Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I was wondering, am I the only one who thinks that this is quite a powerfull spell verging on OP.

Also I am not too sure about its mechanics fully , but I cannot see any counters to it.(MR doesnt seem to negate it) So with this spell(Ulm that already has really good early game with the recend reduction of the enc of their troops) gets a way to counter everything the other nations may have as a strategy this spell is like deamon cleansing, unravelling and wither bones in one. It has a great synergy with tough 20+ protection unbuffed soldiers for a nation with an easy access to earth magic. So you cast that spell and you wait for any special units your opponents might rely on to die from exhaustion(it does take about 10ish battle turns but you can easily outlast them with your high prot units also every turn their creatures become more and more useless(because of the increased chance of crit)).
Also as Ulm you get the easy forge and you get really good thugs/Scs (iron angels) with extremely cheap equipment aswell.

So my question is didnt CBM buff MA Ulm a bit too much?

Also I don't want this to sound like a rant, but if you can point me to any counters to this spell I'll appreciate that.

P.S an additional question if drain magic works like rigor mortis would will of fates(luck) give you 50% chance to ignore the fatigue damage?

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I think there are a lot of people that share your opinion about the current state of MA Ulm. With all the recent changes they have been pushed very far in the direction of OP.

Elite super soldiers with some of the highest protection in the game, and relatively low encumberance for 10 gold apiece. Check.

Easy way to buff those high levels of protection right out of the gate. Check.

Highly spammable AP evo that can be easily casted by your cheapest mages. Check.

Native forge bonus. Check.

Level 0 forge of the ancients. Check.

Resource boost for the capital. Check.

National mass parilization spells that render elite units of other nations useless. Check.

Spell that renders any summoned units your enemy fields useless. Check.

Any one of these changes would have done a huge amount to buff ulm up to a respectable MA power. All of them together make them insane.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

What puzzles me is that while MA Ulm gets this kind of treatment, a nation like LA Man or Eriu gets left in the dust.

Not complaining too much, mind. I like playing the new Ulm (in SP, though).

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Drain Magic only works for 9 turns. I think the total fatigue it gives is 45, maybe slightly higher. Obviously it is fairly powerful but it's meant to be a key spell for the nation.

Balancing Ulm is difficult - it's easy to make them strong in the early game (which it seems CBM has possibly overdone), but keeping them competitive later on is very difficult. Drain Magic is an attempt to help with that.

In the next release the following changes are planned:

- Change the H3 Blessing of Iron spell. Either make it H4 or make it require research.
- Remove the 50 resource capital site.
- Do something with the national Forge spell. Probably remove it.

I think those changes will make quite a big difference in moving Ulm back into the middle of the power spectrum. The Blessing of Iron spell is probably the worst culprit in making them currently a bit OP.

Also, fair point about LA Man, but the last couple of patches have added content and buffs to most of the weaker nations (including Eriu to some extent), so I think LA Man is the exception rather than the rule. The trouble with LA Man is I can't figure out what the theme is. It just seems dull.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Drain Magic only works for 9 turns. I think the total fatigue it gives is 45, maybe slightly higher. Obviously it is fairly powerful but it's meant to be a key spell for the nation.

Balancing Ulm is difficult - it's easy to make them strong in the early game (which it seems CBM has possibly overdone), but keeping them competitive later on is very difficult. Drain Magic is an attempt to help with that.

In the next release the following changes are planned:

- Change the H3 Blessing of Iron spell. Either make it H4 or make it require research.
- Remove the 50 resource capital site.
- Do something with the national Forge spell. Probably remove it.

I think those changes will make quite a big difference in moving Ulm back into the middle of the power spectrum. The Blessing of Iron spell is probably the worst culprit in making them currently a bit OP.

Also, fair point about LA Man, but the last couple of patches have added content and buffs to most of the weaker nations (including Eriu to some extent), so I think LA Man is the exception rather than the rule. The trouble with LA Man is I can't figure out what the theme is. It just seems dull.

