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  #1  
Old January 4th, 2005, 04:59 PM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Ulm suggestions:

Better Guardians: For a capital-only unit of a military-focused nation, Guardians are somewhat limited. I suggest reducing their cost to 18 gold and giving them better equipment, not just stuff on the same level as the rest of the Ulmish troops. "Great Halberd of Ulm", maybe? Length 5, attack 1, def 1 and damage 10. And a siege bonus of 2. Obviously, this better weapon would cost more in resources, but that's no big deal for Ulm.

Better Smiths: Everyone in this thread seems to want to beef up the Master Smiths with randoms and stuff. A much more elegant solution, IMO, is to have a capital-only class of Grand Master Smiths with the inevitable 3E2F1?. This is roughly in line with other nations, and, whilst it is contrary to Ulmish flavour, it is much neater than messing with the already perfectly-formed Master Smiths.

It also makes Ulm a fearsome nation.
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Old January 4th, 2005, 05:27 PM

PrinzMegaherz PrinzMegaherz is offline
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Just call those Master Smiths and rename the old ones Apprentices
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  #3  
Old January 5th, 2005, 12:25 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Quote:
Sandman said:
Ulm suggestions:

Better Guardians: For a capital-only unit of a military-focused nation, Guardians are somewhat limited. I suggest reducing their cost to 18 gold and giving them better equipment, not just stuff on the same level as the rest of the Ulmish troops. "Great Halberd of Ulm", maybe? Length 5, attack 1, def 1 and damage 10. And a siege bonus of 2. Obviously, this better weapon would cost more in resources, but that's no big deal for Ulm.

Thinking about Ulm's capitol only units vice other nation's capitol onlys, something like this makes sense: other nations want to export their capitol only troops, which hardly seems worthwhile with Ulm.

Quote:

Better Smiths: Everyone in this thread seems to want to beef up the Master Smiths with randoms and stuff. A much more elegant solution, IMO, is to have a capital-only class of Grand Master Smiths with the inevitable 3E2F1?. This is roughly in line with other nations, and, whilst it is contrary to Ulmish flavour, it is much neater than messing with the already perfectly-formed Master Smiths.

3E2F1????? That would be better than some nations that are considered average to good in magic. Adding one random elemental would make Ulm's smiths quite worthy in and of itself. What you suggest is a .... forging menace, not to mention a very potent battlefield caster - better than most, given access to blade wind without _any_ bonuses, and also Falling Fires, Magma Bolts, etc, with either conjuration 3, a booster, or a random. Frankly, 3E2F by itself would be more potent on the battlefield than most mages, given the synchonicities between earth and fire, and you think it should have a random as well?

*shudder*

Minus the random, I think that might be okay for a new nation, or an Ulmish theme that drastically diminished the advantages (armor, drain, forging) that Ulm currently has - earth and fire together are very potent.

An example of why I think the random would be way too overpowered: 3E2F1? : a single starshine skullcap, an astral random could crank out crystal coins and starshine skullcaps. Empower once for 30 astral, you can forge rings of sorcery. Then rings of wizardry. Then a blood random can make earth blood stones, and basically all the blood items, etc.

And if it was an elemental only random, then you have the first national mage capable of E4, and also tying with Abysia and Marignon for F3 mages, incredibly easy to use national mages for Earth kings and also kings of elemental fire, almost unlimitted Earth Elemental Attacks, cheap blade winds, magma eruptions, etc. It just keeps getting worse and worse.
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  #4  
Old January 5th, 2005, 01:45 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

I think all I'd really like to see with Ulm is the master smith's boosted to E3F1, since that gives them everything they need to deal with most of the situations out there.
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Old January 5th, 2005, 03:04 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...


E3F1, or E2F2, or E2F1 and 1 elemental would also be fine, imo - your E3F1 might be a little overpowered, since every national mage could do bladewind and whatnot.

After all the discussion, I'm leaning a bit towards E2F1 with 1 random, preferably elemental - it keeps the flavor, would give 1/4 of them some significant usefulness (the E3 ones) and a little bit of randomness, and another 1/4 would also be very useful with F2. (With conj-3, earth 2 and/or fire 2 gets boosted by one; an F2 could do phoenix pyre and summon earth power, among other nifty / nasty things.)
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Old January 5th, 2005, 08:13 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Quote:
Cainehill said:

E3F1, or E2F2, or E2F1 and 1 elemental would also be fine, imo - your E3F1 might be a little overpowered, since every national mage could do bladewind and whatnot.

As you said later yourself every mastersmith can do summon EP . Then even every unmodded mastersmith can do bladewind + magma eruption .

But forgingwise E3 or 1 elemental random would be maybe too good for ulm .
Both eleminate the need to forge boots of earth first before starting dwarfen hammer production .
With 1 elemental random ulm would out of a sudden be a top clamforger .

Hard to improve them without making them instantly a top 5 nation .

Most weak considered themes/nations though have no randoms :
- Ulm base
- RotR
- Pan new age
- Vanheim helheim
(- Mictlan )
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  #7  
Old January 5th, 2005, 08:43 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Also note that e3 gives very easy access to cheap petrify, one of the best anti-sc spells out there. (quaranteed paralyse) Then again, that might just do it for ulm
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Old January 5th, 2005, 11:58 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Quote:
3E2F1?????
I did say it was fearsome. Bear in mind that this mega-smith would NOT be sacred, unlike most top-tier mages, and would be expensive to upkeep.

Even so, I have to agree that it would probably be overpowered, with all the mad forging opportunities.

Alternative Ulm magic ideas:

Apprentice Smiths: A new, low-tier caster for Ulm. One pick in Earth, as well as drain-immunity and the forging bonus. Should probably cost about 70 gold. The inclusion of this unit would enhance Ulm's magical abilities by providing a more efficient researcher and low-level forger, freeing up Master Smiths for more important duties. The apprentice wouldn't be particularly useful on the battlefield. You could get him up to Earth-3 with Earth boots and Earth Power, which might be worth it, although Master Smiths are probably a better choice to give items to.

Alchemists: Ulm has an alchemist pretender, so why not give them regular alchemists, with one earth, one fire and one astral? At a reasonable cost. No forge bonus or drain-immunity for them, of course. But even so, that single astral pick would give them a smattering of new strategies to pursue, most notably crystal matrixes. The 50% bonus to alchemy would be handy as well; possibly TOO handy.
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  #9  
Old January 6th, 2005, 01:57 AM
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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

Quote:
Boron said:
But forgingwise E3 or 1 elemental random would be maybe too good for ulm .
Vanheim's Dwarves are E3?1, and nobody seems to complain about those too much. Really, Ulm needs a lot of help. I'd probably also give Black Lords 50% resist all elements as well, so that you can slap an elemental armour on them and go to town against SCs. That way people wouldn't be able to ignore the heavy armour so easily.
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Old January 6th, 2005, 05:41 AM

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Default Re: Ulm beefed up ...

My first gut instinct was to give the Black Lords +50% Resists, but only because the nerf to EA really impacted me playing Ulm effectively (no more thugs). I have wavered as of now between giving them 25% resists or perhaps enough of a MR bonus that you have to equip yourself to your resistances and not get paralyze/enslaved easily.
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