Black Arks are OP

[yuzhonglu]

The reason is because of the massive upkeep reduction they provide to units. You can easily station your armies on them and reinforce them onto your lords when you need to attack a settlement, generating huge amounts of income saved through upkeep reduction costs. Furthermore, Black Arks stacked to the brim with war hydras are the ultimate defensive wall against chaos and other invaders.

Like anytime I play anyone else other than DEs I feel bad not having Black Arks.

[Commisar Jon Fuklaw]

Correction: Black arks are OKish. The upkeep reduction is halfway decent, but requires serious investment to get going, and unlike certain other factions, cannot be driven down to 0 upkeep.

[Gentlest Giant]

Yup. The main draw of being a dark elf. Probably the most advantageous of all unique faction traits.
Hellebron will have to work to get hers going, though.

[zacharyb]

At higher difficulties with the upkeep cost increase, they're not as OP. Plus Dark Elves don't have Global Recruitment since they have Black Arks.

[Tenshin51]

That is the point of Black Ark, before Black Ark are too damn useless. It helps DE to have more economy.

The only thing I hate with Black Ark will be it's unique map.
Why the hell there is no arrow tower?? Black itself is somewhat an island fortress. Also attacking as a Black ark, DE deployment as an attack felt like DE attacking outside the Black Ark and opposing defender felt more defending the Black Ark itself in their deployment.

[Gentlest Giant]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

At higher difficulties with the upkeep cost increase, they're not as OP. Plus Dark Elves don't have Global Recruitment since they have Black Arks.

I'm confident that it's the reverse; since they do -not- count as an additional lord they are the best ways available to store excess troops with a cheapskate upkeep. At legendary they are the best tools available for defense.

[zacharyb]

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

Originally posted by zacharyb:

At higher difficulties with the upkeep cost increase, they're not as OP. Plus Dark Elves don't have Global Recruitment since they have Black Arks.

I'm confident that it's the reverse; since they do -not- count as an additional lord they are the best ways available to store excess troops with a cheapskate upkeep. At legendary they are the best tools available for defense.

I never said they weren't good, just at higher difficulties because of the increased cost per lord, your Black Arks will usually still end up costing a decent amount of gold per turn even fully upgraded.

[yuzhonglu]

Right. But everything costs more. You're going to need armies for defense and raiding anyways and black arks are incredibly income efficient.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

Originally posted by zacharyb:

Originally posted by Gentle Giant:

I'm confident that it's the reverse; since they do -not- count as an additional lord they are the best ways available to store excess troops with a cheapskate upkeep. At legendary they are the best tools available for defense.

I never said they weren't good, just at higher difficulties because of the increased cost per lord, your Black Arks will usually still end up costing a decent amount of gold per turn even fully upgraded.

Some 3000 for a Black Ark with The "Lord", 1 Sorceress, 1 Khainite Assasin, 6x Shades (Greatswords), 2x Reaper Bolt Throwers, 2x Black Guard of Naggrond, 4x Har Ganeth Executioners, 2 Dragons and the Anti-Large Monster (I forget the name). Fully upgraded.

A non-Black Ark version of that army will cost you at the very least 6000. Going up 15% per army you have.

Now compared to normal Lord armies, Black Arks does not have increased upkeep reduction.
You can have 20 Black Arks and it would still be the same ol' 3000 per Black Ark.
They are, very, lucrative especially on higher difficulties. 2 of these beauties can take on 4 Chaos Armies and win the fight with minimal to no losses in Auto-resolve.

This let's you have protection from the sea whilst you can focus on land with less, but very expensive armies.

In my Lokhir Campaign my normal armies were costing me 12k gold.
It was much more efficient for me to just have Black Arks doing their thing at sea while I had 4 armies in land doing their thing and I had some 12 Black Arks roaming out at sea while still earning 20k per turn (thanks slave economy).

[VoiD]

Before the change they were useless and always ungarissoned, if they sank that would be it, I didn't bother making another, in fact I wasn't even sure if the looting bonuses paid off by the end of the campaign.

[mweilbuchner]

oh hi yuzhonglu! ^^

i think they are a meager compensation for global recruitment!

but that is maybe only one of all their aspects....

[yuzhonglu]

Global recruitment is awful. 2x the expense. I mean, for that you may as well build it at home. I almost never use it.

[VoiD]

No it's not, if you're not close enough recruiting and paying 15% extra upkeep for all of your armies may be even worse, plus some races get bonuses to global recruitment times and cost.

In many campaigns raising a single extra army without anything else in it can cost well over 10k upkeep per turn.

[yuzhonglu]

Or you could just put it on a Black Ark and get -90% upkeep cost reduction, along with a bombardment platform.

It's much better than global recruitment.

[mweilbuchner]

tell that to malekith desperately trying to put out fires in his provinces west of naggarond^^ (vortex)

[TallestDavid]

my strelksy gunners always massacred them B-)