Ulm beefed up ...

[Boron]

What about giving them a 2nd mage with 2 randoms , but no good research , no forgeboni , no good stats , no drainimmunity ?
Price 90-120 gold , not sacred .

They can be considered to be bought but are mainly only useful for some forging + some lowlvl summoning + some sitesearching .

On the other hand a spectre is exactly that anyways

So the only thing to improve them without changing the master smiths or adding a 2nd mage would be to make ulms troops really the best in the game .

One approach would be to give them non-capitol only blessable troops .
Another would be to make 1 or 2 elite warriors which are very expensive resourcewise , but equipped with e.g. rainbow armors or anything similiar to make them a bit tougher against the powerful airspells .

[PrinzMegaherz]

I think the 2E1F1R Smith is the only logical solution to make Ulm's theme as a forging nation valid.
As it has been pointed out before, Ulm is supposed to forge lots of items, but seriously, without at least one random there isn't much worth forging.
Or, if 2E1F1R is supposed to be too strong, why not 2E1R?

[Boron]

PrinzMegaherz said:
I think the 2E1F1R Smith is the only logical solution to make Ulm's theme as a forging nation valid.
As it has been pointed out before, Ulm is supposed to forge lots of items, but seriously, without at least one random there isn't much worth forging.
Or, if 2E1F1R is supposed to be too strong, why not 2E1R?

If you make the ulm master smiths stronger though you make Iron faith completely undesireable .

[SurvivalistMerc]

I could find myself warming to two different master smiths...one with 2E1F and one with 2E1R (and maybe making it a random elemental path). Especially if the ones with random were capital-only.

It is encouraging to see folks try to beef up ulm a bit for multiplayer. I see many situations in which defense ends up being more important that sheer protection which is Ulm's forte.

The amount of forging that can be done without the independent magi is quite limited. And empowerment is extremely expensive. (It would be nice if you could empower for forging purposes (and site searching purposes) only for a lesser cost and not be able to use the path for ritual spells or in combat...this would be more thematic for ulm. Powerful forged items but weak battle magic and limited summons.)

I am still amazed that folks have suggested 3E2F1R. That would arguably make ulm the most powerful nation in the game.

Ulm would really benefit from a random elemental magic, especially air, for eyes of aiming on the smiths without having to put air magic on the pretender or get extremely lucky with magic sites.

Interesting discussion. I agree that ulm needs better capital-only troops...perhaps something nice with a strat move of 2 whether or not it is blessable.

[Huzurdaddi]

If you make the ulm master smiths stronger though you make Iron faith completely undesireable .

Fix Iron faith after you fix Ulm. Iron faith is pathetically weak anyway.

2E1F1R ( elemental ) seems to be a fine fix. However their cost should be bumped slighty.

[Boron]

SurvivalistMerc said:
The amount of forging that can be done without the independent magi is quite limited. And empowerment is extremely expensive. (It would be nice if you could empower for forging purposes (and site searching purposes) only for a lesser cost and not be able to use the path for ritual spells or in combat...this would be more thematic for ulm. Powerful forged items but weak battle magic and limited summons.)

The problem is that forging wise even with base ulm already a lot can be done , especially in lategame .

Ulm can sell dwarfen hammers for blood or hunt itself .
Then empower smiths in blood which is "quite" cheap .

Then you can forge bloodstones at greater discount than anyone and soul contracts and hellswords/blood thorns/armor of souls .

Other empowering is of course too expensive . But a random elemental leads to a big number of W smiths and smiths clamhoarding is athematic . Ulm would become probably the best clamhoarder then .

[PrinzMegaherz]

Another Idea that would make Ulm something special...
What about giving the smiths higher paths, but take their abilitiy to cast spells. They would be "Forge only" mages, unrivaled in producing things (with maybe 2 in each kind of magic), but useless on the battlefield.

[Boron]

PrinzMegaherz said:
Another Idea that would make Ulm something special...
What about giving the smiths higher paths, but take their abilitiy to cast spells. They would be "Forge only" mages, unrivaled in producing things (with maybe 2 in each kind of magic), but useless on the battlefield.

Would be a great idea for dom 3 .

In dom 2 it is not possible though afaik . Maybe it is implemented in a new patch though .



What about the following new mastersmiths ?

E2F1N1 . This way they can forge endless bags of vine .
And in combat they can cast eagle eye for higher precision magma eruption / blade wind .

I am still against giving them E3 or any random .
If they can get E3 their combat abilities would be really greatly enchanced :
With earthboots + summon ep they can cast weapons of sharpness + petrify without needing gems .
Forgingwise they can forge dwarfen hammers asap and need no earthboots .

So what would you think about earthsmiths with E2F1N1 for 150 gold ?

[alexti]

PrinzMegaherz said:
Another Idea that would make Ulm something special...
What about giving the smiths higher paths, but take their abilitiy to cast spells. They would be "Forge only" mages, unrivaled in producing things (with maybe 2 in each kind of magic), but useless on the battlefield.

Maybe leave master smiths as they are, but add a new capital only unit - Crippled Grand Master Smith - with strategic movement 0 and right kind of afflictions (chest would, probably blindness etc) and with 2E2F1R (or maybe with 3E1F1R). They will be good for forging and decent for research, but not for the battles.

[Ivan Pedroso]

PrinzMegaherz said:
Another Idea that would make Ulm something special...
What about giving the smiths higher paths, but take their abilitiy to cast spells. They would be "Forge only" mages, unrivaled in producing things (with maybe 2 in each kind of magic), but useless on the battlefield.

This solution didn't seem to get much attention. It got me thinking: "Is it possible to cripple a mage in such a way that he/she would be useless in a battle - i.e. making him/her a forger-only mage".

My idea:
Lord of the Forge (or some other name)
(Capital only or not - dunno)
paths: 2E1F1? (elemental random)
stats as the regular Master Smith but with some/all of these changes:
Precision: say 5 or lower (zero perhaps ?!?)
MR: again low
Research "bonus": -3 (or some other fitting number)
Price: somewhat lower than his paths would suggest.

The effects and the fantasy-logic behind it could/would be:

Low precision: with these randoms the only 100 precision spells available would be frozen heart and incinerate(with phoenix power), all other spells would fly all over the place. The fantasy logic behind it could be that this smith is so focussed on forging the tiny nitty-gritty details of magical items that he is somewhat near-sighted, or have blood shot watering eyes due to the heat/flames that he's always around ?

Low MR: would make him susceptible to all sorts of spells. Perhaps his excellence at forging is caused by a natural susceptibility to magic ?

Research penalty: this could be used to justify a low gold price, and it would ensure that his role as a forger is fixed. The logic behind this could be that he's a specialized forger and not a scholar.

I'm not sure that it would make Ulm much stronger, but if he's cheap it would at least give Ulm some extra options and still be in line with the flavour of the nation - and extra options would be a strength ?