I see so it should work like rigor mortis. I assume 10AN damage and 50% chance of getting hit by it. Although when I tested it on turn 7-8 of the battle with of force of 60 undead units 90% fo them were with fatigue 100+ most of them 120-30 and some of them 177,150 etc. Out of 60 I had 5ish units with 20 or less fatigue 10 with 50+ reaching 90s. and the rest had fatigued out some taking damage from fatigue(thats at the end of the spell)



Can I make a suggestion: can the damage be changed from 10AN to 10-15 normal damage(subject to tweaking) this way the spell can take care of the chaff units wheres your troops buffed by the standard (for everyone) weapons of sharpness buff can take care of the elite units the enemies has. (if the damage is normal you will still do 20ish fatigues to most units I think or at least judging by the way the spell behaved) and the more so on lightly protected targets. This give the opponents a chance to counter it by casting Army of X. or spells that buff prot. Hence you have a counter to the spell and its not too powerull late game but its still usefull against masses of chaff early on.:)

Reasons for my suggestion: Ulm also hasn't got a huge reason to for construction 7-8 since it has most of the gear that it needs.(well as much as other nations) since it has the means to deal with elite units of other nations easily via this spell. and since it has the forge:). (well lets say less reason than most nations)
So all they need to deal with the elite units (witch come for other nations rather late) is this spell. so they have the counters before the threat has come(which is not good I think since it gives ulm time to creat threats before the other nations even think of getting a counter for it).


P.s Observation: luck didnt seem to counter the fatigue damage.

P.s also if its meant to be a key spell for the nation why the research for it is lvl 4?(Agartha gets its key spell at level 9 and most other nations get them lvl7-8-9)

Also I Like the Idea of the blessing requireing H4 rather then research since in a late game battle it is equial to 5-6 castings = 5-6 mages not casting legions of steel and casting evoc. so I think it will be fairly powerfull even if you move it to higher research.(5-6 casting less per army freeing your mages to cast other earth buffs) or evoc. If you make it H4 then only a prophet with crystal shield can cast it. But crystal shields are easily obtainable for ulm. Or if the games goes on till late late game you can use one of the holy-boosting artifacts to field 2-3 armies with this buff on.(hence it gives a reason for ulm to use holy arifacts(which is quite thematic aswell:)))

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I'm very surprised if it caused fatigue of >100. Has anyone else observed this? That wasn't what I found during testing. I would agree that that would be OP.

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!

Dominions has a lot of things like this to which there is no direct counter. For example how do you counter Wither Bones?

"Key spell" doesn't mean "endgame spell".

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

With fog warriors:) (I guess that doesnt classify as direct counter true :) but casting it turn 1 and turn 3 say. gives you decent enough protection)

Regarding drain magic making it dmg 15-20(fatigue) spell doesnt make army of gold/lead a full counter(although I admit its more direct than the fog/wither bones)
Although if it did 45 fatigue damage that would make it balanced I guess. And if it still feels too you could just prolongue the ammount of time it lasts to 18 turns and reduce damage by half;)

and yea I know that there are things that dont have counters in dominions, although I feel that its better for the balance to have a counter for something( Its like with the vine whips when they were always hitting making them the perfect weapon for any low attack SC's) As they were made to entangle low defence stuff they became balanced since it gave them a counter at certain cost(so another SC can decide to forego MR so that it can obtain more defence- if you are fielding huge armies of SC's hoding vine whips) Also I think giving everything a way to be countered contributes towards balance.

About the fatigue it surprised me aswell it could be because it wasnt the only spell that was on at the time. so all of them working together might have caused some bug. I'll test it again couple of times when I get the time to and give you results/ send you the files if you want to see what happened. I have cbm1.92 debug mod, singleagemod and llamastreamersandstandards. But I dont think its that.

My bad there I misunderstood you about that.

P.s. Also dont get me wrong about the fog warriors comment, I am not trying to tease you (maybe a little bit:) so just disregard it )

Although I do think you are doing a great job for this community and I am really thankful for that.
I am just trying to give some suggestions which seem reasonable to me and try to get other people from the community to state their opinions aswell. Since the last time I gave suggestions about some things that cant be modded thus aggravating some of the people on the other forums. Now I am trying to keep the suggestions simple : chance AN damage to Normal or AP. That kindoff thing.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

It's good feedback, I appreciate the post.

Incidentally I think Drain Magic has an additional effect for each of the magic being, undead and demon tags. So Bone Fiends (undead demons) would suffer double fatigue. You weren't using Bone Fiends were you?

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

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.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I've always just taken the theme to be the coming of the modern world and the end of magic. Basically, the natural ending point for LA Man is the modern human world.

Not sure how exactly this then translates to potential buffs for the nation. In a game like dom where magic is king, how do you buff a nation centered around the death of magic?

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I'm against that. Ulm is supposed to have the best regular troops around. It's balanced by low MR, everybody being slow, and Ulm having limited magic access and no sacreds.

