Speeding Up Tien Chi Spring and Autumn ?!

[Boron]

Originally posted by Truper:
The only words I uttered in the quotation posted below that was attributed entirely to me were "Good points".

Your strategy may aim at becoming the magic superhouse - but if so, having 1/3 the income and therefore 1/3 the mages that most nations have is the wrong way to go about it.

I didn't totaly agree with anything you said - I agreed that Thufir made some good points regarding S&A in general, and specifically in regard to whether adding gems to its capital is a good way to go about improving the theme.

but you didn't listen to my arguments .
i said you only have 1/3 income but you can compensate by ignoring national troops + luck 3 events in early - midgame .

ulm e.g. may have triple income but a big part of that goes on national units like black knights . furthermore you have watch tower or mausoleum . so you save 150 gold for each castle compared to ulm which most likely choses the 40 admin 450 gold castle.
3rd you don't need to invest in pd .
4th : you most likely get your first +500 or +1000 gold event in the first 5 turns .

with a vq + really few archers + 1 or 2 celestial masters using fire flies and the like you still can expand 2 provinces / turn .
once you have 10 provinces you have enough income to save a bit for castling + build 1 sage + 1 celestial master per turn .
before you still can build 1 celestial master or 1 master of the elements each turn after turn 5 and from turn 1-5 if you are unlucky with lucky gold events you buy a master of the dead .
you need 1-2 of them anyways for the dispossed spirits .

so again why is the bad economy really so bad ?

and the additional troops your enemies can build in early game with the more money you normally can counter by your vq .

after early game you counter your low income by your superior gem income .

if you don't have very special tactics to enchance your national troops in midgame they become less and less important and late game they are almost worthless expect as fodder .

a few "tricks" like weapons of sharpness can extend the usefulness of national troops but these spells are even more useful on summons .
and given the few nations which have good access to these special spells and how expensive they are the success is doubtable .

the only spells which make national troops still useful in lategame are really :
weapons of sharpness and wind guide / flaming arrows .

but they are not useful on national troops only : weapons of sharpness cast on summons is much scarier than used on national troops .

a exemption to this is of course jotunheim but they are special .
and there are no rules without exemptions .

[SelfishGene]

Spring and Autumn and Barbarian Kings both need a couple new units imo; which would hopefully give them the power they need.

I started to make a S&A unit mod but wasn't sure how to extract animations exactly, and using screenshots is ineffective.

I play Tien Chi rather often, so i do have perhaps a bit of self-interest in these sorts of improvements.

S&A needs a 'philosopher-poet-general' unit and a 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' swordsman, sort of a buildable Lu Tung-Pin. However i can't think of how to make either one really unique without the ability to make new abilities. The Poet-General might have +30 defense/+30 seige? Since its already been done it sounds a bit dull, but i can't think of another way of really differentiating 'military skill'. The Hidden-Jedi could be just a weaker Version of the hero - 1e, 1w, 1a, 2random, high attack and defense, flying, no armor.

Barbarian Kings needs a Marco Polo styled sea-fearing leader, an elite sacred horse archer (the only sacred archer), and maybe the ability to Capture Slaves similar to Mictlan.

[Boron]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:
Spring and Autumn and Barbarian Kings both need a couple new units imo; which would hopefully give them the power they need.

I started to make a S&A unit mod but wasn't sure how to extract animations exactly, and using screenshots is ineffective.

I play Tien Chi rather often, so i do have perhaps a bit of self-interest in these sorts of improvements.

S&A needs a 'philosopher-poet-general' unit and a 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' swordsman, sort of a buildable Lu Tung-Pin. However i can't think of how to make either one really unique without the ability to make new abilities. The Poet-General might have +30 defense/+30 seige? Since its already been done it sounds a bit dull, but i can't think of another way of really differentiating 'military skill'. The Hidden-Jedi could be just a weaker Version of the hero - 1e, 1w, 1a, 2random, high attack and defense, flying, no armor.

Barbarian Kings needs a Marco Polo styled sea-fearing leader, an elite sacred horse archer (the only sacred archer), and maybe the ability to Capture Slaves similar to Mictlan.

great ideas . i still don't think s&a is too weak but with bk i totally agree .

i love the slaves idea .
perhaps bk should get the ability to capture slaves by pillaging .
these slaves can than either be converted to blood slaves or sold to slave traders for gold .

for these special slaves 1-2 minor demon summons could be added like with tien chi s&a .
the slaves could be sold for 5 gold each or converted to blood slaves at a ratio of either 3/4/5 : 1 .

like SelfishGene said a strong horse archer with melee skills needs to be added .
there is already a horse archer with melee skill but unfortunately he is a poor copy of what the mongols & huns really were .
so the blessable archer idea is cool .

[Truper]

[quote]Originally posted by Chris Byler:
But you _can't_ switch to Order-3 with S&A. It requires Turmoil-1 or greater.

Right. But you certainly don't have to take turmoil 3, sloth 3, cold 3, death 3 and an almost-no-admin castle just to dump all those points into a VQ. Try it. Fire it up. When I did, the income of my capital was 89. And that will be decreasing each turn. (shudders) The idea that you can afford a 250 gold Celestial Master every turn from turn 4 or 5 on is ludicrous with such a setup, unless you are counting on massive amounts of income from the turmoil 3/luck 3 combo - and that is wishful thinking from the tests I've made. As Cainehill rightly pointed out, you're just as likely to lose your temple on turn 2 with that setup - and then how long will it be before you recruit a single CM?

