Ulm beefed up ...

[Saber Cherry]

Endoperez said:
No, that cannot be modded. As a rule, if it isn't in the modding manual, it can't be done.

I found an exception. I was trying to put "life drain" and "3x damage to undead" and "soul slay" secondary effects on weapons by using random numbers, and I got strange secondary effects... for example...

"Additional effect when striking the enemy: Pike"
"Additional effect when striking the enemy: Rune Smasher"
"Additional effect when striking the enemy: Halberd"

I'm not sure what they would do. But there are probably lots of real effects not listed in the mod manual.

[Endoperez]

Saber Cherry said:

I found an exception. I was trying to put "life drain" and "3x damage to undead" and "soul slay" secondary effects on weapons by using random numbers, and I got strange secondary effects... for example...

"Additional effect when striking the enemy: Pike"
"Additional effect when striking the enemy: Rune Smasher"
"Additional effect when striking the enemy: Halberd"

I'm not sure what they would do. But there are probably lots of real effects not listed in the mod manual.

That is documented. Description of #secondaryeffectalways mentions that those special effects are just weapon types. So you can wield Weak Poison, or Death Poison, or Unconsciousness (although the in-game version has a typo). However, they are meant to be used in weapons. You can also do new secondaryeffects, e.g. Flame Storm, AoE 10, dam 15, Fire, armor-piercing. And you can duplicate effects like Shatter, or Slay Magic, but not mod them.

2x, 3x and lifedrain aren't possible, but Soul Slay is. Look through Edi's weapon list.

[Saber Cherry]

Endoperez said:

That is documented. Description of #secondaryeffectalways mentions that those special effects are just weapon types. So you can wield Weak Poison, or Death Poison, or Unconsciousness (although the in-game version has a typo). However, they are meant to be used in weapons. You can also do new secondaryeffects, e.g. Flame Storm, AoE 10, dam 15, Fire, armor-piercing. And you can duplicate effects like Shatter, or Slay Magic, but not mod them.

2x, 3x and lifedrain aren't possible, but Soul Slay is. Look through Edi's weapon list.

Yay!!! Version 8.0 of the Recruitable Unit Mod will be neat The only question is... how much would you pay for Valkyries with "Soul Slay" spears?

...and back to Ulm, sorry for side-tracking the thread!

[Oversway]

Something I was thinking that might be nice for ulm (and it may have been suggested before) is a good forger unit. Something like a cheap 1 earth commander with a good forge bonus. Give it a research penalty and high endurance so useless for researching or combat. I think its thematic that ulm would be able to pump out lots of armor and weapons.

Then I was thinking giving a random as well so they could forge a better variety of weapons and armors, but then you get a super hoarder. Maybe only a socery random. Blood stones might still be an issue.

Either way a random would give ulm a big sitesearching help, which might be good but maybe not alll that thematic.

[Alneyan]

Aren't you thinking of Black Faith here? They have what you want: cheap forgers (especially cheap because of lower upkeep), and a full random. That comes at the cost of a slower research, and a more expensive theme, as you cannot go all the way to Drain 3 without taking "damage". If you are lucky, you can create a research pocket though, by using a Stone Idol, hence solving Drain problems with Black Faith.

Taking Earth on the Pretender is advised however, in case all your mages agree not to have an Earth random. Still, you will recruit lots of them, so 1/8 should happen sooner or later.

[Oversway]

I havn't used iron faith much, but it sounds like what I was gettin at. I suppose then that ulm needs more than just a cheap forger.

[FrankTrollman]

Really what Iron Faith needs is some way to make it not completely suck and waste my time by existing. When you get down to it, that's really my only problem with it.

Iron Faith is a crap team that can't win. The fact that their full random is used as an excuse for why regular Ulm can't have nice things just makes it even worse. Really, using Iron Faith as an excuse for why Ulm can't have randoms is like using Serpent Cult Pythium as an example of why Oceania shouldn't be allowed to have Nature and Water mages. If a theme is a waste of space, its existence shouldn't keep others from horning in on its junk.

Ulm gets Forge Bonuses, yes, but thanks to its absolutely dreadful site searching, it actually has less gems coming in than just about anyone. Really, you end up with about the same number of gems worth of forged items as anyone else, and less summoned monsters. And Ulm can't even natively buil a hammer, which means that anyone else who wants to forge a bunch of stuff can probably do it better than Ulm can.

A Forge-happy Atlantis is better at mass forging than Ulm is. Not "almost as good", it's better.

Ulm needs at least a random elemental pick on its Master Smiths. Then at the very least one out of four of them could make a hammer and you could ever find magic sites. Forge bonuses are by themselves meaningless unless you actually have a supply of gems.

And no, even a full random wouldn't be enough to turn Ulm into super hoarders. The best they could do at that point is have the random death master make Mound Kings (once they had found a death site or three), and then have the random Nature master make Fever Fetishes (after finding a nature site or two). One random Nature and you couldn't natively hoard anything. If you have to wait until you get Construction 6 to Clam hoard, you aren't a real clam hoarder, are you?

-Frank

[PDF]

IMHO Standard Ulm is pretty sub-par, and the resources v ("real" res bonus, and gems gained via forge bonuses) don't make up for the feeble and absolutely rigid magic of Smiths.
Ulm is *meant* to be played with a RM, and a RM is *not* an optimal choice...

My suggestions for possible solutions :
* Change Smith to either F1E (or even F1E2), + 1 random elem (with corresponding price change)
* Add some "sage" type to Ulm recruitable units - either a standard sage or stg else (for example only elem random ?)

[Manuk]

with the first change would be quite an improvement.

[Endoperez]

Do you understand that you are discussing this in thread about a mod which added random pick on Smiths? On this or a similar mod they also got E1 Apprentices.