T'ien Ch'i, and how they rule!

Water isn't all that good of a choice, since your mages all have Water 1 or 2 (for quickness). Both the Celestial Soldiers and the Demon of' varieties would benefit more from Protection and reinvigoration than 4 Defense and quickness.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zen:
Crystal Shields ... Sigh. They are expensive, Cost something like 20 Astral 20 Earth gems to forge

20 Earth - bugger. I didn't realise they had gone up so much in cost. I guess I won't bother trying so hard to get them then.

---

20 astral, 10 earth.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Daynarr:

I think RM is worse choice since you get so many special holy troops waiting for right blessing. Not to mention that your Celestial Masters (and Masters of Five Elements if you use S&A) can find most of sites by themselves.

You have been more fortunate than I. I have found site searching with Tien Ch'i to be rather poor. Luck is obviously a big factor but I suspect all those 1's arn't that great at getting a good search coverage.

Fire or water 9 pretenders are good, and nature 9 is not bad either for Celestial Soldiers. Earth would do more good to Celestial Masters but big question is do you want to invest in them if you face Arco/Pythum, which can kill them in duels.

Its unlikely I would pick Tien Ch'i in a game with Mind Duel included. As I know a few players who feel similar, and when I have the time am happy to host games, there should be opportunities for fun in a Mind Duel free environment.

I suspect its not worth going over the top in combat based bless effects as the Celestial Soldiers are hard to get big numbers of - though the Angels are a consideration. What would they most benifit from?

I suspect only Earth and Death are worth looking at and Death only because the PoD is so good and affordable - I doubt the gold saving on relatively cheap sacred mages will really make a huge difference. I suspect the move and the ability of the mages to survive cataclysimic death spells will be the biggest boon from going soulless. Earth9 will turn the Celestial Soldiers into serious comabatents and provide some real staunch considering their high hit points. Reinvigoration 4 would also be great. The Cyclops is the cheapest option and I have tried Cyclops9 in one of my first Tien Ch'i experiments - its just not very thematically satisfying.

The dearth of pretenders with Earth greater than 1 is one of the biggest restrictions on using earth bless effects as even starting at 2 makes a big difference while starting at 3 makes 9 rather affordable.

I am very cautious of playing nature on a race with Sacred Mages with the Van being the only exception I can think of off the top of my head - Van commanders going berserk is not all bad but Celestial mages? As for Fire its not as important for combat as earth (though more affordable in the shape of the Moloch) and lacks the reinvogoration for the mages. Water, as Zen said, is already covered to some degree and while still very useful is another expensive one to get to 9 with no starting 3's for land races. I suspect Earth has an edge over Water considering how sleepy Tien Ch'i mages are.

Cheers

Keir

[Saber Cherry]

I found another major default TC problem. Their mages and priests are all strategic move 1!!!

That is... unforgivable. At first, I was building their leather armor troops rather than scale mail troops for mobility, but when I realized my magic support can never move more than 1... well, I guess it no longer matters!

Technically, the Master of the Way (2 moves) is both a mage and a priest, but is not very good at either one. Their good mage (celestial master), good priest (CM or minister of rituals), cheap commander (eunuch), and cheap priest (ceremonial master) all have 1 strategic move. Wow. Worthless! I don't see any justification for this - China historically had an exceptional road and bridge infrastructure, compared to other preindustrial countries. But for a nation with highly mobile medium infantry, this is crippling, as it nerfs an obvious major strength.

To date, default TC is the only nation I've found to be reliant on indy commanders. Their national (non-priest, non-mage) commanders are just bad; either overpriced or underpowered.

-Cherry

I don't see why Eunuch's couldn't be Communion Slaves (ala Pythium). From what I've read; Eunuchs were devout and servants of the Emperor; though they had a place of position and title, which is why their position was coveted, but not the means to it.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I found another major default TC problem. Their mages and priests are all strategic move 1!!!

Thats a big part of why I want them all to die and be reborn as Soulless.

I haven't found the problem devestating and though I use indie commmanders with Tien Ch'i I do so with most races - the basic indie commander is good (ie cheap) for his role and can be built at places other than your initial starting Castle.

I've ended up going for the HI to move around with mages at strat move 1, Spirits (with undead commmanders), archers plus mounted, at strat move 2, and Horse only Groups for move 3. This works alright and if you want better there is Spring and Autumn with their flying mages. Sure S&A don't look great now but if they were given access to some more chariots (please, please, please) they could be a whole different kettle of fish.

By my reading of ancient China Eunuchs should move 1 and as for the Masters I'm not yet convinced they shouldn't move 1 in general. Sure they had good roads but at least in the books I've read the older, wiser, more prominient Masters/Eunuch were renowned for enjoying their creature comforts and travelling with many attendants.

I have found Tien Ch'i MI to be too lightly armoured to be survive long and find the HI Spearmen with their Tower shield the rock around which the Comp bow operate. Some MI are very good in dom2 but its generally those with a protection rating not far off that of HI.

The General and Khans do seem rather expensive given their use value but I presume this is a product of the formula used and their not to useful combination of capabilities - general has bow can't shoot straight, Khan can shoot sorta straight but lacks bow. I'm comfortable with using indie commanders as foot generals to fill the gaps as locals contributing to the army and Generals or Khans for my elite HC formations.

If you get the impression I'm relying on HI and Comp alot and not getting to have nearly
as much fun with HC as I would like you are right. Gotta make do with what works.

cheers

Keir

Alright Keir,

I can honestly say that I've played quite a few maps now with my Celestial Masters and as long as I got one with anything but Blood I found quite a few sites. You were just unlucky I feel.

In my experiance for Barbarian Kings (best to worst):

Celestial Master base (1 Fire, 1 Air, 2 Water, 1 Astral, 3 Holy)


1 Death

1 Nature

1 Earth

The death nets you a bunch of death gems, things like: Battlefield, Burial Mound, Catacombs, Banefire Braziers, Mausoleum, Witches Bog, Gallows.

Nature gets you some good'ns too. Also it's very easy to get Amazons who can actually use the damn gems.

Earth is the Last, because it lets you forge a bunch of good items, it's like a Last desperate ditch effort, I wouldn't seriously use him as a searcher unless I was trying for something specific and I wouldn't use him only.

Hope that helps.

Edit: P.S. I find it a little hard to go back to a race with such focused searchers. I don't have all these options with them. Not that it's bad; just feels different when I don't have a billion different gem incomes.

[ December 05, 2003, 04:57: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:

Hope that helps.

Cheers Zen - good to hear I have just been a victim of misfortune. I've been using a Master of the Dead for my death searching as its n.1 priority. Masters of the Way make half decent researchers and so can be another access to a random pick.

I could believe the Mistress of Fortune helped prevent bad events in your home province as when I don't use her I get pummelled at home and when I do I'm safe - I guess its just the fickleness of luck.

I have been keeping a rough track of random events and I can't remember a game using Turmoil3/luck3, without the LoF, in which I would clearly say I came out ahead on luck or one with the LoF in which I came out behind.

Individually the bad events have been worse than the good ones. In my Last BK test I lost two turns income early to bad events including my lab on the first turn which blew 25rps from the Great Sage . . . still came back alright from this but its not great after having sacrificied income for luck.

I like the fact the fact that events have been linked to different luck scales but the reality of the uneven spread of dominion means you still get floods etc towards your boundry. This would be ok if the core was safe all but minor bad luck so perhaps adjusting the linkage of events to scales could do the trick.

cheers

Keir