Question about Ulm/Armor

[littlemute]

Originally posted by Cohen:


I hope I've been clear in explaining since I'm not a native english speaker, I'm Italian.

You did great! I understood it.

[Vynd]

Yes, the armor that Ulmish commanders come with is better than the various Black Steel items that can be forged with low-level Earth magic. This might seem a bit strange, until you discover that an Earth mage for any nation, not just Ulm, can make these black steel items. For these other nations, black steel is likely to be a big improvement.

By the way, you can check out the stats for an item that a unit starts with by clicking on the name of the item in their unit display.

[PvK]

Except... not.

Full Plate of Ulm is actually 1 point of protection weaker than Black Steel Full Plate. In all other stats it is the same.

So if you put Black Steel Full Plate on a unit with Full Plate of Ulm (e.g. Black Lord or Lord Guardian), the total net effect is +1 to protection.

littlemute is incorrect that stats go down in those cases.

What I imagine he saw was the effect of putting Black Steel Plate (not full plate) on someone with Full Plate of Ulm. In that case, protection will go down by 5, defense will go up by 4, and encumbrance will go down (though cavalry is different from infantry for encumbrance).

That's because "Black Steel Plate" is only a breastplate, so it's much lighter than a full suit of armor.

PvK

[Vynd]

Originally posted by PvK:
Except... not.

Oops, sorry about that.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Vynd:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
Except... not.

Oops, sorry about that.

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No problem. It gave me an opportunity to ramble about Ulmish armor!

PvK

[littlemute]

Originally posted by PvK:

quote:

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Originally posted by Vynd:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
Except... not.

Oops, sorry about that.

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No problem. It gave me an opportunity to ramble about Ulmish armor!

PvK

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Hmm... I'm not understanding why someone would focus on forging then as the armour is basically the same as what your troops start with, do you place it on the preists or master smiths? What's the use of forging to Ulm at all?

[Vynd]

Originally posted by littlemute:
Hmm... I'm not understanding why someone would focus on forging then as the armour is basically the same as what your troops start with, do you place it on the preists or master smiths? What's the use of forging to Ulm at all?

Ah, well this is what I was trying to get at in my original post. The armor you are forging is available to anyone with an Earth mage. And for most nations, it offers far more protection than their basic armor. So it makes more sense for them to forge it.

Ulm, on the other hand, already has nice armor. So instead of making Black Steel items, they can focus on forging weapons and miscellaneous items, and/or researching Construction to make more and better items available for forging.