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

[Juzza]

Ah, yeah I noticed that too, and nothing in their description even explained how so, which kind of bugs me.

[VedalkenBear]

Well, after having played it some, I'll offer some comments.

Most play experience has come from playing this nation with an S9 Sleeping Oracle with Order3, Productivity3, Growth1, Luck3, Drain 3. So the bless was effective while also allowing other abilities. I also played on 50 Magic Sites.

First, it is quite interesting. There are several new units added to "Iron Faith", plus quite good Priests/Mages. The national summons are effective (though see below).

My main issues with the nation:

1) It is FAR too capital-centric. You have _no_ national mages recruitable outside the capital. This means you must rely on luck to be able to recruit more than one mage/turn. On anything more than the smallest map, this is crippling. One way to fix this is to make the Black Priest recruitable everywhere. This is hardly ideal, as this nation wants Drain scale for points to do a Bless strategy and (AFAIK, certainly implied) the Black Priests are not immune to Drain Scale.

2) Regarding the Magic themselves, I can't think of many nations even in LE that have weaker magic. Not a random among the national mages, and while Earth 3 is certainly nothing to complain about, they are saddled with Astral 1 which is not enough for Teleport without a booster (which they can't make with their national mages). While I understand Ulm is not known for its magic, I feel like some boost should be done here (esp. considering point 1) above).

3) The Penitents are nice, but everything flows from the capital. I'll note that not even _Mictlan_ has a capital-only issue like this nation. The problem with Penitents is that they are chaff (unless going for a heavy Bless strategy that doesn't really work for lack of points) that are tied to capital-only commanders.

4) White Priest? Very nice. But where do you get the money for them? I was lucky enough to get a 1000g event on the 3rd turn so I didn't have to worry _so_ much, but there was a definite 'what to spend money on' that was an interesting conundrum.

5) The general point is that this nation seems to need too many points. It needs Order and Production to have the money to purchase its units (which seem pretty reasonable, though the White halberd unit seems a bit overcosted), and while it can take Drain that mightily interferes with any research you might want to do. OTOH, it also wants at least one 9-level Bless. I chose one that from my experience worked well with the Penitents, and it does at least a bit.

6) National summons looked pretty good, except that, if you play the default LE settings, I'm not exactly sure where you're supposed to get the gems for them. Again, I was _very_ lucky in that my first or second Gnome Lore found the Tower of the Iron Order. I'd suppose a research path for them is to go to Evocation-4 for Blade Wind and the Astral search spell, then go for Thaumaturgy for the Earth search spell and Conjuration for Summon Earthpower/national summons.

The one 'national holy' spell is cute. I guess you could use massed Black Priests to throw them early.

I would stress that the one change I would make to this nation would be to give them _some_ national mage outside their capital.

Oh, they also have a very nice stealth preacher which is about the only commander their non-capital castles will build. Maybe up its cost to 80 or 90 and give it E1, bump the Black Priest to about E1?1(FAES) and its cost a bit and make it non-capital-only. Well, if the Acolyte gets magic, the Priest may not need to lose that status.

The one unit I'm curious about is the Mindless MB non-capital-only sacred troop. It implies that when they die, you get another unit. I never had one die, so some details would be nice.

Am I playing the nation wrong?

[Juzza]

The answer to most of your woes is that your not meant to able to do things easily, such as the national summons, few people would make such a mistake to make their national summons unavailble to the nation, they require astral gems, just use a bit of alchemy.

As for the national mages, I agree that the black priests should not be restricted to the capital, however I don't think they should have their magic increased, late age is less about magic than the other ages besides, their black 'priests' not black mages.

[Sombre]

Well just to start things off, I want to point out that I always intended this nation to be hard to play. I don't want them to be very underpowered, but they're supposed to be challenging and to force decisive gameplans. As a result the AI sort of sucks uing them. From the get go I set my sights on a nation that /really/ wants;

High Dominion for spawns and widescale sacred production.
Resources and an economy focused on national recruits (so production and order)
A high earth bless for the super-armoured sacreds.
A bless suitable for the swarms of sacred chaff (ie, not earth)

So even at the creation stage you're faced with some hard choices. You obviously can't have all of these things. On the other hand if you specialise completely your plan can easily go very wrong.

On the other hand, you have made a couple of very good points about Ulm Reborn's weakness on a larger map (over 120 or so provinces). I didn't intend for them to just fall over and die if the map is big, so this is something I'm interested in rectifying.

