So far what nations look strong... and weak?

[apoger]

>To me Tien Chi magic seems very... muddled.

So far I only see two good ways to exploit their magic.

1- Wait for an air-2 mage, and get the Celestial Summons.

2- Use communion to drive up the mages power levels.

Seems limited. I'll have to play with it some more.

What I do like about TC is the troop selection. They get both archers and crossbow. I also like the footman with glaive for 10/10. It's lightweight, but packs a heavy weapon. Better than many other junky light troops.

The horse archers seem interesting as well. I haven't found a way to exploit them yet... but I'm trying.

I'm still trying to develop a good feel for the nation. If anyone else has found some way that it shines, let us know.

[ywl]

Originally posted by Truper:
To me Tien Chi magic seems very... muddled. Examples: The Celestial Masters are best at water magic, though their nation is neither underwater nor cold-loving. Their home province does not provide an income of water gems. One of their national specials is summoning Celestial Soldiers, which requires an Air 2 Astral 1 mage, but they do not have any such mages until/unless a Celestial Master gets his random pick in air. A couple of people have mentioned their national heroes - but another of their national specials is that they get province defence for free in provinces with Order, so it seems natural to want to maximize Order which of course means they are very unlikely to see any of the heroes. In my curent test game, I'm playing them with order +3, I am on turn 19, and have yet to get an event of any kind (random events are rare), much less a hero, although I did take luck +1 partially in hope of seeing them. Celestial masters have intrinsic fire magic, and not intrinsic earth magic, but their home province does not provide a fire gem income while it does provide an earth gem income. The likelyhood that a CM has a lot of paths at 1 but only water at 2 makes them terrible site searchers.

Their most interesting troops are all expensive and hideously resource intensive, making them something of an Ulm of the East. You really want lots of order, lots of productivity and lots of administration, which is going to leave damn few design points for the pretender or anything else.

In short, I have no clue how to play these guys But I am working on it.

I took order 0 (or -1) and luck +3. I got all three before turn 30 (or 20, I've forgotten . Random increase of local defense is nice but I don't find them very useful. Spending 1 to 2 gold on each province can be easily afforded.

Thier units are not resource intensive...

Their heavy horseman is 25 gold and 28 resource. It is equivalent to Emerald Guards. They don't fight as well, but they shoot, charge and run away fast if things don't go their way. I don't mind using them as the bulk of my army.

The higher protection imperial footman is 13/18 and imperial guard is 15/21 - neither is cheap but quite affordable. The cheapest archers are 10/9 - not that much worse than Man's Longbow (12/6) while their composite bow is comparable.

Red guard is 70/42. I don't find them very impressive. But comparing to the other holy cavalries (Knight of the Chalice, Black Templar), I guess you can say that they're at least cheaper (but weak).

I think Tien-Chi regular army units have among the best combinations.

As you said, they do get funny magic choices. The way following the Water is supposingly inspired by Chinese philosophy. It's a superficial way to put it but well it's just a game. Yes, I'm Chinese .

Master of the Way give you one water and thus quickness. They also have one random pick - quite a good buy for secondary mage. I'm still thinking how to use them effectively. Frozen Heart will be a possibility but that spell is not very destructive. Celestial Master is hard to use. I don't know how yet.

The three heroes of Tien-Chi are:
Ho Hsien-Ku: 2 nature, 1 air, heal afflictions, ethereal, flight and immortal.
Lu Tung-Pi: 1 fire, 1 air, 2 water, 3 astral, 3 holy, flight, yes and also immortal.
Li Tieh-Kuai: 2 death, 2 astral, 2 air, another immortal and your Celestial Solider Summoner.

[ywl]

BTW, does anybody know how you can summon the "Demon of the Heavenly River" with Tien-Chi? The monster is there but I cannot get any mage to cast it.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by ywl:
BTW, does anybody know how you can summon the "Demon of the Heavenly River" with Tien-Chi? The monster is there but I cannot get any mage to cast it.

A celestial master should be able to cast it. Some of the national summons for Tien Chi requires that random skill turn out a certain way.

