MA T'ien Ch'i - a little of this, a little of that and BAM! - Page 4

Baalz · #1 June 17th, 2009, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sombre

8 gold and 9 resources for pikes? In CBM? I can't check right now but that doesn't sound right at all. I was playing MA TC the other day and I don't remember them being that cheap.

And do the light horsemen have lances or light lances. There's a pretty big damage difference.

The pikes are the leather armor guys, your second cheapest unit. I'm at work right now, but had the game up when I typed my original response, and it was with CBM 1.5.

They have light lances which according to Cleveland in the "Did you know" thread do more damage than heavy lances under strength of giants:

Quote:

Originally Posted by cleveland

1) Did you know that the "Charge Bonus for First Strike" that Lances receive is a damage bonus equivalent to 30% of the unit's action points?

So for example, a Lance-wielding indy Heavy Cavalry (20 action points, 16 damage, strength not added) will deal 16 + 20*0.3 = 22 damage. If he is Quickened, his action points will double to 40, so he'll deal 16 + 40*0.3 = 28 damage.

2) Did you know that with Strength of Giants, a Light Lance 1st strike becomes at least as deadly as a Lance?

Light Lances are 3damage plus strength of the wielder, while Lances are 16damage, but strength isn't added. The weakest Light Lance wielders are 9str (Jade Maiden, Nightmare, and Pegasus Rider), so after SoG they deal 9+3+4 = 16 damage before the 1st strike bonus, same as a Lance. Actually, most Light Lance wielders are stronger than 9, so Strength of Giants generally makes the Light Lance 1st strike more deadly than a Lance.

At any rate, number crunching aside they do plenty of damage from actual testing with no buffs at all with the numbers you're fielding. As I mention though, they don't hold up too well in toe to toe fighting.

Sombre · #2 June 17th, 2009, 11:33 AM

I guess I'll be building more MA TC pikemen from now on!

Although light lance can beat lance in damage output with SoG, lance allows the cavalry to also use their main weapon in the first round of combat, which almost certainly does more than the 3 damage light lance does (often it's a sword which does 7) and while that doesn't get the charge bonus, it gets the SoG bonus. So light lance with SoG could theoretically be better than lance vs targets with super high prot (high enough that SoG + a sword doesn't crack it and neither does the 16 damage + charge bonus lance) but the vast majority of the time lance charge is far more damaging than light lance charge.

Baalz · #3 June 17th, 2009, 11:41 AM

Good point, but the other consideration (at least in this case) is you'll be fielding twice as many light horsemen compared to Imperial, so you're getting twice as many lance attacks at the expense of a falchion attack, and also an additional hoof attack which helps drop defense and knock armor off under iron bane. Don't get me wrong, the Imperials are much more effective in a more drawn out fight, but for the gold I think the light horsemen generally give a more devastating first contact. Plus, they get bows which they can fire before charging, which can be quite effective depending on the enemy.

Sombre · #4 June 17th, 2009, 12:15 PM

That's true if your imperials would not be maxing out frontage - one of the problems I sometimes have with massed light lance cav is that they can get stuck and the ones at the back never even get to use their charge bonus. There's a point at which numbers don't help you that much offensively. Though I suppose if they're getting killed in melee, the ones at the back will filter through and still get their charge bonus attack.

Baalz · #5 June 17th, 2009, 12:45 PM

Yeah, I find haste/mass flight helps out with that depending on enemy troop placement. If they aren't shoulder to shoulder (which sounds like time to break out the archers/xbows/evocations to me and not go with a glass cannon charge) you can often get a good bit of wrapping around them. Break your cavalry up in a few groups spread around with "attack rearmost" while not perfect, will help mitigate that.

Plus, having too many lances to all connect immediately isn't the worst problem to have.

chrispedersen · #6 June 18th, 2009, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baalz

Yeah, I find haste/mass flight helps out with that depending on enemy troop placement. If they aren't shoulder to shoulder (which sounds like time to break out the archers/xbows/evocations to me and not go with a glass cannon charge) you can often get a good bit of wrapping around them. Break your cavalry up in a few groups spread around with "attack rearmost" while not perfect, will help mitigate that.

Plus, having too many lances to all connect immediately isn't the worst problem to have.

Thanks baalz. I have often noticed the spread when you tell flying units to attack rear. But I never considered mass flight as a mechanism to maximize lance damage. ++

WraithLord · #7 June 19th, 2009, 03:40 AM

I have performed a few tests.
First, comparing prod3 to sloth3 early game development. For the prod3 I took a Dom-7 imprisoned lich with D3N4. For the sloth3 I took a sleeping SC chasis, an E4N4 Dom-8 Nataraja.
My setup games all have the same settings, hard research and indep. strength of 9.

The prod3 setup does have better early game results in terms of income and expansion. The sleeping SC doesn't awake early enough to offset the prod3 advantage. I could take an awake SC with sloth3 but I don't think MA TC really needs an awake SC. It has very good army and mage lineup that can stand it's own even in early game.

I then tried a different pretender - a scales astral king pretender and one of my favs for nations that have good military lineups - the oracle. With the oracle I took O3P3H0G3Mf2M1 Dom-9 S6E4. Under this one I got best early game results. It is true that I'm giving up on death and blood (unless I luck out during the game to find the right indie. mages) but what I gain is out of the box (with boosters) wisher/ANer and an awesome master enslaver/undead dominator.

Baalz · #8 June 19th, 2009, 09:42 AM

Yeah, the pretender choice (based on the vector of this guide) is fairly open to whatever your personal preference is - there's just not a lot of holes he needs to plug. The critical portion of pretender design is Order-3 Production-3 Magic-1 and not terrible other scales, anything that allows you to afford this should work pretty well with this guide.

Belac · #9 December 28th, 2009, 03:05 PM

In terms of thug potential, what about Prince Generals (with attendant priests to bless then retreat)? They wouldn't be as good as those of many nations, but would they be useful at all (especially with a few cavalry as attendants)?

Peter Ebbesen · #10 January 1st, 2010, 11:01 PM

As a man who loves to play MA Pythium with a scales approach (it is one of the few nations where I can allow myself the guilty pleasure of an order 3, production 3 approach and feel that I am not giving up anything important compared to what I gain), thanks for the guide, Baalz. It contains a couple of good reminders.

The ability to field huge fairly tough armies designed to counter whatever threat is currently facing me on a very short notice coupled with an economy strong enough that plopping down 1200g castles everywhere appropriate (in terrain and population level) is one of the greatest joys of the game. Some nations in the game use small elite militaries, special operations teams capable of dealing with practically anything - T'ien C'hi MA uses the enlisted man, drilled to perfection and good at his job but relying on the military as a whole to deal with threats not in his purview.