Point by point:

1) They are meant to be capital centric, but I do take your point. I am happy for them to be just about as capital centric as a nation can be in dom3, but not to the point where it's very frustrating for the player. I am willing to make Black Priests available everywhere in the next version. This allows frontline chaff production (although it's decided by dominion, unlike the white priests). I will also be giving the black priest an earth random so you'll get H2E2 ones maybe 40% of the time. This allows them better site searching, earthpower etc. Cost might go up a smidge. They are still there to be priests and penitent gatherers, but with some E2 you'll get a bit more research and whatnot from them.

2) Well the national summons give you some more magic. I think I'll stick a 10% or so random extra astral on the white priests, but this is always going to be a very weak nation magically, apart from the E3 that is. I mean they're like LA Ulm only with even LESS magic. It's intentional.

3) I played one game focusing on penitent and one game focusing on Anchorites and reborn guard. They were about equal - once the penitent machine gets going they can do impressive damage, but I was lucky enough to be fighting Ctis so archer mayhem wasn't really a factor. With black priests available out of capital the penitent should be more useful/nyumerous. Beware of the fact that they still cost upkeep though.

4) Yep, I wanted more hard decisions in the nation regarding gold usage. I think the white priests are priced ok, but maybe the reborn guard could do with being a bit cheaper.

5) I totally agree. They were designed with that in mind. On the other hand if this makes them too painful to play maybe I need to rethink a couple of things. I didn't find drain hosed my research /that/ bad because of white priest immunity, but it's hard to get very far up the tree, that's for sure.

6) Again, it's hard choices. You have to use the astral search spell, but that burns up precious pearls, cuts into research etc. I think I might need to reduce the cost of the 8 sternkind spell though or people won't want to summon them and wil go for the Stern/Sturmheld instead.

The mindless magic units are Anchorites - when they die a pissed off penitent falls out of the sealed armour and starts smacking things. I believe the bless remains on him too, although for me that was generally an earth bless so didn't help. I think some people have used them to great effect, although they might need a slight cost reduction because they almost always get killed off. Regardless they're sacred and not cap only, which means you should have some of them out there at some point.

Oh before I forget - were you using regular Ulm Reborn or CBM Ulm Reborn? They aren't crazy different, but the balance is obviously changed.

[llamabeast]

It does seem like research is very difficult. White priests have plenty of other stuff to be getting on with, and their research isn't _that_ good anyway. Black priests are essentially useless in a drain dominion. And you don't have access to owl quills or skull mentors.

How about adding another unit, called perhaps a White Acolyte, or a Monk, or a Librarian? Someone who conducts historical and academic studies in the cloisters of the new kingdom. They could have no magic, or else ?1, but produce a few research (5?), be recruitable anywhere and be drain immune. I think that would make a big difference.

Then you could keep the White Priests as capital only without screwing the nation over in the long term (there's no way you can survive on a largeish map if you can only produce researchers in one place, is there?).

I do think the Anchorites should be cheaper. The die very easily, and the emerging penitent is normally instantly cut down. Maybe when they emerge they could be berserk?

[Sombre]

Unfortunately you can't make a unit start off berserk. I wish you could actually, I'd use it in a couple of mods.

I tried entering morale 99 but no luck.

Black priests are useless for research in drain dominion, yes. Although they aren't generally useless because they're good priests and can produce a /lot/ of penitent if you get them in a high dom province. You also don't /have/ to take drain (although I do). It's another tough choice.

I like the idea of a white librarian/acolyte type unit. I was thinking along the same lines an update or so ago. Maybe astral 1 so you can use them for the search spell, drain immune and with ok research. Not cap only, of course. I'm rather wary of diversifying the magic because hey, this is a xenophobic priest nation.

[llamabeast]

The only trouble with making them astral 1, if they're cheapish, is that you could accidentally become a communion nation. When I see an affordable S1 mage I generally get quite excited and begin plotting big communions.

You could perhaps give them a 50% ES random or something, so that 1 in 4 with have astral (useful for searches) and 1 in 4 would have E (they could help out a bit with forging), but their only reliable use would be research.

Actually if you were going to go down that route I'd be inclined to have 20% S, 20% E, so that there was some small chance of getting both, which I always think is exciting.

[VedalkenBear]

Sombre said:
Well just to start things off, I want to point out that I always intended this nation to be hard to play. I don't want them to be very underpowered, but they're supposed to be challenging and to force decisive gameplans. As a result the AI sort of sucks uing them. From the get go I set my sights on a nation that /really/ wants;

Well, my question to this is why should it be harder to play than vanilla nations, if it's meant to be played alongside them? About the only other nation that is this schismatic is EA Arco, and there the choices aren't nearly so hard.

High Dominion for spawns and widescale sacred production.
Resources and an economy focused on national recruits (so production and order)
A high earth bless for the super-armoured sacreds.
A bless suitable for the swarms of sacred chaff (ie, not earth)

Well, I don't necessarily agree with points 1) and 3) here, from my own experience. Don't know what you mean by 'high Dominion'; my Oracle had a 7, and I found that it was pretty overkill from most standpoints.

