Ulm beefed up ...

[Vicious Love]

Would it totally throw things outta whack if, instead of keeping Ulm low-magic and magic-susceptible, we made them low-magic and magic-proof?
Were we to raise black steel troops' base MR(Maybe to meteorite guard level), that might give 'em a certain longevity. They'd still be inferior to many other nations' national troops, but they'd be much more viable in the lategame, what with their resistance to Disintegrate, Master Enslave and whatnot.

Update: Oh, agreed with Boron about the random, by the way.

[Arralen]

E3 was a typo ... sorry.

Thought about the MR, too. I'm not quite shure, though - if it works out gameplay-wise, or mod-wise.

Will check if you can change the MR without re-doing all stats.

Concerning gameplay, any further opinions?

[Boron]

Arralen said:
Thought about the MR, too. I'm not quite shure, though - if it works out gameplay-wise, or mod-wise.
Will check if you can change the MR without re-doing all stats.

I like the idea of your mod so far .

I also like Vicious Love's suggestion with better Mr .
You just need to add this line afaik :#mr <magic resistance>

So just upping Mr from 9 to 11 or 12 for all ulm units and copy/paste into the mod.dm . Should not need longer then 2 minutes .

9 MR is really low imo . The base penetration roll is 11 + diceroll iirc . So all mr-negate spells should have about 70% success rate at least vs. ulm .
This is especially nasty with charm/enslave mind .

So half of your opponents could just stop your battleline midgame by charming away your troops and you can't do much against .

I have some suggestions for the ulm master smith :
Make him cost 180-200 because he has now very good skills + a forgeboni .
Give him though a lower encumberance . He is a smith so he should not get exhausted quickly . A base encumberance of 2 or 3 is ok imo .

All in all in the current stage your mod imo is already very good and makes ulm just what it should be : Playable in mp . Now it is at least a midclass nation and not together with tien chi among the 2 worst nations .

[Taqwus]

Five levels of magic including a random would seem a bit high for an ostensbily low-magic empire. Good thing it was a typo.

If more games were on maps with few magical sites, slow research and high resources... might be regular Ulm's niche. For something more magical, well, there's Iron Faith or Black Forest, although IF research is a serious problem, and BF requires some ugly scales, IIRC.

Having Black Steel and strength does seem quite thematic, however. If that's not enough, one might wonder whether the focus on the mundane should offer, say, an Administration bonus or Supply, as nerds that might otherwise study magic get channeled into other vocations such as being efficient civil servants or logistics gurus.

[Sly Frog]

Vicious Love said:
Would it totally throw things outta whack if, instead of keeping Ulm low-magic and magic-susceptible, we made them low-magic and magic-proof?
Were we to raise black steel troops' base MR(Maybe to meteorite guard level), that might give 'em a certain longevity. They'd still be inferior to many other nations' national troops, but they'd be much more viable in the lategame, what with their resistance to Disintegrate, Master Enslave and whatnot.

Having a better resistance to all things magical to me fits in far better with the Ulmish theme. Rather than giving them more magic to fit with other Groups balancewise (which is a reasonable change for balance purposes, but does not fit with the "drain land of no magic" theme), it would be better if the devs actually made their drain scale or the nation itself have a greater impact on the ability to kill Ulmish units with magic.

When I first played Ulm, I assumed that their troops would fight off the effects of magic better (which would then make their high protection more useful than it is now, which is to say useful for about the first 5-10 turns of the game). Instead, if anything, Ulm seems more suceptible to magic than other nations.

[CUnknown]

Ulm is supposed to be more susceptible to magic than other nations, taking Drain-3 makes them about even to everyone else.

Raising their magic resistance sounds like a good idea, although I disagree that Ulm needs much if any beefing. 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.

[Boron]

CUnknown said:
Ulm is supposed to be more susceptible to magic than other nations, taking Drain-3 makes them about even to everyone else.

Raising their magic resistance sounds like a good idea, although I disagree that Ulm needs much if any beefing. 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.

Hm i think vanheim , marignon , caelum , man or abysia are all suited better even for a 1on1 on small maps than ulm

[Endoperez]

I have also been considering a mod improving Ulm. Maybe we all should think what they need.

Arralen added:
-Full(?) random to Master Smiths
-Even better protection for all units
-Faster armies

other ideas:
-Magic resistance
-Administration/supply bonus (but Ulm already has +50 res. points in its forts!)

my ideas:
-Making their general commanders better:
*slightly cheaper one with ldr 25 but very good battle stats, equipment and/or lower encumberance,
*Black Knight commanders made better at battle
*commander with general bonus(es) like supply bonus, Skeptic ability of lowering dominion (without stealth! ), maybe Standard, maybe high prec., strength and good ranged weapon...
*commander able to levy troops (think Wolfherd): maybe Light Infantry with prot 7, att 10, def 12 with spear + shield) (not moddable IIRC)
* one commander with ldr 75

*(Iron Faith) Black Acolyte replaced with Black Paladin, who is Black Templar commander. It should be Holy 2 with Inquisitor-ability.

For Iron Faith:
-Black Priest should have E1F1?
[edit]
-Black Priests made immune to drain like Master Smiths.
both two would be too much IMO
[/edit]

-Both Black Templars and Black Paladins should have increased magic resistance

-For Black Forest: change their starting scout to Vampire Count so that they have natural way of summoning them, given enough time to empower/make boosters.




I have tried making Black Paladin, but trying to use screen captures from DomII is quite hard. I can take the screen capture, remove black(0,0,0) background and add shadow, but I can't resize the picture correctly...

[Huzurdaddi]

These are great changes, if I could make one change it would be to make a greater seperation between the Medium Infantry and the Heavy Infantry. As it currently stands I think I would build the strategic move-2 ( the MI ) over the strategic move-1 ( the HI ) every time. They cost less resources and that movement is really useful.

[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.