MA Tien Chi tips
 

Ok, so we have a nice guide for Barbarian Kings, and some helpful advice for Spring and Autumn, but almost nothing for MA in Strategy Index. I think this is unfair, especially since some cool units and commanders were added in one of the patches. So, if you have any ideas, please contribute to this thread.

As a start, here are a couple of questions that I had after checking the MA Tien Chi unit list:
1)Is there any reason at all to use Minister of Magic? As a researcher, Master of the Way is more cost effective, and he has better magic paths. Ok, Minister of Magic can be recruited without a lab, but apart from this he seems quite useless.
2)Are Imperial Archer and Imperial Crossbowmen worth using, or it is better to stick to a basic TC Archer, who is cheap and quite good?

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

1) I'd need to check from lch's data dumps, but the Minister might have had some special ability that is not directly visible.

2) I'd stick to the basic archer. The Imperial Archer is slower and more heavily armored, no real improvement. The crossbow could come in handy sometimes.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

Generally with archers all you want is more arrows in the air. I just got finished with a big fight between Ulm and Marignon in Beardaxe where his x-bows having more armor than my x-bows was quite useful, but this normally isn't the case.

Slow archers are bad unless you're forced to put them with already slow armies. Mapmove 2 indy archers are great. Lion tribe and wolf tribe are some of the indy archers that have mapmove two. The only thing you have to worry about really is the type of bow they're carrying, their precision score, and their mapmove speed everything else is mostly irrelevant unless your archers are being shot at, or flanked.

Jazzepi

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

One use for the armored archers is a screen. A few groups placed in front of your standard ones will soak up arrows from enemy units set to Fire Archers. Of course they are slow, and it won't always be worth giving up mobility for it, but it can be nice to have that option available.

I never really found a good use for the ministers of magic either. Masters of the way are more cost effective, and geomancers are far more useful in battle.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

I played MA T'ien C'hi a while ago. Here are my views:

1) Mages. You have diverse picks, but really low power. It's very rare to see Alchemist of Five Elements with a 3 in a elemental path. And all your out-of-capital mages have same problems. They just have a bunch of 1 picks. There isn't really much to do in combat with a A1W2S1E1N1H2 Celestial Master. Using them for cold bolt spam is just so... degrating. You need to forge a insane amount of boosters before even your best mages can do anything on the battlefield. Acid spam with alchemists of the five elements works thought. Also, all of the alchemists of five elements can summon Vitriols with just a cheap water bracelet.
You need to leverage Rune Smashers (+void eyes, duh) and Crystal shields if you want your mages actually do something noticeable in combat.

I lost the MP game because I really didn't have any plan for late game and once I git there, my options were greatly diminished by the lack of good combat mages. In hidsight, clam spam + high astral pretender would have been absolutely necessary. Your mages have one good thing going for them thought: They can forge an absolute smorgasboard of items. You really need some death access for some thugs to slap all that gear to.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

The minister is cheaper and has more research.

Minister of Magic: 70 gold, 5 research, 4.66 upkeep 1.07 research/gold
Master of the Way: 100 gold, 4 research, 3.33 upkeep 1.2 research/gold

In the long run, master of the way will be cheaper, but with ministers of magic you will have more research, so basically if you have enough money i would use ministers.

About the archers, i think that the horsemen are more enteresting than the footsoldiers, they are more expensive, but are able to fight better.

Tactics:
archers + windguide + flaming arrows are fun.
lots of magic paths = lots of gems & ability to forge nice items, so get some SCs
Redguards are nice, and you also have sacred summons, so you can think about getting a bless (E9 fits nice)
Also Celestial masters can lead communions for battle magic, but as they have very low astral levels, they are easy victims of magic duels.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

I'd prefer Minister of Magic for non-capital research. With M1, that's 6RP for 70g (4.67g/turn, 0.81g/RP/turn) vs 5RP for 100g (3.33g/turn, .67g/RP/turn). The difference is minimal.
And you can build MoM without temple or lab in your second fort, starting 7-9th turn.
Don't forget Fire Fetish. You can even heal back diseased commanders if you want.
If you choose Misfortune you 'd buy geomancers instead of them anyways.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

The Master of the Way is a worse researcher in every way, are you sure you aren't mixing the two up?

