Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

Because after several testbed in SP i am really afraid of the bare power of the vampire count factory...

Anyone with an experience in MP to tell ?

( test bed by rather inexperienced newby player : first count at T5, equipped by T7 ( and prophetised ), second T9, third T 11, fourth... donc care so much because 3 of them are already a mere nightmare and largely taking back the slow start ( i.e. no territorial expansion until T7... )

Turn/Province: 1-6/1; 7/2; 8/3; 9/4; 10/6; 11/8; 12/11; 13/14 ....

And that only using CV and not trying to develop and use standard army with the gold and ressource stockpile I start having.... ))

That the reason why I am asking for realplay tale because I just cant see a way to stop the 1 man army juggernaut...

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

I can tell you my current MP game forbade it. Has anyone figured out good counters to BF Ulm yet?

~Aldin

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Can the Priest line (esp Marignon) not handle them?

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK, I must have missed a part here. What's so strong about the Vampire Count? I gave BF Ulm a try, and sure, they're cool enough, but my Vamps were very far from taking Provinces all by themselves. Did you give them very specific equipment?

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

IMO Vampire Counts are out of whack as far as 'balance' is concerned.

Vampire Counts can take provinces on their own as long as you take the right ones http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Try using your initial gem income in Black Forest to it's full effect. That would be Death, Nature, and Astral.

You can have a Count taking provinces very easily with a Barkskin Amulet, Pendant of Luck, and Horror Helmet.

It's a logistical nightmare very, very early with Vampire Counts in the game (on a semi-small map, turn 8-10, you will be fighting them with your PD unless your opponent has a reason not to)

Ways to stop it are in having a high dominion (so the VC's MR drops so low they can be banished), playing Marignon and using a few Paladins (for Holy Pyre on hit) or fielding a large enough army or good enough pretender to break past the luck/ethereal/life drain they have early.

On top of that BF has an incredible but limited selection of troops (Rangers and Ghouls) and access to stealthy low cost blood hunters, which makes them really start to churn out the Vampires and Lesser Horrors.

With the fix of the Lesser Horror spell, it makes it much easier to take provinces with blood.

It may not be 'overpowered' per say. But you have to be prepared and it can catch you off guard/make your life hell/destroy your economy unless you can contain the VC's quickly. Which is relatively hard considering that, in the early game, you won't have access to the # of Gems, levels of magic, to strike at a VC before it traipses off and away from you. Plus the VC's get really quite nasty when the BF player hits Const 4.

[ January 28, 2004, 19:40: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The speed of expansion up to turn 13 is not very impressive. I can easily do better with most nations.

Did you use a Blood Fortune boosted with Death as a Pretender? Or a Vampire Queen? Both require some investment of nation points. The former might be immobile in future patch, forcing you blood-hunt in the capital.

Just like PhilD, I don't find Vampire Counts overwhelming. Useful and immortal but because of their low hitpoint, they seem to be weak comparing to most supercombatants. How did you equip them? I can think of way to make them powerful enough but they're beyond the reach of early stage BF magic.

VC can be dealt with in many ways. Other than banishment, they're also very vulnerable to "Dust to Dust" (cheap level 1 spell). Easier yet, just pin them down with a bunch of archers or longbows.

BF Ulm is thematically cool and very stealthy. But they're also very limited in magic choice. Their principle mages have only 2 astral, no random pick. Fortune Teller has only 1 astral and 1 random - talk about Magic-Duel bait.

There are tricks to make BF Ulm a formidable nations but it doesn't seem to be overpowered to me.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

The speed of expansion up to Turn 6 is just as fast as any other fast expanding nation baring an instant SC (Like a Fire Dragon). After that, the cheapeness of Rangers and high production of Ulm making your 3rd and 4th armies, to hyperexpand will outpace most other nations, especially when you throw VC into the mix after turn 7-8.

In a good starting position I've had BF Ulm expand without a SC as fast as one with a Fire9 Dragon until they reached that cap then they surpass it.

In a bad starting position they do less well, but better than other nations who cannot mass xbows (Thus they can take Heavy Cav provinces if they want to risk it and know what they are doing).

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Priests are only good against massed weak undead, like longdead and soulless. They are too inaccurate for single powerful targets.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

Expansion speed can seems standard... except that this is ONLY with the VC, not taing into account the standard troups I doesnt care to use.

And the biggest problem is that this speed is EXPONANTIAL until BF meet the oppenent main army...

For this test build I made a pretty simple FoB pretender, cheap with Blood maxed and some death ( so I ususally get 16 to 20 Blood slave each hunt, alternating a hunt with a research until I reach CON 2 and get only on the blood.. ).

