Speeding Up Tien Chi Spring and Autumn ?!

[Boron]

thats true Mardagg that my scales will make me a bit unpopular .

ermor , pan cw , perhaps bf ulm ( forced to take death 1 ) and abysia ( no income loss due to death ) are really the only ones which come to my mind with deathscale .

but all in all deathscale is not too evil even with death 3 on turn 50 only 26% of your population have died through deathscale .
on the other hand you have +35% population by then .

mid - lategame high growth doesn't prevent you from population mass kill spells though and bad events .

there are simply no easy choices in dominions ( only really few ) . i have +240 points through death 3 and so can afford a vq so no problem if she dies earlygame .
you have though better economy earlygame but midgame you become a good target for population mass kill spells at least in your 30k+ population provinces .

my tien chi s&a is really quite similiar to ermor .
only thing to pay upkeep for are mages and really FEW archers + footmen for earlygame expansion .

normally luck 3 is just enough to have enough cash but not more .
if i have really bad luck i still can either sell forged items to other players or pillage a province e.g. underwater provinces earlygame which i likely can't keep against ryleh anyways if it comes to a war .

edit : if i take at least air 2 for my vq i have a nice advantage in early - midgame defense though because per cloud trapeze she can pick her battles so no need to guess moves .

your ghostking is really nice but he lacks fly + regeneration + immortality 3 abilities i love with the vq . your ghostking shares 0 basic protection .

so earlygame after buffresearch i can use my vq against every indeps even if she dies not too much is lost while you always have to either worry a bit with about 20% of the indy provinces .
e.g. knights may be lucky and give you a nasty early game affliction . he could become feeble minded and your healing hero doesn't show up too .

especially in these dangerous provinces though are often strong magic sites which tien chi needs so urgent .

a Last thought : although my scales are so economic hostile i will have in defending battles some advantages :
-cold 3 works in favour of my undead hordes
-in low population provinces enemies with lots of troops are forced to either fight with starving or forge supply items


your strat allows better bloodhunting though with some lucky randoms because the population slowly regrows .

[ August 02, 2004, 16:30: Message edited by: Boron ]

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Boron:
my tien chi s&a is really quite similiar to ermor .

How odd - I thought that Ermor got lots of troops spawned for free, commanders spawned for free, etc....

How is it that your S&A is like Ermor again? ****ty scales - which any nation can take.

I mean - Ermor gets mages that don't cost any gold, so a dying economy doesn't hurt them. You - pay gold to recruit your mages, and gold for their upkeep.

Ermor gets mages that aren't affected in combat by the Cold-3 scale. Your mages - are too cold, so are burning fatigue more rapidly, go unconscious, die, and have to be replaced, for more gold.

Ermor's mages, while not good researchers, can be generated anywhere - S&A's best mages are capital only.

Ermor generates huge numbers of free troops that cost no upkeep. You plan to summon magical troops, which costs you gems for each summoning. Ermor could be summoning just as many creatures, while gaining its free, disposable fodder.

[ August 02, 2004, 16:36: Message edited by: Cainehill ]

[Boron]

Originally posted by Cainehill:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Boron:
my tien chi s&a is really quite similiar to ermor .

How odd - I thought that Ermor got lots of troops spawned for free, commanders spawned for free, etc....

How is it that your S&A is like Ermor again? ****ty scales - which any nation can take.

---

if you would have read my postings you would have found my reason why tien chi imho favours such a strat is because any other nation can take order 3 + growth 3 and so earn much more money than tien chi s&a .

furthermore most other nations have much better national troops .

[Mardagg]

Its certainly mainly a matter of playing style.
I rarely take VQ`s,because I encountered already so many in my MP-games,especially before the fix,that its a bit boring for me.
I agree,that in order to take a VQ with quite strong magic,Death:3 is an option...with S&A at least.
I am more a defensive player and I just hate to know that my income is decreasing while not expanding.

You are right with population killing spells...but that doesnt matter to me in midgame at all,since I rely on summonings by then
I only take Growth 3 for the early game income advantage.
I am forced to take Turmoil:1 and since I dont need much resources,I of course take Growth instead of Productivity to get income bonus.
Your tactic just relies more on your Luck:3 scale than mine,in order to get enough gold early on to get your Celestial Masters,Temples,castles.
Also you have more difficulties,if you have a bad starting position,e.g. with strong indies and/or small provinces only bordering you.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Mardagg:
Its certainly mainly a matter of playing style.
I rarely take VQ`s,because I encountered already so many in my MP-games,especially before the fix,that its a bit boring for me.
I agree,that in order to take a VQ with quite strong magic,Death:3 is an option...with S&A at least.
I am more a defensive player and I just hate to know that my income is decreasing while not expanding.

You are right with population killing spells...but that doesnt matter to me in midgame at all,since I rely on summonings by then
I only take Growth 3 for the early game income advantage.
I am forced to take Turmoil:1 and since I dont need much resources,I of course take Growth instead of Productivity to get income bonus.
Your tactic just relies more on your Luck:3 scale than mine,in order to get enough gold early on to get your Celestial Masters,Temples,castles.
Also you have more difficulties,if you have a bad starting position,e.g. with strong indies and/or small provinces only bordering you.

with strong indies i have less difficulties because of the vq ( expect the 1% fliers like gargoyle indy province ) .

but i own dominion only since 2 months so i played only in 2.12 and have never seen the uber 2.11 vqs . the little powergamer / perfectionist in me still thinks the vq is the best choice for the nations who can afford .
but i begin to think that the vq still needs a slightly nerfing by 10-20 higher path costs or something like this or restricting her for everything else than bf ulm , ermor + pan cw .

when i play 2-3 more months i will probably get bored by the vq too . the problem is mostly fliers are a real problem for an unequipped vq but there are only really few nations ( caelum , abysia , mictlan ) who can go on either strong or many fliers early game .
so earlygame even an unequipped vq can be thrown each turn on an invader with no risk and not too bad chances to kill or at least seriously damage the invader .
no other pretender that can do this unequipped comes to my mind .

