Mod: MA Ulm : \

[Baneslave]

Well, I think heavy blow from a war hammer will break bones and stuff with blunt force alone. It is pretty same thing with heavy two-handed sword too, it can break bones without piercing chain mail itself.

Of course if you wield chain mail you also wield something under it, so those little metal rings don't get forced to your skin so easily.

[Saulot]

As someone who knits maille for fun, I feel I have to speak up in a discussion about it.
Maille is highly effective against slashing weapons, moderately effective against broad/slow thrusting weapons like spears or daggers, lightly effective against blunt weapons, and ineffective (*and possibly harmful) against ranged piercing weapons.
To understand why, one should examine how maille protects a user. It would usually consist of about 40** pounds of a coif and hauberk, and various other assorted pieces. It consists of one ring, connected to four other rings, this allows it to be both flexible, and to distribute shock through overlapping rings. Mass, gained by the weight of the armor itself, also assists in the absorbing some impact.

So to answer your question, would a warhammer or mace simply ram through the armor? No, probably not. Would it fragment some rings, probably yes. Would the armor prevent a broken bone? Probably not.

You see, maille was worn over several multiple layers of cloth or untreated leather, to create a buffer zone between the maille and the user's skin. This would catch most fragmenting rings that move inward, and most fragmenting rings would actually fly off and away from the armor. Medieval physicians (even in Roman times) could actually mend and set bones with some skill. What the maille would do is prevent infection from significant skin loss/cut, and the medieval physicians did little against that.

* - I recall reading some information from a historical document about how an arrow shot from a longbow when through a shield, through plate armor on the leg, maille armor underneath that, the leg itself, the other side of maille and plate armor, the saddle, and the horse itself. In cases similar to this one, one can assume that there will be some minor mail fragmentation, but it's likely that it will go deep inside a wound.

** - A maille shirt can weigh as little as 20 pounds, depending on how long it is (how far down it reaches). It must be noted that most professional/wealthy soldiers actually wore two layers of maille.

Edit:
Oh, and in terms of Dominions, it wouldn't be totally unrealistic to make warhammers/mauls and similar weapons do AP damage (since most of the damage is impact/shock/bonebreaking ) . So a maul for example, could instead of doing 9 damage, would do 3 ap damage.
Just a thought.

[Stryke11]

First of all, love this mod. I love Ulm, and a more competitive Ulm is a happy Ulm. I also like the name changes, as calling "everyone" a captain of Ulm is boring. Sharpshooter...nice concept...wish they could command more than ten, though. Excellent work! I will never play vanilla MA Ulm again.

Few things tho:

I don't know if you took out the militia summoning, but it ain't working with the captains. If you took it out, you might want to take out the "summon allies" option. The Duke's spawn Knights as intended.

A few spelling mistakes. I have seen Sergeant used as a correct spelling when used as a rank, and have known people with the name Sargeant, but never Sergant.

Also, in the description of the Black Duke, you put "Ulms" where I think it should be "Ulm's".

[Arralen]

Version 2.2 is available !

Most significant CHANGES in v2.02 vs. the base game :
Amount of changes is given in [ ]


- most units get -1 encumbrance, e.g. Inf has (2) instead of (3)


- All Black Plate Inf is gold 12 [+2], ATT/DEF 11 [+1], MOR 11 [+1]
Black Plate Pikeneer end up with MOR 12 [+1]


- General MR is 11 [+2], which works out to 12.5 with the inevitable drain 3 ..
Knight Commanders start at 12.


- Modded equipment:
"Full Plate of Ulm" *modded*: prot 21[+0], def -2[+3], enc 5[+0]

"Full Chain of Ulm" *new* : prot 17[+0], def -3[+0], enc 2[-1], ress cost 17 [+0]
vs. "full chain mail"

"Black Steel Pot" *new* : prot 18[+1], def 0[+0], enc 0[+0], ress cost 3 [+0]
vs. "half helmet"

"Sword of Sharpness" (1h, #74) : 0 => 10 ress


- The troops use either
"Full Chain of Ulm", "Black Steel Pot"
and have strat move 2[+1],
or
"Full Plate of Ulm", "Black Steel Helmet"
and have strat move 1.


