Is black plate worth it?
 

I like the MA Ulm *shtick*, but in practice I find them not so good. I think the reason is that so many of their cool looking units seem pretty useless in practical terms.

With all the missile weapons out there, shields seem absolutely crucial, so I end up not building the cool looking pikes.

More importantly, I don't find the black plate all that usefull. In the beginning, it's too expensive, and the chainmail guys get the job done nicely. Later on, black plate is nice and all, but by then spells are doing the job and the black plate boys aren't that usefull any more.

I do see some use for black plate armor to build up an early pretender, but later on you want better armor with more bonuses beyond protection.

So, do any of you have a different experience? It's a shame playing ulm and seeing their cool units unused.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

You have correctly summed MA Ulm up jaif.

Of all the nations in the game MA Ulm should have got some patch goodness.

Its probably the weakest nation now across all 3 ages. There have been loads of posts on it but MA Ulm stays the same...oh well.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I think the biggest thing missing from the game that could change these things is terrain at the tactical level. Every battle starts with people forced to cross open ground in the face of ranged attacks.

I wonder how hard it would be to add "battlefield tactics" to the mix. Every stack has a designated commander (highest leadership rating? commands most troops?), and that commander makes a tactics roll against the opponent. The winner of the roll decides whether to start at close or far range, and in good or bad weather. These would be preset choices (defaulted to far range, clear), and the winner gets one or both, depending on how well he wins.

Sorry, I digress. But I'd really like to see an opportunity for me to use waves of pikemen for something other than showing off.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I also see very little difference between Fire Plate and Red Dragon Scale Mail...

Fire Plate = 5 Fire gems
Red Dragon Scale Mail = 10 Fire gems, 1 less encumberance and 25% better fire protection.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Well, unless you're facing alot of crossbows(and even then it isn't as bad as it could be) or giant/formorian javelins you're blackplate pikemen shouldn't really have to worry about missile weapons but still...

I agree with Meglo.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I've always felt Black Plate should provide some magic resistance. If Ulm is so anti-magic, then they should have some defense against it. Plus, just the imagery of Black Plate - black absorbs all light, reflecting none - absorbs magic. I dunno, seems thematically right to me.

If the weakness of MA Ulm is no magic, then their strength should be that they negate magic. I would also love to see an assassin type unit that's a mage-killer, like in the Malazan novels by Stephen Erickson, where there is this one person, the Adjunct or something who had a sword that made it impossible for mages to cast spells. Or even an inherent ability where the more Ulmish troops there are together, the harder they make it on the battlefield for mages to cast spells (it can be modeled by increasing fatigue for casting and raising spell failure).

This would benefit Dominions strategically, as since it is so focused on magic, especially in the late game, an Ulmish strategy would negate the advantage of magic, forcing high magic/weak troops nations to find some way to compensate. It's the equivalent to the "tech" victory in a game like GalCiv, a nice refrain from the typical style of play.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I believe RD scale armor provides a larger moralte boost.

But I think, in some fairly-frequent circumstances, the 1 less encumbrance makes a significant difference. If you're trying to protect a spellcaster, the double-encumbrance-from-armor really adds up; if you have the gems to spare, you want to save every point of fatigue you can muster.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

There have been a few mods altering MA Ulm to strengthen them and make them more interesting.

I plan to add my own take on MA Ulm to the pile in the future. It will feature some nice antimagic as well as better (more interesting and usable) troops.

I'm going with a sort of Waffen SS / Death Metal feel.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I've always thought Ulm was there for new players to use. It's a good nation to play when you don't know much about the game, and less about magic and research. I don't know that it was ever intended to be a good nation for multiplayer. The lack of upgrades to Ulm would seem to support this.

In my Single Player games though, they have often surprised me. I mostly ignore them and focus on research, and then they try to overwhelm me with thousands of very tough troops. I've even been beaten by them a few times in SP.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

See this thread, everything one can say about MA Ulm has probably already been said there.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...art=1&vc=1

Since KO hasn't given any comments on the issue, they will probably be left the way they are. In my humble opinion, it's quite sad that there is nation that is a instant loss when picking random nation in MA.

