MA Tien Chi tips

[Festin]

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?

[Edi]

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.

[Jazzepi]

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

[fungalreason]

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.

[Burnsaber]

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.

[Hadrian_II]

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.

[P3D]

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.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Festin

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.

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.

[Festin]

With M1, that's 6RP for 70g (4.67g/turn, 0.81g/RP/turn) vs 5RP for 100g (3.33g/turn, .67g/RP/turn)

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.

[zlefin]

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.