Ulm beefed up ...

[Tuidjy]

CUnknown said:
They're a perfectly legit nation, it's just that their strengths are in the early game, not the late game. In 1v1's or on very small maps, they're one of the best nations out there.

Riiight. I challenge you to play me, using Ulm on ANY existing map, including
clash of titans (etremely small, with preset capitals), with ANY settings,
including very retarded research and no magic sites to speak of.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Imho drain should increase the magic resistance of your troops and have an disease-like effect on magical beings. In a land without magic, there is nothing to keep them going. Maybe one could make this an Ulm special dominion, much like the killer dominions of Ermor and CW

I know I've said that before, but this seems like a good place to repeat this ;-)

[CUnknown]

Hey Huzurdaddi! We're not making special pretenders to win on a small map. We're playing standard mid-size map pretenders.

And I have a chance to win every game, and not just on turn 8-9.

[Huzurdaddi]

Hey Huzurdaddi! We're not making special pretenders to win on a small map. We're playing standard mid-size map pretenders.

And I have a chance to win every game, and not just on turn 8-9.

Doh my bad then. If you are going for mid game power then I expect to see Ghost Kings. Let he who can construct the best ghost king win!

You could have human pretenders on each side. This would make the national troops more of a factor. Or you could specify immobile pretender ( and when I say immobile I mean the sphinx -- this would almost totally eliminate the pretender from the game ).

Oh and while you were specifying which nations were allowed and not allowed I see that you did not mention Jotunheim. Those giants like to crush humans in cans.

[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!