I'd like a change in Tien S&A starting spell

[tinkthank]

Just something minor here, but having flight as the starting spell for Tien Chi makes perfect sense -- but only, however, for default theme. For S&A, it is sort of silly, because those that can cast it can already fly, and those that can't fly can't cast it.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Just something minor here, but having flight as the starting spell for Tien Chi makes perfect sense -- but only, however, for default theme. For S&A, it is sort of silly, because those that can cast it can already fly, and those that can't fly can't cast it. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Seconded.

[Kristoffer O]

Hmm, never thought about that.

[tinkthank]

OK thanks.
I'm not thinking of anything huge, imbalancing (like quickness) or anything out-of-theme.

How about "personal luck" (lvl 1 alt)? Could fit.
How about "star fires" (lvl 1 evok)?

[Endoperez]

Wind Trapeze, to reflect CM's ability to fly for over large distances. Only if they ahve the magics to cast it, though...

[Arralen]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
For S&A, it is sort of silly, because those that can cast it can already fly, and those that can't fly can't cast it. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The spell isn't quite redundant, check the stats:
Range : 5
Effect: 1 person
.. those that guard the spellcasters can't fly, at least at the start of the game.

And cloud trapeze wouldn't be much more useful anyway - those who can cast it can fly 3 provinces anyway, so where's the point to fly out from the lab over umlimited number of provinces if you haven't expanded any further anyway?

So IMHO there's little need to change anything...

[Jasper]

Cloud Trapeze is thematically appropriate, but probably a bad idea.

In a game with known starting positions (victory points, etc) you could teleport a strong Combat Pretender to another's home province, for potentially huge gain in gold and a strong chance to put them out of the game.

I agree that Tien Chi definitely needs something, I'm just not sure what it would be short of drastic changes.

[Arralen]

What T'C S&A needs is a cheap mage with Astral - something like an initiate or apprentice.

Magetime to summon heavenly demons with an Celestial Master is just to expensive with 250 build cost and 8.3 upkeep. Or you'll have to build a bunch of Masters of Five Element to get lucky with the random pick - not very cost effective either.

And tweaking the 2 spells to give more than one demon at higher cost will add even more need for micromanagement, something S&A already has plenty of with all those mages with different skills each.

Mmmh, using those cheapos as communion slaves would make the Celestial Master much more useful in the early game - if the spell was pre-researched.

Than on the other hand - giving S&A both could be just too much .. what do you think?

[ April 23, 2004, 05:08: Message edited by: Arralen ]

[Jasper]

That's a good idea. It's a bit odd that Tien Chi has a bunch of "Master" mages, but no heirarchy of lesser mages. Some low level astral mages might help take the magic duel heat off of the celestial masters as well.

Hmmm. What if Tien Chi mages were immune to magic duel (and couldn't cast it)? This might remove their current "Astral whipping boy" status, and make them somewhat competitive.