[shatner]

Originally Posted by Knai

1) Ulm's whole concept is wrapped around minimalist magic, and while this obviously doesn't play out in the game, due to how key magic is, a massive amount of magical weapons doesn't help.

2) As of now, they are too costly to mass. Reduced resources alone should help there.

3) A crossbow that specifically avoids flaming arrows is adding needless edge cases. Better that they stay as is, as incredibly strong weapons that effectively counter heavily armored troops, but don't get a lot of shots off. That said, a precision boost to all units that use them is reasonable.

4) That seems pretty reasonable, and with the free drain scale gives Ulm a useful niche.

5) As is, the cheapness of the priests is essentially what allows Ulm to meaningful interact with dominion. Losing that for magic diversity is almost certainly a step up, but also a step away from what Ulm is supposed to be.

7) I'm honestly not sure that giving them full Awe would be that unbalancing. As long as they don't have much of it, it gives them a use as blockers - moreover, the units Awe is best at dealing with are more easily countered elsewhere, as most are low morale, poorly armored, and have rather unimpressive defense, all of which translates to flail infantry being devastating against them. Two attacks per round, that get around shields decently? Yes please.

Again, let me state that I am not holding up my revisions as some sort of magic bullet; there are several different routes we could follow to balance MA Ulm and still keep it "Ulmy". However, you have repeatedly used the justification of "how Ulm is supposed to be" as why some of my proposed changes won't fly. I really like the theme of Ulm but I think it would be useful to discuss exactly what that theme is.

Squirrelloid talks about this very issue here:

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

MA Ulm, at present, has one dominating theme, and that theme is sucking. Weak magic, weak against magic, and one of the most-deceptive bad troop line-ups in the game.

In re-imagining Ulm, I've tried to stick true to what I consider to be Ulm's dominating themes. In a lot of ways, I think this is more thematic than the old Ulm ever was.

...[cut by Shatner]...

Now, Ulm in the base game is weak to magic. This makes little sense.
-From a motivational point of view, if magic is the weakness of the people of Ulm, it would encourage the study of magic because that would be the path to power in Ulm (he who has the best magic rules). We can deduce from Ulm's rejection of magic that magic is ineffective as a tool for power within Ulm.
-From an adaptive point of view, if Ulm is weak to magic and weak at magic, it shouldn't even make it to the point of being a nation. Because magic is so powerful, not having it is a major disadvantage which gets you conquered by your neighbors and you cease to exist. Thus, we can deduce from Ulm's continued existence as a playable nation that rejecting magic must confer some equally powerful advantage.
-Basically, what i'm trying to say is that being weak at using magic and weak against magic cannot be thematic because it has no way of arising in a world, nor of continuing to exist thereafter.

As Squirrelloid said, the result of Ulm's theme can't be "Ulm sucks." So we need to find solutions to the various mechanical failings the nation has and try and keep those solutions as thematic as we can. If the theme cannot accept viable balance improvements then we need to change the theme because ultimately fluff informs, but is subordinate to, crunch... and Ulm needs some better crunch.

Look at what Llamabeast said in his breakdown of CBM v1.92:

Originally Posted by llamabeast

- Boosts to a number of weak nations. EA & MA Agartha, MA Ulm, MA Man, EA Vanheim and EA Helheim in particular benefitted. Other nations to receive some changes include Marverni, Tir na n'Og and Eriu. Great effort has been put in to make the changes interesting and thematic. For example with MA Agartha the challenge was to increase the power of the nation while maintaining an overall theme of sorrow and loss. Hopefully this has been successful. These nations should have gained not only raw power but also diversity of choices.

MA Agartha needed a boost and Llamabeast gave them that boost wrapped in the theme of the sorrow of a nation and people in decline. So I say we wrap the crunch fixes for MA Ulm in the theme of Ulm being a nation of thrift, artifice and craftsmanship. They have the most efficient forgers of magical equipment in the age. Their most lightly armed foot soldier is more heavily armed than some nations' heavy infantry (Bandar Log's, for example). Mechanically, Ulm only has one non-capital mage, the master smith. During the course of a game as MA Ulm you will recruit many, many, many master smiths. Smiths... who are masters... at forging magical gear. In CBM they have the dormant Forge of the Ancients in their basement. Why the heck SHOULDN'T they have magical weapons coming out their ears?! EA Ulm is Conan the Barbarian. LA Ulm is Gothic Horror and Germanic Folklore. MA Ulm is pretty much your generic "dwarves forging steel and wonders beneath the mountains" meets "burn the heretic. kill the mutant. purge the unclean." but with burly Teutons instead of dwarves/space marines.

Originally Posted by Knai

3) A crossbow that specifically avoids flaming arrows is adding needless edge cases. Better that they stay as is, as incredibly strong weapons that effectively counter heavily armored troops, but don't get a lot of shots off. That said, a precision boost to all units that use them is reasonable.

This is precisely wrong. Ulm already has recruitable armor piercing archers (sappers) who can be just as menacing to armored opponents as any crossbowman. In addition, Ulm specializes in producing size-2, high-strength infantry who carry high damage weapons, making them good at smashing high protection and/or high hp opponents. What Ulm needs is a way to shoot at the enemy without putting holes in the backs of their own slow, heavily armored troops. The niche the arbalest is supposed to fill is already filled. Ulm would be bettered served by longbows than by armor piercing bolt throwers. And even if the arbalests had 100 precision, for the other 90 in a 100 battles where I'm not fighting prot-17 foes, I'd rather have Bandar Log's shortbows or T'ien Ch'i's composite bows than high resource, fire-once-every-three-rounds heavy crossbows.

Think about it, Ulm loves bladewind because it shoots a whole bunch of grape shot over the battlefield. Their troops remain largely unaffected while the monkeys and militia and maenads get cut to ribbons. They would really benefit from the option of having the archer-equivalent of bladewind, not Gift from the Heavens. And a repeating crossbow happens to mesh with their theme in addition to the arbalest's sprite. Win-win!