Is black plate worth it?

[jaif]

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

[Meglobob]

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.

[jaif]

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

[NTJedi]

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.

[Shovah32]

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.

[Stryke11]

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.

[Velusion]

Stryke11 said:
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.

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.

[Ewierl]

NTJedi said:

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.

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.

[Sombre]

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.

[Lingchih]

Meglobob said:
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.

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.