If S&A is weak, it is probably (IMO) a symptom of order still being worth more than its point cost, and order needs to be nerfed again; or turmoil is too risky because of catastrophic events even with a strong luck scale, and more catastrophes need to require luck 0 or less, 1 or less, 2 or less. (It is of course still possible for the followers of a lucky god to be struck by catastrophes - but only by the active malevolence of a hostile god or his people, not by chance which is ruled by their own god.) Their military isn't that much worse than base TC, and their mages are better, plus they have the demon summons.

Order is certainly still the most valuable scale, as it has the most effect on income, as well as acting as a buffer against catastrophe. But I don't think the fact that order is the most valuable scale makes the turmoil races unplayable. But neither do I think that having to take some turmoil is a good reason to savage your economy completely.

I apparently rate the Imperial troops more highly than you do. The loss of them does make me think of the S&A military as being much worse than that of the standard theme. But I think that is compensated by the mages. I agree that the S&A mages are better - some of the best in the game - which is why I would prefer to have enough gold to recruit some While the demons are nice, it isn't clear to me that they are better than the Celestial Soldiers available to base TC.

[Rainbow]

I agree with Boron that the theme is fine as is, it just takes some creativity to use it well. Unforunately I must admit that I am currently in an MP game playing Tien Chi S&A, and doing bad because of a bad starting location combined with tough indies. This is my fault however, and nothing to do with the theme.

Personallly I think the fire demons are lousy. I know there are some that disagree, but my experience is that the fire demons accuracy is so bad that they can only damage large enemy armies with lots of fodder, and there must be a 1000 other and better ways to obliterate an army like that.

The river demons are much more useful, but not worth the gems, nor the time, which needs to be invested to summon them.

The real strength of the theme are the flying celestial masters. Between all the great and creative dominions players we have, it would be easy to write up an entire strategy guide about this unit alone.

If you worry about the celestrial masters being mind duel fodder, make an astral king pretender and put a flying item on it if it can't fly naturally. Script the pretender to do a couple of mind duels at the start of any battle where you expect enemy astral mages.

/Rainbow

[Boron]

Originally posted by Rainbow:
I agree with Boron that the theme is fine as is, it just takes some creativity to use it well. Unforunately I must admit that I am currently in an MP game playing Tien Chi S&A, and doing bad because of a bad starting location combined with tough indies. This is my fault however, and nothing to do with the theme.

/Rainbow

great ideas too rainbow

tien chis crap national units are rather a benefit than a curse for indep smashing they are just enough but nothing more .
so even if you don't like my horror scales at least taking death 3 sloth 3 is obvious .
so you have an almost as strong pretender as ermor or pan cw but don't need to worry about banishment , dust to dust , wither bones and all the other good undead mass destroyers .
celestial masters are just great .

i would put in a top 5 national mages list with main focus on general usefulness the following :
-demonbred
-arch theurg
-celestial master s&a
-starspawn
-mystic

i should have extended it to top 10

i am not absolutely sure but i guess i would put the celestial master at least on number 3 more likely on number 2 or 1

[Cainehill]

One problem with the "Misfortune 3, Luck 3, Magic 3" plan is that the way Luck works, you're all too likely to lose your lab or temple in the first 10 turns (sometimes the first turn), or have a catastrophe wipe out 40% of your capital's population, etc.

If having a high luck was modified to at least protect against catastrophes in the first 5-10 turns, _then_ it might be viable.

Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who despises the concept that a theme is only going to be viable if you totally trash your scales and make an ungodly SC, especially a VQ.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally posted by SelfishGene:

Barbarian Kings needs a Marco Polo styled sea-fearing leader, an elite sacred horse archer (the only sacred archer), and maybe the ability to Capture Slaves similar to Mictlan.

Perhaps I'm biased, but I prefer the the totem unit I added in my BK mod .

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Boron:
4th : you most likely get your first +500 or +1000 gold event in the first 5 turns .

I don't think so. As Zen may recall, I used to think that Disorder 3 / Luck 3 was a good idea quite some time ago. I still rarely saw a really great income event in the first ten turns; maybe in the first 20. But I _did_ see temples and labs burning to the ground, and I did watch 40% of my capital's population wiped out on turn 2 or 3. IMO, you're not going to get your income that way.

In addition - with death 3, Disorder 3, you're going to have a good amount of events killing population, plus a steady decrease of population. Guess what? When you run out of population in your capital, it's going to be hard to recruit there. Okay - you think to only recruit CMs there, 1 resource point, and even with 0 population you seem to still have 2 resource points.

Still - it's going to be hard to have the income for it, especially as you have to rebuild temples and labs.

with a vq + really few archers + 1 or 2 celestial masters using fire flies and the like you still can expand 2 provinces / turn .

Have you been playing with the default settings? Independent strength 3, some archers and fire flies may be able to take some of the provinces, but you get up to indie 6 (seemingly the most common MP setting), archers and fire flies are going to get butchered. Also, your VQ isn't going to expand so well either until you get a fair amount of research done - alteration 3, maybe some enchantment.

If you manage to get those 10+ provinces you talk about, thus allowing you to recruit some researchers and get a gem income going, you might do okay, but that's a big if.

[Vynd]

Whether Boron's strategy would work or not, to present it as an example of how S&A is a prefectly good theme seems silly to me. You can take terrible scales and a super-charged Pretender with any nation and any theme. So playing S&A this way is almost like playing no theme at all. Actually, it is worse than that, I think. Because there are other themes that actually reward you for having, say, a heavy cold scale, and thus are better at this sort of strategy than S&A is.