Mod: Ulm: Order of the Black Rose v0.301b

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Kobal2

Fog Warriors is a level *7* spell. That's 1760 research points (need Thaum 1 too) if they beeline for it. BR Ulm can have its two go-to spells in 400. You said you expected Pythium to have double the research rate ? They'd still only be halfway to FW, with almost nothing to show for it on the field. Yay Phantasmal Army ! Aren't Ghost Wolves just da bomb ?

What exactly do you think it go-to spells are that they can have them in 400RP?

Full army Legions of Steel is a mild improvement over regular legions of steel. And unlike CBM Ulm, BR Ulm has to actually research it and spend gems on it. (Usually 2e per cast, in fact, until they can get conjuration 3). I refuse to believe that paying gems for legion of steel on the full army and at a higher research level is broken.

So, that's 200 of those 400 RPs... Iron Darts for the other 200? Which is ok, i suppose. Its no Iron Blizzard. Its sort of like hiring 10 crossbows.

Neither of those are spells that people were complaining about (except now you), and I really don't think either of them are broken.

Pythium's tower shields basically negate iron darts. So now we just have to deal with cutting through heavy armor on 800 RP. Even lightning bolts (100RP!) will handle that, but we could also forge Spirit Helms and Bows of Lightning, use Thunderstrike (360RP) even with communions (40RP), and so on.

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Yes, Ulm has tower shields. But its troops that actually do damage don't. The stuff people seem to be going to - Guardians, Black Plate Flails - these don't have shields at all. A fire arrows rush would also be pretty devastating against them.

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I might point out that Ulm's antimagic equivalent, in addition to costing an earth gem, also requires an E3H1 mage to cast. It may deserve to move up to Enchantment 4 to be at the same tier as regular antimagic.

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Advantages of CBM Ulm right now:
-2 base encumbrance
-Army-wide Legion of Steel with no research and no gem cost
-Forge of Ulm

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Regarding Heroes specifically:
Its turn 33. I just got my first level 6 research accomplished. Besides that I have level 3 in two paths, and some scattered lower research. That's ~1800RP.

I've had Conj 9 / Construction 8 before turn 33 in a different game. Which is like 7k RPs.

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Anyway, the next version of Ulm BR is going to nerf its PD some, probably quite a bit. It will probably also remove at least one of vanilla Ulm's spells from them entirely (Iron Angels have to go, they're thematically awful).

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

What exactly do you think it go-to spells are that they can have them in 400RP?

Full army Legions of Steel is a mild improvement over regular legions of steel. And unlike CBM Ulm, BR Ulm has to actually research it and spend gems on it. (Usually 2e per cast, in fact, until they can get conjuration 3). I refuse to believe that paying gems for legion of steel on the full army and at a higher research level is broken.

It's not a mild improvement, it's a *tremendous* improvement, and it's tremendouser the larger a force you can bring to one battle (like, say, the rush for someone's cap in the first 20 turns). Being able to make an entire army very much like unkillable, with only one mage, this early in the game ? That's messed up.
It would be a great spell for many nations. For Ulm, who has superduper armour to begin with ? It's just obscene.

So, that's 200 of those 400 RPs... Iron Darts for the other 200? Which is ok, i suppose. Its no Iron Blizzard. Its sort of like hiring 10 crossbows.

I was actually thinking of the MR one. Lots of good early spells that you'd want to use against manageable numbers of very high prot dudes are MR resist (Enslave Mind, Paralyze, Mind Burn, False Fetters, Sleep Cloud, Dessication & Sailor's Death...), and BR Ulm already has excellent MR so compounding their existing advantages into the "lulz go home" range would be my first choice.
Iron Darts is neat and all, but you need a critical mass of Iron Priests to really exploit it, and if you're hiring priests and sending them on the field they're not Smiths researching and getting randoms. Also, friendly fire - silly to have unkillable dudes and kill them your own darn self

I might point out that Ulm's antimagic equivalent, in addition to costing an earth gem, also requires an E3H1 mage to cast. It may deserve to move up to Enchantment 4 to be at the same tier as regular antimagic.

Remove it entirely. I'm serious.
I don't know what (besides theme, I guess) justifies BR Ulm getting its own copy of that spell. It already has high MR, so unlike vanilla Ulm doesn't need it to shore up a weakness. If it wants antimagic, it can get diversity like every other kid in the class. Plenty of nations out there would beg for some easy to cast proprietary spell to boost their own advantages, but they don't get 'em do they ? Niefel doesn't have a cold Mass Regen, Tien Chi doesn't have a path 2 flaming arrows, Lanka doesn't have a holy antimagic.

