Ulmish Drain magic spell

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Torgon

The biggest problem is probably the reduced encumbrance and increased attack on their troops without an equivalent cost increase. Bump the gold price up to actually be comparable to other troops of their quality and you would have much better balance in the early game.

I'm against that. Ulm is supposed to have the best regular troops around. It's balanced by low MR, everybody being slow, and Ulm having limited magic access and no sacreds.

It makes perfect sense if Ulm can come close to a sacred rush without actually using sacreds, and the counter would be exactly the same: battle magic. The capital resource site probably does need to go though, so it doesn't get too easy to have way more numbers than sacred rushers typically have.

[bbz]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

I'm against that. Ulm is supposed to have the best regular troops around. It's balanced by low MR, everybody being slow, and Ulm having limited magic access and no sacreds.

It makes perfect sense if Ulm can come close to a sacred rush without actually using sacreds, and the counter would be exactly the same: battle magic. The capital resource site probably does need to go though, so it doesn't get too easy to have way more numbers than sacred rushers typically have.

Although If you are talking about early game MR doesnt come to play then, most of the usefull MR-checking spells come later in the game so its not such a big disadvantage early game. So I think you have to keep this in mind.
I by all means don't mind Ulm Having strong regular troops almost-Sacred rush like Its just I playtested some games and their national spell Stopped something like 60 morrigans(that is 120 death gems plus the cost of having to go for a bless for them with no benefits to diversity).(50 of them with faigue +100) so I was a bit concerned about that.

Because as we said then you get a good early game nation with really good late game. You are most likely going to go for a rainbow since you dont need an SC pretender to fend off rushes. That means you have better diversity than most Sacred rush nations and forging bonus for late game + easy accest to thugs SC with cheap items. Then you get a spell that stops everything that some nations can offer. (demon and undead) As I said I still need to check if it has a similar result on demons and normal magic units. But yea.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

I'm against that. Ulm is supposed to have the best regular troops around. It's balanced by low MR, everybody being slow, and Ulm having limited magic access and no sacreds.

It makes perfect sense if Ulm can come close to a sacred rush without actually using sacreds, and the counter would be exactly the same: battle magic. The capital resource site probably does need to go though, so it doesn't get too easy to have way more numbers than sacred rushers typically have.

So the problem is that it's a sacred level rush without all the tradeoffs that come with using a sacred level rush, mainly tanking your scales. And I'm not saying make the black plate cost 30 g. What i'm saying is make them equivalent in price to other national elite infantries: 15-20 gold rather than 11.

And as long as ulm has level 2 tempering the will the weak mr argument is not really true.

And the whole problem with ulm is that, as you said, they have limited magic access. Making them into even more of an early game powerhouse does nothing to mitigate this problem, it just makes them not fun to play or play against for the first 30 turns.

[Shangrila00]

The gold cost is fine. Ulm pays for it by being forced to take production 3, and building high admin forts placed for maximum access to resources rather than other factors. The Ulmish war machine is incredibly slow to get rolling or react to the unexpected since all their major troops are move 1 and resource limitations means armies are made up of trickles drawn from every fort rather than massed at the target border. This is also highly thematic, and if necessary, resource costs can be bumped up even higher on blackplates to further emphasize it. I doubt it though given the nerfs we know are coming.

Though given that the theme of blackplates is that they are just regular troops with superb equipment, their stats really ought be bumped back to standard Ulmish except for the morale. It's unthematic for them to have any stat advantages not derived from equipment.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

The gold cost is fine. Ulm pays for it by being forced to take production 3, and building high admin forts placed for maximum access to resources rather than other factors. The Ulmish war machine is incredibly slow to get rolling or react to the unexpected since all their major troops are move 1 and resource limitations means armies are made up of trickles drawn from every fort rather than massed at the target border. This is also highly thematic, and if necessary, resource costs can be bumped up even higher on blackplates to further emphasize it. I doubt it though given the nerfs we know are coming.

Though given that the theme of blackplates is that they are just regular troops with superb equipment, their stats really ought be bumped back to standard Ulmish except for the morale. It's unthematic for them to have any stat advantages not derived from equipment.

I would have agreed with tht "forced to take production 3" prior to the recent changes to the scales, but with the income boost from production its no longer really true that taking production 3 is such a bad thing. Prod 3 order 3 with a rainbow geared to get getting Ulm diversity is VERY powerful.

As far as mobility goes. Map move 1 for heavy infantry is standard across the entire game. Almost every other human nation with heavy infantry only has MM 1 on them: Arco, pythium, ermor, man, machaka, etc. etc. Ulm is not unique in this. What they don't have that others do is a light/medium infantry.

My main objection still stands. Buffing the blackplate does nothing to cure the real problem of Ulm, lack of magic access as the game moves on. All it does is make them a crazy tough opponent for the first 30 turns, and drain magic is a gimmick that makes tough beyond that.