T\'ien C\'hi help
 

I just recently (2 days ago) got the full Version of Ascension Wars http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I've been trying to learn how to play the Tien chi race, since they seem to be very versatile. Anyways, this is what I do with T'ien C'hi, if anyone could offer advice on to make this tactic better, please do.

I always create Generals with armies that have 1 Imperial Footman (the kind with the shield) for every two composite bow archers (non-imperial). The heavily armored footmen with good morale often don't break except against heavy cavalry, and while they hold and attack, my archers are shooting at any advancing enemies they see. The problem with this that I'm neglecting some troops in the Chinese, ahem, Tien Chi arsenal. Imperial Archers have 1 precision more than normal ones. Does 1 prec justify having to pay 13G 17R instead of 10G 9R per archer? I know I'm not going to care if they have heavy armor, since my imperial footmen will be tanking for them. Also, the morale "bonus" will cause them to sustain higher casualties if the enemy managed to breakthrough the footies, which is a bad thing.

Another unit I've been neglecting is the Imperial Guard. They have better morale (right?) than imperial footmen, but since they wield katanas, ahem, falchions, they can't repel as well as spear-wielding footmen. They're also more expensive. Would repel save enough lives that it's better to buy footmen than guards?

A third unit I've been neglecting are the horsemen. A close look at the Horseman's arsenal tells me that they're crap. But the Heavy Horseman, on the other hand, have full scale mail, bucklers, and Composite bows (8 natural precision, though), lances, and spears. What I'm thinking is that they suck at shooting, so that part doesn't matter, but when they've used up their lance, they just become glorified imperial footmen without shields, and I can get 2-3 imperial ones for the same cost. Imperial Horsemen, the Last type that I don't use have no bows (not that they'd be able to use them well), but attack with falchions, round shields, and lances. I consider the falchion a worse weapon than the spear, since repelling is sexy. However, they don't break as much as heavy horsemen. All in all, imperial horsemen don't seem as good as heavy horsemen, but for a heavier price. What really ticks me off is that none of the three have "Hoof," which the heavy cavalry of almost every other race have, and they shoot with 9 precision (counting the + 1 composite bows give.) Should I bother with horsemen?

A third kind of unit I'm curious about are Celestial units. Until the Last half hour, I thought the only celestial units were celestial soldiers, demon of heavenly fires, and demon of heavenly rivers. When I took Earth magic with my Pretender, I found out that there were Celestial Servants. So, are there only those four, or are there other Celestials? The only ones I've experimented with right now are Celestial Soldiers, the horsey dudes. Does their minotaur-like stats justify spending 4 air gems per soldier? What about Celestial Servants, aka pig dudes? I don't play Spring and Autumn, since it is incredibly limited in unit choices, and I like my high morale imperials, but do demons set off that glaring weakness? Are there only Demons of Heavenly Rivers and Fires or are there more? I don't like having to create Celestial Masters to make 1 demon a turn (250 gold a man, then there are heavy gem costs for the demons themselves).

On a non-T'ien C'hi topic, does anyone like to recruit an assload of Hoburg Crossbowmen? They're cheap, yet attack as well as any other crossbowman. The only problem is their health, but if you've got imperial footmen, that's not much of a problem. Too bad I can't find very many Burgmeister provinces http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would say that they are most likely actually Falchions, since katanas are japanese, and T'Ien Chi is definetly chinese. As for the choice, the spears have a low damage of 3 while the falchions have a very high damage of 7. You will find that the falchions are much more likely to penetrate the armor of any heavy infantry you come across.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Repel is only useful if your opponents have low morale. Most troops you will face will have better than 10 morale, so it won't matter as much there.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's all there is.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Celestial soldiers are very nice troops, and can be very tough to kill. With some kind of moderate bless effect, they can become downright nasty.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Any fire 1 astral 1, or water 1 astral 1 mage can summon the two types of demons. This means that the masters of the five elements with a pick in astral can summon them, as can masters of the way with an astral pick.

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

I'm in a similar situation to you, so I'll just add the little that I know.

Composite bows + footpads
***
Composite bows are non armour piercing (I think), so if you play against ulm, for example, they won't do much damage in the first 3 rounds, and then afterwards they'll hurt your footmen more than the enemy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif .Since you have imperial crossbows, that isn't a problem.

