MA Tien Chi tips

[Burnsaber]

I played MA T'ien C'hi a while ago. Here are my views:

1) Mages. You have diverse picks, but really low power. It's very rare to see Alchemist of Five Elements with a 3 in a elemental path. And all your out-of-capital mages have same problems. They just have a bunch of 1 picks. There isn't really much to do in combat with a A1W2S1E1N1H2 Celestial Master. Using them for cold bolt spam is just so... degrating. You need to forge a insane amount of boosters before even your best mages can do anything on the battlefield. Acid spam with alchemists of the five elements works thought. Also, all of the alchemists of five elements can summon Vitriols with just a cheap water bracelet.
You need to leverage Rune Smashers (+void eyes, duh) and Crystal shields if you want your mages actually do something noticeable in combat.

I lost the MP game because I really didn't have any plan for late game and once I git there, my options were greatly diminished by the lack of good combat mages. In hidsight, clam spam + high astral pretender would have been absolutely necessary. Your mages have one good thing going for them thought: They can forge an absolute smorgasboard of items. You really need some death access for some thugs to slap all that gear to.

[P3D]

I'd prefer Minister of Magic for non-capital research. With M1, that's 6RP for 70g (4.67g/turn, 0.81g/RP/turn) vs 5RP for 100g (3.33g/turn, .67g/RP/turn). The difference is minimal.
And you can build MoM without temple or lab in your second fort, starting 7-9th turn.
Don't forget Fire Fetish. You can even heal back diseased commanders if you want.
If you choose Misfortune you 'd buy geomancers instead of them anyways.