LA Ulm, Blood and Steel Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

This is yet another Ulm mod, and my first, this time with a bit of a Prussian bent (though more of inspiration than anything else). You can download it here.

The idea for the mod was to produce a nation which was powerful in combat, but with weak magic otherwise. It's evolved since then, but I think the core of that idea is still there. Despite the epithet, you do not have access to blood magic.

Comments or suggestions are, of course, welcome. I've done some minimal playtesting (enough to ensure nothing was immediately overpowered) but more eyes are always welcome to determine where the nation is too strong or too weak. I had initially planned to give the nation a sacred unit with a niche use, but couldn't come up with a good enough idea to implement.

More content will likely come in the future - at the very least sacreds, but also probably more units and perhaps more spells or national items/summons/pretenders.

----- VERSION HISTORY -----

---version 1.10 (28/12/2013)
--content
-new heroes - the Chancellor, Red Baron, Soldier King and multihero Philosopher
-new units - cap-only, sacred Royal Guard
-black priests given #fixforge 1 in preparation for making them more interesting
--fixes/tweaks
-various changes to flavor text
-pikeneers are morale 11 instead of base prot 11
-cuirassiers now cost fewer resources
-pikeneers, veteran infantry and halberdiers get formation fighter

Edited by: Darkwind3

Has this been updated?

Indeed it has! You've practically read my mind.

I've added a new capital-only sacred (the Royal Guard) and heroes for the nation, among other various fixes and tweaks. The Royal Guard are a bit unusual, especially for LA, but I enjoyed using them and they're not too out of place.

---version 1.10 (28/12/2013)
--content
-new heroes - the Chancellor, Red Baron, Soldier King and multihero Philosopher
-new units - cap-only, sacred Royal Guard
-black priests given #fixforge 1 in preparation for making them more interesting
--fixes/tweaks
-various changes to flavor text
-pikeneers are morale 11 instead of base prot 11
-cuirassiers now cost fewer resources
-pikeneers, veteran infantry and halberdiers get formation fighter

Since there already is a LA Ulm in the vanilla game, there's something regrettable about you putting this forward as LA Ulm too. Since the name on the vanilla nation won't change, I think it would be best to think up a different name for yours: something involving Ulmish Blacksteel, Prussia, Bavaria, Bohemia?

Also, it might be interesting to post a summary of the units/spells you're including, and how you think gameplay with these might be unique or interesting?

I agree that a different name might help, since there's already been some confusion over whether this is a new nation. That said, the best I can think of off the top of my head would be "New Ulm", which doesn't really catch anyone's interests. If you have a good suggestion, I'd be happy to hear it!

As for the units and spells, a quick summary is simple enough, and I'm willing to elaborate on anything if you're curious.

Units:

• Most of your army is the same as MA or LA Ulm's lineup, and I won't cover the shield infantry, pikeneers and so on individually. These troops all gained mapmove 2, 10 MR, formation fighter, and morale 11, though, to represent the discipline of your army. Mapmove 2 matters slightly less than it might have in Dominions 3, but it's still pretty useful. The only unusual change was giving Ulm's crossbowman Precision 12 and an actual crossbow, since arbalests aren't really worth the opportunity cost.
• Arquebusiers are militia with guns. They're by far the cheapest of your troops in terms of resource cost, but are completely ineffective at dealing with heavy armor or shields, because if they could your army would be composed of 90% militia. That said, they're reasonably effective at killing low-protection troops.
• Veteran Infantry were initially meant to be your sacred troops, but I prefer this incarnation more. Veteran Infantry improve your already-excellent morale and are decent soldiers in their own right. They're probably not an integral part of your army, but they're useful to have.
• Cuirassiers fill Blood and Steel's heavy cavalry niche (or maybe superheavy infantry, given their lack of lances). They aren't as elite as Black Knights, but they're also substantially cheaper.
• Royal Guards are sacred, but they're not meant to be worth a heavy bless. That said, dual-wielding elite infantry in LA opens up some options, since they are very good at killing things (probably better than anything else you can recruit) and can take a decent amount of punishment. They lack repel or a shield, though, so they will get hit back.

