Help needed for challenge game

[magnate]

Hey folks, what would you do in my position? Your brother is playing undead Ermor, your two other buddies are playing Abysia and Pan, and you've been forced to play Tien Chi base, but have no other limitations. This is an unmodded game using the Chandrea map. Free for all, to the death, no alliances, no VPs or anything else. Pretty normal settings - indies 9, hard research.

I've never played Tien, and have no idea what their strengths are - I've heard they're pretty crap. So, er, where do I start -

1. What sort of pretender? SC? Researcher? Site-searcher? Blood fountain?

2. What sort of research strategy? Pretty hard to compete with Abysia for blood magic, or with Ermor for death or with Pan for nature/earth ...

3. What sort of army strategy? Celestials? Cavalry? Summoned troops (like mechanical men or living statues for dealing with undead)?

Any tips really welcome, I have no idea what I'm getting into.

Thanks in advance,

CC

[Nerfix]

Hmmm, doesn't Tien have those crazypotent but mind duel vulnerable mages? I remember somebody suggestion Communion + acid evocations for them.

Also, don't they have water 1 + 2 holy priest-mages? They would suerely be good against Ermor.

[Truper]

1. I'd personally use a competent but inexpensive expansion pretender. Base TC has a nice troop selection, and I'd want scales decent enough to exploit them. The venerable Astral Wyrm would be a good choice here. If you are not using the CB mod, another option is to design your pretender to be able to summon Celestial Soldiers, in which case, why not use a Jade Emperor? Celestial Masters are good researchers and good site searchers, so you don't need your pretender in either role. Use a Blood Fountain only if you must have Blood to enjoy yourself

2. To my mind, TC wants to specialize in evocations. Celestial Masters are the most versitile mages in the game, and capitalising on their unpredictability is a good thing. If you do go with the Astral Wyrm, get a level of alteration, so he can cast Personal Luck, then get some evocations, and then study up on all the different types you can cast. There is a large number, and some of them are pretty rare and fun.

3. What troops you use is largely a matter of taste and the tactics you're comfortable with (and what mods you are or are not using). I like to beef up the starting army with some footmen and some bowmen, and then begin building a similar army of the Imperial troops.

[magnate]

Truper said:
1. I'd personally use a competent but inexpensive expansion pretender. Base TC has a nice troop selection, and I'd want scales decent enough to exploit them. The venerable Astral Wyrm would be a good choice here. If you are not using the CB mod, another option is to design your pretender to be able to summon Celestial Soldiers, in which case, why not use a Jade Emperor? Celestial Masters are good researchers and good site searchers, so you don't need your pretender in either role. Use a Blood Fountain only if you must have Blood to enjoy yourself

2. To my mind, TC wants to specialize in evocations. Celestial Masters are the most versitile mages in the game, and capitalising on their unpredictability is a good thing. If you do go with the Astral Wyrm, get a level of alteration, so he can cast Personal Luck, then get some evocations, and then study up on all the different types you can cast. There is a large number, and some of them are pretty rare and fun.

3. What troops you use is largely a matter of taste and the tactics you're comfortable with (and what mods you are or are not using). I like to beef up the starting army with some footmen and some bowmen, and then begin building a similar army of the Imperial troops.

Hey, that's interesting - exactly the opposite of what I thought. I thought the troops weren't much cop so I'd rely on Celestials and summons. I hadn't spotted the utility of Celestial Masters - they are so expensive!

The problem with an astral wyrm is his vulnerability to Mind Duel. Putting 6+ Astral on him is a waste ...

I'll have a go at designing a Wyrm. What scales would you use?

CC

[Truper]

You can't really "rely" on Celestials, not at 20 gems/summon.

Celestial Masters aren't cheap, but they're a pretty good deal for what you get.

Magic Duel is an issue, but consider: you're not really facing any astral powers, unless you want to count Abysia. 1 in 8 Warlocks will have S3, but at 270 gold a pop, he isn't likely to have many Warlocks running around. If you really fear Magic Duel, you can always have your Wyrm go to sea or retire to the lab after his initial bout of indy conquering...

Oh, and if its banishing you're after - use the Masters. Nothing like a quickened level 3 preist with good accuracy for smiting undead swarms

[Nerfix]

I think that combo of tower shield heavy infantry on the front and glaive HI on the sides a bit behind the shield wall works fine.

At least it seemed to work OK for me. Tien also has a reasonable acces to Flaming Arrows AND Wind Guide which can turn their archers into a nasty force.

[Daynarr]

Truper said:
Magic Duel is an issue, but consider: you're not really facing any astral powers, unless you want to count Abysia. 1 in 8 Warlocks will have S3, but at 270 gold a pop, he isn't likely to have many Warlocks running around. If you really fear Magic Duel, you can always have your Wyrm go to sea or retire to the lab after his initial bout of indy conquering...

There is a catch to this. When Abyssia player sees enemy astral pretender then he can alchemize his fire gems and get a healthy number of magic duelers against him.

[magnate]

Ok, my first stab at a pretender:

Great Enchantress
F4A2W4E4S4D1N4B4
Order 1
Sloth 3
Cold 1
Death 3
Luck 0
Magic 3
Dominion 5
Watch Tower

The idea here is that the troops are fairly crappy so we don't bother with them, so we can take Sloth 3 and get Magic 3 instead (we'll still have enough resources to build up the heavy infantry we need). We're going to focus on spells, hence a pretender that's suited to site searching. She also gives the Celestial Soldiers lots of nice blessings.

We crank out the 1W2H priests and get them researching, then use them for banishing when necessary.

Any thoughts? Indies are at 9 so maybe initial expansion will be hampered? Anyone think an SC pretender would be better?

CC

[Wish]

the biggest advantage, I've found, for TC is that their wide WIDE selection of magic makes them good for forging items for SCs, beyond that they are a bit lacking.

you will want a pretender that can do the expansion mostly alone. like a manticore or dragon, with a little bit of water, earth, and astral, so they can use alt 3 to become a mini-SC. (for quickness, luck, body ethereal, and ironskin) also if you do a dragon, take at least 1 nature, such that they can cast eagle eyes then start spitting their breath weapon at enemies.