Mod: Ulm Reborn v.1.7b - Updated 14th June 2009

[Sombre]

Well, my question to this is why should it be harder to play than vanilla nations, if it's meant to be played alongside them? About the only other nation that is this schismatic is EA Arco, and there the choices aren't nearly so hard.

Well as I said it's not supposed to be very underpowered and currently I don't think it is, although it could perhaps do with a boost. I don't think there's any problem with the nation being hard to play (if you're using mods I have to assume you're not a greenhorn to the game) and forcing you to make hard choices if it's still balance-wise roughly as good as the vanilla nations.

Well, I don't necessarily agree with points 1) and 3) here, from my own experience. Don't know what you mean by 'high Dominion'; my Oracle had a 7, and I found that it was pretty overkill from most standpoints.

Also, I'm not sure why I'd want an Earth bless. As you point out, it doesn't help your Penitents at all, and everyone else already has more than sufficient protection. I would think that a Bless that helps out Penitents (Fire/Water/Death/Astral) would be good, since it also boosts your other Sacreds at the same time. Playing a high-Earth bless seems to be overkill while doing nothing for your sacred troops' weaknesses (i.e., magic).

7 might be high enough. The stronger your dominion the more penitent you'll get, the more you'll be able to move the black priests around without cutting off the spawning and the more chance you'll have of amassing anchorites etc. Plus with stealthy preachers dominion kill is actually on the table.

Benefits of an earth bless: Reinvig your sacred mages. Reinvig your high encumbrance high survival sacreds who suffer badly from critical hits caused by fatigue. Push an already high protection to the point where anchorites and reborn are very, very hard to hurt. I think earth blessing works best with units that are already high protection.

I'm not a big bless player, nor am I particularly good at dom3 generally, but I think an earth-9 bless is worth it with this nation.

I think that there is a much more optimal strategy for these guys than you might think. It may not be as optimal as the strategy for some others, but it's not simply a bunch of trade-offs.

Maybe. I'm not really into looking for the 'perfect' start build. I'd probably go something like order 3 prod 3 misfortune 2 drain 3 on scales, earth 9 bless,... not sure what else,... or for a penitent build I'd go for very high dom, fire and air bless, growth scale, sloth,... you get the picture. There's probably a middle ground in there that makes the most of it all though. I leave that up to you guys :]

Please note that that is basically all I play, so I'm pretty biased here. But even most 'capital-centric' nations (EA Mictlan, Arcoscephale, Sauromatia to some extent) get a researcher outside the capital.

Yeah and I mostly play Aran and Parganos, so I'm probably biased the other way. As I said though, I don't want to cripple them for people who like large maps.

E2 is pretty good, but that's not as important as the non-capital-only designation. May I suggest that if you do that, switch the domspawn to the White Priest?

I like the domspawn on the black priests, really gives them a different role from the white priests (who just summon 1 penitent per turn). If you could build more black priests (ie, noncap) the penitent hording would be more effective, though you'd have to decide whether you want them at the frontlines pushing dom and killing cats, or if you want them tucked somewhere spawning penitent. A case where high dominion is useful I think.

Yes, the White Priests seem okay compared to other mages, but the fact that they're your only good researchers more or less means you need to recruit one/turn. So while they are worth their cost, they are not necessarily worth their cost _for purposes of research_.

If I make black priests noncap and stick in a new researching drain-proof mage that'll be sorted and you'll be able to get more use out of them. Thanks to smite, bladewind etc they do make good battlemages.

Interesting. It seems to be designed from the wrong end of the stick, though, y'know? Generally you make a very easy-to-kill unit that changes into something 'bigger'. E.g., Jaguar Warriors. This unit is almost like an egg or a small oyster. I was honestly expecting something a little better than a Penitent for a MagB unit (which isn't as bad to lead as some but still can cause issues).

They're weird, yes, and I don't think there's anything like them in vanilla, but I like that. They'll be dropped in cost a touch but the 'shapechange' stays - the idea I suppose is to avoid getting them cracked open - a bit like a tank.

I was playing regular Ulm Reborn. I can also try the CBM one if you wish.

Well it's up to you. If you like to play with CB on they're balanced towards it, obviously. Includes stuff like lower cavalry resource costs, warhorse hooves etc.

[llamabeast]

Did you see my post about the Anchorites Sombre? It just occurred to me that you were probably typing your long post when I posted about the Anchorites. Not that I'm demanding a comment, it'd just be a shame if you missed it.

