I am always glad to see MA Ulm getting some attention from the modding community. In fact, I created an
MA Ulm Mod myself. The changes in the latest version of CBM were nice but I feel like Ulm still has some fundamental and unaddressed deficiencies:
1) Cheaper Troops: fortunately covered by CBM
2) Lower Encumbrance Values: also covered in the latest CBM
3) Magic weapons: Ulm has poor-to-average quality weaponry for its soldiers. Hammers and Mauls are given to claymen and barbarians for a reason... because they aren't very good so they are fitting for ill-equipped fodder. Ulm should have broadswords, greatswords or better yet, enchanted weaponry for their troops. Attacking Ulm should be like attacking Caelum in that your mistform and your body ethereal will do you no good there because their rank-and-file has magic weaponry. Both mechanically and thematically it fits and would be sorely appreciated.
4) Ranged Attacks: The Infantry of Ulm are slow and highly resistant to archery. They have high protection values, meaning that short bows and slings bounce off their helmets with little effect. Unfortunately, they are given ranged weapons that fire rarely and inaccurately and do a lot of armor piercing damage when they do. In short, they have one of the few ranged weapons in the entire game that you can't fire into a melee involving Ulmish infantry and expect that to go over well. Clearly, they need the opposite like a repeating crossbow: many shots, low damage.
5) Magic Diversity: Ulm needs two things on this account. The first is some way to natively summon their Iron Angel, meaning they need a reasonable chance of getting an S2 mage somehow. Also, they would really benefit from a passing amount of nature or death. This would help them be a bit more flexible in their tactics and forging.
Here's what I did to achieve those things. I don't mean to be presumptuous, nor prescriptive. I just want to offer an example of a solution to the problems I am citing, so that it might help inform a decision from the CBM team if and when they decide to revisit upgrading MA Ulm.
+++Changes - An Overview+++
The larger changes from this mod are as follows:
1) Blacksteel troops and commanders given lower encumberance and superior, magical weaponry
2) Non-blacksteel troops made no more than half as expensive as blacksteel troops (both in terms of gold and resources)
3) The arbalest was changed from a slow-firing, high-damage weapon to a rapid-firing, low-damage weapon (3 shots/round, 5 dmg each)
4) Master Smiths were given a 100% AEFS as well as 10% A, 10% F and 10% S. This is so they are more magically powerful and diverse among themselves. This is also so MA Ulm is better capable of getting access to a few but crucial A2 and S2 casters. Price raised to 195 gold.
5) Master Priests were given 210% ADN. This is to help diversify Ulm's casting capabilities, especially in the realm of forging better thug and super-combatant equipment. Price raised to 210 gold.
6) Ulm lacked a recruitable caster who could reliably summon Iron Angels (a conj 8, E5S2 spell), its late game SC chasis. The Black Priest was changed from E1H2 to E3H2 1.1 FS so that 50% of them could be equipped with boosters or minimally empowered to be able to cast this crucial spell. Price raised to 210 gold.
7) The Black Halberd was improved to make the Guardian and Lord Guardian more desirable to recruit