Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

Nub question: Can someone clarify what, if anything, was changed about plate? Is Black Plate more viable now?

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

Less fatigue penalty, less defense penalty.

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

Black Plate lost one or two points of encumberance, got one or two points of protection and the defense malus went down by a point or two. Slight changes, but especially the encumberance change helps a lot.

As for the units, all troops with Black Plate got +1 morale, giving Black Plate infantry 11 and pikeneers 12 morale.

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

That helps a lot. May at least make Ulm's troops competitive. I would have been tempted to call the Black Plate troops elite, bump their cost up slightly and give them better attack and defense. But the morale and armor improvements are very nice.

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

They are not supposed to be elites, just armored.

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

I understand that's the current state.
It was a justification for making them a little better, besides the armor. Along the lines of "Don't waste the good armor on the regular troops."

Can't wait to try out the new version.

Thanks

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

It sort of puts the black plates on an elite-ish level, for heavy inf, though.

I'd like to see the results of the heavy inf comparison tests with the new black plates. Black plates v an equal gold value of principes, for example. I bet black plates would do significantly better now.

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

It should be pointed out that Ulm now has a level-2 priest and can now actually cast Sermon of Courage, so the morale issue is much less of a problem.

I'm a little surprised Priest Smiths don't get any randoms, though. The sacred researcher and stronger Iron Darts/Blizzard are nice options to have, but to get the random picks for forging you need to build lots of Master Smiths. (From the description it also sounds like the Priest Smiths don't share the immunity to Drain.) It's nice, though, to have capital-only units worth getting.

Inevitable question: Black Lord vs. Lord Guardian for early game thug.(All this cheap forging needs to be put on SOMETHING, right, sinces its a big part of Ulm you'd prolly want to get them into action before powerful summons are available.)

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

Ulm's level 2 priest is cap only and competes with their best researcher, who is actually drain immune, the Smith Priest. I don't see people actually building them and using them for sermons.

Re: Halt Heretic - Opinions
 

Some thoughts:

Iron Darts/Blizzard are EH spells. If you make a prophet out of an earth mage, he or she will be able to cast Iron Darts and Blizzard. For example, you could prophetize a witch and have her cast Eagle Eyes for +5 Precision bonus. It should be nice for non-area spells.

Priest Smith has only 15 leadership instead of 45, and only 9 MR ! Not counting randoms, Priest Smith has the same paths as ordinary smith, and spellcasters tend to have very good MR. What's wrong here ?

Siege Engineer, Smith, Priest Smith have 10 HP, but all other Ulmish commanders have at least 12 HP. This includes black priests, who spend their time looking important instead of heavy physical work or warfare !!

Ghoul Guardians don't have castle defence bonus. Intended ? It may have been this way earlier.