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

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Belac

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)?

One problem with Prince Generals is the seasonal variation of their hitpoints. Just like the Red Guard cavalry, one has to be careful fielding them in the wintertime.

In spring the Prince Generals have +50% hitpoints but it declines to -50% hitpoints in the early winter, a variation from 19hp to 6 hp. Sure, they have excellent defense and protection, but the number of things that can kill a 6-7 hitpoint unit or commander, even a well protected one, in one blow are many.

Thus I tend to occasionally field Red Guards as a strategic reserve for the few situations where their higher morale, magic resistance, and defense over the Imperial Horseman may make a difference but I do not use Prince Generals as thugs or in general. They are just too fragile if used at the wrong time, and I do not want to kit out thugs that are only seasonally truly useful - thugs that additionally are capital only and take the place of recruiting an imperial alchemist or celestial master (one can never get too many imperial alchemists).

I do tend to buy one early Prince General and make him my prophet as a luxury. If he gets one of the two heroic abilities that boost hitpoints he becomes a great commander in some turns, even with the -50% hitpoints at the yearly ebb of his strength. If not - well, as T'ien C'hi I can afford having wasted a bit of gold and one turn of capital recruitment on the long shot that is a random heroic ability.

EDIT: Good lord, just loaded up MA TC with CBM 1.6. Last time I played them was in vanilla and now they seem to get five celestial soldiers for 8 astral gems! That's incredible! - and very, very, affordable. They have always been very nice elite troops (even when there's not a single 4 or higher magic on the pretender) mostly limited to niche uses by the premium value of astral gems but that price is only half what I am used to. I want to play MA TC in my next game.

[Jarkko]

Regarding Earthquake and other battlefield wide attacks. All communion masters should be able to cast (very early in the game too) mistform and/or bark/stone/ironskin and/or Elemental Fortitude or one of the spesific anti-elemental spells (plus personal regen) and/or Twist Fate+Luck. Effectively the battlefield wide attack spells should thus only be a concern on attack (because the defender gets the first round), but perhaps one should use special attack-forces (mages with some cheap armour and/or elemental rings, for example) when attacking a foe expected to use such spells.

[bgifu]

I was rushed by MA Ermor twice in MP...
If the capitals of two player near too close to search site and expansing and the sacred troop of Ermor which is ETHEREAL,the troop of MA TC cannot do any effective damage to the enemy.
Face the plenty undead and the casting of raise skeleton and dead and 9S sacred, what can the weak TC priest do?

Maybe the strategy could do many things but in early rush.

[cleveland]

Evo 1 gets you Geyser, which every Imperial Alchemist can cast. It's AOE 1, and ignores the etherealness, and at 6 damage is going to be pretty effective vs. those 9hp vestals.

Evo 1 also gets you Cold Bolt & Cold Blast, which every Celestial Master can cast. Since Vestals aren't cold immune, these spells (Blast = AOE 1, Bolt = Range 45 w/ Prec 8) are one-hit knockouts for those vestals.

Hope that helps.

[Sombre]

I don't think you'd have sufficient mages to stop or even significantly hurt vestals with those spells. The issue is more that they'll be taking your territory anyway - if you go chasing them with squads of mages what happens to your research?

[cleveland]

I definately wouldn't go picking a fight with those spells, but they're castable by the mages you're buying per Baalz' guide, and you can dial them up in 3 turns of research. And I'll guarantee they're effective against 0prot troops.

You don't have to go chasing them, you just need one proper deployment to convince the Ermor player that the opportunity cost of rushing you is too high.

[Baalz]

Also, if you're being rushed by Ermor it is a good idea to switch to Celetial Masters rather than Alechmists. Assuming you B-lined to construction, pass out a a couple void eyes and communion up. Just 4 slaves and your masters are H4 with a huge banishment area and +3 penetration - which will lay some serious smackage down on all those undead horsies that will be following. Sure, shadow vestials have a decent MR and S blessings are common, but they also have a mediocre offense so take awhile to chew through your troops...while you CMs are chewing through them. Solar Rays is also easy pickings and a real vestial popper, which conveniently enough you can pop out with herald lances if that's what's convenient. Just 2-3 scouts running around with herald lances set to cast 5X then retreat is going to make taking territory with vestials incredibly expensive. For the big battles use S1 guys as slaves, then have your celestial master communion masters drop power of the spheres so your slave point defense can drop a bunch of solar rays while the big cannons fire off giant banishments.

[Belac]

What about massed archers? 3/4 of the shots will miss, but the 1/4 remaining will be hitting low-HP 0-protection troops.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by cleveland

You don't have to go chasing them, you just need one proper deployment to convince the Ermor player that the opportunity cost of rushing you is too high.

I don't know,... when you inflict a surprising military defeat on a rusher is it really likely to make them leave you alone and go elsewhere? They're bound to have already taken a bunch of your territory so you're probably still the weakest neighbour and now they may well feel more like they're in a war with you and thus need to put you down. Once people start wars in dom3 they don't tend to end them unless they feel forced to by a more pressing problem, like a clear leader nation attacking them or running away with the game.

[Fantomen]

I am currently trying this strategy in MP, entering midgame. So far I found it works great, and I'd like to add a few points that showed up already.

The nature death pretender suggested is great, but I tried taking the communion strat all the way instead with an awake lord of plenty. This gives you the gems, crystal shields, hammers and earth boots you need to get artificial communions going super fast. For me this turned out well, I was unlucky early on and would be dead by now if taking a less offensive route like sleeping lich. I'm hoping that easier access to rings and golems will help me withstand the lack of Lamia queens. we'll see.

Intercepting enemy armies with one of those alchemist communions in a province where you simultanously boost PD works great when your troops are elsewhere. Don't forget you can move your matrixes through labs and turn any group of mages into a killing machine at any time.

As cool as finding the perfect setup of is, just throwing matrixes on any mix of mages you happen to have around is often enough, especially when defending. Make sure to have some geomancers in all castles, as precision boosted gift of heavens is a great counter to stuff that your normal evocations can't beat.

If you have spare water gems, which is likely, Naiad warriors are great to beef up your frontline and get you underwater.

Strenght of Gaia+mistform is a good base protection package for your alchemist communions. The regen from SoG ends up at 5hp/turn on the slaves with your boosted nature path, enough to withstand lots of attacks. More nature magic is great as well of course.

Above all, playing such a complex nation is extremely fun!

more later, if I survive my two front war.