Jade Emperor for T'ien ch'i MA?

[legowarrior]

I'm thinking of going with a Jade Emperor, it's thematic, will allow me to summon the nations spells, and will allow me to get two of the boosters I need early, Bag of Wind and both of the rings, but I have some questions and I'll like some feedback.

I'm starting with an Dormant Jade Emperor so that I have more design points to work with. One of the things I've noticed is that despite have a wide access to different paths (making remote search a breeze) I rarely have paths higher than 2 in anything, so I need to get boosters. Also, a minor bless is not unheard of since the national summons are all sacred.

I keep my paths simple
Wind 5, Water 4, Astral 6. I get some small crappy blesses out of it too.

Now, I'm having trouble with my scales.
Domain strength - 6
3 Order because Money is great, and the benefit to PD is minor, but it is great for blocking scouts it seems.
2 Production, the units are good but many require some decent resources, and with a dormant pretender, I should get them out quickly.
1 Magic, because who doesn't need help with research, and I'm probably going to need to go heavy on spell casting.
1 Growth is probably going to get me in trouble, but I find many of my spellcasters are old, and I don't need that. On top of that, I find that I have larger armies running around, so it is easier to feed. Finally, with PD and Growth, any territory I own is going to be epic in longer games.
Now, to balance it all, I need to 'create' 120 design points.
Do I go with 2 Misfortune (and hope my priests and spell casters block bad events and that my pd is good) and 1 cold (no fires in my labs) or 1 Misfortune and 2 cold?

The end result is 0 design points left over!!!! That's right, everything is used, it is efficient in that respect.

Okay, I'm ready to be told that my design is completely wrong now.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

I think growth 1 is a bad idea. Because population growth is exponential, the best choices are either growth 0 or 3. G3 also enables overtaxing (which MA TC is good at), of which Im a huge fan. Production 0-1 is also probably sufficient for cranking out troops.

As for misfortune vs. cold, I'd take misfortune. Cold 2 is a 10% hit to income (for 3/4 of the year, anyway), and adds encumbrance is battle, which your mages dont need.

You might also be better off saving points on magic paths. You will reliably get water 2-3 from your mages, which is all you need, so no need to take it on your god. +2 defense on sacred summons is not as good as more money to buy forts and mages. Air 4 is sufficient if you just want the boosters- again, good scales will benefit you more than +10% air shield. Also, Im not sure how much you "need" the air boosters, unless you want to cast big air rituals, since you have access to communions for air battle magic. And even then, you probably dont need them early. Personally, I'd rather use the air gems to summon more celestial hounds/ soldiers. Even forging a staff of storms is probably more useful. For astral, though, you're fine- S5 is a must, and the magic resistance from S6 is a good deal.

Lastly, I personally would want to use my god for death access, though it's not essential. A weak death bless is also good for mages.

[Makinus]

I will also add to the previous commentaries that MA Tien Chi is one of the few nations that do not need magic 1, as it already have very good researchers in the celestial masters - all these paths add to the research potential of the mages...

[Corinthian]

Umm, what? MA TC have the best researchers in the game. But its not the Celestial Masters. Its the Ministers of Magic. These are weak mages that get 5rp for 70gold and can be recruited without a lab. They synergize greatly with magic scales though. And any MA TC strategy that does not involve ministers is a strategy not worth pursuing!

As for the Jade Emperor, he is thematic, but I dont think he adds anything you really need. What you need is a pretender with Death Magic for diversity and also scales. Some fire, water and earth on him is also not bad as it opens up some good cross path summons like hidden in foo and allows you to create fire boosters.

[Soyweiser]

Thanks Cor. I facepalmed when I saw Makinus's post. Paths don't matter. Research points do.

Esp RP/mage and RP/initial gold cost and RP/upkeep.

(Initial gold cost includes the fort+temple+lab costs of course) So a 120 gold mage with 7 rp that requires a temple to be build is worse than a 120 gold mage with 7 rp that doesn't require the temple.

*one minor point with recruit without a lab mages/researchers these do tend to take one additional turn to start up research. Does not mean much, but they are a little bit less good then they look on paper. (esp when they also have move 1, and might take 2 turns to start researching).

[Soyweiser]

MA TC's research is very easy to abusively create. Just use minimal gold to expand the first few turns, and put up forts ASAP. Forget the expensive mages until you have at least two or three forts being build.

Then use the superior Eastern weaponry with mage supported armies (who get better while they fight, as the research dudes still research back home).

O3P3H0G3L0M3 imprisoned dom7 lord of plenty should work. Not much real end game game changers, but you want to be able to stop your enemies before they can reach the true endgame. (en then start to commune).

[legowarrior]

I tried Death and Nature in a game, it didn't not go great. As I recall, I ended up with a ton of Fire Gems and Air gems, that I could barely use. Also, getting the rings without empowerment is nearly impossible without strong astral on your pretender. I wasted a ton of gems empower an alchemist in fire, and a master in astral, just to get Zmeys and rings. With Asstral 4-5 I can start getting the rings earlier in the game.

Also, I tend to go heavy misfortune, so my preferred research is the Imperial Geomancer. Stops most bad events and I can put them all together for a reverse gift from heaven communion.

Minister of magic is fine for research is fine, but when I have a castle with out a lab, it builds a consort, those ladies are awesome. Besides, what is the point to a minister of Magic when you can't even do any research with him?

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by legowarrior

Besides, what is the point to a minister of Magic when you can't even do any research with him?

...

[legowarrior]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

...

As in build him a place without a lab. Come on guys, connect the dots.

[BewareTheBarnacleGoose]

Originally Posted by legowarrior

As in build him a place without a lab. Come on guys, connect the dots.

Er...but the ministers can still walk to a lab. Hence Soy's comment that "it might take 2 turns to start researching". There's a short-term loss of efficiency, but that's very different than "can't even do any research".

Also, some further explication scales- Although you have a great research in the minister of magic, you still want magic scales. Magic 1 gives them a +20% increase in research. Not as dramatic as the +33% increase for, say, mictlan priests or yogis, but still very worthwhile for 40 points.

That said, geomancers are very good, maybe my favorite cheap mages, and you'll definitely want to recruit a lot, but being able to build researchers without a lab is a huge deal early on. 2 less labs is an extra castle, with no drag on your research. And it's because you'll have extra castles that you dont need production (I usually take sloth 1).