LA Tien Chi: Barbarian Kings Strategy Guide 2.0

[Maerlande]

I disagree greatly with you militarist. I am on turn 79 of my LA TC game and in a near fight for the win with Jomon. It's not clear who has the advantage at the moment.

Here are some comments:

I took an imprisoned master lich with E9D9 wacky scales and Dom6. Its amazing. I don't recommend that build again but some parts of it are wonderful. You have near the best mages in LA all of which are sacred and a bunch of them excellent thugs with no gear and a bless.

For expansion, an ancestor smith leading 5 blessed ancestor vessels can take any independent province without losses. You can make one of those every turn with only Dom 5
That's 6 expansion parties by turn 6. Your initial expansion far surpasses a single awake pretender who can still only take one province a turn. I killed my first opponent by the end of year 1. It was Caelum and 5 of my AV's killed 10 of his mammoths with support troops. Until someone can field evocations, AV's are unstoppable with a bless.

You also have dirt cheap recruitable thugs under CBM. Khans have fear. With 5 heavy cavalry a Khan can take out a very large chaff army. And so what if he dies? He cost you zero gems. Or if you want, stick a demon whip on him for fun.

Ancestor smiths make great thugs with just Alt 3 and Conj 3.

The death bless is not required. However, there is nothing quite as satisfying as 20 AV's set to fire crippling 50 giants before they close. And when they close the AV's eat them. Add that to some evocations or mind burns and you have a lot of dead giants.

I sent AV's at a ratio of about 1:2 against vans. Almost lossless for me and the only Vans leaving were terribly crippled.

When my game is over I plan to write a new guide. The point of this build was massed magic with a few AV's. I never did make a lot but since I expanded fastest of everyone I just rushed people. My opponent with Jomon has gone with a turtle strategy and that may win. It's very hard to tell. However, TC is a mage bless nation IMO and any mage bless does wonders for AV's which is just gravy.

[militarist]

Thanks, Maerlande, it's detailed.
What do you think if its 250%gold and resource, difficult research and 45% magic sites? Indep. strength is 8? That makes initial expansion much slower, with usual forces,while wyrm still takes almost any province. And magic is less important at early game.
As for Khans, cool advice. What build would you recommend to try for these rules?
The difference between someone taking 1-2 provinces per 3 turns, and a nation with Wyrm, in growth will be 2 times at least.

And with my build I could take magic+2,order 3 and don't sacrifice other scales too much without sucrificing something but production?

P.S. Were VANs you mentioned well blessed as well?

[Trumanator]

Honestly, E9 AVs will expand against pretty much any indy strength. You might need 1 or 2 more per party, but against most things it won't matter. The problem with a Wyrm is that if you lose it, you're screwed, since TC doesn't really have very good priests. You lose an expansion party of AVs its no big.

[thejeff]

With 250% gold and resources? That means you can hire more Vessels. You might want to bump dominion higher, because even at 60g each you'll be hitting that limit quickly.
I haven't played much with indy strength 8, but I'd expect with maybe a little picking of targets you could be sending out an expansion party every turn. 7-8 double bless AVs should rip through almost anything.

If you're only taking 1-2 provinces per 3 turns with double bless sacreds, you're doing something wrong. The Wyrm gets you a province per turn, unless he gets killed or crippled. A double bless should get you close to a province per turn per turn. Your limit is likely to be terrain and chokepoints.

[Maerlande]

Hmm, a rich game.

I would take something like order 3, a bit of sloth (because I'm in a rich game and you can't spend all the resources), heat zero, growth +1, L0 or 1, magic 1.

Then see what you can get for an E9 chassis either sleeping or imprisoned. Lord of plenty looks viable. Cyclops is too expensive for a bless chassis because you want great scales. Don't take a rainbow chassis because you need high dom. Dom 8 is probably good. You'll get it to 10 soon enough. Growth is really good for rich. And it's always nice to have a bit of luck.

But for a rich game I've thought some more. Why don't you take a sleeping rainbow with Dom 6 and great scales like I have above. Try for the following minor blesses: E4, D4, W4, N4, and B4 Skip S probably. That bless would be great on AV's and you could make a lot. I got a Master druid with O3S3H0G1L0M1 and F2A1W4E4D4N4. Very fine light bless. You could imprison it for better magic and scales. You don't really need it since you have fine site searches in almost all paths.

[Maerlande]

One more option. And S9 oracle could be awesome. Not so important for the AV's but great for naked magi and wonderful for later wishing.

[Aleph]

Originally Posted by Maerlande

For expansion, an ancestor smith leading 5 blessed ancestor vessels can take any independent province without losses. You can make one of those every turn with only Dom 5
That's 6 expansion parties by turn 6.

Edit: Oops, I'm dumb.

[Belac]

I am currently playing Tien Ch'i in a rich settings game. I went with E9S4 on my God (Lord of Plenty), for similar reasoning. E9 for mages and Ancestor Vessels, S4 to make it easier to get up the S ladder, Lord of Plenty's magic gem providing is useful (although in retrospect, I might have stuck more paths on him if I'd known how the gem providing worked), and he can fight in a pinch with a few items and E/S spells.

So far I have no complaints.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Belac

E9 for mages and Ancestor Vessels, S4 to make it easier to get up the S ladder, Lord of Plenty's magic gem providing is useful (although in retrospect, I might have stuck more paths on him if I'd known how the gem providing worked), and he can fight in a pinch with a few items and E/S spells.

The lord of plenty provides two astral and two earth gems every turn in CBM 1.6. His magic paths don't affect this in any way.

[zzcat]

Lu-Tung Pin is arguably the best mind hunter in game. Rune smasher+the green eye+eye of the void+spell focus=+7 penetration bonus in total and being immortal he can recover from feeblemind automatically.