I've been playing around with multiple Turmoil situations. These are my conclusions, I'm interested in any feedback about how/why/what/when of what I have found, or your own tests.

Sucessful -

T'ien Ch'i (Spring & Autumn)

Turmoil 1 (Required)
Growth 3 (Production 3 is just as good, for the most part)
Luck 3
Magic 1 (Required)

Castle: Mausoleum
Pretender: Lady of Fortune.

Reasons for Success: The primary reason I am successful with spring & autumn are because of their Celestial Masters and Master of the Five Elements, Demon of Heavenly (River, Fire), Clam of Pearls, and Immortal Heroes.

Why: Celestial Masters are absolutely fantastic for searching, and reinforcing. They are also incredible for combat as LONG as you are not fighting an astrally powerful nation. Celestial Masters can also drive around squads of Demon of Heavenly Fires because they also fly and have movement 3.

Master of the Five Elements is vital if you face any astral nations. They also have a great selection of spell combinations as well as search/forge engines.

River Demons are decent and the only real access to a non-paper troop. They are a stopgap to allow your missle and mage power to defeat the enemy.

Clam of Pearls are vital to the gem production that is required in the nation. You have easy access to 2 Water Mages to forge them, and they are a primary concern during your entire game. Also making a factory of them is easy enough. They allow the quick reinforcements via summons as you are normally very low on your prefered Fire gems.

Immortal Heroes are vital because of their magic combinations and slightly more powerful astral that they come with. They are useful targets and decoys in your own domain for Astral killers.


Weaknesses:

A.) Their standard army is comprised of 2 useful normal units.

1.) Compositebowman.
2.) Tower Shield Spear Infantry.

Outside of these two units, your normal armies will be comprised of summons. The only reason you use the Infantry is because they form a backbone of your center and allow you the time for your other units to hammer away.

Compositebowmen are great for indy expansion and are semi-decent even under fire from other archers. They are mostly a distraction, and have a hard time punching through anything with any sort of armor. They are backup to the Heavenly Fire demons. Against Abysia you will have to rely on these.

Even under only Turmoil 1 and Growth 3, you are low on money for the most part as your normal troops are distractions. They are nearly the weakest units in the game for the resource/gold cost. If you had anything better you jump on it and it's vital to build on independant sites with useful units (Xbow, Heavy Inf, Knights).

The other units you have access to are Dispossed Spirits, which are great fodder and it's important to be able to command large numbers of them and Revive King is an important early spell.

B.) Your NEED your mages for every kind of duty. You can't afford to not build mages as often as possible and this can become overwhelming and a wrong spell, troop placement or battlefield strategy can result in tremendous losses.

C.) Even under Turmoil 1, Luck 3. You have bad events fairly often. The Lady of Fortune nearly makes up for it with her events. The sheer mass of "Find Gems" luck events help quite a bit because of your reliance on summons. Even some good events (Like Zealot events (Milita and Flags)) can wreak havok on your empire and your precious gold flow. Unrest is an issue as often you recieve Bandit events quite often unless you have a powerful dominion.


Coming Soon: Pangaea (Base) Crossbreed/Maened focus. Barbarian King (T'ien Ch'i) horde. Diabolical Faith (Marignon) demon fever!.

[ December 10, 2003, 17:28: Message edited by: Zen ]