It makes perfect sense if Ulm can come close to a sacred rush without actually using sacreds, and the counter would be exactly the same: battle magic. The capital resource site probably does need to go though, so it doesn't get too easy to have way more numbers than sacred rushers typically have.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Although If you are talking about early game MR doesnt come to play then, most of the usefull MR-checking spells come later in the game so its not such a big disadvantage early game. So I think you have to keep this in mind.
I by all means don't mind Ulm Having strong regular troops almost-Sacred rush like Its just I playtested some games and their national spell Stopped something like 60 morrigans(that is 120 death gems plus the cost of having to go for a bless for them with no benefits to diversity).(50 of them with faigue +100) so I was a bit concerned about that.

Because as we said then you get a good early game nation with really good late game. You are most likely going to go for a rainbow since you dont need an SC pretender to fend off rushes. That means you have better diversity than most Sacred rush nations and forging bonus for late game + easy accest to thugs SC with cheap items. Then you get a spell that stops everything that some nations can offer. (demon and undead) As I said I still need to check if it has a similar result on demons and normal magic units. But yea.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

So the problem is that it's a sacred level rush without all the tradeoffs that come with using a sacred level rush, mainly tanking your scales. And I'm not saying make the black plate cost 30 g. What i'm saying is make them equivalent in price to other national elite infantries: 15-20 gold rather than 11.

And as long as ulm has level 2 tempering the will the weak mr argument is not really true.

And the whole problem with ulm is that, as you said, they have limited magic access. Making them into even more of an early game powerhouse does nothing to mitigate this problem, it just makes them not fun to play or play against for the first 30 turns.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

The gold cost is fine. Ulm pays for it by being forced to take production 3, and building high admin forts placed for maximum access to resources rather than other factors. The Ulmish war machine is incredibly slow to get rolling or react to the unexpected since all their major troops are move 1 and resource limitations means armies are made up of trickles drawn from every fort rather than massed at the target border. This is also highly thematic, and if necessary, resource costs can be bumped up even higher on blackplates to further emphasize it. I doubt it though given the nerfs we know are coming.

Though given that the theme of blackplates is that they are just regular troops with superb equipment, their stats really ought be bumped back to standard Ulmish except for the morale. It's unthematic for them to have any stat advantages not derived from equipment.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I would have agreed with tht "forced to take production 3" prior to the recent changes to the scales, but with the income boost from production its no longer really true that taking production 3 is such a bad thing. Prod 3 order 3 with a rainbow geared to get getting Ulm diversity is VERY powerful.

As far as mobility goes. Map move 1 for heavy infantry is standard across the entire game. Almost every other human nation with heavy infantry only has MM 1 on them: Arco, pythium, ermor, man, machaka, etc. etc. Ulm is not unique in this. What they don't have that others do is a light/medium infantry.

My main objection still stands. Buffing the blackplate does nothing to cure the real problem of Ulm, lack of magic access as the game moves on. All it does is make them a crazy tough opponent for the first 30 turns, and drain magic is a gimmick that makes tough beyond that.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Regarding MR-resists spells that matter early...

Given Ulm's troops require a significant resource investment, and are thus fairly limited in number, a mind burn spam defense would be fairly effective. I've hosed EA Abyssia sacred attacks with it, and those have real MR. It should just massacre Ulmish troops.

----

I think all this whining about Ulm being OP is pretty reactionary. I agree the early Forge is uncalled for, and the available from turn 1 full army Legion of Steel is a bit much, but otherwise? Still in the lower half of MA nations imo.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

How many games have Ulm won since 1.92 was released? Was it 5? Out of how many games? I'm sure they have won at least 3. Thats more victories in this short while than several nations have in the hall of fame, period. Ulm is crazy powerful now.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Sorry guys I didnt mean to start a Useless thread just stating Ulm is too OP nerf!!!

The purpouse of the thread is to help llamabeast into his work (well actually, it was initally for me to find any sort of counter to that spell and the mechanics of it but I already did that ;) ). So refrain yourself from posting just empty comments saying ulm is too OP. If you feel that something is wrong, state your reasoning behind it. If you feel that nothing is wrong state the reasining behind it aswell. I think this way we can communicate better and find out some solution or at least help in directing towards it.:)

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

all i can say is, as a newbie, Ulm is a great fit for someone starting off. i love cbm ulm. i have no idea if they are TOO good, since i have no idea what i am doing, but i would be sorry to see them overly nerfed.

also, i wonder, if you make some of their spells available only to level 4 priests, how would they use them?

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Crystal shield on prophet. That or one of two artifacts + shield on Black priest. Or are the artifacts two handed?

Hmm, I guess a synthetic priest communion could work also.

All of these methods require quite a bit of effort so you could only afford to protect important armies this way. And only after some construction research. I like it!


As for LA Man, they seem scholastic to me, what with all their mages graduating college. Maybe they should have a research bonus on their ministers?

