MA Ulm in CBM 1.9x

[Mightypeon]

Greetings,

while this is not a full guide, I nevertheless wish to post some points concerning MA Ulm in the new CBM version.

1: Ulms National troops got a boost, less encumberance, in some cases more attack. For a rush defense (where Map move one is not that important), this is a significant boost. If you are rushing someone with them, it is a boost too.
2: Ulm gets an extra 50 resources. This further amplifies their early game potential.
3: Ulm gets more randoms from Mage Smiths. Which is very very usefull.
4: Ulm get some quite usefull national priest spells. While the "Iron fears not..." are not very usefull early game due to low AOE, "Hold XXX" is a major boost to Ulmish PD against certain raiders.


In my opinion, these early game boosts decrease the need for an awake Rainbow Pretender, and an asleep Rainbow with better scales/more Magic becomes much more feasable.

With an awake Pretender, rushing certain targets imho become possible too.
While Ulm is not Niefelheim or Mictlan, Ulm can easily conquer castles with Map move 2 Siege Bonus 5 Sappers, its Mages/Priests only need very limited Research to be "effective", and Black Guards allow for some very quick early expansion.

Imho, the first priority should be evocation 3, followed/supported by (depending on the situation) Conjuration 3 (Earthpower, Banes), Construction 2(Crystal Shield! Put one on a Black Priest and you get Blessing of Iron. It also boosts his Iron Dart spamming, and allows him to cast Earth Power) or Thaumaturgy 2.
Against certain nations Alternation should be taken over evocation, but imho evocation gives Ulm more.

Imho, for a sacred recruit cost of 140, and with a Construction 2 Item costing you only 3E and 3S, Black priests with Crystal Shields are highly costeffective battle mages. Giving those cheap Shield to Mages with S randoms can get you gifts from heaven, and air mages can cast usefull things such as Arrow Fend, Storm, etc.
Of course, Priest Smiths with Crystal Shields are usually even better.

Those extra design points can either be invested in luck scales, one could attempt to take Drain 2 instead of Drain 3 (which opens research from Indie mages), or get some signifiant growth, which will also help in the late game.

I do not neccesarly think that making mellee thugs out of Priest Smiths is particularly wise as a general strategy (although it certainly has a suprise factor), in most cases, blowing things up with gratitious evocations is less risky than getting close with a still fragile low HP human, who does not have a very high attack skill.
At the time when the items/spells needed become available, one can also go for Banes or Sleepers.
However, a flying cadre of Priest Smiths with Fly boots, Crystal Shields and perhaps an eye of aiming/feather/burning skull/Ring of Earth can add a lot of firepower very quickly.
Against Armies, comparably Cheap 2+1(Crystal Shield) +1 (Earth Power)+ 1 (Earth Ring)=5 E guys are jumping around spamming lots of blade winds/Blizzards etc.
SCs will risk comparably quick petrification.
Once you got a F2 Mage empowered in Death, a steady Supply of Flaming Skulls (whih can be combined with ubiquitos Crystal Shields) allows Fire 4 Casters (Phonix Power + Crystal Shield + Flaming Skull). Add in a Fire Helmet and and even normal Mages can potentially cast the really high end F evocations.

Ulm can get crystal shield, Earth Boots, Earth Rings and later on Fire Skulls (after the empowering) cheaper than anyone else, and transporting magic items does not care about Ulms comparable slowness. Last but not least, all of Ulms casters are very very cheap in both money and upkeep, are decent combat mages without equipment and very good combat mages with equipment.

Imho, MA Ulm is no longer "sub par" with the new CBM.

[LongBrodie]

Imho, you didn't say imho enough times in this mini-guide. Otherwise, some good observations here. :P

[Mightypeon]

;P
Well, I have a total experience of one finished and 3 running mulitplayer games, and I am only playing MA Ulm in one of those. I thus felt an uncharacteristic need to write "imho" a lot.