Ordinary/Imperial archers
***
Ordinary ones are much cheaper, so normally better. Except, of course, if you end up in an archery duel with heavily armed archers. They are also much, much worse if the enemy gets through or round (or over) your front ranks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Cavalry
***
Against your standard enemy forces, no cavarly is just fine. However, so types of army are succeptibly much weaker without a flanking cover (something on your flanks to protect you from enemy flanking attacks). You cant always rely on melee infantry to do this as they'll most likely head for the center scrap, leaving their position empty. However, the horse archers are relatively good for this, as they'll stay where they are (since they're firing their bows) and they'll put up a good fight if attacked.

Heavy cavalry
***
Even if you're planning on a defensive tactic, it's worth having a few heavies on 'attack rear', occasionally they'll go straight to the enemy commanders and finish the battle before it started http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Enemy fliers
***
Early on they're quite rare, though a few draconians or devils on 'hold and attack archers' will mess up your nice plans http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Celestials
***
I don't know much about them. The pigs didn't seem to add any tactical element, and my other computer foes were already vanquished by the time I had enough crystals to conjure anything else http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Thanks Dice, but about the celestials, I'd much rather pay 250 for a mage that I know can summon demons of heavenly garbage (ironically, celestial masters don't have enough air magic to summon celestial soldiers, unless they get an air pick, so only my pretender will do that. At least they summon in bulk) than try for a 1:7 chance of getting the right pick with a master of the way.

BTW, when your units play the attack animation while the enemy attacked them, that's indicates a repel, right? Does it mean an attempted repel (passes defense/attack check) or a succeeded one (passes morale check)?

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Thanks Dice, but about the celestials, I'd much rather pay 250 for a mage that I know can summon demons of heavenly garbage (ironically, celestial masters don't have enough air magic to summon celestial soldiers, unless they get an air pick, so only my pretender will do that. At least they summon in bulk) than try for a 1:7 chance of getting the right pick with a master of the way.

BTW, when your units play the attack animation while the enemy attacked them, that's indicates a repel, right? Does it mean an attempted repel (passes defense/attack check) or a succeeded one (passes morale check)?

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Thanks Dice, but about the celestials, I'd much rather pay 250 for a mage that I know can summon demons of heavenly garbage (ironically, celestial masters don't have enough air magic to summon celestial soldiers, unless they get an air pick, so only my pretender will do that. At least they summon in bulk) than try for a 1:7 chance of getting the right pick with a master of the way.

BTW, when your units play the attack animation while the enemy attacked them, that's indicates a repel, right? Does it mean an attempted repel (passes defense/attack check) or a succeeded one (passes morale check)?

Edit: triple post... what the crap? How do I delete Posts?

Edit 2: I may just be accustomed to the kick *** infantry of Ulm from the demo, but Footmen of all types seem pretty puny. They seem to get wasted by even New Era Satry Hoplites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Edit 3: I thought Falchions were European and the big broad swords you see in the movies/books were scimitars.

[ April 11, 2004, 06:41: Message edited by: HotNifeThruButr ]

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Tien Chi is great, but the themes need to be played very differently

Default -- Red guards and/or imperial crossbowmen kick butt the former esp. if you like a bless effect versatile race.


Spring and Autumn-- Flying Ubermages. Ridiculously fast site searching. My favorite.

Don't use the demons of heavenly fire, they take too much mage time to summon to be useful.

Demons of heavenly rivers are fine, (especially if you disapprove of clam hoarding) but only from cheap masters of the way with a random astral.


Barbarian Kings- Be a Mongol! Wheeeeee!

Not terribly effective in MP with the required turmoil2, but as much fun as you'll have with cavalry in this game. (Still not that much, IMHO, Maybe if the horsemen spawned like Ermorian fodder?)

The death priests having the 15 paralyzing spirit for 4 death gem spell from the beginning is nice too.


Celestial Rabe, Master of Spring and Autumn

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As Rabelais mentioned, S&A Celestial Masters fly. They also have two random picks instead of one, with same low price of 250 g. There aren't any other demons, but like Barbarian Kings, S&A can summon dispossessed spirits.