Seeing as how you can build 13 Ministers for just the cost of a temple and lab that are needed to build the master, I don't see why you would ever use the Master of Magic as your primary researcher.

Plop a couple of cheap forts down in swamps, if you have the chance, recruit a minister from it every turn and all those research points will rack up quickly.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

Yes, I used these numbers actually, and according to them the Master of the Way is a more cost effective researcher. Looks like it makes sense to build Ministers of Magic in a fort without lab or temple, but I would usually build a temple in each fort anyway, to increase my dominion. And don't forget that while Minister of Magic is generally useful only as a researcher, Masters of the Way can always spam Frozen Heart, they can be blessed and have Holy 1, etc. Still I now see that there are some situations, when Minister of Magic is useful.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

when comparing those two as researchers, you can't just consider the cost/turn of research, as the startup cost of buying them matters too. while it's not clear how to compare the amortized cost of higher upkeep to a lower purchase cost (for higher research) it is important to consider. Overall I prefer the ministers.

I haven't played TC in awhile, but i recall the combat magic being heavily based on communions to be effective.
Geomancers alone can make for solid combat support in numbers, with communion they have a number of fine combat options, Gifts from Heaven n various others.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

The key to MA Tien Chi's magic is communions. Massive communions. Once you get enough communion slaves, the masters can cast truckloads of spells.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

Check out the pd as well.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

Yes, Conscription is actually pretty useful, with turns. Having free 20-30 PD in all your provinces is certainly a very useful bonus. Think of all that free gold!

give that PD some boosts with your versatile magic, and you'll be pretty well off.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

IMO reverse communion and PoTS is obsolutely nessceary for MA TC. Crystal shield is far too expensive to be massed...

I think MA TC lacks offensive power in late game. Building a cost-effective thug or raiding team is not easy for them and reverse communion is hard to be used offensively. Anyway, with crossbowman+WG+FA and flexible horsemen, perhaps they can kill their opponents in early/middle game to avoid fighting Angels & Tartarians:)

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

With the many cheap, recruit-everywhere astral mages T'ien Ch'i has access to, I really have a hard time seeing the lack of late-game offensive power.

Those same astral mages are very good counters to both angels and Tartarians.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

When you try basing your entire late-game strategy entirely around large communions of fragile mages, and you face a skilled player using a more versatile nation - you will see why it is said that MA TC lacks late-game punch.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

Of course you cannot just field large communions of frail mages and expect to win, but neither can you field just Tartarians and expect to win. (And do not forget that small communions of cheap mages are often a lot more cost effective than large communions of the same.)

My point is that MA TC's mages are a solid punch. You certainly need to use a kick and a bite as well, but that goes for all nations. Most nations seem to need to work at getting needed late game versatility. Few can, without using a pretender or massive empowering, field adequate amounts of battlefield and ritual mages as well as summon Tartarians and Angels. I do not see anything special about T'ien Ch'i in this regard.

No, T'ien Ch'i does not have much in form of recruitable thugs, but the ability to summon them is certainly there. There is nothing wrong with water and nature access and earth is adequate enough to get to troll kings.

It is also worth noticing that both clams and fetishes are craftable by your national mages (and you have healers). Without counting on a pretender or hero you probably need to empower one of your celestial masters to get to rings of wizardry, but with the aforementioned clams this should not be totally out of the question and then that versatility starts to really open up.

Getting true SCs requires some forethought, but that is something T'ien Ch'i shares with most other nations. In this case, the simplest thing is probably to have at least S6 on the pretender.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

Never played a tough MP game with tien chi.

