Mod: Ulm Reborn v.1.7b - Updated 14th June 2009

[Sombre]

Doh, I guess I didn't save changes the last time I was editing the dm. Fixed a couple of errors (such as the priest and gem income) and I'll upload v0.35 momentarily.

[SlipperyJim]

Nuts! I had already started a game with v0.3!

I'll interrupt my current game to give this one a whirl. It should be interesting. Thanks, Sombre! :-D

[Sombre]

No problem. I wouldn't go for a long drawn out game with the nation because they're still going through balancing changes, getting new units etc. Of course a lot of those will work with a saved game from an old version, but some of it might well require you to start over.

Thanks for playtesting. I look forward to your comments.

[Shovah32]

Since blesses are expensive AND their sacreds need good scales how about a bunch of national summons(just an idea)?

[SlipperyJim]

Sombre said:
No problem. I wouldn't go for a long drawn out game with the nation because they're still going through balancing changes, getting new units etc. Of course a lot of those will work with a saved game from an old version, but some of it might well require you to start over.

Thanks for playtesting. I look forward to your comments.

Okay, here's the quick-and-dirty review of v0.35....

I created a quick game on the Silent Seas (wraparound) map. For speed & simplicity, I selected one Easy Defensive AI opponent: Desert Tombs C'tis. I wasn't looking for a challenge here; I just wanted to try out the mod.

Pretender Design: Since I have all of these yummy sacred units, I wanted a good bless. But Ulm also requires good scales. I chose an imprisoned N9E5 Great Mother. Regenerating Berserker Guardians? Yes, please! Scales were Order 3, Productivity 3, Growth 1, and Drain 3. Extra points went into dominion strength.

(No, I haven't even attempted any magical research yet. Black steel all the way!)

In no particular order, here are my thoughts:

• Sacred Guardians and Black Knights rock hard. Oh, yes....
• As usual, Ulm is resource-starved. This problem is made even worse by the lousy 5-Admin fort that you get at the capital. Building up a decent Ulmish army takes a long time with 5 Admin and only three border provinces.
• The killer priest-power is very very nice. White Priests are very good, indeed.
• But they're old. I guess that's thematic -- it seems that nearly every LA nation has old mages & priests -- but it sure is inconvenient.
• The freespawn Penitents aren't killer, but they can still be quite useful. And they're free! What's not to like?
• Oh, that's what. For some reason, all of my Penitents appeared with a random affliction. Is there any particular reason for that?
• The Black Acolyte doesn't seem to be very useful. I might as well recruit a Black Priest instead.

So, with that in mind, here are a few things I'd change:

• Maybe add some random F1 to some of the mages? Fire works very well with the theme. Just look at Marignon....
• Please give Ulm a decent fort, especially at the capitol. Massive resource costs + low Admin values = very very slow recruiting.
• Maybe the Black Acolyte could be stealthy? Stealth preaching seems thematic, and it would give me a reason to recruit them.
• Take away the Penitents' afflictions, unless there's a particular reason to have them. If so, please explain it to the player.
• Speaking about the Penitents: Stop the freespawning. Instead, how about a Summon Allies command?
• Finally, maybe some (or all) of the mages could be Drain-immune like the MA Ulm smiths? Drain seems very thematic for Iron Faith Ulm, and it gives the player a way to recover some of the insane points that he'll spend on Productivity and blessings...

My overall impression of the theme is very positive. Iron Faith Ulm looks like it could be a lot more fun than Black Forest Ulm. Please take all of my ideas as suggestions, not complaints.

Thanks for doing this! I've attached my save file, just in case anyone else wants to look at it.

[Sombre]

- Well marignon is all about purging sinners with fire - they are based on the myth of witch burning and the actions of the catholic inquisition. Ulm Reborn does have an inquisition of sorts, but it's more the kind where,... well,... they lock you up in walking armour and brainwash you. I don't want to give them fire on the mage priests, but I could give them national summon access to fire. Maybe some forge based stuff.

- I thought the starting fort would be the same as LA Ulm's but I guess that got cleared. I find the fort type bit of modding pretty confusing to be honest.. but I'll give them a better starting fort. As for the forts they should build in other places, like forest etc - I'd love suggestions (with the fort type numbers if possible).

- Right now the Black Acolyte is just a cheap way of ferrying troops and they're the only priest that isn't cap only. You're right they're much worse than the black priests (their domsummon is much less frequent) - I'll make them very cheap and stealthy sounds good too.

- The penitent's afflictions are a leftover from the flagellents that they're based on. It wasn't intended and I'll fix it.

- For now I like the freespawning. It frees up the priests to preach and do priesty things. It also encourages dom strength. I'll see in the future if it's too random though.

- They might also have lost Ulm's 20(25?)% prod bonus in all forts. Either way, they're getting a resource boost in the update. They are a cap dwelling nation (their recruitment screen is more than halved outside the cap) so they need it to crank out resources to make up for bad start positions and so on.

- Because there's no mod command for immunity to drain I'd have to copystats something that already had it. That something wouldn't have inquisition bonus and might have other stuff we don't want like armour and weapons. I'll look into getting drain immunity on the white priest and he'll lose the inquisition bonus. It might not be possible to get it right though.

- All 'white' units are getting max age boosts to represent their new lease on life.

Your comments are very helpful, particularly the way you set them out. I'd love to hear more like that.

[Sombre]

Ok v0.4 is another balance fixer with no new content. The position should be a bit stronger now thanks to better fort setup, non-old white priests unaffected by drain and numerous other tweaks.

[Shovah32]

Apart from national summons(which are hard to balance impliment and invent) you made basically all the changes i want.

Do pentients cost upkeep? I relied purely on sacred troops and mages but got a high upkeep quickly so im not sure. For the white mage guy would a minor(im thinking maybe 10%) forge bonus be unthematic? I just feel it would help(and you have some very thuggable commanders).

My biggest problem is probably that any bless that works well with your recruitables(with the exception of n9 imo) dosnt really help pentients - they like fire, water, death, astral and blood due to their survivability problems and 2 attacks where-as your sacreds(although fire and water also help your expensive capitol only cavalry) like earth, nature and maybe a minor astral bless.

One strategy I like:
Imprisoned Cyclops
Earth9(it is amazing on your high prot sacreds)N9(berserk is good and the regen on 30health guardian commanders is nice)
Dominion 4(can be increased with temples and early on you cant make many sacreds)
order3,prod3,death2,cold2,misfortune2,drain3

The cyclops is a nice combatant when he breaks out(29 prot and insane regen when he casts personal regen), even with so many negative scales you have 13% more income and 30% more resources than base scales.

Your sacreds, with their god-like protection(anchorites and templar have 24 head 25 body where-as neugeboren guard have 24 head 27 body. Your capitol churns out mages, guards and templars as recuired and your forts produce acolytes, anchorites and black zweihanders.

Your hochmeisters(better defence and more attacks) and neugeboren lords(better prot and health, fear, standard, can wear boots) can make great thugs.


One suggestion i would make for the mod is adding a 50% random for earth/astral and another 10% random for astral to white priests.