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

corinthian, u are truly a fountain of knowledge. i did not know u could bonus up priests. thanks

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Magisters are already good researchers for the cost, I dont think they need a research boost.

What I would like to see as a theme for LA Man is something related to "The Curse". It's all over their flavor text, but it doesnt have much effect other than explaining their immunity to drain scales.

There are a lot of references to keeping The Curse "contained". Maybe they could get some kind of national spell where they release it, spreading drain scales and weakening magic beings across the world? It would be easy to make the latter part overpowered, but I think that it fits well with the theme of dying magic, and gives Man a shot at the lategame by leveling the playing field a bit.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I'd love to see a reverse gem gen global for them: as long as it's up, every nation loses X gems of each type every day. Unleash the Curse !

Sadly out of the realm of available modding AFAIK, but it'd be such a cool trolling spell :D

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Yeah, elaborating on the Curse theme would be the way to go, though it's difficult I understand to do that, just given how vague and nebulous it is. My suggestion would also be to perhaps give LA Man some more unique conjuration for some mid/Late-game thug/SC chassis, like an undead Tuatha Lord. They already have an undead Bean Sidhe with E1A1D1 (very expensive costs for the magic though, 15 death gems on a nation without native death income and only a 25% chance of death on a judge). Perhaps tie together LA Man with Eriu/Tir'Na'Nog themes, albeit with dead Sidhe/Tuatha? The Curse could be the Curse of the Sidhe for despoiling the land and disturbing their tombs, or somesuch. The Bean Sidhe I was talking about would make for a nice chassis in and of itself with ethereal, glamor, stealth, and cold & poison resistance built in and access to some earth/air alterations (but not high enough for either: no access to either Soul Vortex or Cloud Trapeze or Mistform hurts that, plus undeath). Bargarests are, with a cursory glance, quite decent, plus stealthy (though again the price is rather high for a nation without native death gems and no native way of summoning them [D2]). So give them an undead Ri chassis with ethereal and glamor (like the Bean Sidhe) with A2E1D3, and Man has a mini-SC right there, with Cloud Trapeze into Mistform+Soul Vortex+Iron skin+Resist Lightning+blessing (essentially a better version of the Wraith Lord with Stealth, though still undead and no immortal). All of it also fits the theme that you kind of get out of the summons LA Man has already. Perhaps Morrigans too, since Fomoria can also be leveraged with Baragests already in. I would also suggest increasing some of the chances of magic on judges (or take out the fire portion and just give it 50% death), so they have a route to leverage those summons (and/or also up the patrol bonus, so they can go the Bogarus or T'ien C'hi route more effectively with Judges). Perhaps think about giving Magisters Arcane some more randoms to allow them to diversify? Hesitant to touch on regular Magisters because of how cheap they are and how awesome some of their bonuses are (Spy, 15 siege/defense bonus, 70 gold?!?!?!), but perhaps rethink their paths/chances abit (because I don't know, A1 or E1 by themselves don't stand out to me, unless you also get the S1 random [and in that case, you're probably going to be using them to fuel a Magister Arcane communion], who already provide you with the Wind Guide/Flaming Arrows [with a F1 random+Crystal shield+Phoenix+2 slaves, and can case Earth Evos with E2 earth powering and communioning]).

Perhaps give them more stealth/glamor in a manner similar to Tir'Na'Nog or EA Helheim? Magisters are spies naturally (though don't have much magic paths to allow them to do much with it besides), and their unique summons (Bargarests and Bean Sidhe) are also stealthy. Would also give spy Magisters a use (an S one running with the rest of the stealthy army to prevent mind-hunts and the like, etc,). Combine that with the missile spam that is Man's midgame and you have an extremely impressive midgame right there (counterable quite easily however), with some better late game potential with a good chassis or two. Undead Formorian giants in addition to undead Tuatha? Maybe give Wardens a bigger thematic touch to them, beyond being the same ported over from MA. Sorta like Ghoul Guardians. Defenders are already pretty nice (though high resource costs: still, crossbows on kite shield infantry with decent stats, nice blockers/additions to longbow spam), and Knights are still good in small amounts. Perhaps give them another stealth troop other than Wardens that can be leveraged early on for raiding?

/end random LA Man spiel: I don't even play them that much so not sure if any of this is a good idea/potentially OP

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

A want to state opinion on balance between early mid and late game.

For me a nation should consist of three things, it should be really good at some point of the game, it should be weak at some point of a game and it should be middle of the road at the last point. Say have strong early game, crap middle game and decent late game. Or crap early game, decent middle game, and strong late game.

