Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Hello,
I am going to be facing 7 others in a mp game soon. Playing S&A, probably without a bless strat. I am looking for ideas, suggestions, etc on how to best use my mages and demons. Especially looking for things like the black servant mini-thug, for instance.

I appreciate any advice.

Thanks!

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

black servant mini thugs are good and easily made with TC. summon a black servant with a master of the dead (they are only around 3 death gems i think), give him a lucky coin (luck+a shield for 5 astral gems is a bargain by anyones standards) and if you want give him some armour (i suggest marble armour/dragon armour which are both cheap and effective).

make sure to make boosters for your mages as magical versatility is your main power. always remember that all of your recruitable troops suck (the horsemen are mildly useful but not really) and all you should be recruiting are: mages, strong indies and maybe some nobles (a noble with a lucky coin, reinvig item(s) and a horror helm makes a decent thug but not that good).

take a high magic scale and a rainbow pretender to get those boosters+dwarven hammers out quicker and for your main armies try lots of easy to get summons (massed dispossesed spirits combined with fire demons can work well)

try to be first in research and gem income or as close as you can be to it (use site searching spells quite alot) and try to be the first or atleast one of the first to start churning out sc's and thugs (banelord+wraithsword+horror helm+boots of flying/quickness+pendant of luck+ring of regen is a high end thug/decent sc that should be useful right through the game)

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

I'm sure you'll get better posts than from me, but I love to pounce on strategy threads to get people rolling...

I'd make the Black Servant Thug® equipped with the following, in order of importance:

Rime Hauberk
Horror Helm
Lucky Amulet
Girdle of Might (in case you fight lifeless, i assume)
Flying Boots (seems useful for sniping unprotected armies)

Kissblade (on the forums) has been the one obsessed with this theme, contact him or search for his posts for some deep thought if he's interested.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

morks black servant is better than mine but swap the amulet for a coin and take out the girdle (servant will die before getting 100 fatigue)

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Actually, he won't get fatigue in first place (without the action of some form of enemy magic). He has 0 base enc. so that means no melee fatigue no matter how much armour, and he has no magic so no spell fatigue.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

yea i knew that, its just mork mentioned undead and some of them can give fatigue cant they?

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

thanks guys, good stuff.

I should mention we will be using CB 5.4, and indies at 9.
So, getting out of the gate, in my test games i have been buying a lot of comp bowmen and the heavy spear and shield men as a meatshield.

Currently my strat is expand with a bunch of mages shooting any good evocation spells they can, but I am slow getting out the gate with my turmoil.

How many of your CMs do you send out with the armies, and how many do you keep home to research? I am thinking around turns 10-30.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

At least in the early game, you can't go wrong with the TC archers. They're cheap and have a very effective missile attack. Get some demons for shock troops as soon as you can. There are lots of things you can do with their versatlity.

Edi

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

ive found they dont really match up to indie archers for the simple reason that their armour means they cost more resources (so they are harder to mass) and indies tend not to fire archers so...

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Hehe. If I recall, Black Servants don't work during 5.4 anymore since they don't have life drain anymore. Try not to get a rainbow pretender actually, try to get an early combat (Dragon really since Wyrm requires a bit of research) or VQ because that'll be your main power in expanding in the beginning. Your early forces just won't be that good since your only real units are going to be archers, I haven't found the other troops ever effective so archers with a basic thug or two in the front is alright (or even water demons). I don't like to send celestials master out till late game or unless I'm in a war. They're so expensive and you need them for so many things. Or enpower yourself to make one. Do get a high magic scale though. From there on, I'd just try to research up a lot and stay low profile and explode out the gates with gem income spells later on. Don't be overly aggressive till then because you really don't have a good military till you have a solid research + gem base going. Oh and spirit mastery is nice but not as good as you think since it's not mage effective to mass lots of them as screens.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

To make the most of the servant as thug, you want it out there _early_. If you get earth magic, plain old Black Steel armor makes them solid : I've had black servants with just BS helmet, BS full plate and a lucky coin take 4 or 5 provinces at indies 7-9.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

swapping that black steel helmet for a horror helm would let indies go down alot quicker but i agree, armour makes them strong (although armour that dosnt reduce their good defence is prefered)

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

No, that would be next version... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

I havn't tried this, but what about spamming lesser elementals, since they've been moved to level 1? TC has good site searchers so you can afford to waste some gems early on, right?

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

I still find the best way to go with s&a is using a waterdragon, lvl 9 water is nice, but not needed. He can take most province right at the start, when you script him to hold or fire*5 and then fire closest. Just don´t go to the usual SC killer provinces (crossbows, lizards, strong barbs and cavalry).

Don´t bother buying regular troops, start hoarding CM´s(prophetize one) and immediately search your provinces with them. Research alteration 3 for body ethereal. Once you get there, burn all your watergems for riverdemons, you should get ~10. Send them out with 2 cm´s(for blessing and bodyethereal) on the remaining provinces, which your dragon couldn´t take. With the bless, body ethereal and luck, those demons will be able to take lvl 9 provinces easily.

From that point on it depends on what sites you find, but try to get a second fort early for masters of the way. Use blood masters as bloodhunters, astral masters for demon summoning,fire ones make decent battlemages and you can use the death ones for spirit summoning.

If you get pressured you can hold of research and spam demons of heavenly fires with your CM´s, which make great raiding parties.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

err.. I'd just have to echo, listen to Turin. =)

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Thanks. So far (report censored a bit because other players read this board) my combat pretender, partially supported by bowmen, has been chomping indies at a steady rate.