- ulmish Crossbowmen prec 11 [+1]


- Black Dukes and Counts use "Sword of Sharpness" again,
Knights use "Broad Sword"s for melee now.
This is to reduce the inevitable MM .. all the thugs would have to get cheap swords or
Stingers early on otherwise for negigible cost.


- "The Forges of Ulm": reduced gem production (5->2) to pay for intrinsic Swords of Sharpness
and Black Steel Armors


- Master Smith
HP 12 [+2], STR 13 [+2], Enc 5 [+2]... they're SMITHES, after all: strong and heavily
build ..
+1 random F/A/E/S @ 20% instead of 10%
Cost 160 gold [+15]
Them being on the edge of high age is a design decision of the devs that I agree with for
thematic reasons: In general, the smithes are masters of their trade, but should not be
the 1st choice for battlefield spellcasters and thugs. With a starting age range from
42-48 and a threshold of 48, there should be enough individuals suitable for the task
after a while.
Random pathes boosted to have each one available (statistically) earlier.


- Monks instead of Priests now. Fits the spies better, and is needed to spread dominion.


- Unit descriptions redone, to give some hints about advantageous usage or special abilities.


- Heavy inf. with mauls removed, medium inf. turned into "Milita of Ulm", as mauls are only a
slightly inferior and cheaper version of battle axes. They still come with standard "Full
Chain Mail" (as before) but with reduced stats and cost (8 gold : upkeep 0.533g per
turn). They're not up for recruitment, but Captains and Dukes can "conscript" them
(summon ally).


- PD changed:
Basic PD now consists of "Milita of Ulm" and standard crossbowmen (might be mercs,
invalid veterans or even women, actually; not worth making a new unit though).
On higher levels, regular line inf with shields is added to the province defense.
Pikes are removed, because they had higher mor indeed, but were useless otherwise
(low dam, no shield)


MONSTER and EQUIPMENT NUMBERS USED

armor 200, 201
monster 2000, 2001,2002


QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

>>> Isn't the smith just too good for a magic-less nation? <<<

Actually, Ulm is not anti-magic or without any magic. Those are simply humans who have a deep
distrust against _spellcasters_. Humans get corrupted by direct contact with otherworldly
powers. They tend to use more and more power and fail to control it in the end. Items and
machines do not. If a whole nation daily trains in negating (not denying) any spell cast, that
should have some influence on the avarage magic resistance, btw. Furthermore, all the boosts
that I did for Dom2 got taken over by the devs for Dom3 ... I only upped the percentage for
the random path from 10% to 20% to make the pathes (statistically) available earlier in the
game ;-)


>>> Why does the chain mail get the same malus to def as the full plate ? <<<
>>> Imo you are more immobile , the stronger your armor is. So with a chain- <<<
>>> mail you should be more agile then with a full plate imo. <<<

A common misconception, maybe stemming from all those RPG rules which where authored by -to
put it midly- some folks which didn't have a clue about either A) statistics (roll your
dice...) and B) medieval/ancient combat. Hollywood filmmakers aren't that much better
_naturally_.

Actually, I tried to model the differences, while keeping it somewhat consistant with the rest
of DOM2, between two fundamentally different armor techniques.

First the heavy, ankle-long double-layered chain mail with underlying padding. In the real
word (TM) known in principle since roman times, it was the late 1000s when it became "fashion"
(don't quote me on the date, I'm notoriously bad with those. But I know where to look it up
Earlier, it was simply too expensive and/or the material too bad to actually manufacture mail
that long. This kind of armor was used 'til 1200, when first serious improvements where made:
full "pot" helments, later the first "platen", which developed into the breastplate (early
cuirass).

