Weakest nation

[ghoul31]

Blade Wind and Magma Eruption for killing troops.
All the Earth buff spells: Legion of Steel, Strength of Giants, Weapons of Sharpness, Marble Warriors, Army of Lead/Gold

earth buff spells aren't going to do you any good. With 9 encumburance they will pass out pretty quickly. And with low hitpoints and low MR, spells will slaughter them.

[ghoul31]

Originally Posted by Frozen Lama

plus give them a gem and they cast petrify

you are going to run out of gems real quick doing that

[Quitti]

My take on MA Ulm:

+Sufficient E access for most useful spells, such as Army of Lead if they ever get there. Also magma eruption.
+Iron angels (seriously, no-one said them before this? They still need either 0.33..% chance random or pretender for them). If they ever survive so far. Probably not. Anyway, wonderful SC chassis.
+useful combat mages, once you get some evo researched.
+good forge bonuses (through empowerment etc. just e2f1 isn't sufficient for most things. Cheap gear for magi are always good anyway, like reinvig girdles)
+Guardians (vs. most sacreds)
+Good national evo(s), iron blizzard is one of the best bf evos available considering the casting requirements and the usefulness of the spell. Too bad cap only mages can cast it.
+Can take drain3 for +1mr and 120p without penalty to master smith/priest smith research rates (though black priests and indies that you REALLY need still have it).

-Have to take prod3 to expand/produce troops at all. There goes your drain3 bonus. Too bad.
-bad troops because of enc. Good armor protwise though, but it doesn't do much when critical hits start on like third-fourth turn of combat.
-pretty much requirement for any awake SC build to be competitive, or blood magic bootstrapping if not playing latest CBM.
-terrible diversity. Seriously, 3.3% chance of either e2f1a1/e2f1s1/e2f2 with added 10% chance for +e1 is not much. One of the worst diversity in the game, if not the worst.
-Bad starting gem income, even if it's thematic. E is good only for so much.
-No useful priests to speak of. h1 out of cap without any bonuses? At least make them inquisitor like LA Ulm and they'd have some use.


MA Ulm is one of the worst nations in the game. They can be played well with a bid of luck and diplomacy skills, but as a nation they don't really shine much. Overall bad magic and bad troops (that look good on the paper, but don't really work due enc and the lack of diversity in a normal setting game) don't combine well. The lack-of-magic nation combined with the low MR resistance doesn't really balance out either. There are other "bad" nations as well though, but MA Ulm really could use for some look into it, especially now without blood stones in (de facto standard) CBM mod games. LA Ulm is a really good nation due national blood access, good astral access and ubiquitous black priests, and due vampires, lategame D access is not very hard.

Cheers. Someone could do this same for EA Agartha and MA(/LA?) Man. And possibly MA Machaka.

[Rytek]

Middle Age is pretty balanced. With the exception of Ashdod out-shining the other nations by a decent margin.
Ulm may not have any Sacreds, but Guardians will smash any sacred rush they will face early game. And Ulm's troops are more than good enough to expand without an awake SC. An early elephant rush is the biggest threat and depending on research level is countered easy enough. Ulm needs a rainbow for magic diversity and that is ok because of their other strengths.

[Quitti]

I beg to differ with the balanced part. In MA Pyth, Ashdod (like you said), R'lyeh (vs other water nations), Jotunheim, Shinuyama and maybe to a bit lesser extent Ermor are way above other nations, while Ulm, Machaka, possibly Man (haven't really played them), BL, Atlantis and Agartha are quite a bit below the average.

Also, guardians are good, but expensive-ish and not that good against indies that you'd recruit them nonstop in the early game, but vs. at least Ermor/mictlan they'll work wonders if they're using sacreds like usual. And while the troops are not bad at expanding, you can't get enough of them unless you luck out with some really good mountain/forest provs with easy indeps next to your cap. And one rainbow mage (pretender) will not make the difference Ulm needs, while it does/would do help the problems they have with diversity.

[Micah]

Pretty sure I'd take MA Ulm over Agartha, especially before the last round of CBM buffs to Agartha. At least they have something to bring to the late-game table (forge bonus and iron angels) whereas Agartha just sucks beginning to end...the statues are decent, but have huge weaknesses as well, including being in a really bad research school. Marble oracles are also nothing to write home about.

They're both pretty terrible though.

[Sombre]

Yeah MA Ulm, MA Aggy, EA Aggy, MA Atlantis and MA Oceania are all absolutely awful.

I think arguing about which is worst is a bit like taste testing dog turds.

[Quitti]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think arguing about which is worst is a bit like taste testing dog turds.

Exactly.

[Grounds]

I had a lot of fun with MA Ulm in the past, but I used a lot of blood stones. If CBM eliminates them, then I suppose I'd be hard pressed to find a way to make them effective against my friends. Losing the extra earth gems is one thing, but losing an earth booster hurts all earth nations, with MA Ulm being the nation to take the brunt of that loss.

[anonymity]

MA Argatha is definitely worse than MA Ulm. Troops are worse, they lack the improved HP and str and have similar enc for lower prot. Pale Ones and Ancient Ones are useless thanks to their atk score. No missiles in vanilla, xbows in CBM are 24 res which is the same as Ulm's arbalests. Stone Hurlers in CBM are useful if expensive, but they aren't in vanilla. No mounted troops, no niche troops like guardians. The E2 W1 F1 H1 mage isn't much good for anything, no astral access (2.5% in CBM) to make matrices, meaning they're difficult to boost in battle to take advantage of cold/fire/acid. You have E2 and E3 mages, which gives you E access about on par with Ulm's, but paying 400 for E3 (350 in CBM) is a huge rip-off. And no forge bonus, no iron blizzard (which is amazingly good), your statues are easy to counter and in a bad research tree for Earth, and the Marble Oracle doesn't compare favorably to the Iron Angel.

Oh and while the CBM changes help, no blood stones is a big blow to both nations, and IMO definitely offsets all the little advantages.