[Sombre]

Ulm would be better if it had indy shortbow units as recruitables, yes. It would speed up the Ulmish early game.

And yes, Arbalests doing so much damage is a bad thing in the context of Ulm. Your troops have heavy prot, your enemy's will generally speaking have medium or light prot. Against light prot shortbows are better, against medium crossbows are better. Arbalests are basically designed to kill shieldless Ulm infantry.

Obviously I'm not saying arbalests would be better if their damage were reduced to crossbow levels and the fire time remained 1/3. What I'm saying is that they're worse than crossbows most of the time.

You seem to be making the same mistake as the guy in the thread before (perhaps it was you, I forget). Yes Arbalests do more damage per hit. No that doesn't mean they're better or more effective. They have to be taken in context. If the usual enemy was heavy prot shieldless infantry they'd be great. But that isn't the case. In this thread people are specifically talking about their use against indies too, for the most part.