There are also some another new option with an awake research Rainbow Pretender, a very early move to the Forges of Ulm.
One needs to clear conjuration 3, construction 4 and likely evocation 3 before turn 16. This is possible while still sitesearching a fair bit with the research pretender. If pulled out succesfully, Ulm can get early Banes/Sleepers with Flame Sword + Shield of gold + Some armour for 4 Death, 1 Earth and 2 Fire gems. If you got an early S random (chances are 7% per smith, so in turn 16 there is an ok chance to have gotten one), one can add cheap luck and antimagic amulets. With more luck, there are also Fly boots for I think 3 gems.
If one has multiple of those before turn 20, one can indeed pull out a very strong attack.
However, it is not assured that one finds Fire, Astral and Death/Nature income. While trading can alliviate some of these troubles, one is by no means guaranteed to have a "Bane factory" in turn 20.
One should also not that Outfitting those Banes requires between 2-6 Mages forging, meaning that Mages, not gems, may be the actual bottleneck.
One can also thug out Priest Smiths, this will require an N4 bless and Alteration 2 for stone skin.
Thugging out Black priests does not work.
Thugging out Black Knights is possible, but one must stay cheap, and it is difficult to get the "critical mass" the would need to be effective (after all, the bottleneck is Mage turns, and recruiting Black Knights cuts into the number of mages one can recruit).

[shatner]

I am always glad to see MA Ulm getting some attention from the modding community. In fact, I created an MA Ulm Mod myself. The changes in the latest version of CBM were nice but I feel like Ulm still has some fundamental and unaddressed deficiencies:

1) Cheaper Troops: fortunately covered by CBM

2) Lower Encumbrance Values: also covered in the latest CBM

3) Magic weapons: Ulm has poor-to-average quality weaponry for its soldiers. Hammers and Mauls are given to claymen and barbarians for a reason... because they aren't very good so they are fitting for ill-equipped fodder. Ulm should have broadswords, greatswords or better yet, enchanted weaponry for their troops. Attacking Ulm should be like attacking Caelum in that your mistform and your body ethereal will do you no good there because their rank-and-file has magic weaponry. Both mechanically and thematically it fits and would be sorely appreciated.

4) Ranged Attacks: The Infantry of Ulm are slow and highly resistant to archery. They have high protection values, meaning that short bows and slings bounce off their helmets with little effect. Unfortunately, they are given ranged weapons that fire rarely and inaccurately and do a lot of armor piercing damage when they do. In short, they have one of the few ranged weapons in the entire game that you can't fire into a melee involving Ulmish infantry and expect that to go over well. Clearly, they need the opposite like a repeating crossbow: many shots, low damage.

5) Magic Diversity: Ulm needs two things on this account. The first is some way to natively summon their Iron Angel, meaning they need a reasonable chance of getting an S2 mage somehow. Also, they would really benefit from a passing amount of nature or death. This would help them be a bit more flexible in their tactics and forging.


Here's what I did to achieve those things. I don't mean to be presumptuous, nor prescriptive. I just want to offer an example of a solution to the problems I am citing, so that it might help inform a decision from the CBM team if and when they decide to revisit upgrading MA Ulm.

+++Changes - An Overview+++
The larger changes from this mod are as follows:

1) Blacksteel troops and commanders given lower encumberance and superior, magical weaponry

2) Non-blacksteel troops made no more than half as expensive as blacksteel troops (both in terms of gold and resources)

3) The arbalest was changed from a slow-firing, high-damage weapon to a rapid-firing, low-damage weapon (3 shots/round, 5 dmg each)

4) Master Smiths were given a 100% AEFS as well as 10% A, 10% F and 10% S. This is so they are more magically powerful and diverse among themselves. This is also so MA Ulm is better capable of getting access to a few but crucial A2 and S2 casters. Price raised to 195 gold.

5) Master Priests were given 210% ADN. This is to help diversify Ulm's casting capabilities, especially in the realm of forging better thug and super-combatant equipment. Price raised to 210 gold.

