Is black plate worth it?

[CUnknown]

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:

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.

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.