Most powerful nation

[SelfishGene]

MA Ulm is a good candidate for the turmoil/luck trick since their troops cost so little (taking 3order/3prod with Ulm give you an almost unlimited supply of gold). Turmoil/luck provides hundreds of extra gems over the course of a game, and getting 30+ a turn is not uncommon.

Taking 2 Drain, 3 Prod, 3 Turmoil, 3 Luck, and making a powerful SC pretender with many paths, should cover most of your bases with Ulm.

I'm a fan of 9-Path Titan pretenders, but only when you're not sacrificing too much long-term magical diversity. Since Ulm's problem is almost by definintion magical diversity, your Pretender has to take up the slack, and there aren't any sacred troops to bother with anyway.

[CUnknown]

About the various "fixes" proposed for MA Ulm.. Well first of all I don't agree that Ulm is broken, or that it needs any sort of fix. Ulm is my favorite, and I think it is a decent nation, with strengths and weaknesses as are appropriate. Ulm has already been upgraded from Dom2 -- the random picks on master smiths are a godsend.

But, at the same time, even I admit that Ulm is not among the top tier of nations by any means. So, some small improvements aren't a bad idea.

1) The idea about cheap Marignon-style x-bows.

This would help early expansion for MA Ulm, and I think it's a great idea. Certainly not unbalancing, and it would provide a boost. However, I should note that the arbelest is one of the best missile troops in the game, and the cheap x-bows probably wouldn't be used much outside of the first 5-10 turns or so.

2) "A boost to some basic stats - strength, hit points, morale, and endurance."

Not a bad idea, but their troops are already very good. Improving this sort of thing doesn't address Ulm's weaknesses, so I don't see much of a reason to do it.

3) "A bonus to the specific Ulm equipment. Lighter armour, more damage to weapons."

Same as above.

4) "Recruitable troops that are not burdened by heavy equipment."

Same as above.

5) "All restrictions lifted from the extra magic pick. Let them have everything but blood."

Sounds absolutely delicious. This would address a basic weakness of Ulm, which is magic diversity. Wouldn't be overbalancing (because the random is only 10%). Let's do it!

6) Give a +10% chance at a random earth pick.

Same as above. With these last two things, Ulm would clearly become at least a middle-tier faction (especially with the cheap x-bows too), imo, because their forging would go for merely excellent to absolutely out of control good.

[Evilhomer]

Someone could easily make a mod that addresses these changes.

[thejeff]

Arbalests sound great, but I've never found they work well in practice. They fire once at extreme range and hardly hit anything, then fire again 3 rounds later, by which time your troops have closed and you start taking friendly fire.

Since they do high ap damage, even Ulm's heavily armored troops take damage from friendly fire.

Sappers, or even indy shortbows, work better. Higher rate of fire and even when firing into melee Ulmish armor means your own troops are relatively unaffected.

[Tuidjy]

> the arbelest is one of the best missile troops in the game

> their troops are already very good

CUnknown, this is simply not true. It's a common misconception, but Ulm's troops
suck, period. And they suck mostly because of the high encumbrance, indifferent
morale, and total lack of synergy.

You will make me dig out our little duel. Or we can play again. Unless my memory
is going, one of the battles involved principles vs arbalests and heavy infantry.
After some ineffective swinging at each other (high armour vs high defense) Ulm
routed, and was slaughtered while retreating. The infantries were matched, I
had a preacher of courage, and you had arbalests, I think.

But anyway. I am not familiar with the new races, but I'll take any of the old
races (C'tis, Pythium, Man, Ermor, Arco, Vanheim, etc...) vs MA Ulm, and expect an
easy victory. Despite the improvements to Ulm's magic. And I am in only one
undecided game at the moment, so consider this an official challenge.

Oh, no blood races for me. I'm just weird like that.

[DrPraetorious]

The lack of synergy is, I think, Ulm's big problem.

So Ulm should be given national spells that enable Ulm to force his enemies to fight Ulm in manly combat, with steel and sinew and human know-how, and which buff up his heavily armored troops. More so, I should say, than they do at present.

So -
1) Reinvigoration spells.
2) Haste spells.
3) Spells that enable you to recruit more troops (a national version of Wizard's tower is the only way to do this right now).
4) Spells to prevent fear and magic (already have some of these, but they are not good enough.)
5) Spells to counter (but probably not kill) enemy supercombatants, sacred units and mages. Ideally, the enemy would be somehow robbed of their bonuses, or immobilized, so that your sword-wielding national troops could come in and kill them.

With these five things, Ulm will be able for force her enemies to fight with troops. Ulms troops, which, under the right circumstances, are superior, can fight toe to toe and hopefully prevail.

Tada, Ulm becomes viable as a MP proposition - and it is still your steel and sinews that win the day, not magic, which you use only to level the playing field.

[SelfishGene]

Nah, spells aren't thematic with Ulm.

What Ulm needs is some kind of sacred antimagic troop, immune to all elemental attacks and with a magic weapon. Maybe make them lifeless recruitable units?