Ulm beefed up ...

[Endoperez]

PvK said:
My thoughts:

* I don't think Ulm needs even better armor
* I don't think standard Ulm needs a random pick. It changes Ulm's flavor and removes the strongest advantage of IF Ulm over standard Ulm.

I am on the same boat with you. Ulm's armors are already one of the best, but don't seem to help much. I don't see water and/or air fitting with Ulm, much less any sorceries. And third pick of water would make them quite different, also... Maybe E2D2 for the Smiths? Also, what do you think about IF's Black Priests, should they get another (non-random) pick?

* I don't think strat-move-2 heavy infantry for Ulm makes sense, unless maybe you add a lighter infantry type, or give it only to the chainmail/shieldless types.

I could see it with their crossbowmen as well. Faster (map-move wise) units would help Ulm much.
That idea about only shieldless units getting the move bonus is interesting. Did you read Arralen's post about differences of Chain and Plate armors? That explains quite nicely why he did most of the changed he did.

* I don't think arbalests should be changed to firing every 2 turns. They are good enough as is, and I don't agree a stronger person can reload an arbalest faster - generally the heaviest crossbows required a device which removed the role of strength.

I don't have idea about arbalets' power, because I play only SP and in there I prefer Sappers for their map move of 2, but I don't see stronger person reloading them more quickly either. Maybe their precision should be increased, I believe crowssbowmen would aim better than most other archers...

* I would like to know what regular heavy infantry someone considers superior to Ulm's, taking into account gold cost.

I am not sure about the cost, but Caelum's Temple Guards were quite awesome in Dominions:PPP when they weren't limited to citadel... They have protection of 24 in Cold 3, low encumberance and good skills, and are sacred to boot! Back then blessing was just straight Str/Att/Mrl bonus, undepended on pretender. I still have to try out high Water/med Earth blessing with Caelum, but it could work...

I think part of the problem is, however, that Heavy Infatry is thought to be quite useless.

* +1 strength seems thematic with Ulmites' large size and use of heavy equipment.
* I do like the idea of adding MR to Ulm.
* I would like to see Drain scale add +1 MR per level, and maybe +1 morale/level to Ulm. Can't mod those, though.

I agree to almost everything here, except the morale bonus for drain. Maybe +1 bonus at Drain-2, but not per scale. That would give all Ulmish units +4 to morale in friendly dominion!

I would like to see Ghoul Guardians improved by adding Full Plate of Ulm (and resource cost to match), and perhaps increasing MR and dropping gold cost and/or making the sacred.

One improvement ordered!
Code:

---

#modname "Improved Ghoul Guardian"

By Endoperez

#description "Simple enough to save into any .dm file and enable."

-- Ghoul Guardian is given the armor of Guardian he was and cost changed: 20->17 gp, 31 -> 35 res.

-- Magic resistance changed to 11, to protect them from banishment. 



#selectmonster 1020

#gcost 17

#rcost 35

#mr 11

#armor "Full Plate of Ulm"

#armor "Full Helmet"

#end

---

I added that to my Ulm Upgrade, also.

Iron Faith I would like to have a Black Templar Commander unit.

Already done. Check my Version of the Ulm Upgrade mod. I added the new mod with Ghoul Guardian improvements to this post. EDIT: it had a bug. Fixed.

[Sandman]

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.

[PrinzMegaherz]

Just call those Master Smiths and rename the old ones Apprentices

[PvK]

Tuidjy said:
PvK, the real issue is whether Ulm needs boosting or not. I may agree with you
that Ulm does not need even better armour, or that the random elemental makes
Iron Faith more or less pointless. The reason I am pushing for changes is that
I believe that Ulm, as it is, is simply horribly underpowered. This is why I
am playing the three games against CUnknown - if Ulm cannot win one on one,
on a small map where the enemy capital is known, under conditions tailored to
favor Ulm, there is something wrong with the race.

Ok, but suppose one simply added MR and perhaps a little morale to all Ulm national units - would there not be a point where that alone would make you think Ulm wasn't underpowered?

That is, I might agree Ulm is at a disadvantage once other nations have deployed powerful magic, if Ulm fails to develop other magic itself (such as from independant mages). However I'd first try approaches which try to stay closest to what I see as Ulm's theme, which is anti-magic rather than more magic, and the game data's other thematic parameters.

PvK

[PvK]

Endoperez said:
... I don't see water and/or air fitting with Ulm, much less any sorceries. And third pick of water would make them quite different, also... Maybe E2D2 for the Smiths? Also, what do you think about IF's Black Priests, should they get another (non-random) pick?

An E2D2 Smith... sounds good for a Diabolical Ulm theme mod.

Adding another magic level to Black Priests would certainly be a strong plus for them. I'm not sure they "should", but if one is convinced IF needs a boost, making them E2?1, E1F1?1, or even E2F1?1 would seem ok to me, or even offering several or all varieties at a range of costs.

I could see it with their crossbowmen as well.

I agree.

Faster (map-move wise) units would help Ulm much.

Yes, and they do when I play them - I use both national troops and independents, to complement each other in various ways. For move-2 armies, for light archers to safely support the heavy infantry, etc.

That idea about only shieldless units getting the move bonus is interesting. Did you read Arralen's post about differences of Chain and Plate armors? That explains quite nicely why he did most of the changed he did.

No I hadn't - let's see... ah ok. Yes, that's an interesting post. If reinterpreting the way armor values are assessed, though, I'd want to see similar adjustments for everyone, not just Ulm, which is of course a big task.

Again though, I don't see a need for Ulm to have better armor than they already have. Ulm HI can be quite strong when it ends up in the right conditions, meaning ample numbers, supporting troops, etc. I don't see it needing to be better at what it already does well.

I am not sure about the cost, but Caelum's Temple Guards were quite awesome in Dominions:PPP when they weren't limited to citadel... They have protection of 24 in Cold 3, low encumberance and good skills, and are sacred to boot! Back then blessing was just straight Str/Att/Mrl bonus, undepended on pretender. I still have to try out high Water/med Earth blessing with Caelum, but it could work...

I think part of the problem is, however, that Heavy Infatry is thought to be quite useless.

Call me Ulmish, but that seems incorrect to me.

I agree to almost everything here, except the morale bonus for drain. Maybe +1 bonus at Drain-2, but not per scale. That would give all Ulmish units +4 to morale in friendly dominion!

Well I was thinking that some people think Ulm is seriously disadvantaged, and that a frequent complaint is low morale, so it would be a thematic way to address those issues.

One improvement ordered!
Code:

---

#modname "Improved Ghoul Guardian"

By Endoperez

#description "Simple enough to save into any .dm file and enable."

-- Ghoul Guardian is given the armor of Guardian he was and cost changed: 20->17 gp, 31 -> 35 res.

-- Magic resistance changed to 11, to protect them from banishment. 



#selectmonster 1020

#gcost 17

#rcost 35

#mr 11

#armor "Full Plate of Ulm"

#armor "Full Helmet"

#end

---

I added that to my Ulm Upgrade, also.

Cool, thanks!

Already done. Check my Version of the Ulm Upgrade mod. I added the new mod with Ghoul Guardian improvements to this post. EDIT: it had a bug. Fixed.

Ok, I will have to check that out.

PvK

[Cainehill]

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.

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.

[Graeme Dice]

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.

[Cainehill]

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.)

[Boron]

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 )

[Tuna-Fish]

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