[PvK]

In my second MP Dominions game, which is still ongoing, I played my first game (SP or MP) as T'ien Ch'i. For what it's worth, and to poo poo the "TC will die in all MP games!" comments, I have been in the top 1-3 positions on practically all metrics throughout the game. I'd also mention that human troops are still an important element in armies.

I tend to partly agree that they can seem weak... but I also think they are also strong in many ways... even if none of those ways is by itself particularly impressive in an obvious way.

I.e., I think they are fairly strong, but in subtle ways. For example, they have many paths, which can with work and luck be put to many different uses. But it can take a lot of work and thought, very unlike nations which are very strong in a couple of very visible ways.

The Astral-1 on Celestial Masters is troubling... if you have to fight an opponent with much cheaper astral-1 mages or a strong astral king. If you don't, then it may not be a problem. I sort of think it would be nice if they had astral-2, or astral-0 with 2 random picks instead of one. I won't pretend enough expertise, experience, or knowledge of the dev's intentions to say that should be done, but if I had the option to recruit ones with 2? or 2S1? instead of 1S1?, I would use it and feel a lot less weak.

There sure are a lot of things they can do, though.

I also find it ironic, at least when considering Kung Fu et al, that TC units don't have particularly good fighting skills overall, except for the Prince Generals. TC mages with good fighting skills would certainly be different... of course they can become competant already with Quickness plus Blessings, but if they started out with skill... that would be something to think about.

I have found some neat things they can do, and some non-obvious strengths, and their casters sure have many possibilities... I think that a clever and patient player with strong knowledge of spells could probably be strong with them, but if you try to just use brute strength or techniques learned with other nations, they can seem weak.

One of their strengths is already massed bows, so I don't know that a repeating crossbow is going to change their nature much at all, except to give them another toy along the lines of what they already have.

The conscription effect is lame. Hardly ever happens except for very low levels which are worth almost no gold, and may just cause a problem due to the weird routing logic (strong unit tries to be alone but oops there is one conscript who dies, so strong unit routs...).

I think it'd be thematic to have the imperial theme have stronger conscription - say steady rise up to 5, and frequent up to 10, then levels above 10 be like they are now above 0.

Maybe also give them 1.5 to 2.0 footment per point of PD... though just to be thematic - I don't think that's needed for balance.

The Jade Emperor is I think a bit overpriced for his abilities, which is too bad.

PvK