Is black plate worth it?

[Arralen]

Instead of endless pondering and argueing, you could simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :
[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm

I have done a little bit to improve Black Steel Armor, therefore any feedback is appreciated. Thanks, and have fun !

[Sir_Dr_D]

Black plate should give a lower encumbrance penalty as well as providing high protection. Thats the point of good armor. Anyone can make highly protective armor if it is not a requirment that the wearer needs to be able to move. If black plate causes such high encumbrance why in themetic terms is it concidered good armor?

Plus I think that a good themetic way to fix ulm is to give them catapullts and siege engines. These can be researched in the construction path, and created by the smiths. You can have different kinds such as
- ballistas that do high level damage to a single target (ROF every three rounda)
-catapults that shoot boulders with AOF 1
-catpults that fire burning pitch which has the effect of low fire damage to a wide area of effect
-and battling rams which are slow moving tramplers.

[Reverend Zombie]

Sir_Dr_D said:
Plus I think that a good themetic way to fix ulm is to give them catapullts and siege engines. These can be researched in the construction path, and created by the smiths. You can have different kinds such as

Taking the idea of Ulm's research into technology instead of magic even further would be to give them gunpowder units. This idea is anathema to many, however, from a thematic standpoint.

But I quite like the gunpowder units the Warhammer Empire Army gets, for example.

[Sombre]

Just so you know, I'm currently working on a Warhammer Empire nation for Dom3, to follow on from Skaven and Ogre Kingdoms, but all the gunpowder tech is being replaced by stuff which fits in with dom3.

[jaif]

Plus I think that a good themetic way to fix ulm is to give them catapullts and siege engines.

They have sappers, so they can handle sieges.

I've been thinking about this overnight. If you want to fix ulm without adding new rules and staying within the general framework of the game and the nation, then I think they need the following.

1) Sergeants. Same as commanders of ulm, but leader 10 with standards. Make good thugs for small units.

2) Better black steel available at construction-4 and construction-8. This black steel should have added benefits like encumbrance reduction, fire/cold/shock resistance, etc.

3) Ritual spells that upgrade black steel armor for a gem cost, stats consistant with #2. So at con-4 you get a single-target ritual, and con-5 you get a multi-target ritual (so you can upgrade 10 people's black plate at once).

With these changes, a) ULM can take advantage of their item construction better by making cheap thugs, b) those thugs can help their units (via standards), c) give them a different flavor by having a late-game army of small, high-prot units, and d) make black steel plate a thing for mid-to-late game as well.

[thejeff]

I like commanders with standards. Or just a general morale boost: We are all elite troops! And we know it!
Or just for the Black Plate troops. Boost their skills too. Elite troops get the best armor.

Make it the best mundane armor. It's supposed to be Ulm's great discovery, but the consensus is the chain mail troops are better. Boost the protection, drop the fatigue. Make those troops dangerous in the early game. They'll still fall to double bless, or elephants, or SC pretenders, but everyone else should have serious problems facing them with troops.

Sidetracked, I was supposed to be commenting on jaif's ideas.
1) Mini thugs and standards. I like.

2) Not really modable. No nation specific item changes.

3) Nor this. No way I know of to mod spells that upgrade items.
Both would require changes to the game engine.

But, you could fake some of it, by making spells that summon troops/commanders with that better armor. Conceptually, the troop are recruited normally and the gem cost goes to the armor, but mechanically it's a summon.

They should be cheap, because they're still vulnerable humans under the gear. The troops will be little more than a good meat shield in the mid game and the commanders low-end thugs, but still a nice addition.

[jaif]

Can a spell remove an item and create another in its place?
Can a spell remove a unit and create another in its place?

If those two are too difficult, then black plate is doomed in the long run unless someone spots a cool tactic. It's just that prot 20 vs 17 is not a big deal when the fireballs are zipping around, or when panic is rampant.

But hopefully the leader 10 thugs could help. A cheap chassis for the cheap items, that also enhances the troops.

-Jeff

[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.

[Chris_Byler]

But they already basically negate most mundane weapons. If they negated magic *too* they'd be invincible (except for trample).

Don't forget that they can push drain-3, which raises MR and increases fatigue costs for enemy casters. (Are their own mages immune to the fatigue penalty as well as the research penalty?) And they have Tempering the Will for MR, if you know you're going to need it.

It would be nice if they had some national spell that was like Curse of Stones for mages only, though. All magical energy becomes more difficult to access and spellcasting becomes 50% more fatiguing for the remainder of the battle. (And their own mages have earthpower to partly compensate...)

[CUnknown]

I did a test like so:

40 Ulm Inf (w/ morningstars) v 40 Man spearmen
I did that 3 times.

40 Ulm Black Plates (w/morningstars) v 40 Man spearmen
I also did this one 3 times.

Results:

The Ulm Inf killed an average of 20.33 spears and lost an average of 3.67 inf.
The Ulm Black Plates killed an average of 14.0 spears and lost an average of 5.33 black plates.

Ulm won all 6 battles.

I actually prefer the black plates, myself, but my data here sure doesn't support that conclusion. I predict that it's the encumbrance value that's bringing down the black plates, because this sort of fight is of the long, tedious beat-down sort. Against something like heavy cav, the Black Plates would do much better, I'd imagine. Maybe I'll run that test later.

But, still, I was surprised the black plates did so poorly here. They should be better than Inf of Ulm in every case, I think.