The MA Ulm issue.

[Salamander8]

I concur with Doctor Praetorius about MA Agartha compared to MA Ulm. MA Agartha is far from the strongest, and has some glaring weaknesses, but is functionally better than MA Ulm is. The infantry is somewhat similar, if lacking solid weaponry, but is less easily exhausted, has at least average MR, and has darkvision. MA Agartha's mages and priests are more diverse and they have some solid national summons as well. MA Agartha's golem cult effect can make a large difference for not only it's national statues, but for other construction summons as well. In Chinchilla, in which I am MA Agartha, I repeatedly beat MA Tien Chi's arrow swarms between my infantry's shields, and my statues' high protection and hit points to the point where he called off the war. I would of course still rank MA Agartha as not the best out there, but certainly a better performer than MA Ulm.

I've always liked MA Ulm's idea, but in practice they have so many problems. Slow and heavy infantry with bad MR get eaten alive by battlefield magic before they can even close the gap. As MA R'Lyeh fighting them for an example, I have my artillery brigades of ilithids mind blast away while my infantry blocks hold and attack and am often able to force Ulm to rout before they ever get to melee. The Arbalests fire so slowly and from such extreme range (and I usually split my ilithid groups into fire closest and fire archers as well), that they have little to no effect on even my poorly armored lobo guard chaff. I would like to see exactly what Dr. Praetorius was asking for: force the enemy, somehow, to meet Ulm on Ulm's terms.

On a related note, I was under the impression that shields did not help troops from friendly fire since the shields are in front and the projectiles hit you in the back and thusly provided no bonus against them. Is this not the case?

[Arralen]

Instead of argueing what-ifs, simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :

[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm

[Meglobob]

Arralen said:
Instead of argueing what-ifs, simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :

[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm

The only problem with this, is in MP haven't ALL the players got to download the mod to play the game? Which further complicates setting up MP games.

However good mod Arralen. Lets hope Illwinter get the, 'hint' with MA Ulm and spice it up a bit in vanilla sometime soon.

Need to get Kristoffer or Johan to play MA Ulm in a MP game. It will then get loads of patch goodness, just like MA Mictlan + others will get in this next patch.

Its a fun way to get the devs to 'upgrade' a nation.

[Meglobob]

Well we are talking about MA Ulm, if MA Ulm is lucky enough to make it into the mid game, would Riches From Beneath help Ulm alot?

I have never cast Riches From Beneath but I always thought it may help Ulm considerably.

[CelestialGoblyn]

I'm not very experienced, but in my opinion all those could be done:
-Lower all armour's encumberance. Justify it with Ulmish armour being of higher technology than others.
-Give them some affordable bowman unit. If they're a nation of humans, why would they ignore the obvious advantage of having bowmen support the arbalets? Maybe something similar to LA Ulm's villain?
-Give them a good standart bearer. It will boost morale and be thematic.
-Give their priests a national anti-magic spell that would stack with 'tempering the will'.
-Increase the resource bonus in castles
-National Construction summon - steam golem.

edit: And how about a non-magical commander that can heal troops? A field surgeon perhaps. The same guy could also provide a supply bonus.

[Velusion]

Some nations peak (or don't) at very differnt times IMHO...

MA Ulm:
Average/Poor Early game
Average Mid game
Poor Late game

MA Agartha:
Poor Early Game
Average Mid Game
Good/Excellent Late Game

[CUnknown]

Sombre said:

Just as a sidenote: Arbalests aren't the best missile weapons in the game. They're worse than crossbows imo. And Ulm's arbalests cost a load of resources, making them far harder to mass than say Marig's crossbows.

The resource issue is a different one, there you are debating whether or not you want to pay for plate mail on your archers. However, the fact that arbelests are the best missile weapon in the game is not debatable, unless you are trying to argue that shooting protection 5 guys is way more important than shooting protection 12+ guys.

Arbelests simply do the most damage per combat round, as I have shown, so it's not up for debate.

[Lord_Bob]

What makes MA Argatha great in late game?

Darkvision? Marble Golems?

[Velusion]

Meglobob said:
Well we are talking about MA Ulm, if MA Ulm is lucky enough to make it into the mid game, would Riches From Beneath help Ulm alot?

I have never cast Riches From Beneath but I always thought it may help Ulm considerably.

I think Ulm might benifit from this more than many other nations... however...

In the mid game I'm trying to set myself up for the late game - where my infantry really won't be used much at all. I'm not sure I could ever justify casting this spell in that case when there are so many other better globals for entering the late game. Maybe if there were lots of global slots open and I could cast it for the base cost I'd consider it... but I wouldn't spend much more than than the base cost.

Now if I could somehow cast this in the early game I think it would be a very good deal for Ulm. IMHO RFB should probably be easier to cast anyway since it is barely ever used.

[Sandman]

I'd say MA T'ien Ch'i isn't worse either. They're not exactly a powerhouse, but they've got enough magical and troop diversity to keep the enemy on their toes.