Also, I'm not sure why I'd want an Earth bless. As you point out, it doesn't help your Penitents at all, and everyone else already has more than sufficient protection. I would think that a Bless that helps out Penitents (Fire/Water/Death/Astral) would be good, since it also boosts your other Sacreds at the same time. Playing a high-Earth bless seems to be overkill while doing nothing for your sacred troops' weaknesses (i.e., magic).

So even at the creation stage you're faced with some hard choices. You obviously can't have all of these things. On the other hand if you specialise completely your plan can easily go very wrong.

I think that there is a much more optimal strategy for these guys than you might think. It may not be as optimal as the strategy for some others, but it's not simply a bunch of trade-offs.

On the other hand, you have made a couple of very good points about Ulm Reborn's weakness on a larger map (over 120 or so provinces). I didn't intend for them to just fall over and die if the map is big, so this is something I'm interested in rectifying.

Please note that that is basically all I play, so I'm pretty biased here. But even most 'capital-centric' nations (EA Mictlan, Arcoscephale, Sauromatia to some extent) get a researcher outside the capital.

1) They are meant to be capital centric, but I do take your point. I am happy for them to be just about as capital centric as a nation can be in dom3, but not to the point where it's very frustrating for the player. I am willing to make Black Priests available everywhere in the next version. This allows frontline chaff production (although it's decided by dominion, unlike the white priests). I will also be giving the black priest an earth random so you'll get H2E2 ones maybe 40% of the time. This allows them better site searching, earthpower etc. Cost might go up a smidge. They are still there to be priests and penitent gatherers, but with some E2 you'll get a bit more research and whatnot from them.

E2 is pretty good, but that's not as important as the non-capital-only designation. May I suggest that if you do that, switch the domspawn to the White Priest?

2) Well the national summons give you some more magic. I think I'll stick a 10% or so random extra astral on the white priests, but this is always going to be a very weak nation magically, apart from the E3 that is. I mean they're like LA Ulm only with even LESS magic. It's intentional.

It's about on par with LA Ulm right now, and yes the National Summons give you more magic (I had a Sturmheld hero join me), if you can afford them.

4) Yep, I wanted more hard decisions in the nation regarding gold usage. I think the white priests are priced ok, but maybe the reborn guard could do with being a bit cheaper.

Yes, the White Priests seem okay compared to other mages, but the fact that they're your only good researchers more or less means you need to recruit one/turn. So while they are worth their cost, they are not necessarily worth their cost _for purposes of research_.

The mindless magic units are Anchorites - when they die a pissed off penitent falls out of the sealed armour and starts smacking things. I believe the bless remains on him too, although for me that was generally an earth bless so didn't help. I think some people have used them to great effect, although they might need a slight cost reduction because they almost always get killed off. Regardless they're sacred and not cap only, which means you should have some of them out there at some point.

Interesting. It seems to be designed from the wrong end of the stick, though, y'know? Generally you make a very easy-to-kill unit that changes into something 'bigger'. E.g., Jaguar Warriors. This unit is almost like an egg or a small oyster. I was honestly expecting something a little better than a Penitent for a MagB unit (which isn't as bad to lead as some but still can cause issues).

Oh before I forget - were you using regular Ulm Reborn or CBM Ulm Reborn? They aren't crazy different, but the balance is obviously changed.

I was playing regular Ulm Reborn. I can also try the CBM one if you wish.

[VedalkenBear]

Regarding other suggestions... please realize that a 50% ES is generally preferable to 20% E 20% S. The latter has a 64% chance of not having any magic while only a 36% chance of having at least one pick and a 4% chance to have two.

And this nation is already not horribly bad at communion; I'm not exactly sure why you wouldn't want them to do it.

Just a point: Your national summons do give you access to Quills.

[llamabeast]

Is it possible to make a unit that reverts to another when the battle finishes? In the same way as Black Serpents revert to Lamias, or something?

If so, perhaps you could have the Anchorite reveal a "Newly Reborn" or something on its destruction. Like penitent, but even more filled with rage and fervour. He could refuse to die (15HP), feel no pain (4 prot, like berserkers) and fight with the strength of a fanatic (strength 14, attack 12 or something). The anchorites themselves could be cheaper, but maintain the high resource cost. Perhaps you could lower their attack a bit (although I can't remember what it is, so that might make no sense). Then a block of anchorites would be a solid defensive wall, and if they got damaged - surprise! The Newly Reborn would emerge, and cause a heap of damage (they'd also have flails and be sacred of course, so they could be quite nasty). Then after the battle the Newly Reborn would revert to penitents. Whaddya think?