Ulm beefed up ...

[Zen]

I had some changes slated in the Conceptual Balance series for Ulm that were similiar but not these particular changes. They included:

MI = Strat Move 2
Black Knights = Improved to be the best non-sacred Cavalry in the game (+Hp, +MR, -Gold/Resource)
Master Smith = +Elemental
Arts = RoF 2/Round
Guardian = +Castle Bonus

This might go well with changing certain units (mostly support like the Arts, Pikemen, etc) to Black Steel Chainmail.

Iron Faith

Black Priest +Elemental, +Holy
Black Acolyte +Earth, +Holy
Black Templar +HP, +MR

Black Forest

Ghoul Guardian -Gold Cost
Fortune Teller +Sorcery (Paired)
Zweihander +Str, +Mor

[Tuidjy]

Ulm needs all the help that it can get. I like both the original poster's
suggestions and Zen's modifications. The troops must definitely be better
than run of the mill humans. It makes perfect sense that the strong
arbalesters can load their weapons faster. Reducing the encumberance values
could be justified the same way. As for magic resistance, in Dominions, it
is correlated with an iron will. Who but Ulm would have it?

Beefing magic on smiths is harder to justify, but is necessary for balance
purposes. Elemental makes more sense, but sorcery would be nice indeed.

[Taqwus]

Sorcery would be nice, but less thematic than fire/earth-- and it's easier to open up other magical paths or grow significantly in magical power with sorcery than with elemental magics. Spectres, Acashic Record, Lamia Queens, Skull Mentors forged at 50% off via dwarven hammers, early probing via Dark Knowledge and Astral Probing... perhaps *too* nice for a magic-averse nation.

Hm. Even smiths + hammers + water magic might be problematic for the efficient and athematic clam hoarding.

Supply / siege / conventional combat might make more sense. They won't necessarily need a magical boost if their military machine makes up for it, or if drain scale had more impact on casting fatigue (perhaps even affecting ritual cost?) and so forth.

[CUnknown]

Tuidjy, sure I accept. I was going to offer the same challenge.

Let's play Clash of the Titans, rich world, normal research, normal magic sites, indies strength 5.

You can play any faction but Caelum, Arcosephale, Atlantis, or Ryleh. I am fairly sure I'll win 2 out of 3 games under these conditions, unless you are some sort of god player.

[Arralen]

Version 0.9:

-- Changes:
--
-- Master Smith has Fire-1, Earth-2, Elemental-1 now
-- Base Encumbrance is 3, MR is 16
-- Cost 175 gold
--
-- All Standard Inf is STR+1 (fits it's HP 12)
--
-- General MR is 11, which works out to 12.5
-- with the inevitable drain 3 ..
-- Knight Commanders are at 12.
--
-- The troops wear either "Full Chain of Ulm",
-- helmet and have strat move 2, or
-- "Full Plate of Ulm", Black Steel Helmet
-- and have strat move 1.
--
-- "Full Plate of Ulm": prot 17, def -2, enc 4
-- "Full Chain of Ulm": prot 15, def -3, enc 3
--
-- Crossbowmen prec 11
--
-- Black Knight gcost 50 rcost 60
-- Black Lord gcost 120 rcost 60
--
-- Unit descriptions redone, to give some hints
-- about advantageous usage.

And everyone a happy new year !!

[Endoperez]

Interesting... Could you also add either the original stats or the chance to the readme?

I'll test your mod better today, but it already seems very interesting.

And happy new year for you too!

[Boron]

Nice finetuning .
A happy new year as well

Arralen said:
Version 0.9:
-- "Full Plate of Ulm": prot 17, def -2, enc 4
-- "Full Chain of Ulm": prot 15, def -3, enc 3

Why does the chain mail get a higher malus to def than the full plate ?
Imo you are more immobile , the stronger your armor is .
So with a chainmail you should be more agile then with a full plate imo .

It doesn't matter much though because defense is very low for ulm units anyways . Their main protection is just protection .


Btw do you plan in future to improve the 2 ulm themes as well ? And tien chi ? And maybe a few themes like return of raptors , pan new age ? Would be cool .

If you plan to do this you should keep the approach you did with ulm , mainly strengthening the combat abilities of their units , but not overpowering their mages too much

[Boron]

My suggestions for IF ulm :
Give the black acolyte inquisition ability .

Make the black priest drainimmune . This is afaik not directly possible with modding . So give him just a sage bonus of 3 , which cancels out drain 3 dominion and leaves him this way in drain 3 scale with 4 rp .
Reduce his price to 120 gold , but don't change his magic skills .