[ November 19, 2003, 23:45: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[ywl]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ywl:
BTW, does anybody know how you can summon the "Demon of the Heavenly River" with Tien-Chi? The monster is there but I cannot get any mage to cast it.

A celestial master should be able to cast it. Some of the national summons for Tien Chi requires that random skill turn out a certain way.

---

I used an rainbow mage pretender with level 2 in everything, excpet 4 in astral. Even she can't cast it. Do you have to be a Celestial Master to cast the spell?

[apoger]

Looks like the Tien Chi main theme can summon astral and earth, while the Spring & Autum theme summons fire, water, and death.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by ywl:
I used an rainbow mage pretender with level 2 in everything, excpet 4 in astral. Even she can't cast it. Do you have to be a Celestial Master to cast the spell?

My guess is that you are playing the standard theme. Demons of Heavenly rivers is not available to the standard theme. Casting it only requires astral and water 1.

[ November 20, 2003, 00:30: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Keir Maxwell]

All these Tien Chi tidbits are killing me with curiosity. The heavy cavalry sound exciting - what is their Prot? If you put them on hold and attack do they shoot while holding?

Help appreciated,

Keir

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by johan osterman:

quote:

---

Originally posted by ywl:
I used an rainbow mage pretender with level 2 in everything, excpet 4 in astral. Even she can't cast it. Do you have to be a Celestial Master to cast the spell?

My guess is that you are playing the standard theme. Demons of Heavenly rivers is not available to the standard theme. Casting it only requires astral and water 1.

---

It's kind of annoying that the "National Spells" section of the spell manual only includes national battlefield spells, and not national ritual spells (Desert Tombs, Ashen Empire, Soul Gates, and apparently several different themes of T'ien Ch'i - maybe Carrion Woods too?).

Anyway, I was able to cast Demon of Heavenly Rivers with my pretender (Jade Emperor - water 4 astral 6, although with what I know now I'd probably go for a rainbow mage next time; T'ien Ch'i needs access to a variety of booster items) in Spring and Autumn.

The Spring and Autumn Celestial Master is amazing - 7 magic levels, level 4 priest and flying for 250 - 2/3 the cost of an archtheurg. The only real weakness is the 1 astral making him a magic duel target against the astral big boys (Pythium, Arco, R'lyeh). And the low path requirements for the celestial summons go great with the CM's broad based magic. (I recommend a pretender that can forge Staff of Elemental Mastery and/or Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry - both CMs and Masters of the Five Elements gain a lot from multi-boosters.)

Oh, and the Gate of Spring and Autumn produces 6 gems a turn. Why should Pythium have all the fun?

Spring and Autumn doesn't have any cheap communion slaves though.

One more oddity with Spring and Autumn: their province defense is still led by Eunuchs, even though they aren't a normally recruitable commander. (I don't know if this sort of thing happens with other special themes too.)

The Celestial Master is Priest level 3 and they Fly 3. They are their own rainbow mages, basically Great search machines; by far one of the best uses for them.

I don't particularly like the fact that their nobles can only command 25 though; frustrating when you are packing around a ton of horses. Also those horses are actually one archer unit that works... well. And the Glaviers are very nice to hold the line.

Their regular armies get worked pretty hard by heavy cav and large numbers of heavy infantry. As the Horsies still shoot badly even with Aim cast on them multiple times. They work really well with low end enchantment spells that Celestial masters and the heroes have access to. Like Protection, Aim, etc. If only they had xbows ...

Though I guess that is what Demon's of heavenly fire are for, just need more fire gems and to summon them in droves!

Required Turmoil 1 is not nice, along with Magic 1.

Edit: Barbarian Kings has Turmoil 2 Requirement. Though they start out with "Spirit Mastery" which calls 15 Dispossesed Spirits for 4 Death Gems. If you can get an early stockpile of them (via Searching) you can have a quick abusive army with their Heavy Horsemen and Glavie Users.

[ November 20, 2003, 08:12: Message edited by: Zen ]