6) Ulm lacked a recruitable caster who could reliably summon Iron Angels (a conj 8, E5S2 spell), its late game SC chasis. The Black Priest was changed from E1H2 to E3H2 1.1 FS so that 50% of them could be equipped with boosters or minimally empowered to be able to cast this crucial spell. Price raised to 210 gold.

7) The Black Halberd was improved to make the Guardian and Lord Guardian more desirable to recruit

[Mightypeon]

In latest CBM, any S Mage Smith can summon Iron Angels with a Boot and an Earth Amulet.
And its conjuration 6.

The changes you propose solidly put them into top contender for MA, although some of them (Arbalests) are actually interesting.
Please note that Sappers are incredibly awesome.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by shatner

+++Changes - An Overview+++
The larger changes from this mod are as follows:

1) Blacksteel troops and commanders given lower encumberance and superior, magical weaponry

2) Non-blacksteel troops made no more than half as expensive as blacksteel troops (both in terms of gold and resources)

3) The arbalest was changed from a slow-firing, high-damage weapon to a rapid-firing, low-damage weapon (3 shots/round, 5 dmg each)

4) Master Smiths were given a 100% AEFS as well as 10% A, 10% F and 10% S. This is so they are more magically powerful and diverse among themselves. This is also so MA Ulm is better capable of getting access to a few but crucial A2 and S2 casters. Price raised to 195 gold.

5) Master Priests were given 210% ADN. This is to help diversify Ulm's casting capabilities, especially in the realm of forging better thug and super-combatant equipment. Price raised to 210 gold. As for magical weapons, that seems out of place for Ulm, and cuts into the niche of the Guardian.

6) Ulm lacked a recruitable caster who could reliably summon Iron Angels (a conj 8, E5S2 spell), its late game SC chasis. The Black Priest was changed from E1H2 to E3H2 1.1 FS so that 50% of them could be equipped with boosters or minimally empowered to be able to cast this crucial spell. Price raised to 210 gold.

7) The Black Halberd was improved to make the Guardian and Lord Guardian more desirable to recruit

1) That doesn't mix well with the magical black steel equipment. I'd favor something along the lines of Reinvig 1 as a trait for all Ulmish units that use Black Steel armor, as they are already established as hardy in the description.

2) Seems about reasonable, though going under 10 gold is questionable.

3) Unless it was renamed, this makes no sense. Arbalests are essentially defined as crossbows with a high draw weight, that effectively require a cranequin. That shouldn't be faster than a bow or sling, period. Moreover, 3 ranged attacks per troop is arguably excessive, though the low damage mitigates that some. Still, with flaming arrows up this makes Ulm completely ridiculous, even relative to nations with impressive archers (e.g. Man).

4) Is this in addition to what they already had, or instead of it? If it is instead of it, the lack of guaranteed earth is questionable, if it is in addition to what they already had then they are probably too cheap even with the increased cost.

5) This removes the cheap mage-priest entirely.

6) This seems pretty reasonable, applied to Vanilla. CBM changed the spell requirements, so it is already under control.

7) Trimming the price a bit seems like a better way to handle this, particularly as their whole "magical weapons" schtick was given to every Black Steel soldier (which I'd recommend against).

[shatner]

I don't know what you mean by an earth amulet. If you are referring to a crystal coin (E2S2), then yes but that still requires someone to have S2 to forge it in the first place. Ditto for the Starshine Skullcap.

CBM chose to take a page from Squirrelloid's book (specifically, his Order of the Black Rose mod), and gave Ulm more army-wide buffs. That's a perfectly valid route to go and Squirrelloid's mod is very impressive. However, CBM hasn't taken things as far as the Order of the Black Rose so there is still a few pain points that can be addressed. I was merely offering an example of how I chose to address them.

If you feel like my changes are excessive, that's fine. I present them so they can be used as a basis for conversation about how to improve MA Ulm. Also, so they can be sampled from a la carte.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Knai

1) That doesn't mix well with the magical black steel equipment. I'd favor something along the lines of Reinvig 1 as a trait for all Ulmish units that use Black Steel armor, as they are already established as hardy in the description.

2) Seems about reasonable, though going under 10 gold is questionable.