Oh, don't recruit the Blacksteel Infantry, just the regular ones. The regular ones are actually better. I'm not kidding.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Instead of endless pondering and argueing, you could simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :
[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm

I have done a little bit to improve Black Steel Armor, therefore any feedback is appreciated. Thanks, and have fun !

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Black plate should give a lower encumbrance penalty as well as providing high protection. Thats the point of good armor. Anyone can make highly protective armor if it is not a requirment that the wearer needs to be able to move. If black plate causes such high encumbrance why in themetic terms is it concidered good armor?

Plus I think that a good themetic way to fix ulm is to give them catapullts and siege engines. These can be researched in the construction path, and created by the smiths. You can have different kinds such as
- ballistas that do high level damage to a single target (ROF every three rounda)
-catapults that shoot boulders with AOF 1
-catpults that fire burning pitch which has the effect of low fire damage to a wide area of effect
-and battling rams which are slow moving tramplers.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Taking the idea of Ulm's research into technology instead of magic even further would be to give them gunpowder units. This idea is anathema to many, however, from a thematic standpoint.

But I quite like the gunpowder units the Warhammer Empire Army gets, for example.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Just so you know, I'm currently working on a Warhammer Empire nation for Dom3, to follow on from Skaven and Ogre Kingdoms, but all the gunpowder tech is being replaced by stuff which fits in with dom3.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

They have sappers, so they can handle sieges.

I've been thinking about this overnight. If you want to fix ulm without adding new rules and staying within the general framework of the game and the nation, then I think they need the following.

1) Sergeants. Same as commanders of ulm, but leader 10 with standards. Make good thugs for small units.

2) Better black steel available at construction-4 and construction-8. This black steel should have added benefits like encumbrance reduction, fire/cold/shock resistance, etc.

3) Ritual spells that upgrade black steel armor for a gem cost, stats consistant with #2. So at con-4 you get a single-target ritual, and con-5 you get a multi-target ritual (so you can upgrade 10 people's black plate at once).

With these changes, a) ULM can take advantage of their item construction better by making cheap thugs, b) those thugs can help their units (via standards), c) give them a different flavor by having a late-game army of small, high-prot units, and d) make black steel plate a thing for mid-to-late game as well.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I like commanders with standards. Or just a general morale boost: We are all elite troops! And we know it!
Or just for the Black Plate troops. Boost their skills too. Elite troops get the best armor.

Make it the best mundane armor. It's supposed to be Ulm's great discovery, but the consensus is the chain mail troops are better. Boost the protection, drop the fatigue. Make those troops dangerous in the early game. They'll still fall to double bless, or elephants, or SC pretenders, but everyone else should have serious problems facing them with troops.

Sidetracked, I was supposed to be commenting on jaif's ideas.
1) Mini thugs and standards. I like.

2) Not really modable. No nation specific item changes.

3) Nor this. No way I know of to mod spells that upgrade items.
Both would require changes to the game engine.

But, you could fake some of it, by making spells that summon troops/commanders with that better armor. Conceptually, the troop are recruited normally and the gem cost goes to the armor, but mechanically it's a summon.

They should be cheap, because they're still vulnerable humans under the gear. The troops will be little more than a good meat shield in the mid game and the commanders low-end thugs, but still a nice addition.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Can a spell remove an item and create another in its place?
Can a spell remove a unit and create another in its place?

If those two are too difficult, then black plate is doomed in the long run unless someone spots a cool tactic. It's just that prot 20 vs 17 is not a big deal when the fireballs are zipping around, or when panic is rampant.

But hopefully the leader 10 thugs could help. A cheap chassis for the cheap items, that also enhances the troops.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I have argued the same points - specifically that MA Ulm should have a high MR instead of a lower MR. Other posters have mentioned that KO has ruled out such MR changes (though I haven't seen a post from KO stating such anywhere).

