Crush my enemies and drive them before me

[1000yd_stare]

Thanks for the responses, guys, good food for thought!
Well, I went basic Tien Chi. I have been doing a single player with Tien Chi, am I am on about turn 22. Have been using infantry almost exclusively, and have what I think is a massive research pool, 102 points. Problem is, they are all researching and no one is out helping the Eunuch's lead.
I have been doing ok with mixed Groups of the 10g/10r shield and spear and the 10/10 glaive in the center, with composite bows on the flanks.
I did a 'circle the wagons' setup vs caelum, where the melee guys were the outer ring, and the inner were the priests and archers.
So, I think I have the early game down, but after that I am at a loss. I have arbitarily decided on Evocation (up to level 5) as the main school, but after eliminating caelum I am getting prepped to go vs Jotunhiem or Ermor. Both have vampires, which I hope my level 3 priests are good vs.
I gather that the mid to late games have more emphasis on summoned troops, and less on the normals.

The master of the iron crutch, he is nice, and I got the lady who is partially ethereal, but lost her to a horde of knights. havent used them to thier fullest extent by any means yet, though.

If you are going to be playing T'ien Ch'i on such a small map as the Sundering you may want to look towards another nation. If not, and you got the HEART and the WILL to play the thematically rich while less than balanced T'ien Ch'i, is to hide and use your Rainbow pretender to try to get enough gems to create a summonable army before you get crushed. The basic Celstial Masters (if you're not playing a theme) are a crutch if you are playing against an astrally strong Arcosephale. If you've already set and determined to be TC, and that particular pretender I hope you are able to build up a summon string before he can march on you.

[1000yd_stare]

"When death is certain, they will live."
Wu-tzu tactical manual

It was a randomized pick algorithim that made me Tien Chi, and having only picked up the game Last week, I decided not to complicate things with a theme. I value your advice, and will heed, but I am going to have a lot of fun regardless of what happens.
All of the players are inexperienced with the game, so it might come down to who makes the least amount of errors (hear that, Unwise?). Arco, Caelum, and Pangaea share Sundering with me, and alliances might happen, so who knows?

Okay, well let me specific then for you

If you happen to find a Lizard Province, build a Lab and recruit Lizard Shamans to use as Communion Slaves and Celestial Masters as communion Masters. Good spells to look and use are Acid Rain, Flaming Arrows, Wind Guide, Relief.

If you can get a semi-decent gem income fairly quickly, rely on your Celestial Soldiers, Summer Lions, Fall Bears, Winter Wolves and others to back up your national units.

In general the more archers the better. Since you have 2 types, the normal compositebowman and the imperial. It's generally a better idea to go with the normal and use spells like Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows to cause havok. Unless you have alot of resources and can afford the normal ones. But in that case I'd probably get X-bows instead of normal bowmen.

TC has poor repellers, they have no long weapons in which to repel with or fight against repellers, so it's a better choice to go with the more damaging Falchions than normal spear Imperial Infantry.

Unless you have enough to make a very good blessing, stay away from most the mounted troops. Even Red Guard are not that impressive. If you get into a situation where your opponents are not using fodder, pick up some Imperial Horseman and use the lances to tear up a flank.

Other than that, I can't really offer any help. One of the ways to play TC more effectively is to have a SC take provinces early in order to take the edge off of having naturally weaker troops, but since you can't do that, you are going to have to manage however you can until you get a good strong core beneath you

And by all means, have fun no matter what. That is of course what the game is about

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Zen:
TC has poor repellers, they have no long weapons in which to repel with or fight against repellers,

Yeah, aside from their glaives and pikes...

Let me change that by saying "Heavily Armored Repellers".

Glaives leave me wanting, even though they do good damage. Mostly because they get massacred by arrowfire and can only repel normal spear length and lower (4 and under). Though I don't have the latest Version of the Combat Sim or I'd do a series of tests.

[ January 22, 2004, 03:44: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Zen:
Let me change that by saying "Heavily Armored Repellers".

Glaives leave me wanting, even though they do good damage. Mostly because they get massacred by arrowfire and can only repel normal spear length and lower (4 and under). Though I don't have the latest Version of the Combat Sim or I'd do a series of tests.

Oh, the combat sim has repeatedly shown Glaives to be terrible. I think it is the worst weapon.

In terms of badness of normal weapons, it was something like:

(worst)
fist
glaive
halberd
maul
machaka spear
axe
hammer
(almost decent)
...

Note that 1-h weapons get a big bonus, and halberd beats glaive simply because it is cheaper. This is somewhat arbitrary... but don't use any of those weapons unless you have to.

..and glaive is length 4, so it cannot repel spears.

[ January 22, 2004, 04:22: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]