Most powerful nation

[Evilhomer]

Someone could easily make a mod that addresses these changes.

[thejeff]

Arbalests sound great, but I've never found they work well in practice. They fire once at extreme range and hardly hit anything, then fire again 3 rounds later, by which time your troops have closed and you start taking friendly fire.

Since they do high ap damage, even Ulm's heavily armored troops take damage from friendly fire.

Sappers, or even indy shortbows, work better. Higher rate of fire and even when firing into melee Ulmish armor means your own troops are relatively unaffected.

[Tuidjy]

> the arbelest is one of the best missile troops in the game

> their troops are already very good

CUnknown, this is simply not true. It's a common misconception, but Ulm's troops
suck, period. And they suck mostly because of the high encumbrance, indifferent
morale, and total lack of synergy.

You will make me dig out our little duel. Or we can play again. Unless my memory
is going, one of the battles involved principles vs arbalests and heavy infantry.
After some ineffective swinging at each other (high armour vs high defense) Ulm
routed, and was slaughtered while retreating. The infantries were matched, I
had a preacher of courage, and you had arbalests, I think.

But anyway. I am not familiar with the new races, but I'll take any of the old
races (C'tis, Pythium, Man, Ermor, Arco, Vanheim, etc...) vs MA Ulm, and expect an
easy victory. Despite the improvements to Ulm's magic. And I am in only one
undecided game at the moment, so consider this an official challenge.

Oh, no blood races for me. I'm just weird like that.

[DrPraetorious]

The lack of synergy is, I think, Ulm's big problem.

So Ulm should be given national spells that enable Ulm to force his enemies to fight Ulm in manly combat, with steel and sinew and human know-how, and which buff up his heavily armored troops. More so, I should say, than they do at present.

So -
1) Reinvigoration spells.
2) Haste spells.
3) Spells that enable you to recruit more troops (a national version of Wizard's tower is the only way to do this right now).
4) Spells to prevent fear and magic (already have some of these, but they are not good enough.)
5) Spells to counter (but probably not kill) enemy supercombatants, sacred units and mages. Ideally, the enemy would be somehow robbed of their bonuses, or immobilized, so that your sword-wielding national troops could come in and kill them.

With these five things, Ulm will be able for force her enemies to fight with troops. Ulms troops, which, under the right circumstances, are superior, can fight toe to toe and hopefully prevail.

Tada, Ulm becomes viable as a MP proposition - and it is still your steel and sinews that win the day, not magic, which you use only to level the playing field.

[SelfishGene]

Nah, spells aren't thematic with Ulm.

What Ulm needs is some kind of sacred antimagic troop, immune to all elemental attacks and with a magic weapon. Maybe make them lifeless recruitable units?

[Burnsaber]

I think that this MA Ulm discussion has reached a boiling point; it is scattered along many threads and all have something to say on the issue. This derails threads and makes following the over-all discussion difficult.

I thought this thread was about what is the most powerful nation, not about Ulm?

I can't force you to do so, but I think it would serve the community's best intrests to move this discussion to a single thread;

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

[DrPraetorious]

What Ulm needs is some kind of sacred antimagic troop, immune to all elemental attacks and with a magic weapon. Maybe make them lifeless recruitable units?

That is exactly what Ulm does *not* need.

Ulm is a nation of men, with human failings (and then some, but that's a distinct question), fighting against hordes of magic wielding demons, evil animated statues and malevolent warlocks, with only steel and sinew, and some magic available in a limited, supporting role. If you give them killer robots, yeah, they might then be a competitive nation - of killer robots.

And thence I will continue in the new thread