Give the Ulmish really good MR instead of really bad MR and they suddenly don't suck near as bad.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

But they already basically negate most mundane weapons. If they negated magic *too* they'd be invincible (except for trample).

Don't forget that they can push drain-3, which raises MR and increases fatigue costs for enemy casters. (Are their own mages immune to the fatigue penalty as well as the research penalty?) And they have Tempering the Will for MR, if you know you're going to need it.

It would be nice if they had some national spell that was like Curse of Stones for mages only, though. All magical energy becomes more difficult to access and spellcasting becomes 50% more fatiguing for the remainder of the battle. (And their own mages have earthpower to partly compensate...)

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I did a test like so:

40 Ulm Inf (w/ morningstars) v 40 Man spearmen
I did that 3 times.

40 Ulm Black Plates (w/morningstars) v 40 Man spearmen
I also did this one 3 times.

Results:

The Ulm Inf killed an average of 20.33 spears and lost an average of 3.67 inf.
The Ulm Black Plates killed an average of 14.0 spears and lost an average of 5.33 black plates.

Ulm won all 6 battles.

I actually prefer the black plates, myself, but my data here sure doesn't support that conclusion. I predict that it's the encumbrance value that's bringing down the black plates, because this sort of fight is of the long, tedious beat-down sort. Against something like heavy cav, the Black Plates would do much better, I'd imagine. Maybe I'll run that test later.

But, still, I was surprised the black plates did so poorly here. They should be better than Inf of Ulm in every case, I think.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I couldn't disagree more strongly. It's already been proven that Ulmish infantry is not all that great.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Surely it looks like a bad/poor plug, but I would really like to recommend my mod to you all, as I've done quite a bit of the things you're talking about:

- improved base MR

- improved Black Steel Armor (for Ulm only)

- thug-able Sergeants of Ulm

- better thug-able Black Knights and Black Dukes of Ulm

- allied-summoning units

- improved smithes

- special, unlimited generic heros for thugging

Runs some tests/games and we'll see if this all helps at least somewhat, or if more creativity is needed to make Ulm at least somewhat en par with the other nations.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I seriously doubt black plate infantry would do better than chainmail infantry versus heavy cav, because they're more likely to be hit by the lances, which can punch through very high prot fairly easily and because of the heavy cav having both good def and prot, the fight would be a long one, meaning the black plate infantry would again get too tired.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Out of curiousity, which works better:
30 Wolf Tribe Warriors supporting 10 Black Plate Infantry w/Pikes, or 30 Wolf Tribe Warriors supporting 10 Infantry of Ulm w/Pikes?

The opposition would be standard level 5 indies.

As another comparison, Liazarden or Falchioneers, with two attacks per unit against 30 Black Plater or Full Infantry with Flails?

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

The black plate infantry would be better with the Wolf Tribe Warriors as they can take the arrows better. But if I had access to Wolf Tribe warriors as damage dealers, I'd probably recruit the morningstar + shield guys to act as meat shield. Flails and Wolftribes have the same niche (completely obliterating lightly armored troops), so they're probably not that good of a match. 2-h flailed infantry nukes shielded infantry, though.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Sombre, I guess I am saying that even if the Black Plates didn't do better in terms of kills/losses against the heavy cav, I would still prefer them to the chainmail guys. Because I believe that they would last longer against the cav, in terms of rounds, before they broke. Honestly, that is all I care about, their use as a meatshield. I'm never really expecting my black plates to actually be my damage-dealers.

Edit: But, I should test this to be sure. If they didn't last longer in a meat-shield situation, they would for sure be totally worthless.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

With that handy-dandy spreadsheet someone linked me to, and the wonderful rulebook, I took a look at what the fatigue penalty meant in practical terms. Note that the plate/chain prot values are 20/17, and the enc values are either 8/6 or 10/8, depending upon exact equipment. Note also I'm doing this from memory now, so please double check the numbers.

Working with the 10/8s...