The same goes for battlefield-wide Destruction or improved Legions of Steel. There are already spells out there, and you can already cast them. Why should BR Ulm get easier, better, exponentially more cost-effective variants ? What justifies it ?

Pythium's tower shields basically negate iron darts. So now we just have to deal with cutting through heavy armor on 800 RP. Even lightning bolts (100RP!) will handle that, but we could also forge Spirit Helms and Bows of Lightning, use Thunderstrike (360RP) even with communions (40RP), and so on.

Aaaand here's what I'm talking about. You're using one mage/turn going along with the main army. You're expecting others to use dozens to retort. You think that's just dandy. WHY ?!
Granted, some sacred nations are also able to force this kind of early lopsided investments, but then *they* can't play killer scales at the same time !

Yes, Ulm has tower shields. But its troops that actually do damage don't. The stuff people seem to be going to - Guardians, Black Plate Flails - these don't have shields at all. A fire arrows rush would also be pretty devastating against them.

Yes, but if you're expecting crossbows you're evidently going to bring a couple dozen shields and protect the whole army with them because there's no "fire at the dangerous ones dammit" order. "Anyone who can't script around archers sucks. Seriously." -- Squirreloid, 12/15/2011

Fire Arrows ? It's 8AP damage. With 25 armour that's still only 8 vs. 13. Might work over a looong time I guess.

[Kobal2]

As for the other proprietary spells:

- Battlefield relief is fine as is. It shores up a weakness, costs a lot, can only be in one place at once, comes at the same rex as the spell it autocasts. Seems ok to me.

- the battlefield wide elemental resist is OK, that's something forced no-diversity Ulm can certainly do with in the long run, but it should be rex level 9 just like Gaia's Blessing. 6 is just insulting, even more so that it's in Construction and comes in the guise of a really powerful mage with a high forge bonus to boot.

- auto solar brilliance is probably OK as is.

- auto luck must go. There's a reason the Sword of Aurgelmer is an artifact - turn 0 will of the fates is that good. Luck is non-thematic for Ulm anyway, they stand against superstitions like these. Then again, it doesn't seem to be working ATM, so that's moot (or is the Relic of Steel supposed to be doing something else ? I'm not seeing any effect). You already have access to Will of the Fates normally using matrices on S Smiths or Icons of the Forge anyway.

- auto growing fury is also immensely powerful with the kind of troops Ulm can use it on. It's like getting army of leaded Maenads, but much earlier and also better because you're getting even higher protection out of it and your "Maenads" can actually kill stuff but good. It also doesn't make much thematic sense, if Ulm is supposed to be the logic and reason no-nonsense empire, to rely on frothing madmen. Make it cast fanaticism instead if you really feel like BR Ulm needs to also be preternaturally good vs. morale effects for some reason, and lower it a bit in both research and gemcost. 4 and 10 maybe ?

- the Cursed Icon is really powerful. But then again it does cost a mint and come in late...but then again it's sickeningly powerful and that's without even gearing him. Compare him to an Ember Lord who's much harder to cast, costs one and a half times as much, and doesn't come inbuilt with nearly as much of the good stuff. Or to Cyclops/Asynja, both of whom cost about the same and have almost none of the good stuff. Granted, they will eventually disease themselves and eventually will get some of the bad afflictions from that disease (most of the afflictions won't actually hinder them one bit), but still. To top it all they're in Construction instead of at or near the end of a completely different path, like all the other SC chassises, further cementing BR Ulm as the "I only need to research 2 paths to win" nation.

As an aside, why did you feel the need to give all these guys Blood Vengeance/Fear/Awe anyway ? Autocasting the best spells in the game without having to bother with that diversity malarkey wasn't enough, they also had to be able to be awesome high end thugs for good measure ?

[Mightypeon]

The luck guy is definitly working for me, my guys turn a bit green and get luck in the attribute list.
I would be a bit in favor of replacing the really strong buffs by a bit more minor buffs that still could make sense. This would also encourage to thugs these commanders out, as their main use would no longer be the onbattlespell.
Rush of Strength comes to mind for example, as would Fanatism.
So, as a sweeping solution: Reduce costs for both of the Knights, make the cheaper one autocast rush of Strength, and the more expensive/higher research one autocast relief. Other options could be quickness (which would further encourage using them as thugs, as you would have to place them fairly frontally).

I actually dont neccessarily think that Gaias Blessing as on battlespell is overpowered in itself, it would propably be good for dominions if more nations had access to it. Especially the "Might" nations. Rose Ulm to an extent reduce the Dominions Paradigm that "Magic always wins" to "Magic usually wins", which is not neccesarily bad in my opinion.

