Speeding Up Tien Chi Spring and Autumn ?!

[Truper]

[quote]Originally posted by Thufir:

One question out of the box: what does 'MM' mean?

Micromanagement.


[quote]I can't argue against BK being more in need of tweakage, but I am still inclined to think that Tien S&A could be better than it is (without being unbalanced). From my rather limited experience, I would have to guess that few people are winning MP games with S&A - am I wrong?

Winning SP games has a lot more to do with starting position and diplomacy than it does with strength of theme.

It seems to me that the design intent of Tien AS is to be the best, of the mage oriented races/themes. I started my first SP game w/ TC after reading Zen's guide on the race (on Sunray's now locked site), and aesthetically it made it look like the kind setup I'd most enjoy in Dom 2.

IMO, the design intent of S&A is to reflect in Dominions terms a particular period of Chinese history - and to be different in game feel from standard T'ien Ch'i

If S&A were successfully implemented, I'd expect that in an MP game where no one gets screwed in the opening turns and the players are roughly equal, that S&A would be at a slight disadvantage in taking indies, and at a significant advantage in acquiring gem income and developing large numbers of useful mages.

Then by your definition S&A is already succesfully implemented.

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who despises the concept that a theme is only going to be viable if you totally trash your scales and make an ungodly SC, especially a VQ.

I agree completely. Boron, with all due respect, I'd have to say that if your aproach is necessary to make the theme viable, then the theme is truly broken.

Boron's approach takes what may be a slightly underpowered theme and makes it completely unplayable. Its income will be so awful that it won't be able to take advantage of the superb S&A Celestial Masters, effectively reducing the entire nation to a single unit - not a winning strategy for any for any nation, as I'm surprised Cainehill didn't understand.

1) Increase accuracy of Demons of Heavenly Fire? I certainly have noticed their inaccuracy in SP play, and I'd think that would be crippling in MP play.

You should be increasing their accuracy yourself, using Aim and/or Wind Guide.

2) Increase the number of Demons of Heavenly River per summoning - perhaps with increased gem cost? It might be reasonable to do the same for DHF, as well.

Not unreasonable, although S&A well played can field quite respectable numbers of demons as it stands.

One thing I've been wondering - would it be reasonable for Mot5E to be recruitable in non-capital provinces?

Not from a thematic viewpoint, IMO.

I would also say that adding to S&A's gem income goes in the wrong direction. S&A can start it's clam hoarding earlier and easier than any other nation. On top of that, with a combination of a CM plus Mot5E, it gets a broad search team very easily, so should find it easier to search for sites than other nations. All in all, I expect that S&A would tend to be more gem rich than any other nation, as is.

Good points.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Truper:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cainehill:
Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who despises the concept that a theme is only going to be viable if you totally trash your scales and make an ungodly SC, especially a VQ.

I agree completely. Boron, with all due respect, I'd have to say that if your aproach is necessary to make the theme viable, then the theme is truly broken.

Boron's approach takes what may be a slightly underpowered theme and makes it completely unplayable. Its income will be so awful that it won't be able to take advantage of the superb S&A Celestial Masters, effectively reducing the entire nation to a single unit - not a winning strategy for any for any nation, as I'm surprised Cainehill didn't understand.

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why are you so sure that this doesn't work ?
the income is crappy but enough to get 1 celestial master per turn after turn 4-5 .
he is capitol only anyways.
you are somehow dependant from luck but it works well often .
you can pillage a rich province with the dispossed spirits early on to get money .

you are going to be the magical powerhouse mid-lategame .

expansion is still good enough with vq + 2nd small archer army .

as i described very detailed the vq gives you the ability to summon quite a lot .
with magic 3 you are one of the fastest researches .

if you are in danger early or fear it you can research cloud trapeze and interupt the main army with your vq .

i simply don't see why building few troops but focussing on a strong pretender and as quick as possible strong summons isn't viable .

if you really don't like my turmoil 3 you can change to order 3 , that makes -240 points but you have still a decent vq then .

with tien chi you just have a really superior vq . or your preferred other sc pretender .
but so far i love vq most .

edit : if you can give me real evidence and not only claiming that doesn't work perhaps i change my view . but so far you only made assertions and didn't backup them by arguments.

You have about 1/3 income but you need not as many as with other nations . together with luck this really compensates until midgame and then almost all national troops are only fodder nothing else .
due to your superior gem income you will have then you can get lots of magical fodder instead .

simply because my playstyle seems to differ greatly from yours saying this doesn't work is arrogant .

[ July 29, 2004, 19:33: Message edited by: Boron ]

[Boron]

Originally posted by Truper:

I would also say that adding to S&A's gem income goes in the wrong direction. S&A can start it's clam hoarding earlier and easier than any other nation. On top of that, with a combination of a CM plus Mot5E, it gets a broad search team very easily, so should find it easier to search for sites than other nations. All in all, I expect that S&A would tend to be more gem rich than any other nation, as is.