3) Unless it was renamed, this makes no sense. Arbalests are essentially defined as crossbows with a high draw weight, that effectively require a cranequin. That shouldn't be faster than a bow or sling, period. Moreover, 3 ranged attacks per troop is arguably excessive, though the low damage mitigates that some. Still, with flaming arrows up this makes Ulm completely ridiculous, even relative to nations with impressive archers (e.g. Man).

4) Is this in addition to what they already had, or instead of it? If it is instead of it, the lack of guaranteed earth is questionable, if it is in addition to what they already had then they are probably too cheap even with the increased cost.

5) This removes the cheap mage-priest entirely.

6) This seems pretty reasonable, applied to Vanilla. CBM changed the spell requirements, so it is already under control.

7) Trimming the price a bit seems like a better way to handle this, particularly as their whole "magical weapons" schtick was given to every Black Steel soldier (which I'd recommend against).

1) I feel like Ulm would really benefit from having widely available magical melee mooks. Whether those should be the blacksteel heavy infantry or not is reason for debate but I am adamant that of all the nations that should be showing up with magic weapons, it should be Ulm.

2) The non-blacksteel troops are, in my opinion, too costly to mass (remember that if it takes 3 turns to mass those 10gold units, they are effectively 13+ gold units after you take into account upkeep) and perform too poorly in actual combat. I'm fine with Ulm have well armored chaff but I think it should be priced accordingly.

3) Yes the name does not jive with being a repeating crossbow. Rename it. There are work arounds for the flaming-arrows of doom issue. Specifically, you could make the weapon shoot twice and deal 7 dmg each OR you could give the unit two different crossbow weapons; one which shoots twice for 5 dmg each but does not benefit from flaming arrows and another which only shoots once for 5 dmg but does benefit from flaming arrows.

4) The changes here are instead of anything else they have. They would be an E2F1 + 1.0 AEFS + .1 A + .1 F + .1 S making them a 4.3 path caster in total. This still puts them behind the MA Pythium Theurg, the MA Shinuyama Bakemono Sorcerer, or the MA Jotunheim Skratti in terms of price, power or chassis, to name a few.

5) It's all a question of what you want from those mage-priests. First off, Ulm's troops are cheap gold-wise and expensive resource-wise so they can't spend all that much on troops on any given turn. Spending more on commanders is therefore possible without being exorbitant. Also, I was re-purposing the mage priest as a diversifying caster, base Ulm has it as a mini-thug and iron darts caster, and CMB was using them as a troop buff-caster.

6) Yeah, that's true. I was reluctant to change spell requirements in my mod so I had to do other things to fix it.

7) Unless you are facing jaguar warriors or knights of the chalice, I didn't find the guardians better than their peers by a wide enough margin to warrant using them. They are a move-1, non-sacred, capital-only unit so they have to be something really special for them to ever make an appearance at your front line. And that "specialness" only happens now if you are facing massed sacred troops.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by shatner

1) I feel like Ulm would really benefit from having widely available magical melee mooks. Whether those should be the blacksteel heavy infantry or not is reason for debate but I am adamant that of all the nations that should be showing up with magic weapons, it should be Ulm.

2) The non-blacksteel troops are, in my opinion, too costly to mass (remember that if it takes 3 turns to mass those 10gold units, they are effectively 13+ gold units after you take into account upkeep) and perform too poorly in actual combat. I'm fine with Ulm have well armored chaff but I think it should be priced accordingly.

3) Yes the name does not jive with being a repeating crossbow. Rename it. There are work arounds for the flaming-arrows of doom issue. Specifically, you could make the weapon shoot twice and deal 7 dmg each OR you could give the unit two different crossbow weapons; one which shoots twice for 5 dmg each but does not benefit from flaming arrows and another which only shoots once for 5 dmg but does benefit from flaming arrows.

4) The changes here are instead of anything else they have. They would be an E2F1 + 1.0 AEFS + .1 A + .1 F + .1 S making them a 4.3 path caster in total. This still puts them behind the MA Pythium Theurg, the MA Shinuyama Bakemono Sorcerer, or the MA Jotunheim Skratti in terms of price, power or chassis, to name a few.