For me personally, if a nation has a really good early game (say Nifelheilm) and then has a decend middle game then heck it should be weak late game, because while you have been steamrolling some people(especially with the removal of gems) you gain a bit advantage, something oter nations(late game nations struggle to do on their own say bogarus although there have been found decent starts for them to try and defend themselves its still hard against stronger early games).

So what it means for a person to pick an early game nation. You get twice the expansion rate than weak early-game nations you get to steamroll someone so by the middle game. So say Ulm by middle game you get one of your more powerful weapons -Iron Angels. Add to that the fact that you should have twice the gem income of some nations with weak early game(just because you can afford and you have to take rainbow while others cannot do that). On top of the gem income you get national mages with forging bonus so you gem income is worth more.

By middle game, all those nations that were really weak early game can either shine or be decent to make up for the lack of early game. So at that point an early-game nations should start struggling to keep their provinces, but still be able to defend them against nations with strong late game and average middle game. The middle game nations (Like Machaka lets say) should shine now since its well "the middle game". So it should be relatively easy for them to try and get and accumulate advantages before the late game comes because they shouldnt be that strong late game, thus they need some advantage to compensate for that. (I sort of see those nations as good at everything and at nothing nations:)) Lets say nations like machaka should be taking territories from weak middle game nations with ease, and be taking territories from middle of the road nations if they don't play scourched land taktic.(so it still should be easier for you to gain one or two territories off those nations so that you can get a better advantage) but I shouldnt be so easy to defeat them.

Now, at the late game, what the situation is, you should have
the strong early game nations (that have decend but not perfect middle game ) and the strong middle game nations (that have decend early game) relatively equal in terms of territories, wheres the weak at early or middle game nations lacking behind. So now its the time for those nations to try and leverge their national strengths. And those strengths shouldnt be balanced say/ If two nations have the same ammount of territories a late game nation can win, but at the cost of a lot of effort. Now the game is technically 2 v 1 for them. Because by then the early/mid game nations should have twice the size and gem income of a weak early/mid game nations, if you don't then you are doing something wrong and you dont play your nation to your strengths.

So if its late game now you should make tose late game powers be able to beat anyone less than twice their size(in terms of production/gem income etc) quite confortably. If they can't(if it isnt easy for them to do that than you dont have a balanced game). And for the strong early/mid game nations with twice the size of a late game nation it should be a fair fight between that late game nation and them(taking into account their advantage in territories and gem income).

So thats why when you try to make competitive for late game a nation like Ulm that has good early and decent mid game, you should be thinking more of the lines of: "by now they should be competitive only if they have twise the size of a late game nation" and not : "well given same size Ulm should be able to defend themselves against late game nations" I think that the definition of competitive should be based on the game situation(or what it should be) and not on " all things being equal " that is because the game progresses, and if you are for example Niefelheim and by the beginning of the late game you dont sit on top of twice as many territories as Bogarus or Pythium then heck you dont deserve to be competitive against them and you should loose badly if you didnt play to your strengths.

P.s. sorry for the long and confusing post.

(And a short way of saying the post beforehand : Early-game nations should only be competitive with late game nations if they have twice or more than twice the ammount of territories by late game) And even then late game nations should have the upper hand(so be on the attack)

Also for Ulm if you take rainbow(and there is no reason not to take one) with the EDM mod incorporated if you have twice the ammount of gem income of some late game nation, you shouldnt be able to be stronger than them. Things should be equal.

I made this post because it seem that the preception of some people about the game is different so I wanted to know if anyone thinks the way I do.

How people see things in dominions is: A nation is weak if it has a strong late game but no early game or late game. To get the game balanced, if that nation survives by the late game(even having a territories/gem disadvantage) they should be able to shine late game, and it should be easy for them to win now against anyone less then or equal to twice their size.
What happnes in practice: Early-mid game nations get a huge advantage early on, then by late game have twice the gem income of some late game nation(say Patala) and then because of the options that rainbow pretenders present then they beat the crap out of the poor Patalans unless the nagas somehow by a miracle manage to get equal in size at those early game nations.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I think, I see a problem in Bbz`s approach: Nations with weak early game will be simply devoured earl on without a chance to defend themselves.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

i suppose that would be a question of degree. weak early game might mean not that easy to expand, not necessarily easy to eliminate.

bbz's ideas have merit. but shard, you are right, they could be tricky to implement.

but i guess ultimately, he was saying ulm shouldn't get stuff to make them strong late game cus they are good early.

i agree with the idea, but i hate it. cus i LOVE MA Ulm, and i SUCK as a player, so i want all the help i can get. but that is just me.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

No, but even if they don't get devoured(by some miracle) and you manage to persuade your opponents that its not going to be cost effective for him to attack you, if your early game is **** you start to rely on your neighbouring nations to be at war (or some wierd luck)so that you can get to expand enough (rather than just being marginalized to insignificance), with a late game nation you need to use every dirty trick in the book and fight like a lion early on (taking advantage of being the defender most of the time since you wont get the chance to attack someone that often) so that you can survive. So I just thought that that shuld pay off a bit more that it does now. And making early game nations "competitive" late game on a all things equal basis isnt the way to get there.


