Dud nations

[Sombre]

Well that's given me some ideas for a balance mod I'm working on based on the CB template.

[Endoperez]

I'm almost finished updating my old Ulm Upgrade mod, so I guess we'll have 3 "make Ulm better" mods floating around soon!

[DrPraetorious]

I do not believe that units that default to black steel armor are actually immune to destruction - or that the game even keeps track of which default armor is "magic". The description may refer to magic-items-as-armor, which are not removed from inventory. You can get the broken-armor icon anyway, not sure what it actually does to you.

I propose a fourth fix to Ulm. My preference would be to give Ulm national spells that encourage it to use the units it already has.

- effective, low-research, low precision, non-armor-piercing damage spells for the smiths. Improved versions of Magma Bolts, basically. These would be deadly spells if you have tough units, because you need not worry about friendly fire.

- since Ulm despises both magic and organized religion, they should have anti-type spells for magic beings and for sacred units.

- spells to give haste (not quickness!), recuperation and offensive bonuses to large numbers of infantry. Further boosting the protection of your stuff is deeply pointless.

I'm also working on new and powerful national spells for Marverni and ME Agartha, but I'm waiting for the new patch at the moment.

[Dedas]

I don't agree that it is pointless to raise their protection additionally as there is a big difference between 20 and 25 for instance. Have anyone of you even tried using legions of steel? Also iron will is pretty low level (3) and it is in the same school as gnome lore that your smiths also can cast. After that you obviously have tempering the will which is cheap and bloody excellent for Ulm, a spell that follows the nation between the ages. And don't cast it once but a lot of times as magic resistance negates it on your own troops and you probably have drain 3 when playing MA Ulm because it doesn't affect your smiths research.

And don't forget that pikes ignore shields also so it is actually not so hard to hit knights for example. They also have a morale of 11, which means that they will stay in the fight for a while raising enemies fatigue. So the thing to do is of course to have flail guys, hammerers and battle axes behind them set to hold and attack. A tip is to use the ones with less armor as they have more APs and higher defense whilst the now fatigued enemy have a lot less so they won't hit them so often anyways.

Another thing not to forget is the production bonus Ulm gets in the fortresses - so build a lot of fortresses! Its troops only cost 10 gold anyways.

[Meglobob]

One further point on 'dud' nations, MP is a pretty ruthless playing environment, if a nation gets percieved by a significant amount of people as weak, then in MP it becomes a easy target.

I think I have seen some signs of this in MP with Marverni and the Ulms being targeted early on and eliminated.

In the next patch I believe Helheim is being weakened slightly, so in future patches shouldn't Marverni/Ulms be strengthened slightly, on the lines of Endoperez's and Dr Praetorius suggestions?

Mods strenghening weak nations are always welcome but will they get used in MP? Also in SP, such mods are not needed as the AI is more fun to play against with a weaker nation, I try to give the AI every chance/advantage I can.

[Endoperez]

DrPraetorious said:
I do not believe that units that default to black steel armor are actually immune to destruction - or that the game even keeps track of which default armor is "magic". The description may refer to magic-items-as-armor, which are not removed from inventory. You can get the broken-armor icon anyway, not sure what it actually does to you.

You're right in that black steel armors aren't immune to armor destruction. Found out when updating my mod, now posted in the mod forum in the "Dud nation mods" thread.

Broken armor tag means that all armor is prot 0, and that shields are useless. Prot 0 Black Knights are a sad sight. It goes away when the units end turn in a province with unused resources, but I don't know how many resources it takes to fix a piece of armor.

The spell ideas are all nice. Which schools would you put them at? Would the anti-magic being and anti-sacred unit spells be in Thaumaturgy, giving Ulm a reason to research towards Tempering the Will, or would you move that one to some other school?

[Sombre]

I agree the adding protection to high protection units seems to work very well - same theory as the high def van units having Water blessing.

Meglobob: You don't have to use the mod in SP when you're playing that nation, but it will help the AI out if you're playing against them and /they/ have that nation. I basically only play SP but I'm still very interested in balance.

[Meglobob]

Sombre said:Meglobob: You don't have to use the mod in SP when you're playing that nation, but it will help the AI out if you're playing against them and /they/ have that nation. I basically only play SP but I'm still very interested in balance.

Good point! Yea, those mods would be really useful, thanks for pointing this out, will use them in that context, to make the AI stronger in SP play.

[Baalz]

Well, I'm not going to comment on Ulm as I haven't really played them in EA or MA, but I am surprised that more people haven't mentioned MA Mictlan. They loose all the best things about being Mictlan (blood, cheap researchers) and gain absolutely nothing. Basically the ONLY thing MA Mictlan has going for it is recruit everywhere Jaguar warriors and good luck with that once your opponents get one of the many great jaguar warrior counters (ever seen blade wind cast on them?) I can't figure out any way to play them competitively.

Now, EA R'yleh I have to strongly disagree is a dud, but you do have to play them quite differently. They have very strong defensive capabilities (in the water) but their real offensive power is the sneak attack. Nobody on land wants to bring the war into R'yleh's waters, and because the water provinces are usually so much bigger they consequently have a very long border that they don't need to worry too much about defending and very good mobility. Aboleths have strong astral and water plus good hp and life draining, that's all you need for a thug capable of teleporting and taking out most PD singlehandedly with no equipment other than possibly an amulet of the fish (body ethereal, personal luck, quicken self, astral shield, breath of winter, attack closest). The trick to EA R'yleh is knowing full well you can't carry on a head to head fight on the land with an evenly matched opponent...so don't. Use your natural water defenses and long border to watch for opportunities to sneak attack, and in MP leverage this to cultivate allies to help you carry the fight on land (ie need help with that war you're in against Pangea?). Don't attack until you can cause enough damage in your initial attack (swarming over your long border and teleporting in aboleths everywhere just when your target committed most of his troops elsewhere) that it cripples your enemies ability to counterattack. This can be amplified by a withering barrage of mind hunts- also best served as a surprise. You've got to think of EA R'yleh like a submarine- surface and fire at a battleship head on and you're gonna lose every time, but if you play to your strengths your opponents won't know you're there until it's too late.

[Xietor]

I love endperez thoughts, if you can make Wardens(warlords) recruitable everywhere mod, that sounds like a mod that i would play ulm with.

With all due respect, more spells is not something Ulm should need. There ought to be 1 race, where its strength is its army, and that race should be Ulm. They hate magic, they rely on steel, so i say boost their units so they in fact, and not in theory, rely on cold steel.

But the spell idea in the construction line are nice. It is thematic that forge masters would research construction.

Giving them a warden at every castle would help, as they at least would have a decent thug with decent mr. I think there mr needs to be 11, and there morale raised to 12. Remove that ridiculous national spell, and boost their morale.

The Black Knights would be formidable with a decent mr.

I am going to try endoperez' ulm mod! Thanks.