LA Tien Chi: Barbarian Kings Strategy Guide 2.0

[Graeme Dice]

Nah. That title goes to MA arcoscephale. Every fourth astrologer can cast mind hunt by himself, and the priestesses heal them really quickly.

[zzcat]

But Lu-Tung Pin has 3 misc slots in CBM so he gets more penetration bonus...

[chrispedersen]

So does a crone. Probably the best overall would be a crone, or perhaps Agarthas immortal risen oracle... also 3 misc if I remember.

[militarist]

Thanks for advice everyone, I was really very close to make a mistake.
I went with imprisoned Lord of plenty, so gem income is not important, but E9/S9 should be amazing for bless and late game. Expansion went well enough (LARG1 game on llamaserver) - on turn 24 I'm top 1 by provinces, wars were extremely effective against several nations -because of vessels, barbarian horses,and later - communion mages are very cool. I see that I seriously underestimated this nation.

[Redeyes]

You might consider yourself lucky - you found a winning strategy.

In my experience the LA nations are really even and play quite similarly (cookie cutter infantry, archers, cavalry, and capable recruit anywhere mages) with a few outliers like Mictlan or Utgard who have slightly different approaches.

I guess my point is, in the LA particularly you can get most any nation working under the right circumstances

LA T'ien Ch'i is also one of my favorites for the versatility and strength of all of its mages.

Originally Posted by Graeme Dice

Nah. That title goes to MA arcoscephale. Every fourth astrologer can cast mind hunt by himself, and the priestesses heal them really quickly.

Well, people usually thought R'lyeh held the crown when pearls were part of the game - they have the easiest time making these. Guess it's because 45% ~ of all starspawn mages start with at least 4 astral and they are recruit everywhere and are quite cheap to boot..

[militarist]

Ok, we have finished the game. Not because it was won by someone, just we had too many newbies who just left the game setting nation to AI or even worse, just stalling for years.

That's some of my experience:

My bless was E9S9 imprisoned pretender. Perfect for everything.
The main killing power is mages,different kinds of tham. Your mages have high diversity. I mostly used 3 spells - destruction, cold blast (it's use is tricky to build a script and formation for the battle properly, but it's still much better use of fatigue then sailor's death or cold bolt unless you have pen. items for sailor's death caster), and, if mage can use nothing from these (those who have N/D), I mostly used call ancestor spam to give mages more time for doing their job. Later wind guide is a must, of course.
I used archers. A lot of archers. Sacred vessels were used mostly as protection units.

I was leading all charts during a long period, killed Panagea's main armies after which they went AI. Minotaurs and Centaurs were solved by destruction and rust myst, and at the same time I had a

war with Midgaard:
I won them without taking any castle. I just took all the usual provinces, and build PD there.Without wasting time on castles, it was a really fast war. Isolated castles were not able to produce amount of units which was effective in killing PD. The player made mistakes though, he tried to send against me mostly skinshifters, which were useless against arrows. At some point I took all provinces excluding those where castles were standing. When I was going to start conquering castles, it's turned out that Ermor also is going to fight with me for these castles. With Ermor I had many bright battles , mostly on the provinces, where Midgard's castles were standing. Thanks to the fact that most of my mages have H1, I won all major battles and went directly to Ermor capital.

To the moment when we decided to finish game, I was probably second in province charts, with good distance from 3d and small to 1st. The reason why it happened - was smart Burden of time cast of Ermor. Having all your mages old when fighting Ermor is a real pain. The 1st in charts was Atlantis. Who was the only water nation(!), and whose mages are invulnerable to burden of time.

So, I would say TC's PD can really be a heavy part of a strategy, unlike most of other nations. And you have perfect synergy or archers/destruction/water/air spells. Amazing nation. You research fast the early game winning combination of spells and you are unstoppable.

[chrispedersen]

You're not unstoppable, by any means.
Nice nation, but you will still have problems with nations that expand faster than you do.

[DonCorazon]

Interesting how nations can come and go in perceived strength / popularity. Probably somewhat correlated to patches/CB nerfs or boosts, but also just having more players try them out. As time goes on there probably aren't so many hidden gems.

When I wrote this, TC did not seem to be seen as such a powerful nation as it is now. The comments on lying low or that TC is underrated are probably outdated in these modern times.

[Redeyes]

I don't think it was underrated even back in the days, just that R'lyeh and Ermor were considered more dominant - R'lyeh has certainly seen nerfs since back then.

I think TC is solidly in the top tier of the LA, with nations like Agartha, Midgard, and Marignon having similar utility and strength. Other nations like Mictlan, Ulm, or Utgard have separate, yet individually effective, ways to excel in the LA.

The LA playing field is pretty level as far as I am concerned.

(I am not attempting to invalidate your statement, just that while TC is top-tier in the LA it has plenty of companions).

[Action]

Has anyone managed to create Gem efficient thugs from the young Ancestor Smiths? (Ancestor Smiths and Ancestor Guides who get a nature pick turn young)

With 15 Attack, 15 Defense, 2 Earth magic, sacred on a nation that likes an earth bless anyway and a built in sword with +3 attack / defense and fear on hit, they seem like they should not be scared of melee.

And in tests, they can indeed fight solo against huge numbers of PD, given enough gear. Even some of the old ones can fight pretty well, for example Ancestor Smiths with astral, or ancestor guides with 2 air, as long as they get only -2 penalty from age, not -3. (old ones tend to need an extra piece of gear to manage fatigue though)

But, they need a vine shield or eye shield if you want to live dangerously (can't forge gleaming gold with nation paths). Without a shield they die unless they can pack into a square with another guy.

They need a new weapon next, since they start with a two handed weapon. Probably frost brand, although almost anything will do. (They have such good stats they can repel really well with a longer weapon)

And of course, a lucky pendant.

At that point, you might be tempted to stop, but Blessing, Summon Earth Power, Invulnerability, hold, hold, attack is too much fatigue due to their encumbering armor, even for the young ones, even with the e9/n4 bless. They can either do Bless/Earthpower/Stoneskin or Bless/Earthpower/Ironskin if you want to live a bit dangerously with fatigue.

So without invulnerability, you might want a helmet for them, and a lot of their spellcasting encumbrance issues will be solved/greatly reduced by throwing a 0-1 encumbrance chest armor on them. Oddly enough, a shroud might be worth it, as lets them cast Earthpower/Invulnerability/hold/hold/hold pretty safely, unlike one enc armor.

They are certainly thuggable in the sense that they can kill/rout hundreds of human soldiers with spears with little risk, even without a brand, but it seems a little bit risky to use them as thugs in multiplayer, when they need probably 4 crafted items minimum, one being 10n, and they can still die to a heavy cavalry who gets really lucky in one hit.