Suggestions to the devs: improving ME Ulm

[Sorlakind]

Great suggestion, sandman: a mage-hunter with high mr and a magic weapon to hunt for enemy mages. Very thematic and well balanced. Nevertheless, as Tyrant points out, with the high values of PD available, you would have to give him at least the stealth of a spy and even then, they probably would die easily. I still would like to see 2 of my suggestions implemented (I dropped the crossbow one, one can always compose things with independents):

- Raise chance of an extra magic pick to 50%. Even 20% (1 out of 5 instead 1 out of 10) would already be a big help. Even if it would mean a little more expensive smiths.

- Monthly forge command: this is the only way to *really* take advantage of the forge bonus and earth picks that Ulm has for a construction strategy. As things are right now, it's a micromanagement hell.

Best regards

[Sandman]

Assassins have a lot of limitations, but the threat of them would force enemies to treat Ulm with a bit more respect. Even for purely defensive operations, they'd be useful, disrupting the enemy advance ahead of the slow-moving Ulmish armies.

I'd also give Ulm a standard-bearer and cheaper (non-elite) cavalry, so they've got more options on the battlefield.

[Endoperez]

Few things:

MA Ulm's PD is WONDERFUL! It's insane, really. Arbalests don't fire that often, but they can damage anything without Air Shield, and they are medium infantry with shortswords against that something WITH Air Shield, often accompanied by the very heavy infantry you get from PD over 20.

Ulm Arbalests are very good, actually. They're VERY slow to make, but work surprisingly well even without support from the other troops.


Re: 10% chance on Master Smiths:
Turn 26 on a blitz game. I had had at most 6 provinces in the blitz. I had acquired a second castle late into the game, but hadn't gotten any Master Smiths with funny randoms from there. I had pretty much managed to keep to the 1 mage/turn rule. I had one Master Smith with Earth random, two with Air, and one with Astral. Statistically, I was a bit ahead - 23 or so Smiths and 4 Master Smiths makes for almost 18 per cent... but I was "due" two any way. One in ten adds up pretty fast when you don't recruit anything else. Ulm is also one of the nations that can pretty easily aim for a second castle early in the game without forgoing military - they just build Black Plate inanftry.