I think make plate armour perk is not worthy

[Earth Spirit]

I started a new game (stable branch) and my town had a rich iron mine). My economy strat was: have enough food from vegestables, 2 perks in trade route to make money, the last 4 perks for industry. I made a huge mistake spent last perk on "make plate armour" instead of deep mining. And I realised the "make plate armour" is not worthy at all.
1. Making plate armour requires 8 iron slaps (I dont remember the exact number). IMO it is too expensive compare to option buy armour, which cost only 24 coins (money in game). Also it will make the supply chain of making other equipments be much slower. In the other hand, spend money to buy plate armour, and having chain mail for other units sound better.
2. By having rich iron mine, basically player can make infinity amount of equipments for his army. So it is very easy to attack bandit camps, get treasure to upgrade garrions's armour.
3. If there's no rich iron mine, then player need to trade iron ore, so the cost of producing plate armour isnt worthy anyway.
4. Current trade mechanic is very easy to make money (i didnt test beta branch) so when the village's economy is stable enough, getting taxes is very easy, making upgrade units using money instead of smithing plate armour be easy too.

[Scaristotle]

I agree. I choose to ignore the plate armor perk for something more useful. By the time you can make it, you probably have enough wealth to just buy it all for the retinue without needing a local supply. Mail? For sure pick that one.

(Edit: Even in Beta, it's easy to afford the retinue. Yes, King's Tax is a ♥♥♥♥♥, but once you overcome it, there's really nothing stopping you from being as wealthy as without the Beta.)

[votadc]

You can sell the plates for huge money, but deep mine Is more important. You need 3 points to get the plate, that Is too much.

[GunRunner89X]

Originally posted by votadc:

You can sell the plates for huge money, but deep mine Is more important. You need 3 points to get the plate, that Is too much.

Yeah a lot of that whole 'tech tree' needs work. Like, I need to invest a point so sheep can breed? Bruh... It makes sense for going deeper into specialising into forestry/farming/tool-making/etc, but just to breed sheep? Double bruh...

[paulbierley]

Well nobody wants an iron slap.

[Jabberwocky]

Why in the world would I even go to the trouble of investing three development points just to be able to make plate armor, when the only troops I have that can wear plate armor are my retinues, and they have a neat little button in their customization menu that lets me just buy them a full set of plate armor for treasury money really quickly, without having to waste manpower and iron and firewood/charcoal on it?

[madpraxis]

Originally posted by Jabberwocky:

Why in the world would I even go to the trouble of investing three development points just to be able to make plate armor, when the only troops I have that can wear plate armor are my retinues, and they have a neat little button in their customization menu that lets me just buy them a full set of plate armor for treasury money really quickly, without having to waste manpower and iron and firewood/charcoal on it?

I always wondered that... Like, yes, I shall super specialize! Into something that barely sells, has literally a singular use for me that IS completely and utterly replaceable with a much quicker & easier version...for a development point...

To be fair, I feel the same way about the two trade points also. I have NO idea how you have to just suck so badly at the game that those two are a 'required' pick by 'everyone' playing. I would 100% rate the nigh on useless honey pick over the trade ones... Regional wealth is EASY. DOUBLE easy on release branch, even.

[Furin]

I agree, I tried it and it wasn't worth it.

[Earth Spirit]

Originally posted by votadc:

You can sell the plates for huge money, but deep mine Is more important. You need 3 points to get the plate, that Is too much.

Well I didn't think about selling plates but I still think it's not worth it. Like:
- If i have deep mine perk, I have infinity amount of equipments for my villagers. It makes battles be so easy since enemy's mercenaries are brigands. The problem no mercenaries in hire pool doesn't matter any more. And I think the cost to make 1 plate armour is too much compare to the cost of making stronger military units (both time and resource). p/s: I always choose exporting shields and bows because I can make infinity of them.
- No rich mine, then I have to spend a lot of region wealth to make equipments. I'd still choose building strong military instead. Idk about you guys, but my previous save had no rich iron mine, hence I can only have a squad of spearmen. Maybe making plate armours, then buy weapons and chain mail is the solution for this situation?

[Mars Mullo]

Make plate is only worth it if you have enough level 3 houses-holds to populate a unit.

[madpraxis]

That isn't even how it works....
Nobody, NOBODY uses plate except your retinue. Which you can just buy. And you have to purchase men too, so...
Tier 3 uses MAIL shirts, for sure. Only 2 deep, with that. Probably just worth it to focus on whatever to export with main region, then set up a small 2 point village to just make armour and ship it over.

[Jabberwocky]

In my current game I did not start with a rich iron deposit, so I traded in flax to make linen and then provide gambesons for my militia. Once I got my level 3 houses up and running, I just set a trade route to buy up to 20 mail shirts. The militiamen who can afford them take them from the trade post, and the trade post fills up to the limit of 20 again, until all militiamen who can do so are supplied with a mail coat. No development point necessary. Just a bit of trading. Did the same for helmets in the beginning. Importing helmets up to a limit of 10 while exporting some other surplus goods to even out the +/- revenue. Until all my militiamen had helmets.

Development points are just too rare to invest them in armor making. They do you more good if you invest them in trading. Or farming. Or charcoal/deep mining - but only if you have a rich clay/iron deposit, otherwise you can just import charcoal to max out your fuel market coverage.

[madpraxis]

Note, you CAN make almost all the weapons you need, all the shields you need, and all the gambesons for tier 2 homes...with no points invested, and with all you have in the starting region.
Even a default iron deposit has ALMOST enough iron to equip 4-5 militias.
And you don't even need deep mining, unless you go all out trading EVERY part of the iron production chain, since the rich deposits are at least 1k, and the deep mining doesn't even kick IN until its all gone ;)