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>round 1: no fatigue
round 2: plateboy has -1 def
round 3: plateboy has -2 def, -1 att, -1 crit
chainboy has -1 def, -1 att, -1 crit
round 4: plateboy has -3 def, -1 att, -2 crit
chainboy has -2 def, -1 att, -1 crit
round 5: plateboy has -4 def, -2 att, -2 crit
chainboy has -3 def, -1 att, -2 crit
round 6: plateboy has -5 def, -2 att, -3 crit
chainboy has -4 def, -2 att, -2 crit
round 7: plateboy has -6 def, -3 att, -4 crit
chainboy has -4 def, -2 att, -3 crit</pre><hr />

Again, note that plate vs chain is +3 prot, -3 def to start, unless I've missed something else. Note also that spears include repels, which makes combats go longer, which makes life worse for the unfit plateboys.

I don't see how you can justify spending 10 more resources for those units.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Without delving into the whole 'MA Ulm is worthless' discussion (that I strongly disagree with) let me address the original question about black plate. Just like almost everything in this game when it's usefulness is situational, but I find it quite useful for the simple fact that on a per gold basis the black plate infantry is some of the best meat shields available in a lot of circumstances. You throw a legions of steel on them and they do ignore all but very heavy attacks, and there is very little that can take them down without several hits apiece. Just try and face them with spears or light lances. This is a 10 gold unit.

Any time that you are gold constrained (a state I find myself in a good portion of any game) it's black plate all the way. Ulmish infantry is not there to deal damage, forget about the pikes and weapon choices as none of that is going to be terribly effective against anything but indies anyway. Ulmish infantry has one role - stand there and get hit over and over again, and it's a job they do well and a job the black plate boys do even better.

If you take production-3 and place your castles intelligently you'll have 3-400+ resources and with no real expensive stuff you should be able to crank 'em out steadily. Just realize that they are there to get hit, not to kill your opponents and bring something else to deal damage. Even as research progresses black plate infantry remains cost effective for this roll for quite a while because of their cost. Sure, laying down some thunderstrikes is gonna explode that black plate infantry but I'd much rather have that falling on my 10 gold infantry than 70 gold Vans. The thunderstrikes will end soon enough and at that cost I'll still have infantry left.

What do you do while the bad guys are flailing away ineffectively at your plate? Heck, Ulmish smiths are custom made to be effective combat mages. Real cheap, so you can have a bunch of them and not cry too much if some fall. Summon earth power so they've got reinvig. Destruction + blade wind = uuuuugly. Magma eruption (black plate guys are tough enough to even take a bit of friendly fire without dying). Earth meld those pesky water blessed troops. The Ulmish knights also can pack quite a wallop, just script them to hold and attack so they ride in on the flank after everybody is tied up on the infantry.

Heck, even in the late game the black plate infantry can be fairly effective, 30-40 of the flail guys backed by 2 smiths who cast respectively army of lead/gold + weapons of sharpness along with whatever other buffs you like is gonna be a *damn* effective squad for the cost - you can field dozens of these all day long without slowing whatever your main strategy is (bonus your boosted smiths can also cast petrify once they're done buffing the troops - fear no SCs teleporting in on you).

As far as the forgeable black plate it has one very important feature (same theme as the black plate infantry) - it's dirt cheap. Pesky opponent earthquaking your communions? Put black plate on all your mages and their survivability goes waaay up.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Btw, at a higher level this point is pretty much moot anyways, at least when it comes to ULM's power. Let's pretend that black plate is highly worthwhile, and thus ULM has better infantry and arbelists.

It doesn't matter. This factor is not going to make up for:

a) poor magic.
b) poor priests.
c) average regular commanders.

If you want to keep the theme of a magic-poor, steel-based civ, you really need to flesh out the non-magic units. More mechanical constructs at a lower level, more "thuggable" commanders (as someone here but it), more special commanders (patrol bonus, asssassins). Simply having better regular troops is not enough.

