[Sandman]

I disagree. Your logic does pose a question for design, but I think Drain 1, 2, or 3 are all valid choices for Iron Faith. The reason I think so is that with the new priests, they have more access to research-boosting items, and Ulm generally researches Construction and has forge bonuses, so they don't need to get strong research from priests. My Iron Faith games tend to have cheapo summoned or indy mages doing the research, laden with research boost items, which easily overpower the drain penalty. My priests rarely research, anyway - they're all forging, casting, and supporting field armies.

You have to rely on getting the right random picks, as well as relying on finding sources of air, death and fire gems. Getting skull mentors, in particular, seems like an awfully tall order. And it's not exactly thematic for a holy style nation to find itself in desperate need of death gems.

There are nations that are as good or better for a max-drain research item strategy; ones with guaranteed air, death or fire gems and mages. But even then it's still a risky strategy, to my mind. And regular Ulm can also make research items, whilst still having an average researcher to fall back on.

This is true, but regular Ulm has zero variety in its natural mages. Having a random is very different and, in my view, at least as useful as the 2-earth on the smith. It's just not the usual Ulm thing. It does tempt the pretender to take 2 or more earth power, but that's an interesting design dilemma, and not, I think, a worse weakness than the random pick is a bonus.

If you want variety, indy mages are a lot better. Admittedly, they're not 'guaranteed', but pretty likely, especially with a rainbow pretender.

Or, in battle, casting holy-3 spells. Mainly mine do construction, and also I have my pretender or other mages which become available, forge them some power-boosting items, at which point, suddenly they have all sorts of uses, particularly with their forge bonus. It's not automatic, but it's just a step away - there's a lot of potential there that standard Ulm doesn't have, or not as easily.

The two holy 3 spells are a poor substitute for all those wonderful earth spells, IMO. Ulm can get indy mages as well, and give them dwarven hammers: it's not automatic, but it's just a step away.

With the priests, true. Though, they will almost always research Con-4 in order to make good use of their forging bonuses.

I've just realised that this applies to the smiths as well. Although they're guaranteed to be able to cast it, rather than having a 1 in 8 chance.

Rather useless? Ordinary priests are useful, and 20% savings is not bad. Color coordination is always nice too.

If you're fighting a dead nation, you'll just mass produce generic priests from all your provinces, like normal Ulm would do. It's a waste to use your fortress provinces to make them, when you could be making black priests, or spies.

As for the Black Acolyte, do you think he would be more interesting as a Battle Deacon-like fighting priest (wearing Ulmish chain or even Ulmish plate, with hammer and shield)? Armor encumbrance would limit his use of banishment, but he could still bless himself and other sacred units and be more resistant to stray (or even well-aimed) arrows. With the right bless effect or maybe an item or two he could be quite handy, especially for such a low cost (of course he would cost more resources if he is decked out in Ulmish armor). Seems appropriate for at least some Ulmish priests to do their preaching from the front lines, anyway.

I have to confess that I've never really seen much use for the battle deacon. Is there something I'm missing?

Having said that, having sacred melee commanders, like Jotunheim, would seem to be a nice addition. Might be overpowered though.

I would never use a rainbow mage for Ulm. They have no real way to use any gems other than earth and fire without independent mages, and those mages can search for the gems themselves. Ulm is much better off with a strong combat pretender or spellcaster, like an air 6 titan than a rainbow mage.

But with a rainbow mage you can find more, and better, independent mages, often with a free lab or even fortress. Once those indy mages are given dwarven hammers, they can keep a good supply of items coming. Regular Ulm will not gain any blessing benefit from having a caster pretender, either.

That's pretty much the standard method of searching for most nations. I wouldn't call it chaotic.

Ah well. I prefer to use a rainbow mage or a team of diverse mages to search in a systematic fashion.

This would make the iron faith theme unequivocably better than standard Ulm, since it would have more magical ability and no associated weaknesses.

I don't think that it would. It has these two weaknesses, but it doesn't gain enough strength in other areas. A drain-immune Iron faith would still have limited mages. A 2 earth Iron faith would still suffer from drain. Plus I advocate a higher cost for the upgraded BPs, a new associated weakness.

[ May 01, 2004, 13:26: Message edited by: Sandman ]