Finally the black templar should get a small additional extra compared to the other beefed up ulm units because he is capitol only . So to make considering at least a small bless for him worthwhile he could get one of the following goodies :

-Berserk ( +3 - +5 ) because he is a zealot , a religious fanatic .
-Awe , because he is an impressive force .
-50% shock resistence . All black templars get a minor amulet of shockprotection as reward for becoming black templars , the elite unit of IF ulm .

I especially like the idea of giving them the 50% shock resistence . Ulm as a forging nation should be able to forge such a goodie cheaply , so their elite can be completely equipped with this item .
Because they are capitol only + require a lot of resources you probably really rarely will see more then 20 black templars . If their life expectancy against airnations is roughly doubled by this special ability would be imo a good thing .

Atm every ulmunit survives only 1-2 hits by a lightning spell .
The black templar would survive then 2-3 , with great luck 4 hits by an air spell .
That would at least not (almost) make them obsolete already on turn 5-10 .

[Endoperez]

Berserk above +0 would be too much for Templars IMO. They are religious fanatics, so their morale is high. That is far from berserking!

"Impressive force" is not enough to give anyone Awe. That would mean that *all* titan-sized pretenders would have awe.

And Shock Resistance is quite hard to explain. I agree that, gameplay-wise, it would fit. Unfortunately, it's not thematic! Black Templars are religious knights. For them to have Shock Resistance, they would have to be blessed by their god... by Air 9 blessing, which is possible although costly.

[Arralen]

Boron said:

Why does the chain mail get a higher malus to def than the full plate ? Imo you are more immobile , the stronger your armor is . So with a chainmail you should be more agile then with a full plate imo .

A common misconception, maybe stemming from all those RPG rules which where authored by -to put it midly- some folks which didn't have a clue about either a)statistics (roll your dice...) and b) medieval/ancient combat. Hollywood filmmakers aren't that much better naturally.

Actually, I tried to model the differences, while keeping it somewhat somewhat consistant with the rest of DOM2, between two fundamentally different armor techniques.

First the heavy, ankle-long double-layered chain mail with underlying padding. In the real word (TM) known in principle since roman times, it was the late 1000s when it became "fashion" (don't quote me on the date, I'm notoriously bad with those. But I know where to look it up ) Earlier, it 'was simply too expensive and/or the material too bad to actually manufacture mail that long. This kind of armor was used 'til 1200, when first serious improvements where made: full "pot" helments, later the first "platen", which developed into the cuirass.

Second the full-body "gothic" armor, similar to those made by Lorenz Helmschied, Augsburg (not Ulm ), around 1480 for "Erzherzog Maximilian I." (later Emporer). Those armors are sometimes depicted "gothic", while they where in fact pre-gothic I think. For a visual check the mod icon ! Those are definitly not much heavier than a full chain mail. But a chain mail does not have "articulated joints", so movement is much more hindered in such an unshaped armor. With "gothic" plate, you can you actually jump, sprint, and it's said someone tried cartwheels with it successfully.

While the chain mail is made to absorb a blow and keep the edge from cutting, the plate armor is made to foremost deflect a blow from a weapon - or a missile.

It doesn't matter much though because defense is very low for ulm units anyways . Their main protection is just protection

That is only partly true - even within the constraints of DOM2. If you check it out - the Black Plate Inf with Tower Shield ends up with a Def of 11, which isn't that bad IMHO. And I'm really thinking about upping the Def of the plate armor even more.

From my personal experience of beeing "on the receiving end" of such an armor, I can tell you that it's amazingly difficult to get an effective hit in, especially if your adversary additionally carries a big shield.

Only -but big drawback- of the "hard case armor" is the prevention of air circulation. You may do everything you want in it - but only for some hours at best. After that, you'll have to get rid of some parts or you'll be boiled alive ... . Wearing a full armor on a long march is impossible.

That's why I gave the mail armor troops strat move 2 and the plate armor troops strat move 1 - they simply need more time to get battle ready and have more difficulties hauling their armor in general.

Btw do you plan in future to improve the 2 ulm themes as well ? And tien chi ? And maybe a few themes like return of raptors , pan new age ? Would be cool

Theme modding is still somewhat difficult. Practically it means using the "notheme" switch and re-doing the whole nation from scrap. Something I don't have the time to atm.
And I must admit, I'm e.g. somewhat clueless what to do about TC S&A to give it a faster start. And Pangaea New Age is something I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole