Help! strats using T'ien Chi's Celestial Mages ...

Etaoin Shrdlu · #1 February 1st, 2006, 04:56 AM

KB: Division of labor: Celestials summon Heavenly Demons, M5Es take them places. The standard build-out of an M5E I noted earlier can lead anywhere from 70 to 100 magic beings (70 if ?=D, 100 if ?=S because Starshine Skullcap is too obvious, anything else 75 barring further one-path boost items). Note that I didn't say one or the other was outright "better." And which "stupid Lady" are you referring to? (Just checked: the Lady of Fortune is the guess...)
BTW: Whoever is in charge of the Tome needs their eyes checked. In it, the Oracle is referred to as a large blue... spider? It's a fountain forpretender'ssake!
Personally, I do a happy-dance when Li T'ieh-Kuai shows up. Nether-Darts-o-rama. Just make sure there's something in front of him so the enemy archers don't key on him...
Another use of CMs once you have the research: Gateway (THAU 5, same level as Soul Slay). Picture this: M5E gets into major battle and loses most of his force. Solution: Load the current crop of demons on a CM item-ed to S4, Gate to the nearest lab, pass the force over, and Teleport back. (Yes it's expensive gem-wise, about 12 S all told, but look at all that time saved.) No other really good ways to shift forces from one front to the other, short of the Flying Ship (unique, but you should win the race to it).

Truper · #2 February 1st, 2006, 02:44 PM

To my mind, Celestial Masters are all about Evocations. Unpredictable Evocations. Depending on how the randoms fall, they are capable of casting most anything, even odd things like Sulphur Haze, and doing it while Quickened.

KissBlade · #3 February 1st, 2006, 02:53 PM

Yeah I spoke with Ironhawk yesterday and he gave me similar advice. However, it seems to be that T'ien Chi S&A is really a big paper tiger. They can dish it out but they seriously can't take it. Their military, is a little subpar and they really can't conjure anything worthwhile at all unless you get a lucky roll and then make some boosters to help out. =(

Sandman · #4 February 1st, 2006, 07:33 PM

Playing S&A, I can scarcely be bothered to summon their demons. Are they really worth it?

shovah · #5 February 1st, 2006, 08:02 PM

as expensive as it seems try 30-40 fire demons, if you combine that with a w9 bless they absolutely slaughter enemys

Truper · #6 February 1st, 2006, 08:18 PM

If you could summon them faster than 1 at a time, they'd be great.

KissBlade · #7 February 1st, 2006, 08:37 PM

I'm not using S&A with a bless strategy. It's simply too expensive and impractical in my opinion since I can do a bless strategy with ANOTHER NATION a lot more effectively. Same goes for massing their military, which brings me back to my other point, why would I do something that I can do better with base theme? The M5E is a good point as well as raiding with Celestial Masters but you're trading off a much better income and losing your entire military as a trade off. Is it really worth it?