A few random questions re: MA TC

[Rytek]

The short answer is that TC has no unique thug. Better to take summons and buff them with your casters. As mentioned earlier, add ethereal and luck via a caster to a Bane and they become superb. This applies to alot of summons. Celestial soliders, behemoths, even small groups of calvary at the back of a formation set to hold and attack can be quite tough when just 1 mage casts body etereal X3 on them. The level 6 troll summons are decent vs the ai as it gives you a bunch of troll troops that excel at holding the AI chaff and gives you a commander you can thug out that can take out large groups by itself with just a few bits of equipment.

[13lackGu4rd]

the troll king can thug, sure, but you'll never get them in large enough numbers for thugging and he's way too expensive for thugging duties Imho. he's much better as an army buffer with all those high level earth buffs that are harder for your national mages to cast, like AoG/L, WoS, etc. but with MA TC you shouldn't have a problem casting those buffs with your national mages. a celestial master as a communion master can easily get E4 or 5 just from the communion. if it's a smaller communion than just add summon earth power and even a pair of earth boots if needed. 25% of the imperial alchemists will also have E2, so same treatment(earth boots+summon earthpower)=E4, which is enough for everything except AoL.

[Rytek]

For MA TC trolls kings (the W and E ones) are your first goto SC capable of stopping any sized AI army(excepting banes/banelords which you may not have the D income or paths for). All you need is conj6, cons 4 and alt 3. You can split the troops and put them in your army to add real backbone while creating a SC that can kill anything the AI can put together. Just one casting of the E king and one of the W troll can totally turn the war against 3 or 4 mighty/imposible AI's that have multiple armies attacking. This comes Much earlier than the army buff spells in Alt line. It is totally feasable to have 55E and 55W gems and the casters to cast them. Where they shine is killing off large AI armies sieging your forts. Send in the troll king against the AI army and use your smaller armies to cut off retreats.

Seriously, by the time you are casting Armies of lead the ai has already been defeated. Trolls come much earlier and for nations without SC they can can come at a much earlier point in the game when it is critical to be able to deal with the armies of 4+ impossible AI's rampaging thru your lands.

[Corinthian]

In multi player, MA TC is one of the stronges nations in the middle age. Possibly second only to Ashdod. Single player is different though, because you get stuck fighting small indy armies on multiple fronts at the same time. TC lack both thugs and viable battle casters and are more geared towards big battles where they can throw on crazy buff and build huge communions.

Don't listen to the guys saying that TC have great battle mages. they are lying! On their own, TC's mages are terrible at battle evocations. The only way for TC to cast most spells is by building communions and that communion will a), not research, b) only be at one place at the time, and c) take up mage construction time from your Ministers of Magic, witch are the best researchers in the middle age.

The only mage TC have that can cast anti horde spells on their own, are their capitol only Celestial masters. They will occasionally get water 3 witch allow them to cast falling frost. The water 2 CMs can cast Ice strike, or get themself a water bracelet. Unfortunately they are Cap only and have movement speed 1. So you cant base your strategies completely around them.

So you need Communions. The simplest communion you can make consist of five Geomancers, divided into two masters and three slaves. Have the masters buff the communion with power of the spheres and earth power. Then cast Gifts from heaven on the enemys unsuspecting heads.

[Stryke11]

I have had some success using the celestial hounds with a flying commander.

I use CBM, Mytheology, and Nova Deus. I'm not sure which one adds this, but one of the summons is a Shishi. I think they are for everyone but they definitely seem thematic for TC. It's two commander tiger things, one male and one female. The male has patrol bonus and fortress defense bonus, while the female has a bite that does extra damage to undead/demons. They both have air 2. I am using them for wind guide since they can be summoned everywhere and celestial masters are slow and capital only. Male is obviously the more desirable. Female bite attack isn't too powerful.

Also, the national summon, the Huli Jing, is awesome! It's the same as the Jomon Kitsune, but is summonable everywhere at a low path cost (nature 2 I think) for nature gems, which TC is swimming in. They are guaranteed 3 nature and have like 3 random picks at 50% (AWES) chance and one at 25% (AWEN), so you can get 4N, 4A, 3S, or 4W with some lucky picks. Plus they are stealthy and unlike the rest of TC don't have to worry about getting old. The first one I got was 4N!

[krpeters]

One thing I noticed: you didn't specify what difficulty AI you're facing. If you're up against Mighty or higher, and several AIs at once, you're going to be consistently outnumbered by his hordes. High PD (30+) will help you a lot. Keep your "real" troops and mages behind it, let it take the attrition while your major forces strike from the sides.

