So far what nations look strong... and weak?

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
The Nobles leadership of 25 is supposed to represent the fact that the armies of the Spring & Autumn period (couldn't resist using the name) 722-481 BC were rather small and the fighting mostly done by chariot-borne noblemen. Honour and prestige rather than territory was the goal of the battles (according to D.A. Graff).

The default theme of the nation is the classical empire thing and the only one that is orderly. Actually I was tempted to make order 3 an obligation for the default. The bureaucracy of imperial China was outstanding.

The ancestor cult of early times was renewed with the barbarian incursions and their beliefs.

Oops, I got carried away.

Yeah, the Spring and Autumn nobles are really interesting. Spring and Autumn has no chariot troops, so the nobles tend to trample way into the enemy ranks by themselves (while racking up fatigue from all the trampling).

As Sun Tzu said, if a general is careless, he can be killed.

I also like how the conscription effect is tied to order, and the non-bureaucratic special themes require turmoil - thus they can't get conscription.

And as already posted, I love the Spring and Autumn CM. Two things I left out before:

1. Many of T'ien Ch'i's mages (including the CM and Master of the Five Elements) are amphibious due to their water magic. If you have independents set fairly high, the amphibious merc companies may not be able to take a sea province by themselves, but with some support from a CM they probably could.

2. The CM's astral isn't just for communion - it's good for Power of the Spheres, too. There are a lot of cross-path spells you can cast with two of one path and one or two of another; a CM with Power of the Spheres gets two (or more) of a lot of things. I'd also advise crystal shields, in addition to the aforementioned Staves of Elemental Mastery and Rings of Sorcery/Wizardry. (A lot of mages are powerful with these items, but the CM get more from them than most.)

[Jasper]

Tien Chi looks quite interesting, but am I the only one completely put off by expensive mages with Astral 1?! Tien Chi looks even more vulnerable to Magic Duel than Marignon!

Celestial Masters run in fear from any faction that starts with an astral mage -- more than half of them! Not to mention anyone who happens to find Crystal Amazons or Lizard Shamen, or even Sages.

Playing Tien Chi just sounds painfull.

[apoger]

>Tien Chi looks quite interesting, but am I the only one completely put off by expensive mages with Astral 1?!

The more exposure I get to Tien Chi the more I agree. I like the troops, and I like some of the summons, but the mage power is lacking. I fear that the late game will be hard on TC.

Still, it's early to be writting them off. If I still feel the same way in three months...

[Saber Cherry]

You have to spend an average of 8*90=720 gold on sages to get an astral sage... I don't see that as a very cheap or reliable way to hunt Tien Chi mages...

[LordArioch]

Solution...magic duel immunity item! It would solve the problem of astral weakening mages, but still leave mind duel as a valid strategy because not every astral mage will have one. That way all you people can stop worring about magic duels so much.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
You have to spend an average of 8*90=720 gold on sages to get an astral sage... I don't see that as a very cheap or reliable way to hunt Tien Chi mages...

Don't send the non astral ones to hunt Celestial Masters. :-/

If you are recruiting sages, you will get some with Astral. Facing Tien Chi, an obvious tactic would be to have them Magic Duel the drastically more expensive Celestial Masters. This is bad enough even in the weakest case (Sages), and gets much worse when you face any faction with signficant Astral power.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by LordArioch:
Solution...magic duel immunity item!

I would like to second this.