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).

[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.

[diamondspider]

Originally posted by Zen:
.... 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'?

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 ]

[Coffeedragon]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

---

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.

---

But, iIrc, Grand Inquisitors and Inquisitor Prophets can smite.