[Kobal2]

Originally Posted by Mightypeon

The luck guy is definitly working for me, my guys turn a bit green and get luck in the attribute list.

Might be a bug specific to the Heroes of Slight & Tragic mod then (the compilation mod used in the game discussed earlier ITT)

[Shangrila00]

[quote=Squirrelloid;794117]

Originally Posted by Kobal2

Full army Legions of Steel is a mild improvement over regular legions of steel. And unlike CBM Ulm, BR Ulm has to actually research it and spend gems on it. (Usually 2e per cast, in fact, until they can get conjuration 3). I refuse to believe that paying gems for legion of steel on the full army and at a higher research level is broken.

Okay, that's definitely not true. Legions of Steel is an incredibly powerful spell already for heavily armored troops...except it's next to impossible to use. The casting AI just refuses to cast it on armored troops, instead casting it on armorless mages who don't even benefit, archers, etc. The only way I've gotten it to work is 1) putting the casting mages right in the middle of the troops they're supposed to buff, and 2) not having any other mages/archers within range. This hugely limits your army deployment and leaves your mages vulnerable to random arrows, spells, etc.

A battlefield wide version is ridiculously better, though not as ridiculously better as the current CBM version.

That said, I like the theme of Ulm having an unstoppable wave of steel. I think a more thematic nerf might be to really cut back on Ulm's battlefield magic. Ulm is supposed to ban magic outside the forge and religion right? So make it that Master Smiths can't cast in battle, using a second shape that has no magic. That way, Ulmish troops are ridiculous, but have to depend on their forged relics, cap only priest smiths, and the weak black priests for battlefield magic.

[Mightypeon]

Now, having participated in the creation of an "Awesome Ulm" mod over at something awfull (it turned out even stronger than Black Rose in my opinion, it was about equal to very powerfull nations such as Sauro, Lanka or LA Mari), what I would propose for Ulms mages is decent spell casting capacities but fairly high encumberance and fairly low precision. This way they can buff whihc imho is in line with MA Ulms fluff. I was also liking map move 2 on the non black steel troops, and Ulm troops actually having good weapons (Broadswords not Hammers etc.).

[Squirrelloid]

I think we should be clear. Ulm has one schtick. That schtick is massed heavily armored units with light mage support.

There are counters to that schtick.

Most other nations have multiple schticks.

As such, Ulm's schtick has to be really good. Its the only thing it really has to rely on.

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mm2 on their infantry is right out. Its not thematic. If anything, it would be the black plate which would get it (because its effectively a magic material), and that destroys any sense of internal balance.

Broad Swords would require new sprites =P.

(More relevantly, broad swords don't strike me as a fitting companion to a *tower shield*. Of course, I don't particularly like hammers with tower shields either.)

Now, if you mean on the cavalry, well, that's not totally out of the question...
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I might tweak research levels of some spells, but I am not removing any of their new spells or changing the one battle spells. Considering the *stronger* version of Ulm BR that also inherited the encumbrance change for regular Ulm got completely thrashed by LA TC in the only game I've watched its performance from beginning to end, I find Kobal's claims of gross imbalance highly unlikely.

Especially since BR Ulm's steamrolling of Pythium seems to have had a lot to do with timing, diplomacy, and catching your enemy with his pants down. That it was a steamrolling seems perfectly reasonable in that context.

And that's the steamrolling of one nation. IIRC the game is ongoing and Ulm was forced to conceed Pythium's capital to Ermor, at least for a short while. That doesn't sound like Ulm BR totally overpowering everyone.

[Mightypeon]

Actually, Ulm in this game is pretty much dying now, since we are down to three main players and the remaining 2 big ones just decided to team up against Ulm. Which will give Shinuyama the game unless they go for a split victory, which Shinuyama has no reason of considering. Shinuyama is currently far ahead of Caelum in terms of SC numbers etc., Shinuyama has Air/W access and thus no problem at all in dealing with Thunder Strike/Falling frost Spam, and while Caelum got some D going, Shinu is not known for a lack of wither bones access either.

In the end, it was my own mistake in not pressing a very early war with Shinu (was hard because Acro backstabbed me though), it also reinforces that one should not delay dealing with lategame threats. Rose Ulm still needs a Rainbow/Somebody with serious paths to compete in the lategame, it has no natural paths for any gem generating globals, and at least Earth Deep Blood Well is something they desperatly need.

[RonD]

You are awfully quick to declare defeat, considering that the war just started and no real battles have been fought yet. Let's see what happens when a Shin army meets up against an Ulm army full of all the BR special goodies.

As far as this thread goes, the point should be to try to separate issues related to the strength of the mod nation from those arising purely from the diplomatic situation.