[shatner]

Ermor has been handling itself well against T'ien Ch'i. And just as importantly, T'ien Ch'i has not been handling itself particularly well against Ermor (more on this below). The particulars of Ermor's front against the giants we know almost nothing about.

T'ien Ch'i is a nation characterized by two things: magical diversity (all paths but blood and death are available in meaningful quantities to MA T'ien Ch'i) and specialized troops. T'ien Ch'i has composite bows, crossbows, towershields and spears (in light, medium and heavy infantry varieties), glaves (also in light, medium and heavy), pikes, cavalry archers, medium cavalry archers and straight-up heavy cavalry. Their recruitable commanders include have cheap patrollers, spies, healers, fortune-telling priests, cheap sacred researchers, sage-bonus researchers who can be hired without a lab, cheap communion casters as well as two flavors of super diverse cap-only mages. Their recruit screen is substantially larger than most other nations'. About the only things they don't do are recruitable thugs and sacred soldiers worth creating a bless around. However, all their troops are either unimpressive outside of their specialty or too resource-heavy to properly mass. That means you either bring the right tool to the fight or you face an expensive battle (win or lose). This includes bringing the right magic to a fight because T'ien Ch'i under-performs without good magical back-up unless facing indie-level opposition.

The normal response to high-caliber undead is to spam dust to dust; a low-research, D1 spell. Unforunately, MA T'ien Ch'i, unlike every other age of T'ien Ch'i, has no native death access so we've been forced to use the S2, evocation spell Solar Rays instead. So T'ien Ch'i charged into the battle with a finely tuned and intricately crafted host meant to burn the undead to cinders with stellar lasers... only to find that the undead aren't nearly as laser-able as was previously hoped. I'm not 100% sure why; I thought that spell didn't allow for an MR save but it just doesn't seem to be zapping particularly well. Regardless, T'ien Ch'i has lost a few minor and one major engagement with Ermor and has been engaging in a fighting retreat ever since.

Either we will find something that does work or we will be overrun and assimilated into the Ermorian empire. Playing T'ien Ch'i gives you access to almost every type of unit and almost every type of spell this game has to offer, which is excellent. However, until you learn to use those troops effectively and until you do whatever is required to unlock those spells (research, forging boosters, forming communions, etc.) you are a slightly expensive and very squishy nation of humans wearing robes.

T'ien Ch'i: succeeding or failing really, really big with virtually nothing in-between.