of what a Smith get ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Additionnally they are only buildable at the capitol, in the early game you can't build much of them because you also need to build fighting commanders..

In the end IF Ulm looks unbalanced to me - or at least worse than standard Ulm, note also that you have to PAY for getting IF theme !

Re: Question about Ulm and iron faith
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Blessable knights, however, are down right evil. Try a pretender with Death 6, Earth 6 or Nature 4, Earth 6 or a green dragon with Nature 9 - and base your initial game on blessed knights.