P.s This is not intended to be a rant, I am trying to show my opinion on what should be considered balanced. Since thing such as perfect balance don't exist. A game can only be balanced for certain settings.(take a 1v1 game against Niefelheim and lets say Patala who is going to win??:) )
So I think that the community should come together and either vote for or agree upon certain standardised settings for which the game should be balanced. This should make llamabeast's job a bit easier (But since that is not going to happen) and it might make the game unfun. I just though that It might be resonable to share my views on the matter thats all:)

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

That's where diplomacy and the map itself come in.

Take Bogarus for example: they are a ridiculously good late game power with both access to more or less everything in the book, the research to get to it quickly, and the best taxation system in the game.
They also have a weak early game because their national units are cheap crap for the most part.

Some games they get ganged up and destroyed before they can really get going, some games they manage to speed through to fire arrows or thunderspam and have the means to defend themselves. Some games people just leave them alone until they suddenly flip the lid off and murder everyone at once.

In the one game I played with them, they weren't attacked at all in the early game, even as I neighboured them. And I played Mictlan. So, um, yeah :).
But I had other fishes to fry (or rather, other neighbours to kill) and of their other neighbours, Midgard had decided to rush C'tis (a wise decision, since LA C'tis has a terrific middle game) while T'ien C'hi was rushed by Atlantis and Man+Ulm allied to face Pythium's aggression.
Bogarus ended up being the runner up for victory (My nation won, but I wasn't at the helm by then).

Bottom line: having a weak early game doesn't mean you'll get instaganked, even if you start next to the most rushiest of nations.
And if you are instakilled, well, that's one game quickly over with and you can start a new one before having invested a lot of time in the former :D

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Honestly, I never understood why Bogarus was supposed to have a poor early game. Yes, their troops are pure crap, and so they would be on the lower end for expansion rate unless they take an SC pretender, but it's pretty insane to rush them as anyone except Abyssia or maybe Pythium. With Starets, they can pull out flaming arrows and a communion to cast it on turn 9 assuming magic 1 in vanilla, combined with cheap easily massed shortbows. Unless the map is ridiculously close, I don't think even Mictlan can do enough damage before their Jaguars get annihilated by the sky raining fire.

They are better rush targets in CBM since flaming arrows get pushed back to turn 11, but it's still crazy risky.

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Yea I do consider Bogarus as a decent early, decent middle and strong late game nation(just because of the ways that have been found to play them competitively). Patala on the other hand is a nation I'd say with weak early game(elephants don't make up for anything after the initial expansion) weak-to-decent middle game and decent-to-strong late game.

If you have weak early game you still should loose to any (well executed) sacred rush. The point here is to look like a hedgehog to fend off attackers(to make them think that there are easier targets)

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@BBZ or others,

Since it was mentioned, what makes patala stong in mid and late game?

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I wouldnt say strong in mid game. Mid game is sort of non existent. Late game they have freaking awesome mages that can cast pretty much any water earth nature spell at high level. Falling frost with at w7-8 mage is nothing to laugh at, while if there are some pesky SCs gifts from heaven is going to deal with them. Also if you manage to get into blood you get awesome blood summons from Lanka, and you also have Amazing astral summons that diversify you into any path of magic(although they come late) So you can say that Patala has a big magic diversity for late game and thats all you need. + cheap communion slaves, and good communions.

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Honestly, not a whole lot. Patala used to be super good at clamming, and was a hidden blood nation thanks to its access to the efficient Dakini. Combined with really good national summons in both astral and blood (other people have to Wish for Rudras and Mandehas), a Patala given time to both clam and build up its blood economy is unstoppable.

