Double the Ulm, double the fun!

[Endoperez]

As most of you know, Illwinter has made it possible to mod this great game. I used these modding tools and created a mod that replaces Abysia, or any other nation you want, with Ulm or one of its special themes, Iron Faith or Black Forest. Ulm vs Ulm? Possible, at Last! Ulm vs Ulm vs Iron Faith vs Black Forest? YES!

You can use many of these mods at the same time if you want, as long as they won't replace the same nation. You can also replace Ulm if you want, but then you won't receive any heroes and they have little extra resources.

Excerpt from the readme:

There are few quirks to remember before using this mod:

The new nations get no heroes. Not the ones of Ulm but neither those of the replaced nation.
Pretender selection is different.
For Iron Faith and Black Forest, the scales aren't forced anymore. To play them as they were meant, use atleast Death 1, Misfortune 1 and Magic 1 for Black Forest and Order 1 - Drain 1 for Iron Faith.
Ulm or themes that should get resource bonuses from castle (all of them?) won't get them. Because of this, they start with Iron Mine in their home province.


Well, what do you think? Should this be done for all the nations? Is the idea good? Are there bugs? Do you have something else to say? If so, please use this thread or e-mail me at the address in the readme.

Endoperez

[Gandalf Parker]

Excellent work! I think this is great (wait, this concept feels familiar. Wasnt I too lazy to do this?)
There are three things I like about creating MODs which duplicate the nations we already have.

1) MOD tutorial. Looking at one will be easiest to understand what it is doing. And making one for a nation you know well would be a great way to break into MODding.

2) The Challenges of the Experts. Those who feel that they are the ultimate player of nation XXXXXX nation but cant seem to agree with other ultimate players of XXXXX. Now they can go head to head to prove who is Ulm Ultimate! I can see some of the Ermor vs Ermor, or Arcos vs Arcos. Anyone want to test their "I play Pangaea like a poor mans Ulm" against my SuperStealth tactics?

3) No more bickering if two people ask for Ulm at the same time in a game. Just pick one of the unchosen nations to set the Ulm Mod to replace. (Isnt it limited to replacing land nations?)

Oh yeah, with the new command-line switch to set mods for a game, it should be possible to have the web server recognize and allow multiple Ulms in selection. And do the slight rewrite to slideit into an unused nation slot.

[Endoperez]

Thanks!

I didn't think about underwater races, but I quess that they won't work at all. There was no #underwater or similar tag for nation modding, so Atlantis-Ulm would start underwater... And everyone, *maybe* excluding the pretender, would die.

Ermor themes can't be doubled, but the Broken Empire can, and Broken Empire vs Ashen Empire or/and Soul Gate could be an interesting game...

If we just would get heroes, national spells that don't overwrite disallow spells and could choose the pretenders available then this would be much more balanced. With Ulm there isn't too big a difference, but there nations that NEED their starting spells. Mictlan, for example, will be hard pressed to research for Fiends and get some expansion, especially if game is at hard research. Other than that most of the races can be doubled to the state of "playable" in the least.

[Yvelina]

Ok... so I guess the question everyone is asking now, is when will we have the Ulmfest? Kingdom of Karan, very hard research, few sites, indy 9, and nothing but standard Ulm and Iron Faith allowed... I would also suggest the use of the Ulm champion pretender.

[PvK]

Heh - nice!

Who will win the title of Ulmtimate?

Hmm, for an Ulmfest game, the Ulm national spells' requirements could be turned off, so everyone can cast them.

PvK

[Endoperez]

PvK: That's a good idea! If the Legions of Steel is made Constr. 0, all Ulms can use it! Now if you just invented a way to make it work even when there are some other nations in the game...

Also, any wishes for the second nation?

[Gandalf Parker]

Which nation generates the most "I bet my strategy can beat up your strategy" wars? I know there was a running battle for most Excellent Ermor for awhile but unfortunately that usually is in the sub-themes.
clamming mega-magic wars using Arcos?

[Endoperez]

Ermor is hard to do right. Its starting spell, Body Ethereal, is quite important for the early game, and it can only be modded to be available to everyone or to no one.

Also, making the unholy spells national takes them away from original Ermor. Because of that all Ermors in game have to be modded ones.

Also, the starting troops are 10xPrincipes, 10xVelite and one Standard Bearer; unless someone has found a way to give nation starting units of many times the best bet is probably to give them 16 Hastati.

The recruitment, sites and provincial defence can be done and I have done that, as well as made the unholy spells national ones. ATM, the differences between playing original Ermor and modded Ermor are the following:

-no heroes
-national spells: no Body Ethereal or better unholy Blessings for the modded Ermors
-different starting units: 16*hastati instead of 10*hastati, 10*velite, 1*standard bearer
-different pretender selection

With modded/original combination, the original nation won't have any national spells besides Body Ethereal, Apostacy and two better Unholy Blessings.

[edit] Sorry about the file, I have to zip it to get it through forum system.
[edit2] typos
[edit3] forgot pretender selection from differences... fortunately, Broken Empire doesn't get any free points so it shouldn't matter (much)

[Zooko]

Whoo! I want to get into the Ulmfest! I've never accepted this whole "You have to magic and priestliness to rule the world." concept.

[PvK]

Hmm. If you're going to use a modded map, one approach would be to give everyone the heroes they need there, from the start.

Otherwise, I didn't think you could mod the heroes without hijacking the existing unit numbers for a nation, which meant you needed to create new copies of their bitmaps, which I anyway found to be a big chore.

Anyway, I'd suggest the general approach that if there is something that is hard to give to a clone nation, try giving them something else that is thematic and similar but slightly different. For example, if you don't have a good way to give clone-Ermor Body Ethereal from the start, maybe let them recruit Shadow Vestals instead. Ermor seems like one of the hardest to do though because they have special spells and undead effects.

PvK