Minor problem of not encountering anything other than swamp, mountain and forest, which is great for gems, but not for gold.

One weakness I have found, though, is the difficulty in getting earth magic up to snuff. Or should I even bother?

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Without Earth, you have no hammers, unless you can trade for them. Otherwise it's not crucial.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Don't worry, the only thing you need gold for is mercs and mages =P. Seriously the rest of your troops are awful.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Why does everyone say so? They have archers, are they really that bad? They have glaives, which can deal ridiculous amount of damage when massed, are they totally useless?

Do most people here think that Vanir and similar powerful units are the only national units worth using? It feels strange to always find comments like this in here, when I use national units extensively in my single-player games.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Well ... SP games you can play and win with pretty much whatever playstle & strategy you like. MP games, most national troops are dead meat as soon as people have researched enough magic. Even the powerful sacred ones like Vans, black hunters, etc, die pretty quickly to magic, although the Vans have two big advantages : recruitable anywhere, & stealthy.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

So, an update.

I researched to alt 2 (quickness), evocation to falling frost/fire, and conj to get 2 air queens and a fire king.

Around then, with my neighbor pythium being so weak, I invaded. Unfortunately, my blitz of him brought the unwanted attentions of Arco, my other neigbhor.

Arco invaded with a mixed bag of hypatists, wolves, vinemen, claymen, and black hawks. We have gone back and forth, with his mystics doing paralyze, soulslay, and enslave mind, which has worked very well on my 2 castings of trolls (1 sea, 1 earth).

So, i am found with a huge glut of celestials, 1 air queen and 1 fire queen, but no construction yet (still early game). I had summoned the royals with a 5a5f phoenix, who is busy with the last bits of pythium.
Dont really have the gems for any real summons - and with evocation and conjuration really the only thing researched (and I am at the top of the research by a good margin), are there any suggestions on spell combos vs arco mages out there? I'm leery of bringing my s2 mages in too close (using CB 5.4).

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

Apologies if these are invalid, I don't know CB stats offhand. That said...

With only conjuration, you'd be toast. If you have Evocation up to Seeking Arrow, spam his mage-rich army with those, or hit his Capitol, castles, and grasslands with Hurricane.

It may be too late now, but you should have positioned Consorts in your neighbors' rich provinces to paralyze them.

If you can, hit him with trolls (poison immune, IIRC) and a Celestial Master communioning up to Foul Vapors. I think that's Water-Nature, right?

Make sure your Trolls are doing Earth Power -> Blade Wind...

Try Shadow Blast. Death 1 plus 2 Death Gems can cast it. It's even better, of course, with a +Pen amulet and Rune Smasher or Skull Staff, but you don't have what you don't have.

With a Phoenix as Tien Chi, I would have gone for Enchantment ASAP to get Flaming Arrows. Ah well.

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

yes, going for flaming arrows wouldve been nice with all those archers. also if shadow blast shines anywhere its seiges. if you go for cheap death spell, cheap death spell, shadow blast the enemy should be in your gate and when this thing hits its astounding. basically do what SC said (the seeking arrow spam rocks vrs mage armys) and go in for the kill with some AoE magic, shield of a few troops and possibly a high mr flying thug to deal with any existing mages if you still have enemys like this to fight once you reach a decent construction lvl (and remember to make clams)

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

SC: S&A doesn't have Consorts. Seeking Arrow is Ench, not Evoc. I get those mixed up too sometimes. Also it's Air 3, not very spammable.
1000YS: Research Construction next! At least to 6, and preferably 8, to make sure the artifacts are in your control. Even the ones you don't plan on using, but don't want to see coming at you.
Maybe a couple levels of Thaumaturgy for the other site-search spells (a full boat of M5Es can do a clean search-- except for Blood and Unholy sites, but there aren't enough of those to help much...)
Is Pythium playing standard or Serpent Cult? If standard, keep pressing to take the capitol... you'll need the pearls for a lot of things. And 7/turn won't be enough... have you been Arcane Probing the inner provinces? Alternatively, ticket an M5E (+W) for clam-spamming... one thing Arco can't do anymore that they had been able to do before the balance mods!
An M5E (+E) and two CMs (one +E, and one +S -- if you caught one with both you should be ecstatic) can combine for Rings of Wizardry (Ought to be obvious what the stepping stone items are.). Give one of those to a M5E and he can lead a simply massive stack of magical beings (tack on a Staff of Elemental Mastery A/E for even more fun--- and gives pretty good protection in the bargain, as pay-back for only giving one resistance.)
Has Ho Hsien-Ku turned up? She can make the boosters to N5... can you say Beckoning (THAU 6)? It'll make forest provinces virtual no-go zones once you've done it a few times. You want evil tactics, is that one evil enough for ya? For less evil applications, she can cast Gift of Health too (ENCH 5) when holding Treelord's Staff. (Only if you have Nature gems coming out of your ears though-- it'll get dispelled right off the break otherwise!)
Li T'ieh-Kuai checked in? Evocation 7 please, for Nether Darts. Put him off to one side on the combat board in case he gets caught in the same province with one of your armies. Forget once... never again. Or boost him to S4 so he casts Ether Gate. Same destructive power, no disease aura.
Might think of more later...

Re: Looking for TienChi S&A EVIL strats - anyone?
 

a nasty thing is GoH and a bunch of trolls/river demons/sea trolls/vine ogres/tarrasques ect. these guys have high health and that plus gift of health (and some-one to cast mass regeneration if possible) is very hard to kill. also GoH also helps those kings/queens you have (kit out the air queen(s) first, they rock)