Tips for LA C'tis

[Dragar]

I think you're a bit biased by experience Darkwind, given that you were fighting Ermor alongside mighty Utgard and were chasing that lovely death income from ermor's capital to cover your death gem expenses

[Meglobob]

I played La Tien Chi and faced La Ctis in a war in MP and even thou I was in a rather nice position, those freespawn chariots eventually overwhealmed.

Remember, with undead, throw in darkness, rigor mortis and they become very, very fierce indeed. Massed banefire on top really, really hurts.

Also, when I won as La Ermor the nation that give me most problems was La C'tis and those Sauromancers. Those Sauromancers spamming wither bones killed around 5,000+ undead and they were backed up with darkness/rigor mortis. Lucky for me by then I had tartarians, all the elemental royalty and Utterdark up, so everyone give in!

Respect the Sauromancers.

[nozshand]

chariots are nice but not that nice, they have low hp and vulnerable to enemy archers and they can be easily countered.

while the chariots become less and less effective, the d gems you invested on your priests eventually is a total waste.

for extra 7 d gems you have a very good thug/SC with the right minor bless, option to swtich between chariots/tomb wyrms, not to metion they only summon slightly less chariots than the priests do

priest king is always my first choice.

[Omnirizon]

what minor bless do you suggest?

[Gregstrom]

F/W, I suppose.

Earth seems a little pointless, and N/S have no effect. A isn't generally much use, at str 17 Blood might add a little, and D doesn't seem that useful for them.

[KissBlade]

You don't really need a huge bless for them. Astral/nature minor bless which covers your natural low path in them will be fine.

[Omnirizon]

nature is a rather useless bless for them, considering that the main units one might wish to benefit with a bless do not benefit at all from nature. OTOH, I think astral is a good (maybe the best) bless for them.

[Trumanator]

Yeah, the tomb kings can't get regen from nature can they? If they could it might be a little ridiculous with their 50 HP...

[vfb]

I don't think you should even consider the Tomb King when you are thinking about an LA C'tis bless. Tomb Kings are better off summoning.

But if you do need to use one in battle:

- You don't need an F bless, base Att 14 is sufficient, plus you're likely have an AoE wpn, and you can gear up situationally for more attacks or +Attack when needed.
- Air bless is a joke, give it a shield
- W is not needed, defense is high already
- E will do nothing except get rid of your tiny fatigue from Holy Avenger/Bless
- S does nothing for base MR 18
- D is not important for a few melee thugs
- N buys you nothing
- B ... well, Str 18 is good enough already

So, Tomb Kings are not a unit where you care about a bless IMO.

How about Sauromancers?
- E: Cold-blooded units suffer in cold provinces. But just +2 reinvig/turn doesn't help all that much.
- N: They have old age, so a shroud or being blessed in battle will heal up diseased mages. But they also are heavy into death, so they don't get disease from old age as often. Could help with indy mages like Lore Masters.
- D: Not bad, if you do a little Bone Grinding. But not worth building a strategy on.

So, use your pretenders paths to diversify, so you can build your own hammers, cast Wish in the late game, or a global you want, or cast some cool battle ritual like Fog Warriors, that you'd have trouble doing with your nationals. Or use make a strong SC pretender that you can tear up the indies (or neighbors) with. Or go strong scales for massive amounts of Sauromancers and research. But I wouldn't put much effort into even a minor bless.

[Omnirizon]

i disagree about S doing nothing for base 18. you can never have enough MR. that fact that base is so high makes it that much more valuable. with that base plus S bless plus prot of the grave they could have MR of 25 with no items.

that's damn valuable.