I think the barkskin amulet isn't as important as an Antimagic one, early on. But even just the helmet and 1 pendant of luck is enough to start cleaning indies. Put the vamp in attack rear, indies charge forward to the thrall, indies leader die, rince and repeat.

Afterward you can better equip the second CV and each one after and reequip the first one when he reach a map border.

Having the first VC as great prophet is a nice plus, especially if you care to build a starting dominion of 10. Being immortal and a source of dominion make him extra hard to kill... and the HP boost mean he reach the 100s HPs mark after 2 or 3 fight usually.

I tried with the VQ and even if a bit slower in the slave the ability to add 1 vampire with each VC seriously boost their combat impact. Just imagine 2 or 3 VC operating together...

Priest can be good but definitely not so... VC have extra high MR and enough objet to take care of it, and really like to strike deep to the throat ... Against Paladin I guess giving them the right order will be hard. And dont forget that by the time VC reach a sizable force of Paladin he definitely wont be alone again.

Also remember that if the map is a bit crowded you will have to fight them EARLY, and as each one is a big trouble they will be chain produced by turn 15 at Last and by this time will probably be added with some devils/vampires or other .

And I want to point out I am just a NEWBIE with a week of experiment.. and a knack on statistics and planing.... But into the hand of experienced player...

BTW BF Ulm should devote to construction above all else IMNSHO, forget about ressources, forget about gold, forget about population .. or somewhat. What you are producing is uber vampire, and mages to craft item research better for them. By the time your opponent have them under control.. if they do, your territory will be large enough for you to take on with your more conventionnals armies.

As an example I got several time troups desertion before turn 8 in my first tests, but it just doesnt matter, having 100+ unrest in your only one starting territory isn't even that bad, because in 1 turn or 2 you will be making plenty more.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

The Barkskin Amulet is to stop the mass Javelin/Arrow that will often take out Ethereal and Luck creatures by sheer numbers. It's an important survivability tool early on and since Vampires already come with Regeneration you don't have to save them for Rings of Regeneration and can spend them semi-frivilously, depending on the Setting of Indeps.

Your normal army is as fast as any other out there in expansion. So don't leave that out of your tests. If all you had to deal with were the Vampires, it would be simple. But you do not always want to send them solo in against an opponent. And massive softening of human players with Rangers, then having the VC fly in and start letting his fear affect everything, most will break.

The key to indeps and expansion early on is learning morale and how to abuse it.

As for the mages, Nether Darts are just fine in my book, and easy access to communion makes them able to cast larger amounts of different spells. And can take advantage of things like Light of the Northern Star for stellar cascades, star fires, antimagic (an important one midgame) and other nice spells.

Without access to Elemental magic they are limited and you have to take that into account when you are building your pretender. Also I don't like the limitations of the FoB, it is nearly as easy using a VQ, GK, or Liches in order to take advantage of the VCs, while trying to give you a little elemental magic (I prefer Earth).

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

I'm with YWL and PhilD. I simply don't see Black Forest as overpowered, or even one of the best factions.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

A few random thoughts:

1) BF Ulm *is* powerful. But to me, it's more because of the cheap (and stealthy!) crossbow, free wolves and other good units. VCs are more like icing on the cake. But on the other hand, I'm not very good with Blood. My estimation could be off.

But still, all of these advantages are from regular troops which are more useful in early game. With the weak mage of BF Ulm, the late game is hard to say. Balance in late game is very hard to test with solo as AIs don't have enough varieties of tactics.

2) In most MP games I played, most indies were taken before turn 20. So, I don't know how well IKerensky's expansion speed will manage in such situation.

3) BF Ulm doesn't have cheap blood hunters. The Second Tier has one Blood and cost 190 gold. It's reasonable but far from cheap. You might get one Blood with Fortune-Teller but the chance is 1/4. But for course, I agree that Fortune-Tellers are good units even though they're vulnerable to "Mind-Duel"

4) VCs are not really very good platform for super-combatants. They have too few hitpoints and immortality doesn't help because you want to fight under enemy dominions. Moreover, even when he's immortal, any temporary kill will cost you the items on him (if you didn't win the battle). It's not a small loss.

More importantly, you want your super-combatant to actually *kill* your enemies, rather than routing them. A VC doesn't kill fast enough with Life Drain. You can make him reasonably powerful using the "Snake Poison Bladder". Doable for BF Ulm and not a bad idea at all (just Construction 4). "Soul Vortex" is great but it's Alteration 6.

But still, a VC should be easily overwhelmed by unroutable undeads, vine creatures or earth magic constructs. All of these are lifeless - do anybody know how much they're affected by the VC's lifedrain?