In CBM though, clams are gone and Dakinis got nerfed. With that, astral summons are pretty much unuseable, and it takes forever to build up a blood economy. Pretty much all Patala still has going for it are its really good for the LA cap only mages. There are some neat late game tricks they can pull like teleporting Earthquaker with enough hp to survive, but being cold blooded, they aren't actually useable in battle late game. People talk about their communion potential, but they are no Arco, Marignon, or Bogarus. Dinky S1 communion slaves need to be present in huge numbers to not die from the high level earth and water spells you want Nagarishis to cast. Fortunately, your enemies are likely to solve the problem for you by casting Wolven Winter and making your communion masters keel over simply from encumbrance before they can kill your slaves.

I'd actually say Patala is reasonable early. Those strong cap only mages means Patala dominates early game battle magic. Rust mist and a horde of markatas eats heavily armored elites. Strength of Giants on light Bandars gives surprisingly decent archers that are also quite capable in melee. CBM also gives them pretty solid but cold blooded and cap only sacreds. Eventually though, someone will be both able to attack weak monkey MR and cast wolven winter, and then Patala would be screwed until really late when the blood summons start showing up in number.

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To counterstate the "ULM is OVERpowered" crowd:
-Any Serious Earth Nation eats MA Ulm. Ulm has NO counter to Iron Bane until Alteration 9.
Just to illustrate the difference of desurction, imagein 10 Black Knights charing 50 small Bakemono Archers. First turn, the Bak Sorc Buffs himself, the archers fire, hit, do nothing. Second turn, he casts destruction. Assuming he hits, the Black Knights die in 1 volley.
-Some MR spells like False Fetters, which works great against Ulm, actually come quite early.
-Enemie should use superior map move to interedict Ulms reinforcement routes. Ulm is forced to use Map mvoe 1 guys for the most part, make them pay for it
-If you have F/W , Rust mist is great. W also has other MR negates stuff that works ok.

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Tempering The Will comes as early as Thaum-1.

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Everyone has mapmove 1 when it comes to offensive moves. Except Caelum, I guess. Since reinforcement routes are by definition within Ulmish territory and behind the frontline, it's not really feasible for most nations to disrupt them until they have access to flying thugs (which Iron Angels eat for dinner anyway).

The exception would be stealth troops (and to a lesser extent sailing troops), but they don't affect Ulm particularly worse than they would other nations, in fact you could even say they affect it less since the Ulmish reinforcements only ever move 1 space anyway. By comparison, cutting off the province a mapmove 2/3 reinforcement party was planning on skipping through costs them 3 turns since it cancels the original move.

On top of that, Ulm has some of the best PD in the game, so good luck light stealth troops.

It's also not true that Ulm has to wait for Army of X to counter Destruction/Iron Bane: Marble Warriors works fine, so does Wooden Warriors (N indies are a dime a dozen), and if you have a lot of mages in the field then Iron Warriors can do in a pinch too. Also, Mechanical Men, Living Statues, Iron Angels again.

Besides, outside of Shinuyama (which can rain acid and banefire on Ulm anyway), which serious Earth powers are you talking about ? Agartha, Pangea, Arcoscephale, Atlantis don't have any national archers, and if they're recruiting some indies while on the warpath with Ulm it's a dead giveaway what they're aiming for. Bandar can summon Yakshas, but there again you see them coming from a mile away. If you get caught with your pants down by Destruction, you can only blame yourself.

As for MR spells, Tempering the Will comes even earlier (Thaum 1) and brings the Ulmish MR to a respectable 13 (14 in dominion), battlefield-wide. It's MR resist, but since Ulm has crap MR before it goes off, it typically only takes 2-3 casts to affect the whole army.

Look, nobody's saying Ulm is positively unbeatable. Of course they are. But they're much tougher to beat than anyone else in the first 30 turns or so. Which puts them in a great place when they shift gears and start drowning the world in thugs. They're pretty weak in the late game when counters abound for large infantry armies and the Iron Angels start getting outclassed by self-buffing SCs... but by that time any decent Ulm player will already own a sizeable piece of the pie. And nothing precludes Ulm from having said self-buffing SCs either - Cyclops & Mech Men are a given, but F4D on your god also puts you in Ember Lords and Zmeys ; W3 is enough to find the W to empower a smith and give him boosters for Grendels ; A4 gives you self-summoning Asynjas.
Plus unlike many other nations, for the most part you don't need to spend gems on battlefield casting. Your dudes don't need Darkness, or Army of Lead, or Antimagic, or PotS/LotNS, or Relief, or Mass Regen, or Storm... to lop heads and fill the air with cold iron day in, day out.

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You need Conjuration 3 to get summon earthpower. Otherwise Ulm cannot reliably get E3 casters. It's awful inefficient to burn earth gems to counter a spell like false fetters. LA Ulm definitely has a hard time bring out Tempering the Will early since only 1/4 black priests have E2 and has no E income. Personally, I think it should be an E/H spell like Ulm's other national spells. It seems like the kind of thing produced by the Iron Cult as a part of their general anti-magic thing.

