Is black plate worth it?

[jaif]

I grant those scenarios. I said one of them myself - let's see what difference black steel makes against AP.

But black steel does not go the distance. If I'm reading the manual right, after 10 swings the person falls unconscious. After 6 swings, they have a -6 defense (essentially hit every time), and -4 crit (half protection 10/36 of the time).

Meanwhile, you are fighting people who have better magic ability than you do, who know they have to defeat armor so they bring poison/fear/lightning/acid/whatever to the battlefield.

-Jeff

P.S. Honestly, after reading the endurance rules the key is to bring stun damage or to otherwise wear out the black plate troops.

[Baalz]

Yes, just as your enemies know what your weaknesses are, so do you and you should plan around them. With magical support on one or both sides it's a rare fight that lasts more than three or four rounds of the infantry slugging it out - you rarely need to worry at all about your infantry passing out from fatigue. What you need to worry about is them collapsing under the initial charge, being decimated by artillery/archery before they engage, and being flanked. If you can buy the time for your mages to go through all 5 spells you've scripted, and maybe lob a couple more on their own you've already blown 80% of your load - generally the battle's decided at that point.

As to the lighting/poison/whatever argument - I don't buy it. Your argument is that there are some situations which black plate is no better than chainmail. No arguments, my retort is that they cost the same gold which is usually the limmiting factor on how many you can get. At the end of the day I'd rather have 40 black plate infantry than 40 chainmail ones because there are lots of situations where the black plate is better.

[jaif]

Sounds like we have opposite situations. :-) My fights often go the distance, and gold is rarely an issue. Gems - sure. Resources - sometimes. But gold? Only on desperate turns (e.g. need to build that castle and field an emergency force on the wrong end of the map).

One thing I noticed - I never build black lords. It costs too much to lose them. You and I seem to do that different, so maybe that's a tactical change that I need to try.

-Jeff

[BesucherXia]

I will say the best comparation between ressource and gold can be made if we watch order and productivity dominion:

order 3: income+21%
vs
productivity 3: income+6% resource+45%

a chainmail unit costs resource about 20 while blackplate usually about 30,henceforce, this extra 45% res is just a "must" to make up for blackplate's disadvantage.

so for me, I will not choose 40 black plate infantry, but 40 chainmail men and take that 60 extra gold for 2 more scouts. Or how about 40 chainmail units+PD11(cost 66 gold) vs 40 Blackplate ones?

even for ma ulm itself, my conclusion is using chain mail and order 3, forget black plate and productivity 3. If you have much too gold becauseof the limitation from res, just save it for another castle or mercenaries.

[silhouette]

I like the idea of making the black steel armors all just ignore the armor piercing effect -- call it a new attribute "hardened". It doesn't make them uber or at all enhanced vs mundane opponents, but negates the AP advantages of many opponents first choice anti-high-prot strategies (crossbows, fire evocations, fire bless, thugs with AP swords, and the weapons of sharpness enchantment). And it can add synergy with their own arbalests and fire magic from smiths. (Would not affect AN attacks).

Sill

[CUnknown]

Silhouette, yes! I love that idea, about "hardened." Armor-negating attacks would still work as normal, of course, so there would still be good counters available.

You wouldn't have to change anything else about the black plates (although I've love to see a slight morale boost), and they would certainly be worth the resources at that point.

[CUnknown]

Test with Man Knights:

I tested this 3 times each with 18 knights and 40 Ulm Inf (morningstar) and with 18 knights and 40 Black Plates.

Ulm lost all 6 battles.

The Infantry of Ulm lost an average of 33.7 guys and killed an average of 4.3 knights. They lasted an average of 5.7 rounds of beatings before they routed.

The Black Plates lost an average of 31.3 guys and killed an average of 4.7 knights. They lasted an average of 6.3 rounds of beatings before they routed.

So, the Black Plates fared slightly better in this test, but not as better as I was hoping. They did marginally better on all counts. I will leave it to you guys as to whether you think the slight improvement is worth the extra resources.