Tien Chi Mod Finished
 

Since I have nothing better to do...

This mod is designed to give Tien Chi better/affordable good mages, and also to work in various 'scratch-your-head' omissions.

First, to base TC:

Celestial Master: FAWWS? -> AAEES?
Cost: 250 -> 225

Unless my guess is wrong, Tien Chi means 'Heaven and Earth' (this is coming from my Japanese). This fits with the gem production of the nation, its national summons, and other information. So, why don't the mages correspond? Well, this addresses this. IIRC, Celestial Soldiers are AAS summons, so this allows the Celestial Master to summon them. I don't know about the Gardeners, but hopefully they are EES.

Now, as to why there's no W on them... they're not Masters of the Tao (Way), but Celestial Masters. That's the idea I'm going with.

TC - S&A:

Celestial Master: FAWWSLR -> FFWWS??
Cost: 250 -> 230

While the S&A Celestial Masters didn't have the 'national summon' issue that base TC's did, they do suffer from the 'no depth' problem. This is to fix that, and also to bring them in line with their gem production.

Master of the 5 Elements:
Cost: 190 -> 150

Yeah, these guys are overcosted by any stretch of the imagination.

Anyway, comments welcome. If anyone wants to see anything else in this or another mod, just ask.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

SnA needs Celestial ***-Kickers, like in Crounching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Take the Astral Immortal Hero's (i forget names) graphics and make a new unit out of him, some sort of flying swordsman expert with ultra high defense. A Jedi if you will.


I'm not certain about ditching water on the vanilla CM, since they are supposed to be derived from Masters of the Way. There ARE some interesting Battlefield spells all that water+ random elemental magic that they can cast, like Acid Rain, ect.

It might be worth trying to make them much more expensive, but be a multi 2-path mage like Machaka's sorcerers. 2w2a2e2a?, or something. I like the *idea* of the CM, it just doesn't work out quite right, since rank 1 magic paths are generally useless.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

Oh, sure, but that's what the Masters of the Way are for.

Anyway, mod finished. Download at the top of the page.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Finished
 

"rank 1 magic paths are generally useless"
- except when you add boost items, and/or empowerment.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Finished
 

Sure. I still think that this helps them, though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Tien Chi Mod Finished
 

The CM was born to do two things: lead a communion, and cast Power of the Spheres. Both require astral magic (which he has) and boost all paths at once (which benefits him a lot).

I think base and S&A CMs would be magical powerhouses if they had a reasonably affordable communion slave. Preferably something that actually has astral-1, so it can distract magic duellists, rather than a Pythium-style communicant. If you really want to improve TC, change Master of the Way to 1W1S1R (maybe with a slight increase in cost). Now they can not only quicken themselves, but also form communions and PotS - which can raise their skill with their randoms to quite respectable levels, too. And the MotW isn't capitol only, so you can have a few of them backing up *every* CM you make. Water and Astral may not synergize well with each other, but with quickness and communions, they both syergize well with just about anything else.

BK is a separate issue that requires separate fixes, including working skirmish tactics and hit and runs. They'd also benefit from better balance of the order scale (so required turmoil doesn't hose them so bad) and anything that discourages mad castling.

I'd also like to see mages be able to collaborate for rituals/forging, but that's probably something that can't be done until Dom3 at the soonest.

Shaolin Disciples, Shaolin Masters and (for S&A) Wuxia Masters would be a cool idea too, but I don't think TC actually needs them.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Finished
 

Adding a 1S caster at the 50g-45g price point ( non-sacred ) would go a *long* way to making T'ien Ch'i a powerhouse.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Finished
 

I for one will not do that. Communion is too time-intensive for me to be a big fan of it.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

Ask and you shall receive ( I thought it was cool as well ). I've attached a mod that beefs up the T'ien Ch'i heros giving each one a neich at which the excel. Ho Hsien Ku has high prot ( and earth magic ) and weilds a flambeau. Lu Tung-Pin has a silly high defence and weilds two swords of quickness he's a buzz saw. Li T'ieh-Kuai is an assassin of the highest order.

Oh while I was at it I added the Celestial Communicant an S1 mage. It really helps them a lot by ( a ) taking fire from the Celestial Masters and ( b ) making communion economically feaseable.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

Made another tweak. Celestial masters now have a map move of 2. This makes it so that if T'ien Ch'i can somehow scrape together some meat for their army that has a map move of 2 ( their map move 2 troops are *horrible ) then they can move their casters at the same clip.

I tried this mod out a couple of times and I think it's not overpowered. With this mod T'ien Ch'i is much like Pythium only with crappier troops. To compensate their communicants can research which is a huge plus. They become equal to pythium if they get one of their hero thugs to arive in the game.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

CMs of S&A can fly ...

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

yes they did not need the boost. The CM's of base T'ien Ch'i were the problem.

After playing it a couple times I think that my inital impressions were correct. With the new communicants and the improved CM's it plays like a crappy Pythium. The super heros if you get them allows it to get up to Pythium level overall. In a multiplayer game I would figure that the heros would really be excellent on defence.

Re: Tien Chi Mod Announced
 

I have an idea for alternate Tien Chi hero:
Sun the Monkey
weapon: Resizing Staff
dam 0
att 5
def 2
length 5
no-str
has a special effect 'Log'

He has magic to summon Celestial Warriors and Celestial Servants.
He is Immortal, Flying and Fire Resistant 100. He has full slots, possibly leaving out or adding a miscellanous slot.

Quite simple to do (except for the graphics), and based on a "chinese myths" story I read, that while must be very watered down, describes Sun the Monkey who is very simple to model in game. He is immortal and flying, he has a size-changing staff that is easy to carry and can be used in many ways, was the keeper of the Celestial Stables and befriended Pig (who seems to be source for Celestial Servant), was unharmed by the flames when he was being punished for eating the peaches of immortality... and has just now returned from the long travel during which he survived 81 life-threating dangers.

Would Sun the Monkey help Tien Chi more than the other heroes, as a hero? If yes, which one should I replace? If not, then I might mod him to replace Jade Emperor and use him as a pretender who starts with magics to summon Celestial summons but has pretty high (40 or 60) costs for other paths, more hits and att/def/str skills (modeled after elite Jotun) and hefty price lift because of the immortality. I might also take away his body slot if that is needed to balance. He would still have Earth and probably some natural protection.