More Tien Chi !

[Bummer_Duck]

Ironhawk said:
I thought the problem with Tien Chi was the double whammy of so-so mages and enforced bad scales

I've been playing around with SA. The bad scales ain't to bad considering that the DOHF/DOHR's have no maintenence (I think) and the mages are sacred. Also, in my tests it is very easy to find most magic sites with a MOTFE in a random of death. One mage can search 6 areas of level 1, and holy 2. I believe the vast majority of sites are level 1, aren't they? Sure seems that way... Anyway, it seems that if you can survive the inevitable initial onslaught, summons may make up for some of the deficiences...

The biggest issue I haven't been able to crack is bootstrapping a couple of decent armies to take indies fast. The only other nation I have played, Vanheim, is laughably easier. In my last MP game, I was able to take 10 provinces in 10 turns, and they were very tough provinces (talking high pop, lots of HI, HC, Knights, etc).

My best SA testbed so far, I was able to grab 15 provinces by turn 20. BUT, I started in a *very* poor area, with most provinces having less than 10 gold inc. Subseqently, the indy armies were small, even at the standard str of 6. For kicks, I used one off the armies I had been expanding with to attack what I would consider a 'normal' indy with HI and HC on turn 22. I lost everything. I 'know' one of my Van armies would have defeated the same opponet handily.