[Sombre]

I just read it. It's a pretty good idea - it gives the emerging penitent a one-off boost and allows them to do some more damage if your anchorites are getting smashed up in combat.

It would also be quite easy to mod. I just have the secondary form of the anchorites be the new pumped up penitent and the 'change back when ok' form of the pumped up penitents be regular ones. It fits thematically and would improve the anchorites a bit, so it will probably be in the next update.

[Sombre]

Oh before I forget, no-one should really give the CBM Ulm Reborn much playytesting right now because it's an old version - I have the new one here waiting to be uploaded after a bit more tweaking.

I repeat: Current CBM Ulm Reborn is based on an old version and will be updated soon, so if you haven't tried it yet, wait a couple days before you do.


Stuff confirmed and coded for next version so far.

-Anchorite slightly cheaper, spits out Emergent, upgraded penitent, who turns into regular penitent after battle.
-White Priests get S15% and forgbonus 10% added
-Black Priests no longer cap only, get E30% added, slight price hike

[Sombre]

What should the cost of the white acolyte be?

They currently are buildable anywhere, have ES110% magic and a research bonus of 1. This gives them a general research level of 4. They are also priests H1 but they do not spawn penitent. They are physically weak, but not suffering from immediate oldage, have a mapmove of 1 etc. Obviously they are drain immune. They can't lead any soldiers.

I have them at 140 gold currently.

[llamabeast]

I'm not the best at balance, but I'd either give them a bit more research (a further +2 even), or make them quite a bit cheaper (say 100). I'm just thinking about Sauromatian Enaries (Sauromatia being the nation I've played the most) - 150 gold gives you much more good stuff (S1D2N1). Similarly Marignon witch hunters are good (F2S1H1) for 150 gold, and Mothers of Avalon are A1N2 for 130 gold (they're the other nations I've played recently).

On balance, I think I'd go for either a research bonus of +2 and cost of say 100, or even a research bonus of +3 and cost maybe 130. I think with a total research of just 4 they wouldn't be very tempting to recruit. If they were my main researchers I would cry (but then I obviously like high research scores because I always take magic scales).

[Sombre]

Well they aren't there to be your main picks - that's the white priests. The point of the White Acolytes is giving you drain immune researchers you can build outside of your cap. If you're just building one WP a turn then you're not going to be picking up that much speed on the research race. If you have WAs churned out by other forts (several forts are a good idea - this is Ulm we're talking about) then you're going to get the research moving at pace.

They're also sacred, which makes them cost efficient researchers. But I take your point. I'll drop their cost to 100 and keep them at +1 research for the average of 4RP.

Also, 0.9 is now out, so refer to the main post for the download ;]

[llamabeast]

Hi Sombre,

I had a quick look at the new version - I'm excited to try it, but haven't really had any time yet. Quick comments, because if I was a sensible person I would be in bed (got up ridiculously early this morning):
- I really like the white acolyte. I see you managed to find a good sprite as well.
- I really like the Emergent too! Clearly I'm particularly fond of things I was involved in discussing. I think he adds extra punch and flavour to the anchorites though, and they're a favourite unit of mine now. They have got quite low attack though - is that deliberate? No reason why not, just wondering.
- Your writing is exceptional. The quality of the mod is really impressive.
- I had something else interesting to say too, but I've forgotten it. Hopefully it'll come back to me.

Also, a separate issue - did you know that everything on linux is case sensitive? That means that if you give the name of a unit graphic (e.g. Troll Shaman.tga), and the real name has a character in a different case (Troll shaman.tga), the mod crashes. I've been meaning to mention this for a while - it's come up because the windows half of my computer has died, so I'm playing on linux now. Anyway, I can't remember if I had to fix Ulm Reborn, but I definitely had to do a few fixes to get Vaettiheim working (which I also looked at briefly and which is also awesome!).

[llamabeast]

Oh, I just found this quote by Endo:

As Johan said earlier, there is a typo (actually several) in the modding manual for itemslots, the precalculated values at the end are wrong. If you examine his protection more closely, you'll notice that his head protection is just 12, as if his protection was halved. To fix this, you should use #itemslots 31878 instead of 32006. In general, to fix this problem you have to decrease #itemslots value of all units that are affected by the halved head protection bug by 128.

Perhaps this'd fix the Hoch-Hammer's head protection bug?

[llamabeast]

Oh, I've remembered my other small comment - I think it would be good if Ulm had the Virtue as a pretender. Seems thematic.