MA Tien Chi in 3.10

[Gregstrom]

Oops.

[MKDELTA]

I realized that Nature opens up the path to Eagle Eyes, which is suprisingly nice little spell as it turns even mundane Fireballs and Acid Bolts deadlier.

Or well, more precise, but that's slightly the same thing, especialy against more regular units.

I'm still trying to think a solid use for the Alchemists and Masters of The Way.

[Shovah32]

Masters of the way aren't terribly useful, although with frozen heart they can be nice. They are also decent researchers - 20 more gold than geomancers but 2 less upkeep due to them being sacred.

Alchemists are protected from magic duel, but thats about all.

[Sombre]

You're right that eagle eyes is very nice. Aim would be too if it had a self target version.

Perhaps in that little mod,...

[Agema]

Most nations access 2-3 magic types, so will rapidly find 2-3 types of gems. (Although by my experience getting N1 mages is pretty easy, from tribesmen provinces.) T'ien Ch'i have a lot of magic paths, so you should have an astronomical gem income. Hire a few of the best multipath ones early, and march them from province to province searching the easy sites.

Secondly, a wide range of magic skills gives enormous versatility. I've forgotten the number of times I've thought "I wish I could access spell X", but my nation simply doesn't have that path open to it.

[MKDELTA]

Agema said:
Most nations access 2-3 magic types, so will rapidly find 2-3 types of gems. (Although by my experience getting N1 mages is pretty easy, from tribesmen provinces.) T'ien Ch'i have a lot of magic paths, so you should have an astronomical gem income. Hire a few of the best multipath ones early, and march them from province to province searching the easy sites.

Secondly, a wide range of magic skills gives enormous versatility. I've forgotten the number of times I've thought "I wish I could access spell X", but my nation simply doesn't have that path open to it.

Yeah, that's true. Tien has immense site searching power. An Imperial Alchemist or two doing searching and someone shooting out that Astral site finding spell (I keep forgetting it's name :/ ) is superbly effective at finding pretty much all the gems you need.

[KissBlade]

Whatever you do, DON'T cast Internal Alchemy. If the blatant overpricing of the spell doesn't deter you, let the fact that it AGES your caster rather than reduce their age do so. =)

[FedSlayer]

So much to learn that a lot of this is over my head. On magic duel each of the involved duelers adds 1d6 (not open ended) to his/her level of Astral Magic. So an S1 would have a 10/36 chance to defeat an S3?

On a roll of 6 the S1 would kill an S3 rolling a 1 thru 4
On a roll of 5 the S1 would kill an S3 rolling a 1 thru 3
On a roll of 4 the S1 would kill an S3 rolling a 1 thru 2
On a roll of 3 the S1 would kill an S3 rolling a 1
On rolls of 1 or 2 the S1 can't kill the S3

Due to ties killing both mages there is a 30/36 chance of the S1 being killed, or a 6/36 of the S1 surviving if you want to think of it that way.

Correct?

Given enough expendable lower level astral mages you can take out an astral mage 1-2 levels higher, but it will be expensive.

[FedSlayer]

And now, what to do about a rampaging herd of elephants. Besides staying out of their way what's the best thing to do to counter them? I'm thinking the Panic spell might be a good start, but maybe not. What to do, what to do!!!

Plus there is that peskey F9 dragon pretender.

[Shovah32]

Panic is good. So are high defence units. Gifts from heaven and other high damage evocations are nice too, as is anything MR based(soul slay ect).