T'ien Ch'i, and how they rule!

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I found another major default TC problem. Their mages and priests are all strategic move 1!!!

Thats a big part of why I want them all to die and be reborn as Soulless.

I haven't found the problem devestating and though I use indie commmanders with Tien Ch'i I do so with most races - the basic indie commander is good (ie cheap) for his role and can be built at places other than your initial starting Castle.

I've ended up going for the HI to move around with mages at strat move 1, Spirits (with undead commmanders), archers plus mounted, at strat move 2, and Horse only Groups for move 3. This works alright and if you want better there is Spring and Autumn with their flying mages. Sure S&A don't look great now but if they were given access to some more chariots (please, please, please) they could be a whole different kettle of fish.

By my reading of ancient China Eunuchs should move 1 and as for the Masters I'm not yet convinced they shouldn't move 1 in general. Sure they had good roads but at least in the books I've read the older, wiser, more prominient Masters/Eunuch were renowned for enjoying their creature comforts and travelling with many attendants.

I have found Tien Ch'i MI to be too lightly armoured to be survive long and find the HI Spearmen with their Tower shield the rock around which the Comp bow operate. Some MI are very good in dom2 but its generally those with a protection rating not far off that of HI.

The General and Khans do seem rather expensive given their use value but I presume this is a product of the formula used and their not to useful combination of capabilities - general has bow can't shoot straight, Khan can shoot sorta straight but lacks bow. I'm comfortable with using indie commanders as foot generals to fill the gaps as locals contributing to the army and Generals or Khans for my elite HC formations.

If you get the impression I'm relying on HI and Comp alot and not getting to have nearly
as much fun with HC as I would like you are right. Gotta make do with what works.

cheers

Keir

Alright Keir,

I can honestly say that I've played quite a few maps now with my Celestial Masters and as long as I got one with anything but Blood I found quite a few sites. You were just unlucky I feel.

In my experiance for Barbarian Kings (best to worst):

Celestial Master base (1 Fire, 1 Air, 2 Water, 1 Astral, 3 Holy)


1 Death

1 Nature

1 Earth

The death nets you a bunch of death gems, things like: Battlefield, Burial Mound, Catacombs, Banefire Braziers, Mausoleum, Witches Bog, Gallows.

Nature gets you some good'ns too. Also it's very easy to get Amazons who can actually use the damn gems.

Earth is the Last, because it lets you forge a bunch of good items, it's like a Last desperate ditch effort, I wouldn't seriously use him as a searcher unless I was trying for something specific and I wouldn't use him only.

Hope that helps.

Edit: P.S. I find it a little hard to go back to a race with such focused searchers. I don't have all these options with them. Not that it's bad; just feels different when I don't have a billion different gem incomes.

[ December 05, 2003, 04:57: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:

Hope that helps.

Cheers Zen - good to hear I have just been a victim of misfortune. I've been using a Master of the Dead for my death searching as its n.1 priority. Masters of the Way make half decent researchers and so can be another access to a random pick.

I could believe the Mistress of Fortune helped prevent bad events in your home province as when I don't use her I get pummelled at home and when I do I'm safe - I guess its just the fickleness of luck.

I have been keeping a rough track of random events and I can't remember a game using Turmoil3/luck3, without the LoF, in which I would clearly say I came out ahead on luck or one with the LoF in which I came out behind.

Individually the bad events have been worse than the good ones. In my Last BK test I lost two turns income early to bad events including my lab on the first turn which blew 25rps from the Great Sage . . . still came back alright from this but its not great after having sacrificied income for luck.

I like the fact the fact that events have been linked to different luck scales but the reality of the uneven spread of dominion means you still get floods etc towards your boundry. This would be ok if the core was safe all but minor bad luck so perhaps adjusting the linkage of events to scales could do the trick.

cheers

Keir