Anyone played the Ulm Black Forest in MP ?

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Coffeedragon:
Can the Priest line (esp Marignon) not handle them?

Priests are only good against massed weak undead, like longdead and soulless. They are too inaccurate for single powerful targets.

[IKerensky]

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.

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).

[Jasper]

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

[ywl]

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 . 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.

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 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'?

[Jasper]

Originally posted by ywl:
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?

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.