Moreover, if your enemies have "Flaming Arrows", "Flaming Weapons" from blessing, body ethereal won't help. All Ice weapons of Caelum should (still) be considered magical. Your VC will be sitting duck versus a few Caelum infantries, provided that they don't rout http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . Etherealness doesn't help versus most spells neither, one "Blade Wind", a few "Orb Lightning", "Solar Ray" or a single "Fireball" could easily wipe out your puny 25 hitpoints.

These are all the basic vulnerablity in additional to those specially for the undeads... A single VC is reasonable powerful but it won't be a juggernaut versus any non-indies. Ten might be different - but well, with 440 blood slaves, you could have 17 "Horde from Hell", 8 Ice Devils. All are mighty armies.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

The reason that the VC is powerful in my mind and should be illustrated is because it requires no research to get. The multiplayer dominance is not because of one VC against them. but 4, 5, and on and on, shotgunning all over your territories tearing down economy, before they have a chance to field anything similiar.

Scouts = Blood Hunters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I'm sorry if I didn't illustrate it well enough. And you can use the 2nd Tier for initial blood hunting to get your first few VC's.

Flaming Arrows, Curse, Paralyze, Blindness, Low MR and being banished, Vengance of the Dead, etc, etc.

What it does do is provide a basis of hyper-expansion that will let you build massive armies of Rangers and Infantry (your real army) and masses of Raiding Vampires.

I can't say late game against a human opponent, but I've almost always found a very strong initial expansion provides you with the resources for a stronger mid-to-late game. And it's hard to say in large games if you won't fubar your diplomacy or look the wrong way and get double or triple teamed. How else could we consider 'balance' for any other nation based on 'length'?

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can't drain life from lifeless things like elementals, constructs, etc. One of the more obvious and effective counters.

The relatively low stats on Vampire Counts, plus the plethora of counters makes them not big deal IMHO. Many nations can put equipment on one of their leaders, and end up with a "supercombatant" at least as good as a Vampire Count, especially if they have good bless effects. An equipped Vanadrotte, Tuatha, or Jotun Jarl would destroy a Vampire Count for example. Hell, even a Centaur Heirophant could probably do the job.

Black Forest is good, and the best Ulm variant by far, but I just don't see enough bang per buck out of the Vampire Counts for them to be even close to overpowered. They make decent raiders and fodder generators, but they don't exactly strike fear into my heart.

Plus, there's not a very long window betwen the point you can field them equipped, and when people start fielding things like Ice Devils, which are definitely superior.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well said! I've never seen a TBS game where rapid initial expansion wasn't the most important aspect of the game by far.

Anything that allows this to be sped-up, even a little, is a huge advantage in general.

[ January 29, 2004, 05:11: Message edited by: diamondspider ]

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Priests are only good against massed weak undead, like longdead and soulless. They are too inaccurate for single powerful targets. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But, iIrc, Grand Inquisitors and Inquisitor Prophets can smite.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

Don't overlook the new smite demon spell. Now it only takes level 3 priests to smite when fighting undead such as VC's. I can see that causing them some injury.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Priests are only good against massed weak undead, like longdead and soulless. They are too inaccurate for single powerful targets. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But, iIrc, Grand Inquisitors and Inquisitor Prophets can smite. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, it takes Holy 5 to smite.

Carmont the Cardinal (Marignon national hero) can smite, and so can a High Inquisitor Prophet, or one using the Sword of Justice. But no nation can get very many smite-capable priests.

On the other hand, if you just have to deal with a couple of Vampire Counts with few or no supporting troops, Smite might work quite well. You might also consider Incinerate (if the VC doesn't have a fire immunity item), but that takes research.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

I lost an unequipped vc against about 10 indep militia, so they are not that strong unequipped.
But they are immportal and stealthy and flying, hard to pin down with an army... should do well as raiders. Marignon should be able to kill them easily with their starting spell holy pyre.

Ice devils are cool, but there can never be more than 7(?) in the game. There can be endless amounts of vcs.

The rangers have 12 hp, 12 base precision, crossbows have a +2 pre modifier, and stealth. The best missile troop in the game I think. They are better than longbows or marignon crossbows... on the other hand, those have easy access to wind guide / flaming arrows which might compensate.

Late game fun: 100 unequipped vampire counts in friendly dominion with orders to cast blood vengeance, cast soul vortex, attack http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I think rangers need to cost more, and there should perhaps be a limit on how many vampire counts can exist at the samt time, like ice devils are limited. Perhaps max 3 at the same time since you wont have several nations competing for them.

Otoh they are not that good later on... so something to lower the early effectiveness might be better. Maybe fewer equipment slots, can anyone think up a thematic reason for this?

