The MA Ulm issue.

[Burnsaber]

I've been reading these forums for a long time and this one question just keeps on popping up in several threads, and horribly derailing them. Besides, having parts of the discussion separated on 10+ threads makes it very hard for developers to see what is the community stand on the issue.

So, I made this thread for your MA Ulm discussion needs. The three important questions are;

1) Is MA Ulm underpowered?

2) If question1=true, is it so underpowered that it takes out the enjoyment from playing it?

3) If question2=true, how to fix this?

The summarized comments on the question1 on prior threads

For;
1) Ulm's troops (there are numerous arguments about this so I'll devide these a bit)

1a)Ulm's troops are slow (both and off-the field), which limits expansion and tactical possibilities. It also allows for their opponent's to blast them with numereous spells before they reach melee (see argument 1b)

1b)Their reliance on heavy armor and low-MR makes them vulnerable to both armor negating and MR-checking spells, which are numereous and easliy available to every nation. This makes their troops easily counterable.

1c)Arbalests make normally high-prot Ulmish troops vulnerable to friendly fire.

1d)Their high encumberance doesn't synergize with the high protection value since it diminishes the lasting power that high protection presents.

1e) Their troop selection (while allowing different weapon combinations) only consists of high resourcecost, highly armored troops, limiting army construction, and making their armies predictable.

1f) Ulm's troops have average morale (expect for guardians and Black Knights) and few means to boost it (see argument 6), diminishing their lasting power in combat.

2) Their weak mages can't allow them to be succesfull in mid and late-game. They're also borderline old age.

3) Their pretender desing is limited by being "forced" to take Production:3

4) Reliance on resource-heavy troops limits their early expansion since massing their troops early is difficult.

5) Their forging ability is diminished by not having a reliable Thug/SC chassis and their low magic ablity doesn't allow them to summon one easily.

6) No sacreds and priests to speak of.

Against
(I couldn't find too much of these, most posts were like "they're fine, but...")

1) Ulm's troops combination of high protection and high-damage weapons allows them blow through other nation's normal infantry and indepentends in (relatively) small numbers.

2) Ulm's troops are nearly immune to normal short-bows archers and have high resitance to longbows and crossbows.

3) Their forging powers allow them polital maneuvorability and survivalability.

4) Ulm's troops have wide selection of weapon choices, allowing them to choose right weapons for the right job.

5) Since Ulmish troops have Gold cost:Resource cost ratio of 1:2 / 1:3 they have lots of extra cash to crank out forts, which has numereous advantages.

Collected & summarized ideas for question 3:

- Give them low resource cost crossbow (like MA Marignon has) unit to ease early expansion and serve as gold sink.

- I'd like to remind you people that they are NOT getting their MR raised (developer comment).

- Make Ulmish troops generally tougher (more HP, streght, attack, etc..)

- Ease the vulnerabilites of Ulm's troops (higher morale, lower encumberance, higher tactical and stragedic speed)

- Allow for more magic divesity by meddling with Smith's random magic picks.

- Give them new national spells and/or troops to combat other nation's sacreds and mages. "mage/priest"-hater spells/troops seem to have popularity.

That's what I collected. If I missed something, bring it up.

EDIT1: Typo fixing & improved readability.
EDIT2: Added "crossbow"-fix idea