[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, MA Ulm, once it gets rolling, seems quite powerful. All those individual units have good synergy with each other, and they can build up some serious experience. 3 stars on an arbelaster is more precision than you'd get with sacred Kailasan archers, and in a cheap, armour-piercing unit, with great armour.

Ofcourse, it takes a lot of time to get to 3 stars, but, used wisely, they have potential to last long enough to get there.

And, MA Ulm's units aren't hard to use. It's relatively straightforward to create a line of shield+morningstar infantry out front, calvalry to the side, arbelasters in back of the infantry. You can play around with the other units, adding in pike, flailers, battle-axers, etc. but the basics are almost built in.

Another cog in their engine is that you can instantly use their mage-smiths in combat. You'll want them researching, ofcourse, but when you're first establishing your empire, having 3-4 mage-smiths casting rain of stones or fire flies in the back does a lot against independents. And they're one of the few units Ulm has, that don't take a monstrous amount of resources to build.

That said, their sappers-armed with lighter crossbows-are actually a pretty good support unit. You can build them quickly, for sheer missle superiority, and use them later on in the game to break castles.