Rust Mist indeed does terrible things to Ulm for anyone with the E/W crosspath at Evo 2. Acid Rain too, but that messes up everything and hardly anyone can do it.

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Pangea has centaurs, and they are great archers, indeed.
Or, you can just research construction, which you are going to research, anyway. :)

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Also Agartha has very easy access to Rust Mist, Atlantis only slightly less easy, and Arco the same plus access to acid rain.

At Construction 4? It's not as if summon earthpower isn't also a big deal for Ulm. The point is False Fetters is available in a year 1 war, but Tempering the Will is not, at least not for Ulm who has one of the slowest research starts.

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They still have their strengths - flying, best MR in game, special anti-sacred attack vs national summons...

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Dead pretenders don`t have use for gems, anyway. And it`s awful efficient to forge firebrands with Master Smiths when Forge is up. :)

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False fetters is only range 15(+?) though. You can just start your troops in the back and the enemy mages wont reach them.

As for Agartha and rust mist, I actually faced an about equal sized agartha with a veteran player with the latest MA Ulm. He did use rustmist and darkness heavily. And you know what? Under cover of darkness, were Ulm and Agartha have the same amount of troops and mages and were Agarthan mages use rust mist, ulm will virtually always win. We had many battles and agartha had to bring almost 50% extra troops and mages to win battles reliably. Under darkness.

Why? Because troops dont really mater much in the mid-game. Mages does. And my ulmish smiths with eruption and iron blizzard simply killed agarthas troops faster than agarthas mages could kill mine. Black plates make for excellent chaff all around. Can take a fireball to the face like a boss! How well they fight does not really factor in to it at that point.

Interestingly, from the threads perspective, I never actually cast the Drain magic spell during that entire game. Not even vs R'lyeth! Why? Because irom blizzard tended to kill most thing long before any fatigue would have become relevant! Same with temper the will. Its a waste of a mages time to cast it. You should have the mage spam evocations instead. Who cares if some dweeb get him mind fried. Black plates cost only 11 gold!

They really should cost atleast 15-17g as they are now, IMHO.

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Rust mist comes out at Evo 2, and performs admirably at neutering Ulmish troops at that magic level.

You are talking about a magic dominated battle with level 6 evocations where troops are nothing but chaff. I seriously doubt the marginal advantage of blackplates in the purely chaff role is what played the decisive role. I mean, why was Agartha wasting mage turns with rust mist when he has Alt 6 and thus iron bane?

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Maybe he had better things to do with his E gems ? Can't imagine what Agartha could be doing with them :D

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That might be part of the problem. I mean golems are nice and all, but magical beings get absolutely murdered by iron darts/blizzard.

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And that`s why you don`t use them against Ulm, but cast Iron bane instead, right?

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I'm a fairly noobish player here, so take this with a big grain of salt. I'm in a noobie MA game and Ulm (parone) is running away with it. In planning to fight him, I must say I'm a bit amazed at the range of "Ulm-only" spells that he's got in CBM. Which is funny because before this game I had never looked at CBM 1.92 and had always thought MA Ulm was kinda crappy.

But as I gear for war with Ulm I see that in CBM 1.92 he's got a BF, not-hard to cast spell that cripples demons (drain or whatever-its-called). Low-fatigue iron blizzard spamming. Nation-only buffs to MR and elemental resistance. The MR and encumbrance problems of his "chaff" troops don't seem to be there any more, but they still cost 11 gold and have protection in the 20s. My high protection (which is like 16 for me) troops cost 20g (and also have map move 1). He also has an easy-to-summon thug/SC chassis (iron angel) for 20 gems. He has effectively a 25% forge bonus on most items. And his own forge-of-the-ancients spell if that bonus strikes him as insufficient.

Not taking anything away from parone for playing well and our game isn't over at all. But I will say as a relatively new player, I am not a big fan of CBM creating balance by giving a nation a bunch of new spells. Why not just adjust their existing troops somehow? I know nation-only spells are in vanilla too. But the new nation-only spells just make it even harder to learn strategy, and I find it frustrating that I basically can't think of a realistic counter to his range of strengths.

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Yeah, cbm 1.92 went a bit overboard on improving ma ulm. It went from one of the weakest nations to being one of the strongest.

But, general remarks regarding CBM modding should be made in the correct thread. Pick a CBM mod thread for that (really do, this always needs more feedback). I think it was already discussed in dom3mods. But, I forgot what the ulm plan was.