You also need lots of low-resource mobile forces to manoever flexibly and outnumber his troops wherever you meet. The standard Horseman (move 3, resource 13) you can mass large numbers of. They'll plink the spiders for a while, then when the spiders start chomping on them, they'll stomp back nicely (thanks CBM1.7 for giving them a Hoof attack!)

Magic-wise... you might get more out of your Imperial Geomancers. Pop a Light of the Northern Star (you'll need 5 in a communion, set last to Master), and then spam Paralyze. That should take down spiders nicely.

[Stryke11]

Haha. I haven't mentioned the AI difficulty because I'm embarrassed by it. All the AI's are on Normal only. I've never even played against a higher AI. I'd do it if it made the AI smarter, but as it only seems to give them bonuses I didn't think it would be any more fun.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Corinthian

So you need Communions. The simplest communion you can make consist of five Geomancers, divided into two masters and three slaves. Have the masters buff the communion with power of the spheres and earth power. Then cast Gifts from heaven on the enemys unsuspecting heads.

This is bad advice. 5 Geomancers is the correct number, but the reverse communion is done with 1 master and 4 slaves. 2 masters doing the buffing for the 3 slaves would mean the slaves pass out after first GfH is launched

Also, TC battle mages are excellent compared to anything else out there. You never (in MP) use mages single (unless they are SC or heavy thugs), so if you are going to field a few anyway, then why not communion them? TC mages can cast very nice evocations even if not in a communion, but if you have that Thaum 1 and Conj 3 researched (or crystal matrixes, if you ignore crystal/slave matrixes and crystal shields as TC, then you should to rethink your strategy), then why not make your mages hit even harder?

[Stryke11]

Man, for being as popular as they are, these communions are a lot of work. The first two I made of five geomancers, one with all crystal matrices (because I discovered the crystal shield doesn't work unless the person holding it has a master matrix, casting communion master doesn't work) and one with the suggested script of master, power of spheres, earthpower, while slaves gift from heaven.

So the item one was lost on the first turn as one of the slaves was assassinated, basically ruining that and needing me to forge more matrices, and the spell one was intercepted by a tiny army as they were moving toward a big one and the communion worked mostly but maybe took out 2 giants while the archers I had screening them took out the most (I'm fighting against Jotunheim in the area where I have these guys).

Another thing I noticed is that while the master and slave all benefited from power of the spheres and earthpower, the master didn't receive any path benefit from the four slaves in the communion (all of them, master and slave, were 2S3E). I thought he was supposed to get an additional +2 in everything. Also, the slaves, since they were casting the heavy stuff, were fatigued out after two castings of GfH (all I had scripted after slave and two hold periods while the master cast the two buff spells). Meanwhile the master had plenty of energy left but as the script ended he just cast worthless stuff.

It seems unless you use the crystal shield and all the matrices, half of your script is just setting the communion up. By that time the enemy has already closed with your lines and your buffs aren't even up. You're left with basically two spells to script. And all your plans can be for naught if one lucky arrow or assassin takes out one of your guys.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Stryke11

communion worked mostly but maybe took out 2 giants

If you got 2 GfH off per slave (as they should, before they pass out), then that is 2x4x3=24 meteors, each doing 150 points of damage. If just two of those hit a target, then you were very unlucky (even considering the horrible precission of GfH).

I discovered the crystal shield doesn't work unless the person holding it has a master matrix, casting communion master doesn't work

Yes, like I mentioned, Crystal shield works only in an instant communion. But it is very good in those (fatigue free PoS).


Why your master only had 3E2S I don't understand.


Never let your mages be without bodyguards. Never ever. If you can't spare even five militias to guard a mage, then you are doing something wrong Not only will they protect the mages from assassins, but also allow the mages to leg out from combat if stercum hits the fan.


When you set up a communion, you do not set up at front. Let me try some amazing drawing skills:

This would be how I would set up as TC (with a geomancer commune) against an AI nation using giants. The enemy combat AI targets first the single slingers. Then your "tanks" (troops with shields and preferably heavy armour) walk into contact, making contact on round 3 or 4. The archers/x-bowmen are optional (and might be an overkill against normal smallish AI armies, but there is no better kill than overkill, is there? ), but if you field them they are firing at the giants while the mages buff up. Rounds 4 and 5 the mages fire the GfH, and it is *very* likely the giants will run.

If you are fighting a *large* giant army, then you need to replace the single slingers with mages who cast slowing spells (mentioned above). You do *not* want the giants to make contact with your troops early (or at all ).