Mod: MA Ulm : \

[Arralen]

Here you find the latest version of the "Black Steel of Ulm" mod for Dom3 :

Did some more balance testing and bugfixing - here's the latest version:

Black Steel of Ulm D3 v2.2


Scroll down to my latest post for the readme.txt.

(sry, forgot to activate html for this post, and everything else doesn't work out that well, with "code" tag broken and all)

[DrPraetorious]

After a brief experiment, I think I can say at least that this mod *isn't unbalancing*. To put it another way - I didn't think that Ulm's military was particularly too weak, but I don't think this mod makes them too strong, so, fine.

Would you mind if it were packaged into a larger mod?

[Xietor]

I have it loaded and have looked at it. At 1st blush it looks fantastic. Black Duke of Ulm looks like a great commander, and I like everything about it just from loading it up and reviewing the units.

Good job! raising the mr was necessary imho to make Ulm a viable race. It was no fun watching your black knights and black lords be crushed by smites, especially in a dominion with a magic scale.

Looks very very cool.

[Xietor]

The very 1st black duke of Ulm i recruit has old age(:

Take away his conscript ability, his standard, and do not make him borderline old age.

I really think Ulm needs a good thug. Maybe incorporate Endoperez' warlord with some mr and added movement.

Doubt i would ever use a 200 gold melee commander who was old. I would just stick with the vanilla black lord(now a count). The extra command is nice, but with a couple of
stars, the black lord can lead all the men he needs.

Why waste your time getting an old melee hero into the hall of fame when he is going to get afflictions? you wouldn't.

It is still a good mod, but i am disappointed that the unit i thought would make a good thug, will not. But i actually do not think any melee units should be near old age, so i have issues with the game's version of ermor as well.

I think 5 units a turn conscript is a bit much. These are not chaff units like militia. Making the guy old that does the summoning does not make up for a race getting 5 free high resource units a turn. If you bought 2 of the dukes early on and had them conscript the whole game, you would have quite an army there.

[Arralen]

Thanks for the kind words and all ;-)
Some remarks and ..

.. questions:
- what kind of pretender / settings did you use?
- did you have any trouble keeping your dominion up; how many monks did you use for preaching?
- did you get any hero during the test?
- did you ever use a captain for recruiting milita?
- did you use the sergeants as squad leaders (thugs with bodyguards)?

Black Duke
Actually, this is a new unit (#newmonster) without any age set.
Obviously the game itself decides that a human unit with those stats (and name ? ) must be quite old.
I think I'll set the startage to ~37, though.

Conscripting 5 milita per turn might be a bit much - I think I'll change that down to 3 or 4 (the duke costs 13,3 gold upkeep per turn, so it's still pretty cheap).

Warlord
Just play on, and be surprised
Unless you play with misfortune-2 or more, that is...

Incorporating in a big mod
I would not be that fond of this, because
a) Black Steel of Ulm isn't finished
b) I'm working on /planning a 'complete mod' anyway, where Black Steel will be a part of.
That said - there's little I could do to stop you from borrowing everything you wish, anyway, therefore go forth and do what you like - would be nice to see my name mentioned in the readme/credits somewhere, though

[Xietor]

Let us know when you modify the Duke's age, so i can update the mod.

Thanks!

[Arralen]

v2.1 attached at the top !!

Mostly bugfixes only ...

[Xietor]

Well,

I am starting a new game, and I like the duke not being old a good bit, and i think the reduction to 3 troops per turn keeps the dukes from being overpowered.

I got a beefed up hero, was that you or worthy heroes? The Smiths at 160 is a 20 gold raise, but you did double the chance for extra magic.

All in all it is looking like an excellent upgrade to Ulm, and it is not one that overpowers them. The MR boost was an absolute must,the magical weapons on the knights is both thematic, and necessary to give some offensive punch.

They still could not kill a Van, but what can? At least they'd hurt it if they hit it.

[VedalkenBear]

Well, as for myself, it seems a bit on the overpowered side. The magic is still strictly limited, but you're spawning troops so quickly, I'm not exactly sure how you'd ever run out of money with them. It's not like the militia are bad.

And I'm guessing the Duke's knight-summon is a domsummon kind of thing? I took a spin on this with a Dominion-10 Air-4 Virtue, and so I was getting about half a knight a turn/Duke. That's going to add up pretty quickly.

Are the spawns really necessary? I honestly am not entirely sure why you'd need to recruit melee units at all with this mod. Commanders to Summon up other troops and research, get a very-high Dominion pretender to spread the Drain far and wide, and make the most of your Stealthy Preachers, and recruit mainly Sappers for your missile troops.

[Xietor]

The "fix" reduced the number of summons from 5 to 3. How are 3 additional slow units a turn over powering Ulm?

I can see where if you had 10 dukes summoning 3 a turn, that could change the balance some. The issue is they are high resource troops. if purchased, they would eat up a good bit of resources to make. But the Dukes are capital only.

Maybe some sort of limit per turn needs to be in place to avoid abuse if you get someone buying a ton of dukes and they all sit around summoning. Just a suggestion, maybe a duke should summon only 2 per turn. I am not sure it is overpowered as it is. Not when you consider Ulm's magical limitations. And Ulm's infantry is very slow. And they have crappy defense, most of mine get afflictions early and often.

Taking away conscription, or limiting it even more, would not take away at all from the mod. The new commanders are cool, and the addition of a magical sword on the knights, the raising of the mr, and the armor changes makes Ulm more competitive. it gives them a fighting chance. I certainly would not bet on them against several other MA races, even with the boost.

Sure they'd own argatha, micitan, and a handful of other races, but not the upper tier races, Ermor, Pythium, Arcos.,
Vanaheim, Maragon, and i still would take my favorite race over them, Pangaea, even though they are magically limited as well.

Ulm still has glaring weaknesses of level 1 priests, limited mages, and resource hog troops. So it is not suddenly a super power race.