MA Tien Chi in 3.10

[Agema]

Most nations access 2-3 magic types, so will rapidly find 2-3 types of gems. (Although by my experience getting N1 mages is pretty easy, from tribesmen provinces.) T'ien Ch'i have a lot of magic paths, so you should have an astronomical gem income. Hire a few of the best multipath ones early, and march them from province to province searching the easy sites.

Secondly, a wide range of magic skills gives enormous versatility. I've forgotten the number of times I've thought "I wish I could access spell X", but my nation simply doesn't have that path open to it.

[MKDELTA]

Agema said:
Most nations access 2-3 magic types, so will rapidly find 2-3 types of gems. (Although by my experience getting N1 mages is pretty easy, from tribesmen provinces.) T'ien Ch'i have a lot of magic paths, so you should have an astronomical gem income. Hire a few of the best multipath ones early, and march them from province to province searching the easy sites.

Secondly, a wide range of magic skills gives enormous versatility. I've forgotten the number of times I've thought "I wish I could access spell X", but my nation simply doesn't have that path open to it.

Yeah, that's true. Tien has immense site searching power. An Imperial Alchemist or two doing searching and someone shooting out that Astral site finding spell (I keep forgetting it's name :/ ) is superbly effective at finding pretty much all the gems you need.

[KissBlade]

Whatever you do, DON'T cast Internal Alchemy. If the blatant overpricing of the spell doesn't deter you, let the fact that it AGES your caster rather than reduce their age do so. =)