Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

I've also been generally leery about having a single path pretender, I probably use my pretender moreso than the norm for research, searching, crafting and occasionally as an SC. Haven't made a personal playstyle decision yet if I like the initial expansion generated by an SC pretender vs. the early research boost.

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

Bless is a playstyle decision. If you're going with an double bless strategy, you're not using your pretender for other things, at least early on. Those high paths can come in useful in the late game, so keep that in mind during design, but focus on the bless, dominion and scales enough to build your sacreds. He's going to be imprisoned anyway.

Both are good ways to play, but trying to do both is likely to get the worst parts of each.

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

I found the Celestial Soliders are quite frankly amazing. Especially with a strong water bless they have high protection and high armor.

Jazzepi

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

Would that be high protection and high defence/health?

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

I meant high protection from their equipped armor, and then high defense skill from the water bless.

I'm a dork http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Though do have good hitpoints though.

Jazzepi

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

Death and Water are both good blesses for LA T'ien Ch'i, but I have to agree that you're gonna be better off going with good scales than a dual bless. The non-sacred heavy horseman is plenty good enough to carry you through the phase of the game that a good blessing really helps with, and T'ien Ch'i really benefits from good gold, resources, and research.

Also, LA T'ien Ch'i has some of the best PD in the game.

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

Well after playing around a bit more in SP I think I like the rainbow strategy so far. A moderate bless of 4F/4E/4N/4D works well, just not sure if I should ditch air/astral or go 4A/2S or 2A/4S on the pretender. This is with a ghost king, so there are side benefits as well - ok SC with items, ghost production, 20+ research and site searching. Lich is nice for immortality, great enchantress for 1 gem/turn (not real nice), or sage for even more research.

I've been wanting to try LA TC with a bless for a bit, but with a large game I dont think the synergy is great enough for a huge jump. shrug.

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

I used something like this:

Imprisoned Master Lich
Water 9
Death 8

Dominion 6

Order 3
Production 0
Heat 0
Growth 0
Misfortune 2
Drain 2

Shift the scales around as you prefer, you only need one negative scale, which isn't bad at all. Drain hurts, but you can do both quills and skull mentors, so it's not that bad.

It may not be the most effective bless, but the Water is, as usual, brutal and the death works very well with Late TC.

It's not so much that death is the best bless for TC, as that TC is the best nation for the death bless.
All your mages are sacred, so they benefit from the affliction chance. The sacreds are one of the few sacred archers and they have those cool fear bows, so I had to find a way to make it worthwhile to use them.
I don't know how they'd stack up in MP. They're not Vans or Neifels and they are capital only, so they'll lose effectiveness eventually. I'll bet SCs will still fear the affliction bonus, though.

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

I really like the idea of using blade wind with a self-blessed W9D8 priest battle mage as a retreating affliction crippling anti-invasion technique.

Here's what I'd do to script some PD backed up mages.

Summon Earth Power, Bless, Blade Wind, Blade Wind, Retreat

Jazzepi

Re: Request: Tips for LA T\'ien Chi
 

Just keep in mind that afflictions are more psychological warfare than an invasion-stopper. In practice, Leprosy will probably create more afflictions than the D9 battle mage. However, the battle mage doesn't cost gems.

-Max