Without much thought:

1. I agree with communions for bigger spells

2. I am always somewhat fearful of dying early to midgame when you have no great bless or tough mages. Would not discount going with a Lich to make a combat pretender, sleeping, to tie into death magic for the banelords in midgame. Banelords unless nerfed in the march patch have the chassis to take down about anything living given the right weapons.

A Lich with some earth and air magic(1 fire is ideal but costly. typically better to empower him during game) can wipe out entire armies midgame.

Re: MA Tien Chi tips
 

I like it's standard troops but they are fairly resource intensive. Even it's basic archer is resource 12 (but it does have a composite bow). With the standard Sloth 3 build you can produce enough for indie clearing but you might lose out to another nation 1v1. Marignon's CBs are resource 8. Man's LBs 7. Slinger nations 2. Machaka 3, Caelum 5, C'Tis 1, Bandar as little as it wants :p You can simply be overwhelmed by numbers in the missle department. Except vs Ulm :p And thats without considering any elites or seriously blessed troops you will face. Which your meele troops will struggle to counter. It's not that your troops are bad. They can certainly clean up indies but you really need something extra to fend off another human early before your combat magic (communion fuelled) comes good. And ideally you don't want your mages on combat duty too early instead of reseraching and searching just to make up for a moderate army in the early game.

Therefore MA TC needs to consider an awake or at worst sleeping combat pretender to protect it from any early rush and before it's combat magic becomes effective.

It could also really use that Combat pretender having access to Death and / or Blood for Thugs. TC lacks easy access to Thugs as it is not in these paths. Plus it's mages are all rounders. It is rare to find any with greater than 2 in any one path. In a communion that doesn't matter. All combat spells are reachable with enough communion slaves. But for overland castings - decent summons (even Troll summons), mind hunts, seeking arrows etc. all require boosters and so can't be spammed easily.

A minor Earth Bless (and a minor Nature one as its decent mages often suffer old age and a shroud plus N4 bless makes this only a minor hinderence) are nice for the mages but not really essential. There is no decent bless strategy I can see for MA TC.

So for Pretenders I'd stick with an awake Cyclops, Lich, Vampire Queen (CBM), Ghost King or maybe Deva. Or risk a sleeper with extra magic and / or scales.

These should boost and protect you early on before your battle magic comes good. All except the Cyclops gets you automatically in to Blood and or Death early and hence to early Thugs. He is primarily for defence vs human players as your armies are decent vs indies so he can do plenty of searching and summoning. Getting in to both Death (and hopefully Blood too) early resolves a lot of the late game weakness as you should have no problem fielding Tarts at the same time as everyone else. Everyone can get in to these paths later but it is so much easier to start with at least one decent searcher / blood hunter early.

Obviously you don't build more than a couple of imperial Alchemists who with a Master Crystal join the communions to cast Flaming arrows. If you have recruited any more by mistake its worth giving them a mace and transforming them later to cut down on the vast upkeep :p You won't be mind hunted or even magic duelled often due to the number of astral mages you have. Many of which will be cheap MoM or MoW a quarter of which have astral and are prime Communion Slave fodder.

For scales you really need Order 3. This is a gold hungry power. Not just for the mages but for extra forts to summon spies (Imperial Consort), cheap researchers and to mass your national troops if needed. I like to take at least magic 1 if possible as you use a lot of cheap weak researchers and have no easy access to lanterns or skull mentors. Sloth 3 is OK for the points too. You can mass enough of your troops to clear the indies and use your Pretender plus hopefully extra early forts to fend off opponents early on.

It shares a lot of the strengths and weaknesses of LA Jomon before that was boosted by the latest patches. But not to the same extremes. Nice troops but resource intensive enough that you could get overwhelmed early. So SC Pretender desireable. No easy access to Thugs/SC so need Pretender to do this for you. Great Communions with all the strengths (and frailties) of that. Your mages NEED communions to be effective as they are all rounders. No bless strategy.