Mages:

• Arcane Marshals are your best mages and give you access to very high Fire and Earth magic for the battlefield, as well as some A/W and the crosspaths those allow (Rain of Stones, anyone?). All of their crosspaths have some useful ability
• Admirals are your only access to W2 and S1, as well as sailing (though you can't bring cavalry along!). They offer some strategic maneuverability and the ability to diversify into other paths, but compete with your other capital-only mages, the Arcane Marshals and the Black Priests.
• Black Priests are honestly not as interesting as I'd like right now. E1H2 means you'll only be recruiting a couple at most, even with fixforge 1. I'm planning to give them unique spells and perhaps items to forge, to make them more useful in the future.
• Warmages are your recruit-everywhere mages and have easy access to all the combat magic in F/W/E (perhaps too easy?). The line about being able to cast better spells is actually a reference to the spell "Steel Discipline". They don't get any bonus other than that, but I wanted to direct the player's attention towards that spell, even if it's not necessary to cast decent combat spells for most of them.
• Junkers are mostly troop ferriers with magic paths. You can pump them out from any province with a lab, though, and 75% will have E1 to cast some battle magic, so they can potentially be an efficient way to convert gold to spells. If you're desperate, W and E are not bad paths for thugging, though they're not a great chassis.
• I won't bother going through the heroes individually, given their rarity, except to say that they're all meant to give the nation access to something it didn't have before. Hopefully their uses will be obvious if you get one.

Spells:

• Steel Discipline: This spell is meant to be a cornerstone of the nation. It's an E1 Power of the Spheres that doesn't cost gems. That said, it may currently be somewhat irrelevant - it's not necessary for any of your mages to lay down heavy Evocation spam, and is probably most useful for your Arcane Marshals to cast Fire/Flame Storm or Army of Lead natively.
• Halt Heretics: an H1 spell that paralyzes sacred units, modeled off of Word of Power. Blood and Steel doesn't get guardians or ghoul guardians, so I decided to give the player an extra way to deal with annoying sacreds.

That wasn't nearly as short as I thought it was going to be. Regardless, your thoughts and suggestions on balance or the usefulness of the various units and commanders would be appreciated. The most important thing I want to do is ensure that the nation is fun to play and fun to play against, and I'm not qualified to tell you whether you're having fun. If you're not, please tell me!

Steel Discipline sounds really powerful, and also strangely named, seeing as it has only to do with magic, and not at all with steel. I don't think it would be irrelevant at all, as it makes summon earthpower available to every E1 mage, so even your black priests (who become H3 too) and junkers will be slinging heavy spells right away, all for just 40 extra fatigue. This runs strongly against Ulm's traditional anti-magic stance.

The main thing I've enjoyed about playing Ulm generally is the forge discounts in a handful of paths. As long as you're marketing this as somehow Ulm-related, it would probably make sense to give forge discounts to something more than just an E1 priest.

I'm tempted to suggest recoloring the sprites to some sort of gold/black/red and renaming the nation entirely, so it'll seem less like a remix of Ulmish units and also could free you to depart more from ulmish traditions (like being anti-magical). Civ 5 has landsknecht as a special german unit -- might be worth thinking about including that somehow.

E1 free PotS means your E1H2 casters get to E3 for free. That's quite a big deal, because there is a lot of stuff at E3 in terms of Evocation and Alteration, much, much more than at E2.

Name-wise, don't call it Ulm at all, give it its own name. LA Prussen or whatever gives a pretty good indication of what you're in for?

Edited by: jBrereton

Power of the Spheres no longer increases Holy magic, and every mage you recruit except for your admirals and 1/4 of junkers will have at least E1. One in six warmages actually have E3 base, which I may change in the future, given as you've said Ulm's typically low-key magic.

As for renaming suggestions - I'll think about it, but I'm doubtful. I like the idea of the nation as a sort of alternate Ulm, so I'd prefer just to deal with the gap between expectation and reality currently exists. Is the lack of forge bonuses the major element that makes the nation feel like it isn't really an Ulm, or are there other things as well?

MR and morale changes, new weapons, totally new mages, and lack of Blood magic and vampires make it pretty different to LA Ulm. Having a few copied sprites from base Ulm and a similar focus on high-resource units isn't going to make people lose their shit if you call it something different, quite the opposite.

You can probably just call it LA Ulm Reborn, seeing as it seems to me like you're making a LA Ulm that survived the Malediction.
I do feel though that your mages don't really fit the theme you're trying to make, your national version of power of the spheres is especially strange considering you're saying that this nation of yours avoids magic.

Perhaps you can give them lower magic stats, but add the #mastersmith + #fixforgebonus to help cement the "Ulm" flavor.
If you really wanted them to be more magically diverse, perhaps just give your mages another ~10-30% chance #custommagic