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">We can't even agree on whether or how much VC is overpowered here yet. We need some MP game to test it before limiting its power http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Afterall, without the VC, BF Ulm is very limited in magic. Their mages did worse than the standard Ulm in battle except for those astral-death fortune tellers, which you can get only 1/4 of the time. The Earth-Fire combination of the standard Master Smith is very powerful in battle.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Why should rangers cost more? Stealth doesn't cost much if any extra on any other units that have it, and they have no better physical stats than any other Ulm unit.

Limiting vampire counts to three at a time would mean that you should also limit dusk elders to three at a time. After all, other than flying and immortality they both have about the same combat stats. That would totally destroy any chances that Black Forest Ulm might have, as the counts are _not_ that powerful. Magic will easily remove them from any battlefield, as BF Ulm doesn't have easy access to rainbow armor, and they are still very vulnerable to the undead destroying spells.

[ January 29, 2004, 15:43: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

I just want too say I love Black Forest Ulm and
that is because it has a very uniqe playing style

The vcs arent overpowered , but are good thugs.
The rangers are awesome and the mages are cheap but mkay.

So the conclusion they are not overpowerd(dont forget the forced misfortune and death)but a very good natiob worth playing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

hmm.. good points... and bf ulm does not really have anything worthwile other than rangers and vampire counts. I also noticed that you can summon slightly better vampires for a bit higher cost with blood6, the difference being that blood6 takes a while.

I'll withdraw my suggestions untill someone gets some multiplayer experience with them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

I recently played BF ulm in my nightly 3way multi game. Expansion is extremely rapid, using 2 or 3 pikeneers + 20 or so rangers, I had 3 conquering armies out soon (the first one fizzled once its infantry support died as it only had 12 rangers) and by turn 11 I had 16 or 17 provinces conquered. I had my first VC on turn 8, however I choose a vamp queen for my pretender. Im not sure I used my VC's correctly but to be honest they did not seem very powerful. With the fountain of blood, do people hunt in their home province or do they somehow teleport the fountain somewhere else? I can see that using the fountain in your home province must really cramp early expansion via rangers so I dunno if the fountain is really worth it.

I churned out 3 VC's by turn 14 I think and from then on all new VC's blood hunted. In anycase, the only thing that saved me from my Ctis neighbor to the south were my rangers. The VC's were fragile in the extreme even with barkskin luck and a horror helm.

Secondly, as far as I can tell BF Ulm has horrible infantry. Low morale on your living units means they route if someone so much as passes wind in their general direction. Mixing thralls and ghouls in with your living troops bolsters their morale, but a few turns into combat with more than a couple priests and those undead are all but wiped out.

I was essentially relying soley on rangers with whatever fodder infantry I could plant in front with VC's holding as long as possible before attacking rear.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

BF Ulm reminds me of Diabolic Faith Marignon (crossbows, pikemen, etc.) but with weaker mages and an actually useful starting blood summon. However, any power of Vampire Counts is really only early game, and using blood for early game expansion isn't so great, as blood magic tends to be slow starting.
Against human players archers can destroy thralls very quickly, and I'd bet a lvl 3 priest or two hiding behind some front units can kill a Count pretty easily...he can't resist smite demon forever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I'm actually kinda curious how effective demons in general are now that there's another spell designed specifically to counter them, especially since it looks rather effective.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You sure that a count counts as a demon?

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

I was pretty sure it hit all undead, but honestly I haven't checked. I probably should.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

The main person I was fighting mostly was Ctis, he had a King turned prophet casting banish the occasional smite and never smite/banish demon on my VC's and it didnt seem like they were effected very much at all. Serpent dancers are the units that generally killed my VC's quickly. However his holy 5 prophet king was DECIMATING my thralls and ghouls. My regular troops routed almost instantly whenever they came into contact without undead backup. I was forced to rely heavily on paralyze and rangers since my melee units were only a buffer that Lasted a couple of turns behond hold position.

Re: Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are you calling Harlequins useless? No research, 1 blood slave, can be summoned by an 80 gold diabolist with no items, flying, beats most normal troops in hand to claw combat. I wouldn't call that useless. Granted they're no Fiend of Darkness, but what do you expect for 1/5 the cost?

Black Forest would love to have Inquisitors, but on the other hand, DF would love to have Rangers (more accurate than Marignon crossbows, IIRC - and stealthy to boot) and Wolfherds. To say nothing of super-durable Ulmish infantry instead of the nearly as resource intensive but much more mortal Marignon infantry.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Unless you have a no-research blood summon and are using a strong blood pretender.

Multiple hunts in the same province will drive your unrest up quickly, but a single hunter won't do that much. Blood hunt unrest in Dom II seems to depend more on the number of hunters than on the number of slaves they collect (in Dom I it was the reverse).
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not all nations have effective archers - or level 3 priests, either. And practically no nations have them everywhere - isn't the VC flying and stealthy? You don't have to use a brute force approach with him (although you can, especially against independents).