[Tuidjy]

First, let me say that all personal opinions should be taken with a grain of
salt. Even good players can totally disagree on balance matters. About the
only thing you can rely on is that if a player says that the race he plays sucks
he is either a moron, a liar or both.

> Tuidjy, how is it that Iron Faith Ulm has no chance in regular games, also
> their units are not very different from regular ulm.

The problem is not so much with the units... it's with the mages. Templars
may be better than the knights that base Ulm has, but unless you have an amazing
blessing, they become irrelevant at the same time as their counterparts.

The mages have a random, keep the forge bonus and cost only half as much to
maintain, but lose the second level in Earth magic, and the drain immunity.
On top of that Iron Faith has an enforced drain scale. Research is abismal,
all the forged items are very low level, and your gem income is earth only.
You cannot afford to take a rainbow mage, because you will be stomped in the
early game by a combat pretender. You cannot afford to expand like crazy,
because you will piss off other players, and get mobbed in middle game.
Unless you are extremely lucky with independants, you will be very limited in
your magic, and will be irrelevant in late game.

The one thing that can make Iron Faith thrive in a multiplayer game is diplomacy,
and trade alliances. Now, anyone who wants to play a war game so he can be a
small fish and play nice with the big guys, is welcome to the theme. It is just
not my idea of fun.

> You also said that Iron Faith Ulm is one of two that has no chances, what is
> the other?

T'ien Ch'i: Barbarian Kings. It's even worse than Iron Faith Ulm, in my opinion.
Limited build-everywhere mages, crippled capitol mages, indifferent units, and
enforced turmoil.

By the way, for a good discussion of relative nation powers, search for the
"Dominions 2 Power Rankings" thread.