Caelum vs. T'ien Ch'i

[Alneyan]

My only problem with T'ien Ch'i is their capitol-only Mages, especially in Spring & Autumn. I can get the money to recruit two Celestial Masters/Master of the Five Elements every turn, but only have a single capitol (duh!). I am not sure if allowing either of them to be recruited everywhere is a good idea though.

Besides this, T'ien Ch'i has adequate troops (though I am not fond of cavalry, but that's more a personal feeling), and Spring & Autumn keeps better than average archers. Sure, Composite Bows are not Longbows, and they won't win the game, but they work well enough against the weaker independent provinces (on Independent Strength 6/7 at any rate; I have yet to try them with Independents 9). Cavalry provinces are another story though, especially with Spring & Autumn, at least with the national armies.

If you did want to bother Caelum, why not give them an enforced Astral path on their mages? Astral 1 is a curse, and Caelum does not strike me as a nation able to get much us from the low Astral spells (such as Body Ethereal and the like). It will, however, make Caelum closer to T'ien Ch'i, though only one of T'ien Ch'i mages have a mandatory Astral path.

[Thufir]

Alneyan said:
My only problem with T'ien Ch'i is their capitol-only Mages, especially in Spring & Autumn. I can get the money to recruit two Celestial Masters/Master of the Five Elements every turn, but only have a single capitol (duh!). I am not sure if allowing either of them to be recruited everywhere is a good idea though.

I'm a big fan of TC S&A, though I haven't figured out quite how to play them competitively in MP play (yet, that is!). I do think they are somewhat underpowered, but I don't think they're as pathetic as they're generally made out to be.

While I'm too much of a newbie to make claims about what tweaks should or should not be done, I will anyhow!

My suggested tweaks to S&A are:

1) Make summons for Demons of Heavenly Fire and River produce more than one demon per summons. The gem cost can be kept on a proportional basis, or perhaps at a slightly lower cost per demon.

2) Make MoT5E not capital only. When I've suggested this previously, it was said that this was "not thematic". I don't quite get that, but I find that when I'm playing S&A, I recruit very few MoT5E (which I use only for site searching), as it usually seems better to recruit Celestial Masters every turn in my capital. I don't think it's a good idea to make CMs non-capital only, but to the extent that my limited experience guides me, it would seem reasonable to make MoT5E non-capital only.

[Vynd]

Thufir said:

1) Make summons for Demons of Heavenly Fire and River produce more than one demon per summons. The gem cost can be kept on a proportional basis, or perhaps at a slightly lower cost per demon.

I think it is interesting that it took until well into this thread before anyone even mentioned T'ien Chi's unique summons. I think that it goes to show that aren't having much of an impact. So I agree that it would be nice for these to be made more cost effective and/or powerful.

[Cainehill]

Vynd said:

I think it is interesting that it took until well into this thread before anyone even mentioned T'ien Chi's unique summons. I think that it goes to show that aren't having much of an impact. So I agree that it would be nice for these to be made more cost effective and/or powerful.

Just like people rarely speak of Marignon's Conquerors of the Sea getting a benefit from its starting spell of Holy Pyre.

The mages can rarely cast the spells, therefor the spells really don't do much for the nation. The paths on the mages ought to be adjusted in TC's case, or the spells changed (definately in CotS case, possibly TCs as well).

As things stand, I think TC can't get enough casters capable of summoning the demons until mid to late game, by which point it's too little too late to build up enough demons to be effective. True, the pretender can take up some of the slack - but it's a waste of the pretender's time to be doing low-to-medium level summonses.

[Cainehill]

Alneyan said:
If you did want to bother Caelum, why not give them an enforced Astral path on their mages? Astral 1 is a curse, and Caelum does not strike me as a nation able to get much us from the low Astral spells (such as Body Ethereal and the like). It will, however, make Caelum closer to T'ien Ch'i, though only one of T'ien Ch'i mages have a mandatory Astral path.

How would you adjust the current paths (A3W2?1) for the astral? I don't think you can reduce Air on them, and don't think you want to simply add the Astral. Deleting the random doesn't work for me, so the only viable alternative would be dropped 1 water.

But then - Caelum winds up with plenty of mages to cast Arcane Probing to find the astral gems, can get S2 without empowerment to forge Starshine Skullcaps, and can field hordes of mages with astral for communion, allowing the lead mage to easily get to A7 or W5 for some really nasty battle field clearing spells like Niefel Flames or Shimmering Fields.

Adding Astral seems like it would empower Caelum's mages more than weakening them.

[Alneyan]

I keep on forgetting Caelum gets more mages than most nations; thanks for reminding me that little, annoying detail (playing T'ien Ch'i or Man simply does not prepare me for the "recruitable everywhere" Caelum case).

On a not-so related matter, would Fire Vulnerability affect an unit when being attacked with Fires/Flames from Afar? If so, it might be something to add to these Caelum mages. They are quite connected to cold, and being vulnerable to fire because of this would seem a nice little addition. How bothering would this be?

Forgive me if I sound naïve, but I have very little experience with fighting Caelum, and so have yet to be involved in a major fight with them. Because of this, the above proposal is merely an odd idea, much like the Astral one, and does not claim to be the absolute truth, or even a good suggestion at all.