FWIW, I believe that Tien Chi's regular army is superior to ULMs. Heavy enough units, better choices, more flexible commander layout (with eunuch). I could probably make the same claim about a lot of armies.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Hehe, let's please not talk about the rest of Ulm, but just about the black plates. We have beaten that topic to death.

Baalz said:
I pretty much agree with this, but that's the whole discussion here is to figure out if this is true or not. People are arguing that Chainmail guys are superior in just about every conceivable situation.. an assertion that I'm having trouble disproving. I really thought that the black plates would have done better against the spearmen in my tests.

But there are other tests, like against powerful units, and other measures of success rather than just kills/losses. I'm thinking about putting them up against maybe giants or heavy cav and seeing how many rounds they can survive without breaking. If they don't survive longer than the chainmail guys, I'm going to accept that Black Plates suck.

Can you think of any other situation in which Black Plates might be better than Chainmail guys? If so, let's test it and prove these guys wrong.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Ok, you're right. The whole point to my starting this thread was to focus. My bad.

How about a test against armor-piercing stuff? Low-level evocation fire spells, crossbows. Maybe it's more useful there.

Pikes vs those invincible elephants?

How about against hoplites, or some other early-game heavy infantry. In general if you fight someone early w/o magic you are putting your inf vs their inf with missile fire around you.

-Jeff

P.S. I mean test chain vs these then plate vs these.

P.P.S. I don't mean to sound bossy, I just have no idea what it takes to setup these tests myself.

edit: just thought - why not a grudge match if that can be arranged? ulm plate vs ulm chain. :-)

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Sure, try it with legions of steel cast - this is hardly a rare situation for Ulm. Towards the end of the curve extra protection is exponentially more effective because of the distribution curve of blows which will pierce it.

Look at it this way, a 10 str guy with a spear that does 3 damage will do 13 + open d6 damage. Very rough math here, but ballpark to do damage to a 20 protection unit the roll would have to be 8 over the die roll for the protection, so about 8% of hits will deal damage. To damage a 24 protection unit the roll will have to be 12 over, so a bit over 2% will inflict damage. So, adding 20% to the protection reduces the damaging blows by a factor of around 4.

Its not the rare colossal damage hits which bring down heavy infantry in numbers, it's the adding up of the 1 and 2 point hits as they get swarmed.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Egad, this is the situation which leads people to conclude MA Ulm sucks. This is a very bad way to use Ulmish infantry and really should only ever come up against indies during your initial expansion. Think of Ulmish infantry like longdead - they're not there to win the fight, they're there to get in the way of the enemy while somebody else wins.

In a real game you're not going to have "no" research done by the time you get in a fight, and some fairly low level research amplifies Ulm's combat significantly. A simple legions of steel helps a lot, and Ulm will usually have construction research prioritized anyway. Depending on who you're fighting blade wind or destruction are often going to be available before heavy fighting is joined - and they absolutely dominate many kinds of foes. Heck, even if you insist on no magic, sending infantry in alone (with no knights or anything to deal damage) is just asking to be killed. Throw in a couple black lords with cheaply forged fire brands or anything to deal damage.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

We agree that you don't toss in infantry by themselves. But if ulm's plate can't stand up to a hoplite mano-a-mano then why pay the extra resources for a plate? Just go with chain.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

The answer is because there are lots of common scenarios where the plate troops will last longer. Fighting hoplites mano-a-mano with no magic support may or may not be one of them.

Try walking into withering flaming arrow/crossbow fire - who lasts longer?

Try (as I mentioned) most melee after legions of steel has been cast? Measure not how many things they can kill, but how long they can hold off a superior force. These are linebackers, after all.

Test survivability against evocation spells - an extra bit of protection goes a long way even against AP damage because of the damage distribution curve I mention above.

Comparing the killing power of the Ulmish infantry is in my opinion missing the point. They're not there to kill stuff.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I grant those scenarios. I said one of them myself - let's see what difference black steel makes against AP.

But black steel does not go the distance. If I'm reading the manual right, after 10 swings the person falls unconscious. After 6 swings, they have a -6 defense (essentially hit every time), and -4 crit (half protection 10/36 of the time).