[Mardagg]

Originally posted by Boron:

edit : if i take at least air 2 for my vq i have a nice advantage in early - midgame defense though because per cloud trapeze she can pick her battles so no need to guess moves .

your ghostking is really nice but he lacks fly + regeneration + immortality 3 abilities i love with the vq . your ghostking shares 0 basic protection .

so earlygame after buffresearch i can use my vq against every indeps even if she dies not too much is lost while you always have to either worry a bit with about 20% of the indy provinces .
e.g. knights may be lucky and give you a nasty early game affliction . he could become feeble minded and your healing hero doesn't show up too .

especially in these dangerous provinces though are often strong magic sites which tien chi needs so urgent .

a Last thought : although my scales are so economic hostile i will have in defending battles some advantages :
-cold 3 works in favour of my undead hordes
-in low population provinces enemies with lots of troops are forced to either fight with starving or forge supply items


your strat allows better bloodhunting though with some lucky randoms because the population slowly regrows .

Lots of right thoughts from you here.

-cloud trapeze:
you are right.
In early game I use him only for expansion and site searching.Later on,I dont plan to use him for battles.After all,your pretender cant do everything at once...so I just hide somewhere,forging items and casting rituals by midgame..maybe conquering a water province from time to time.I dont need teleporting abilities that much therefore...I therefore rather take the scales than Air magic.

-Ghost King as SC
I think the Ghost King is a little bit underestimated.
IMO,its the perfect mixture of SC and rainbow pretender.
He has more base HP`s than the VQ and its extremely easy to get a defensive Skill of +30 quite fast.
Of course he needs some items(boots of flying,pendant of luck,and such),before attacking really difficult indies...but against most the standard buffing spells are enough.
Most battle afflictions arent that bad,especially since I only use him as SC for early expansion.
I agree though,that I could always have really ,really bad luck and getting feeble minded early on...thats the price I pay for better scales.

-your scales:
Cold 3 is indeed nice for undead troops,but means another severe income hit.
I agree,that cold3/death 3 combo means big supply problems for enemy armies,whereas my Growth scale is inviting them

-better blood hunting because of growth:
Not only this,I can use my starting troops to patrol my home provinces and set taxes to 120 or 130,without losing too much population on the longterm

[Mardagg]

Originally posted by Boron:
[no other pretender that can do this unequipped comes to my mind . [/QB]

You should look deeper at the phoenix
I currently play it a lot in SP and it means lots of fun.
I think,the Phoenix is also widely underestimated,especially by all VQ fans .

[Vynd]

This thread has drifted somewhat off its original topic. And yet I think it proves Arralen's point that Tien Chi S&A is a relatively weak theme that could use some help. If S&A's national troops and required scales are so bad that you may as well forget about buying them and just pour all of your points into a Pretender, then S&A is not very good.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Mardagg:

-better blood hunting because of growth:
Not only this,I can use my starting troops to patrol my home provinces and set taxes to 120 or 130,without losing too much population on the longterm

that is not too good i think because of this you wrote
iirc you lose lots of population through higher taxes then 100% , more population through patrolling and finally :
your patrollers most likely have upkeep .

so even in the short run you get more money most likely without patrollers and taxes simply at 100%.


hm i think the phönixes niche where he shines is for marignon : e.g. f9 bless effect + he can be risked on indy provinces hopefully conquering them through holy pyre / fire darts .

but 80 new path costs , base hp of 12 and only 2 misc + 1 headslot look too limiting to me to use him as an sc .


the problem with the vq is i think she is still the best allrounder pretender sc fully euqipped.

of course a lucky e.g. soul slay may kill her .
but that is true for every sc .
other than that i think because of her very good built in abilities the only reliable solution to kill her are armor negating weapons using scs , for nonhighstrenghts scs like niefel jarls i think though a gate cleaver is needed to kill her reliable .
but that is if you use the vq as sc .

if you use her as leader of a great army i think the chances are really bad to kill her only due to luck with e.g. soul slay you might kill her or if the attacker makes scripting faults .

but more important i think first e.g. the father of serpents and the like need a bit of improvement . i think at the moment only about 10 of the 40-50 available pretenders are chosen for mp 90% of the time without houserules .

[Boron]

Originally posted by Vynd:
This thread has drifted somewhat off its original topic. And yet I think it proves Arralen's point that Tien Chi S&A is a relatively weak theme that could use some help. If S&A's national troops and required scales are so bad that you may as well forget about buying them and just pour all of your points into a Pretender, then S&A is not very good.

yeah i agree now too . but barbarian kings is also 1+ forced turmoil but has much worse mages and only very slightly better troops so i think they should be at a higher priority list with balancing . similiar candidates that come to my mind are Golden era arco and caelum RoTr .
but before balancing themes adding themes to nations without themes (e.g. machaka ) or adding the 3rd water race i would even wish more for .

but balancing weak themes a bit is probably much easier to do than adding a completely new theme/nation .

the final problem with improving a theme by strengthening it is imho that they may get a too good boost and become too strong .