Second the full-body "gothic" armor, similar to those made by Lorenz Helmschmied, Augsburg
(not Ulm ), around 1480 for "Erzherzog Maximilian I." (later Emporer). Those armors are
sometimes depicted "gothic", while they where in fact pre-gothic I think. For a visual check
the mod icon! Those are definitly not much heavier than a full chain mail. But a chain mail
does not have "articulated joints", so movement is much more hindered in such an unshaped
armor. With "gothic" plate, you can you actually jump, sprint, and it's said someone from the
SCA tried cartwheels with it successfully.

While the chain mail is made to absorb a blow and keep the edge from cutting, the plate armor
is made to foremost _deflect_ a blow from a weapon - or a missile.


>>> It doesn't matter much though because defense is very low for ulm units anyways . <<<
>>> Their main protection is just protection. <<<

That is only partly true - even within the constraints of Dominions. If you check it out - the
Black Plate Inf with Tower Shield ends up with a Def of 11, which isn't that bad IMHO. And I'm
really thinking about upping the Def of the plate armor even more.

From my personal experience of being "on the receiving end" of such an armor, I can tell you
that it's amazingly difficult to get an _effective_ hit in, especially if your adversary
additionally carries a big shield.

Only -but big drawback- of the "hard case armor" is the prevention of air circulation. You
may do everything you want in it - but only for some hours at best. After that, you'll have to
get rid of some parts or you'll be boiled alive ... . Wearing a full armor on a long march is
next to impossible.

That's why I gave the mail armor troops strat move 2 and the plate armor troops strat move 1 -
they simply need more time to get battle ready and have more difficulties hauling their armor
in general.


>>> The auto-summoning of knights is overpowered. <<<
>>> <<<

No, it's not. And even only becuse if I can't go "lower" than
domsummon20 ;-)
Really, it's only 0,5 knights per turn in Dom10 - for each Duke, which are capitol-only, and those knights die easily to anything AP/AN.
"Summon a number of monsters each month spent inside friendly dominion.
The amount summoned is a dominionstrength sided open ended die roll.
domsummon20 - A twentieth as effective as #domsummon."

[Boron]

Cool that you further work on your Ulmmod .

Those 2 changes i find a bit counterproductive though:

Arralen said:
- "The Forges of Ulm": reduced gem production (5->2) to pay for intrinsic Swords of Sharpness
and Black Steel Armors


- Master Smith
HP 12 [+2], STR 13 [+2], Enc 5 [+2]... they're SMITHES, after all: strong and heavily
build ..

I am well known for my extremely unthematic gaming in most games .
But with vanilla ulm i find usually smithes with magma eruption quite sufficient. So i think while thematically your huge reduction of gem income from the starting site is fine gameplaywise it limits the players very much.
Because this way your force them to use those commanders as SC/Thug counters. But an ulm player might also have invested those gems differently, e.g. for euqipment for his SC god, or for forging boots of earth etc. to get some smiths capable of casting petrification/weapons of sharpness etc. or maybe with a mechanical men horde.

So you limit players too much there imho, especially since getting magical diversity for ulm is still tough enough.

And the other change, the 5 encumberance for the master smith, are imho at least wrong justified.
If a smith works his whole life hard as smith then he should not be easily encumbered. If he works 10+ hours/day forging equipment for his ulm warrior fellows then campaigning and using battlemagic should be like vacation for him, so with your reasoning you would imho have to decrease his encumberance .

[Burnsaber]

If it wouldn't be too much bother, could you make a version that doesn't up the magic resistance of the units? (KO has said that the mr won't be raised, so playing with it raised would feel like "cheating", IMHO), and perhaps up the gem income back to it's normal level?

I'll probably re-do my "blacksteels vs Priciple" test with this mod when I've got time.

[Humakty]

I tested your mod once, before V 2.2,and I think it's quite legitimate to boost them furthermore.
Magma eruption is a nice spell, but many(many) factions have X 3 elemental mages, which will be far more efficient during battle. So they do need a powerful army to hold their part at the beginning/middle of the game (I've been converted to impossible difficulty level on the forums).
Finding independant mages WILL be long and difficult, so big thugs are a big plus(necessity?) to them(you can always have a rainbow pretender, to compensate, but you'll have some pbm with research).
Do you think your mod is compatible with CBM ? (I love the reworked pretenders)