Good Pretender for T'ien C'hi?

[SelfishGene]

Don't Celestial Masters come with a chance for a Nature random? So at least some part of you CM crew will not have old age problems.

I'd also throw a few chariots in the mix as well at least in the early game, at least as a flanking force vs. some of the weaker indies. C'tis chariots are better and almost as good (if not in some ways better) than heavy cavarly, as they get a length-3 bite attack, but Tien Chi chariots have better morale.

[Nix]

W9 bless makes your sacred troops tough as nails, as they already have reasonably high defense (and Quickness really lets them rip through enemy ranks).

[totalperspec]

I avoid negative scales with T'ien Ch'i, but if I must (if the map is small enough I don't think imprisoning is smart), I'll take drain. T'ien Ch'i research is pretty good anyway and the weakened magic helps resist magic duel spells. I suppose with the upgrade and characters that lower the risk of bad random events chaos and misfortune aren't as devastating as before, though it still hurts income.

I personally like the Celestial General, he's a good get out there kick *** and spread dominion pretender, and the only major thing is he has A-5, for air helmets. With the updated system I might do the same thing with fire magic. Then he'd really rain down death.

MA T'ien Ch'i bless I'm not a really big fan of. It only applies to Red Guard, mages I don't want on the front lines and some summons. Enough magic to fill in the holes with recruitable mages and high dominion win the day more often than not.