more SnA questions by tool - which of these do you like?

[Demosthenes]

IME the Cyclops will be OK if he has Air 2 for Mistform, Mirror Image and Air Shield. If you beeline Alteration you can get there on Turn 4 usually, and maybe you could have forged a helm and a couple swords of sharpness by then.

I like the Axes better but the swords have higher defense and if you head out-a-ramblin' with only Alteration 2, i.e. no mistform, then the defense is the only thing between you and blindness.

[tinkthank]

Although I am not a competetitive or very good player, I like S&A a lot (and won at least a couple of small relaxed MPs with them), and maybe this might help:

1. There are tons of reingiv items out there, just tons. Your CMs wont need expensive Boots of Quickness since they will cast it anyhow, so give them cheapo Boots o' the Messenger, which is easy. My personal fav is Rainbow Armor, but this may be hard to get in MP (because it will be hard to get Forge O Ancients up). Getting FoA up will, however, not be hard with an earth pretender. I get 4 earth, that is usually enough for me.

2. My feeling is that S&A has the best searchers in the game. I rely on them to get the sites going. Acashic is great, but expensive, and I want those gems for Starshine Skullcaps. Maybe save some more points, spend it on luck and maybe growth for the extra bit of cash and magic, and just search a lot?

An earth 10 may be fun, but is it worth it in a competetive environment?

[Boron]

hm what do you think on the normal national troops of tien chi s&a ?
i like their 2 supermages very much the master of 5 elements and the celestial master .
as tinktank said the master of five elements especially is probably the best standard site searcher

but your national troops are just poor and your best leader is the nobleman with only leadership 25. so you are forced to expand via a combat pretender mainly i think .
forced to take turmoil 1 hurts .
you have most likely the most cost effective mages as tien chi s&a but your national troops are just plain bad .
so in the beginning your opponents will expand in general 1,5-2x as fast as you .
and if you are forced to go to combat in early game i think your chances are very bad .
1. you will have only 1/2 - 3/4 of your opponents money income .
2. if you face opponents with strong national troops ( e.g. man , ulm , marignon ) your normal troops even backed up with lots of mages will have no chance .
your pretender can only be in 1 province / turn so almost every of your opponents should be able to bleed you out in early-midgame .

your 2 special kinds of demons which you can summon from the beginning are perhaps thought to counter that but the problem is only celestial masters can summon them and only 1 / summon so you won't have many in early game and in midgame there are already probably better alternatives .
if you would get a bunch of 5 per summon of them like celestial soldiers with standard tien chi they were perhaps more useful.

[djtool]

the advice for using the cyclops as an SC is appreciated but not necessary. it would never compare to the VQ.

[Vynd]

I would not make Ascashic Record a pirority with S&A. It seems to me that one of S&A's biggest strengths is the site searching ability of their mages. Going for Ascashic will pretty much ignore this.

I like the idea of taking a combat pretender like a VQ. Use the Pretender to capture territory and spend your limited funds on mages. Use a few mages for site searching and/or site searching spells, and pour the rest into research. Then use your hopefully strong gem income to make up for your poor money income by using lots of summoning spells. If you give your Pretender reasonably strong magic in two or three paths then he can make some magic boosting items for your low level mages. And then your low level mages can forge lots of equipment to slap on Bane Lords and the like.

[djtool]

your only consisten magic lvl 2 is water. Other wise your searching with magic levels of one unless you have a ton of mages and are lucky enough to have a lvl 2 for each discipline. I suppose you could replace those nice mages you need for research with master of the ways if you fail to find a library early on. however I find it hard to balance purchasing mages and setting up a castle or two.

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by djtool:
your only consisten magic lvl 2 is water. Other wise your searching with magic levels of one unless you have a ton of mages and are lucky enough to have a lvl 2 for each discipline. I suppose you could replace those nice mages you need for research with master of the ways if you fail to find a library early on. however I find it hard to balance purchasing mages and setting up a castle or two.

S&A gets 2 randoms on their CMs. I find I get a
2-fire
2-astral
2-air
3-water
before too long, and I use Dark Knowledge with my Ancestors. (Sometimes you get lucky and get exactly this combo with only 2 CMs.)

I find this exceedingly good for early game, way before I could ever even research acashic. Sure I miss the biggies, mais c'est la vie.

I happen to enjoy and have decent success with an Earth Mother as well -- quelle surprise! That gets me covered well in everything but blood without acashic.

But hey, it's your game and your build -- but you did ask.