5) It's all a question of what you want from those mage-priests. First off, Ulm's troops are cheap gold-wise and expensive resource-wise so they can't spend all that much on troops on any given turn. Spending more on commanders is therefore possible without being exorbitant. Also, I was re-purposing the mage priest as a diversifying caster, base Ulm has it as a mini-thug and iron darts caster, and CMB was using them as a troop buff-caster.

6) Yeah, that's true. I was reluctant to change spell requirements in my mod so I had to do other things to fix it.

7) Unless you are facing jaguar warriors or knights of the chalice, I didn't find the guardians better than their peers by a wide enough margin to warrant using them. They are a move-1, non-sacred, capital-only unit so they have to be something really special for them to ever make an appearance at your front line. And that "specialness" only happens now if you are facing massed sacred troops.

1) Ulm's whole concept is wrapped around minimalist magic, and while this obviously doesn't play out in the game, due to how key magic is, a massive amount of magical weapons doesn't help.

2) As of now, they are too costly to mass. Reduced resources alone should help there.

3) A crossbow that specifically avoids flaming arrows is adding needless edge cases. Better that they stay as is, as incredibly strong weapons that effectively counter heavily armored troops, but don't get a lot of shots off. That said, a precision boost to all units that use them is reasonable.

4) That seems pretty reasonable, and with the free drain scale gives Ulm a useful niche.

5) As is, the cheapness of the priests is essentially what allows Ulm to meaningful interact with dominion. Losing that for magic diversity is almost certainly a step up, but also a step away from what Ulm is supposed to be.

7) I'm honestly not sure that giving them full Awe would be that unbalancing. As long as they don't have much of it, it gives them a use as blockers - moreover, the units Awe is best at dealing with are more easily countered elsewhere, as most are low morale, poorly armored, and have rather unimpressive defense, all of which translates to flail infantry being devastating against them. Two attacks per round, that get around shields decently? Yes please.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Knai

1) Ulm's whole concept is wrapped around minimalist magic, and while this obviously doesn't play out in the game, due to how key magic is, a massive amount of magical weapons doesn't help.

2) As of now, they are too costly to mass. Reduced resources alone should help there.

3) A crossbow that specifically avoids flaming arrows is adding needless edge cases. Better that they stay as is, as incredibly strong weapons that effectively counter heavily armored troops, but don't get a lot of shots off. That said, a precision boost to all units that use them is reasonable.

4) That seems pretty reasonable, and with the free drain scale gives Ulm a useful niche.

5) As is, the cheapness of the priests is essentially what allows Ulm to meaningful interact with dominion. Losing that for magic diversity is almost certainly a step up, but also a step away from what Ulm is supposed to be.

7) I'm honestly not sure that giving them full Awe would be that unbalancing. As long as they don't have much of it, it gives them a use as blockers - moreover, the units Awe is best at dealing with are more easily countered elsewhere, as most are low morale, poorly armored, and have rather unimpressive defense, all of which translates to flail infantry being devastating against them. Two attacks per round, that get around shields decently? Yes please.

Again, let me state that I am not holding up my revisions as some sort of magic bullet; there are several different routes we could follow to balance MA Ulm and still keep it "Ulmy". However, you have repeatedly used the justification of "how Ulm is supposed to be" as why some of my proposed changes won't fly. I really like the theme of Ulm but I think it would be useful to discuss exactly what that theme is.

Squirrelloid talks about this very issue here:

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

MA Ulm, at present, has one dominating theme, and that theme is sucking. Weak magic, weak against magic, and one of the most-deceptive bad troop line-ups in the game.

In re-imagining Ulm, I've tried to stick true to what I consider to be Ulm's dominating themes. In a lot of ways, I think this is more thematic than the old Ulm ever was.

...[cut by Shatner]...

