T'ien C'hi help

[HotNifeThruButr]

Thanks Dice, but about the celestials, I'd much rather pay 250 for a mage that I know can summon demons of heavenly garbage (ironically, celestial masters don't have enough air magic to summon celestial soldiers, unless they get an air pick, so only my pretender will do that. At least they summon in bulk) than try for a 1:7 chance of getting the right pick with a master of the way.

BTW, when your units play the attack animation while the enemy attacked them, that's indicates a repel, right? Does it mean an attempted repel (passes defense/attack check) or a succeeded one (passes morale check)?

Edit: triple post... what the crap? How do I delete Posts?

Edit 2: I may just be accustomed to the kick *** infantry of Ulm from the demo, but Footmen of all types seem pretty puny. They seem to get wasted by even New Era Satry Hoplites

Edit 3: I thought Falchions were European and the big broad swords you see in the movies/books were scimitars.

[ April 11, 2004, 06:41: Message edited by: HotNifeThruButr ]

[rabelais]

Tien Chi is great, but the themes need to be played very differently

Default -- Red guards and/or imperial crossbowmen kick butt the former esp. if you like a bless effect versatile race.


Spring and Autumn-- Flying Ubermages. Ridiculously fast site searching. My favorite.

Don't use the demons of heavenly fire, they take too much mage time to summon to be useful.

Demons of heavenly rivers are fine, (especially if you disapprove of clam hoarding) but only from cheap masters of the way with a random astral.


Barbarian Kings- Be a Mongol! Wheeeeee!

Not terribly effective in MP with the required turmoil2, but as much fun as you'll have with cavalry in this game. (Still not that much, IMHO, Maybe if the horsemen spawned like Ermorian fodder?)

The death priests having the 15 paralyzing spirit for 4 death gem spell from the beginning is nice too.


Celestial Rabe, Master of Spring and Autumn

[atul]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
I don't play Spring and Autumn, since it is incredibly limited in unit choices, and I like my high morale imperials, but do demons set off that glaring weakness? Are there only Demons of Heavenly Rivers and Fires or are there more?

As Rabelais mentioned, S&A Celestial Masters fly. They also have two random picks instead of one, with same low price of 250 g. There aren't any other demons, but like Barbarian Kings, S&A can summon dispossessed spirits.

Unlike the default theme, where you need to fight to gain a mage able to summon your Celestials, with S&A's initial gem income (and recruiting one CM and Master of the Dead) alone you can summon your first Demon of the Heavenly Rivers on the second turn, DotH Fires on third, and 15 dispossessed spirits on fourth, if you want. So, their troops may be weaker, but you've got summons a lot earlier.

I must disagree with Rabelais, as I've found Demons of the Heavenly Fires extremely useful. They are flying, so can be deployed fast along your CMs and their armour-piercing attack can kill even Ulm's knights. I've got into a habit of searching my first provinces for magic sites, and immediately when I've got enough income to faciliate monthly castings I've set one CM to summon Fire Demons and one Master of the Dead to summon Dispossessed Spirits monthly. Probably not most efficient way of using resources, but it is nice to have some reserves.

Demons of the Heavenly Rivers, on the other hand, haven't found any place in my armies. To each their own.

[HotNifeThruButr]

Spring and Autumn mages are all good and fun, but how do you cope with their second rate units? do you have armies composed only of demons

[atul]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
Spring and Autumn mages are all good and fun, but how do you cope with their second rate units? do you have armies composed only of demons

I have armies composed only of mages.

Okay, seriously: At the very beginnning, as much as bowmen as I can recruit, with a few heavy footmen with big shields. The footmen without shields die naturally due friendly fire within first few battles, so in the end, bowmen and "heavy" infantry. If I've felt lucky, once I've recruited my second noble I've put them on attack archers duty. Risky but rewarding, currently in MP got one noble with heroic quickness (+160%). His comrades are long gone, though.

At the beginning, of course, fights must be picked carefully. No provinces with knights or heavy cavalry.

Quite fast you've got tens of dispossessed spirits, so off to battle they go. Cheap fodder, and can paralyze. I've got no experience how the 2.11 has affected them, but still.

When you've got enough Demons to warrant their use in battle, the research has probably yelded a few decent combat spells for the mages leading them. And off they go too.

Then, as magic research progresses, so does S&A power level. And what started as a no-good nation with inferior units is soon whacking everyone to submission with every spell imaginable.

Zen has made a quide for S&A, it is at least on Sunraybe's site. I think it's quite useful.

Well, that is how I play, others do it differently. There has been quite a few discussions about TC in general and S&A in particular, the search function is your friend.

[Firebreath]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:

Edit 3: I thought Falchions were European and the big broad swords you see in the movies/books were scimitars.

As far as I know, scimitars, falchions and sabre's are all curved swords of various types. Sabre's were mainly used by european cavalry. Scimitars originate (more or less) in arabia/central asia and were the weapon of choice for medieval islamic soldiers. Falchions, on the other hand, are mostly a marine (pirate ) weapon, I believe, due to its shape it's more convenient for boarding actions, rolling ships and the rest of it. I'm not sure what they used in china though. Sticks?

[Taqwus]

Regarding Celestial Soldiers, I found them rather nice -- high hp, strong, decent prot (for a Tien Chi unit...), HEAVY weapon (glaive -- something like 10 dam, -1/-1 att/def, length 4), enough skills to be able to use the glaive well. Makes 'em good at opening up high-prot units. They've pretty good morale as well, IIRC, and don't eat.

On the other hand, the glaive is 2-handed leaving no room for a shield, and with 15 prot and no etherealness or intrinsic air shield crossbows could be a big problem. They're sacred, 'tho, and you do have access to air mages even if you don't go for blessings.