Meanwhile, you are fighting people who have better magic ability than you do, who know they have to defeat armor so they bring poison/fear/lightning/acid/whatever to the battlefield.

-Jeff

P.S. Honestly, after reading the endurance rules the key is to bring stun damage or to otherwise wear out the black plate troops.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Yes, just as your enemies know what your weaknesses are, so do you and you should plan around them. With magical support on one or both sides it's a rare fight that lasts more than three or four rounds of the infantry slugging it out - you rarely need to worry at all about your infantry passing out from fatigue. What you need to worry about is them collapsing under the initial charge, being decimated by artillery/archery before they engage, and being flanked. If you can buy the time for your mages to go through all 5 spells you've scripted, and maybe lob a couple more on their own you've already blown 80% of your load - generally the battle's decided at that point.

As to the lighting/poison/whatever argument - I don't buy it. Your argument is that there are some situations which black plate is no better than chainmail. No arguments, my retort is that they cost the same gold which is usually the limmiting factor on how many you can get. At the end of the day I'd rather have 40 black plate infantry than 40 chainmail ones because there are lots of situations where the black plate is better.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Sounds like we have opposite situations. :-) My fights often go the distance, and gold is rarely an issue. Gems - sure. Resources - sometimes. But gold? Only on desperate turns (e.g. need to build that castle and field an emergency force on the wrong end of the map).

One thing I noticed - I never build black lords. It costs too much to lose them. You and I seem to do that different, so maybe that's a tactical change that I need to try.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I will say the best comparation between ressource and gold can be made if we watch order and productivity dominion:

order 3: income+21%
vs
productivity 3: income+6% resource+45%

a chainmail unit costs resource about 20 while blackplate usually about 30,henceforce, this extra 45% res is just a "must" to make up for blackplate's disadvantage.

so for me, I will not choose 40 black plate infantry, but 40 chainmail men and take that 60 extra gold for 2 more scouts. Or how about 40 chainmail units+PD11(cost 66 gold) vs 40 Blackplate ones?

even for ma ulm itself, my conclusion is using chain mail and order 3, forget black plate and productivity 3. If you have much too gold becauseof the limitation from res, just save it for another castle or mercenaries.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I like the idea of making the black steel armors all just ignore the armor piercing effect -- call it a new attribute "hardened". It doesn't make them uber or at all enhanced vs mundane opponents, but negates the AP advantages of many opponents first choice anti-high-prot strategies (crossbows, fire evocations, fire bless, thugs with AP swords, and the weapons of sharpness enchantment). And it can add synergy with their own arbalests and fire magic from smiths. (Would not affect AN attacks).

Sill

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Silhouette, yes! I love that idea, about "hardened." Armor-negating attacks would still work as normal, of course, so there would still be good counters available.

You wouldn't have to change anything else about the black plates (although I've love to see a slight morale boost), and they would certainly be worth the resources at that point.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Test with Man Knights:

I tested this 3 times each with 18 knights and 40 Ulm Inf (morningstar) and with 18 knights and 40 Black Plates.

Ulm lost all 6 battles.

The Infantry of Ulm lost an average of 33.7 guys and killed an average of 4.3 knights. They lasted an average of 5.7 rounds of beatings before they routed.

The Black Plates lost an average of 31.3 guys and killed an average of 4.7 knights. They lasted an average of 6.3 rounds of beatings before they routed.

So, the Black Plates fared slightly better in this test, but not as better as I was hoping. They did marginally better on all counts. I will leave it to you guys as to whether you think the slight improvement is worth the extra resources.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I know I am not a long time veteran of these forums or anything... but if you are not having money problems in this game then you don't have enough forces on board. Resources are not the limiting factor in this game, gold is. Unused resources are lost gold is stored. Upkeep is only in gold and that is what limits your force size.

This being said I will take the black plate. It is as an archer shield that they are useful. the Arbelasts do a decent job of harming the enemy along with any mounted troops. Throw in a little magic to reinvigorate the black plate and they love you long time...