Good points.

as i said so often my strategy absolutely aims at becoming the magic superhouse .
here you totally agree but say my playstile is broken .
so you already disproved your own claim .

and why don't you grant tien chi good access to clams ?

as a side note :
ryleh + atlantis are surely superior clamhorders than tien chi i think most ppl will agree there with me .

[Truper]

The only words I uttered in the quotation posted below that was attributed entirely to me were "Good points".

Your strategy may aim at becoming the magic superhouse - but if so, having 1/3 the income and therefore 1/3 the mages that most nations have is the wrong way to go about it.

I didn't totaly agree with anything you said - I agreed that Thufir made some good points regarding S&A in general, and specifically in regard to whether adding gems to its capital is a good way to go about improving the theme.

[Chris Byler]

But you _can't_ switch to Order-3 with S&A. It requires Turmoil-1 or greater.

If S&A is weak, it is probably (IMO) a symptom of order still being worth more than its point cost, and order needs to be nerfed again; or turmoil is too risky because of catastrophic events even with a strong luck scale, and more catastrophes need to require luck 0 or less, 1 or less, 2 or less. (It is of course still possible for the followers of a lucky god to be struck by catastrophes - but only by the active malevolence of a hostile god or his people, not by chance which is ruled by their own god.) Their military isn't that much worse than base TC, and their mages are better, plus they have the demon summons.

BK has the same problem - required turmoil - plus their units can't work the way they are supposed to (hit and run splits up your army and strands many units without commanders, pillaging enemy territory is too slow and you risk losing a lot more gold than you gain if your raid force is caught; worse, if you're raiding while other nations are taking and holding, you'll be weaker in the long term).

[Boron]

Originally posted by Truper:
The only words I uttered in the quotation posted below that was attributed entirely to me were "Good points".

Your strategy may aim at becoming the magic superhouse - but if so, having 1/3 the income and therefore 1/3 the mages that most nations have is the wrong way to go about it.

I didn't totaly agree with anything you said - I agreed that Thufir made some good points regarding S&A in general, and specifically in regard to whether adding gems to its capital is a good way to go about improving the theme.

but you didn't listen to my arguments .
i said you only have 1/3 income but you can compensate by ignoring national troops + luck 3 events in early - midgame .

ulm e.g. may have triple income but a big part of that goes on national units like black knights . furthermore you have watch tower or mausoleum . so you save 150 gold for each castle compared to ulm which most likely choses the 40 admin 450 gold castle.
3rd you don't need to invest in pd .
4th : you most likely get your first +500 or +1000 gold event in the first 5 turns .

with a vq + really few archers + 1 or 2 celestial masters using fire flies and the like you still can expand 2 provinces / turn .
once you have 10 provinces you have enough income to save a bit for castling + build 1 sage + 1 celestial master per turn .
before you still can build 1 celestial master or 1 master of the elements each turn after turn 5 and from turn 1-5 if you are unlucky with lucky gold events you buy a master of the dead .
you need 1-2 of them anyways for the dispossed spirits .

so again why is the bad economy really so bad ?

and the additional troops your enemies can build in early game with the more money you normally can counter by your vq .

after early game you counter your low income by your superior gem income .

if you don't have very special tactics to enchance your national troops in midgame they become less and less important and late game they are almost worthless expect as fodder .

a few "tricks" like weapons of sharpness can extend the usefulness of national troops but these spells are even more useful on summons .
and given the few nations which have good access to these special spells and how expensive they are the success is doubtable .

the only spells which make national troops still useful in lategame are really :
weapons of sharpness and wind guide / flaming arrows .

but they are not useful on national troops only : weapons of sharpness cast on summons is much scarier than used on national troops .

a exemption to this is of course jotunheim but they are special .
and there are no rules without exemptions .

[SelfishGene]

Spring and Autumn and Barbarian Kings both need a couple new units imo; which would hopefully give them the power they need.

I started to make a S&A unit mod but wasn't sure how to extract animations exactly, and using screenshots is ineffective.

I play Tien Chi rather often, so i do have perhaps a bit of self-interest in these sorts of improvements.

S&A needs a 'philosopher-poet-general' unit and a 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' swordsman, sort of a buildable Lu Tung-Pin. However i can't think of how to make either one really unique without the ability to make new abilities. The Poet-General might have +30 defense/+30 seige? Since its already been done it sounds a bit dull, but i can't think of another way of really differentiating 'military skill'. The Hidden-Jedi could be just a weaker Version of the hero - 1e, 1w, 1a, 2random, high attack and defense, flying, no armor.

Barbarian Kings needs a Marco Polo styled sea-fearing leader, an elite sacred horse archer (the only sacred archer), and maybe the ability to Capture Slaves similar to Mictlan.