Unlike the default theme, where you need to fight to gain a mage able to summon your Celestials, with S&A's initial gem income (and recruiting one CM and Master of the Dead) alone you can summon your first Demon of the Heavenly Rivers on the second turn, DotH Fires on third, and 15 dispossessed spirits on fourth, if you want. So, their troops may be weaker, but you've got summons a lot earlier.

I must disagree with Rabelais, as I've found Demons of the Heavenly Fires extremely useful. They are flying, so can be deployed fast along your CMs and their armour-piercing attack can kill even Ulm's knights. I've got into a habit of searching my first provinces for magic sites, and immediately when I've got enough income to faciliate monthly castings I've set one CM to summon Fire Demons and one Master of the Dead to summon Dispossessed Spirits monthly. Probably not most efficient way of using resources, but it is nice to have some reserves.

Demons of the Heavenly Rivers, on the other hand, haven't found any place in my armies. To each their own. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Spring and Autumn mages are all good and fun, but how do you cope with their second rate units? do you have armies composed only of demons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have armies composed only of mages. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Okay, seriously: At the very beginnning, as much as bowmen as I can recruit, with a few heavy footmen with big shields. The footmen without shields die naturally due friendly fire within first few battles, so in the end, bowmen and "heavy" infantry. If I've felt lucky, once I've recruited my second noble I've put them on attack archers duty. Risky but rewarding, currently in MP got one noble with heroic quickness (+160%). His comrades are long gone, though.

At the beginning, of course, fights must be picked carefully. No provinces with knights or heavy cavalry.

Quite fast you've got tens of dispossessed spirits, so off to battle they go. Cheap fodder, and can paralyze. I've got no experience how the 2.11 has affected them, but still.

When you've got enough Demons to warrant their use in battle, the research has probably yelded a few decent combat spells for the mages leading them. And off they go too.

Then, as magic research progresses, so does S&A power level. And what started as a no-good nation with inferior units is soon whacking everyone to submission with every spell imaginable.

Zen has made a quide for S&A, it is at least on Sunraybe's site. I think it's quite useful.

Well, that is how I play, others do it differently. There has been quite a few discussions about TC in general and S&A in particular, the search function is your friend.

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As far as I know, scimitars, falchions and sabre's are all curved swords of various types. Sabre's were mainly used by european cavalry. Scimitars originate (more or less) in arabia/central asia and were the weapon of choice for medieval islamic soldiers. Falchions, on the other hand, are mostly a marine (pirate http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) weapon, I believe, due to its shape it's more convenient for boarding actions, rolling ships and the rest of it. I'm not sure what they used in china though. Sticks? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Regarding Celestial Soldiers, I found them rather nice -- high hp, strong, decent prot (for a Tien Chi unit...), HEAVY weapon (glaive -- something like 10 dam, -1/-1 att/def, length 4), enough skills to be able to use the glaive well. Makes 'em good at opening up high-prot units. They've pretty good morale as well, IIRC, and don't eat.

On the other hand, the glaive is 2-handed leaving no room for a shield, and with 15 prot and no etherealness or intrinsic air shield crossbows could be a big problem. They're sacred, 'tho, and you do have access to air mages even if you don't go for blessings.

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

What of Celestial Servants? They've got pretty much zero armor and you only get 1 a turn. Are they useless?

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

They eat like no other unit in the game... so out of the box, they're worse than useless.

But if you put armor and flying boots on them, then the huge strength rocks.

Think of them as a overgrown noble with no armor and a can o' whoopass in lieu of trample.


Rabe the Celestial Cheerleader

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

They're not leaders, I can't equip them.

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

Maybe a protective spell would do it... I know nature has Barkskin-for-other in Protection, does earth have any spell that lets you cast Stone-/ Ironskin to other units than the caster.

Re: T\'ien C\'hi help
 

At the low end, there's Legions of Steel, but that's a mere +3 prot. At the high end, there's Army of Gold and Army of Lead, but it'll take some doing (perhaps a lucky CM random, earth boots, Staff of Elemental Mastery, communion, a couple of levels of empowerment, Summon Earth Power?) to cast either.
Marble Warriors might be what you're looking for if you can reach it. Fog Warriors is also nice if you can get it.