Now, Ulm in the base game is weak to magic. This makes little sense.
-From a motivational point of view, if magic is the weakness of the people of Ulm, it would encourage the study of magic because that would be the path to power in Ulm (he who has the best magic rules). We can deduce from Ulm's rejection of magic that magic is ineffective as a tool for power within Ulm.
-From an adaptive point of view, if Ulm is weak to magic and weak at magic, it shouldn't even make it to the point of being a nation. Because magic is so powerful, not having it is a major disadvantage which gets you conquered by your neighbors and you cease to exist. Thus, we can deduce from Ulm's continued existence as a playable nation that rejecting magic must confer some equally powerful advantage.
-Basically, what i'm trying to say is that being weak at using magic and weak against magic cannot be thematic because it has no way of arising in a world, nor of continuing to exist thereafter.

As Squirrelloid said, the result of Ulm's theme can't be "Ulm sucks." So we need to find solutions to the various mechanical failings the nation has and try and keep those solutions as thematic as we can. If the theme cannot accept viable balance improvements then we need to change the theme because ultimately fluff informs, but is subordinate to, crunch... and Ulm needs some better crunch.

Look at what Llamabeast said in his breakdown of CBM v1.92:

Originally Posted by llamabeast

- Boosts to a number of weak nations. EA & MA Agartha, MA Ulm, MA Man, EA Vanheim and EA Helheim in particular benefitted. Other nations to receive some changes include Marverni, Tir na n'Og and Eriu. Great effort has been put in to make the changes interesting and thematic. For example with MA Agartha the challenge was to increase the power of the nation while maintaining an overall theme of sorrow and loss. Hopefully this has been successful. These nations should have gained not only raw power but also diversity of choices.

MA Agartha needed a boost and Llamabeast gave them that boost wrapped in the theme of the sorrow of a nation and people in decline. So I say we wrap the crunch fixes for MA Ulm in the theme of Ulm being a nation of thrift, artifice and craftsmanship. They have the most efficient forgers of magical equipment in the age. Their most lightly armed foot soldier is more heavily armed than some nations' heavy infantry (Bandar Log's, for example). Mechanically, Ulm only has one non-capital mage, the master smith. During the course of a game as MA Ulm you will recruit many, many, many master smiths. Smiths... who are masters... at forging magical gear. In CBM they have the dormant Forge of the Ancients in their basement. Why the heck SHOULDN'T they have magical weapons coming out their ears?! EA Ulm is Conan the Barbarian. LA Ulm is Gothic Horror and Germanic Folklore. MA Ulm is pretty much your generic "dwarves forging steel and wonders beneath the mountains" meets "burn the heretic. kill the mutant. purge the unclean." but with burly Teutons instead of dwarves/space marines.

Originally Posted by Knai

3) A crossbow that specifically avoids flaming arrows is adding needless edge cases. Better that they stay as is, as incredibly strong weapons that effectively counter heavily armored troops, but don't get a lot of shots off. That said, a precision boost to all units that use them is reasonable.

This is precisely wrong. Ulm already has recruitable armor piercing archers (sappers) who can be just as menacing to armored opponents as any crossbowman. In addition, Ulm specializes in producing size-2, high-strength infantry who carry high damage weapons, making them good at smashing high protection and/or high hp opponents. What Ulm needs is a way to shoot at the enemy without putting holes in the backs of their own slow, heavily armored troops. The niche the arbalest is supposed to fill is already filled. Ulm would be bettered served by longbows than by armor piercing bolt throwers. And even if the arbalests had 100 precision, for the other 90 in a 100 battles where I'm not fighting prot-17 foes, I'd rather have Bandar Log's shortbows or T'ien Ch'i's composite bows than high resource, fire-once-every-three-rounds heavy crossbows.

Think about it, Ulm loves bladewind because it shoots a whole bunch of grape shot over the battlefield. Their troops remain largely unaffected while the monkeys and militia and maenads get cut to ribbons. They would really benefit from the option of having the archer-equivalent of bladewind, not Gift from the Heavens. And a repeating crossbow happens to mesh with their theme in addition to the arbalest's sprite. Win-win!