Someone do a test with archers pelting chain vs plate for a period of time and watch the results. They will be much more dramatic...

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Well obviously black plate is better vs archers. But is it that much better than chain + shield that you want to use an extra 10 resources on it? Hell no.

And in my experience resources are a serious limiting factor in the early game. Gold is also a limit, but when you're trying to grab indies and possibly muscle another nation, high resource cost is a serious factor. If you're taking prod 3 then that's even more that resource costs are limiting you, actually taking away design points. After the early game, these troops basically become useless anyway, because battlemagic renders them largely obsolete. Sure you can use them as a walking shield, but there are better units for that purpose, including (imo) the chainmail guys, who you can replace quicker.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I would say that if gold is your issue, then you aren't balancing our check book well. You have a maintenance cost, so once you get an army big enough for your purposes, all you do is maintain it.

But resources are killer. I just checked my current game - ulm has 435 resources per turn. So if an army gets wiped out, I can replace with roughly 12 black plate infantry per turn, or 17 chain infantry per turn. Sure I can also build at other locations, but then I have to ship them to the point of contact.

Now this would be ok if those 12 could do the job of the 17, but I don't think they can in my experience. I think the margin of difference is too narrow - only in the early game, only for short fights, only with the right support, and even with all of that, they are only a little better.

One thing I'm trying now - assuming black plate is so great, then I shouldn't need shields. Arrows are going to bounce off anyways, so why bother, right? I tried out battle axes and pikeneers, and I've quickly moved to all pikeneer forces as lasting far longer than battleaxes. It does seem to work against the weak archers/slingers - the little stuff bounces off the armor and the pikes hold back the melee damage.

But I'm still not convinced that black plate is all that big of a deal. It doesn't seem that wonderful, and I don't think I've expanded any better than I would have just buying chain.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

But you miss the point that someone with more gold income has a high ceiling so his army can be much larger. An army can never be "big enough for *my* purposes". Don't forget gold can easily be spent on mages. In the late game resources are worthless, while you can at least still use gold to buy more mages.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

I'm interested in seeing how the armies do versus huge hordes of low-level undead. Flails, of course, but both black steel and full plate.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

Originally I said:

So we completely agree on the end-game: at that point, magic rules all.

But in the early ot mid-game (being loose), where you are balancing multiple opponents and a budget and still waiting to form a dominant gem economy, troops matter. For ulm, that's supposed to be the hey-day of black plate. I can field about 1.4 chain for every plate. Does the plate make up that difference? I haven't seen it.

-Jeff

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

When I play Ulm I recruit chainmail for the first 2 or 3 turns, after which I usually switch to plate. At that point I'm willing to sacrifice a little bit of expansion speed to hoard my gold and focus on getting a second castle up so I can leverage one of Ulm's primary strengths - cheap units. Cheap smiths, cheap infantry. With Ulm you generally have more gold than other nations so you should put up more castles. More castles mean more smiths which you should be recruiting as fast as possible at that price. As a side effect, having lots of castles means you've got lots of places to recruit infantry, and I find that by the time I'm a little less desperate about throwing up additional castles I usually have more resources than I need to field all the black plate I want. The limiting factor is gold - I'm much more concerned about how many smiths I have than how much infantry. If I'm gonna spend a set amount of gold on my infantry I'd rather have the plate. If you're getting 1.4 chainmail guys, I'm getting 1.4 smiths instead with linebackers at 24 protection. I'll stack that up against your 1.4 chainmail guys any day of the week.

Re: Is black plate worth it?
 

The encumberance on the black plate infantry would kill them, due to the fact that they would have to keep swinging until the very last undead died.

However, a small number of black plate troops+smiths against undead compared to a small number of chain troops+smiths vrs undead might be different.

There are plenty of cases where chainmail would be quickly smashed but blackplate can survive. As many have previously mentioned; Ulms troops are there to survive while others do the killing, not to fight on their own.