MA T'ien Ch'i Imperial Bureaucracy

T'ien Ch'i is obviously influenced by China. I couldn't even resist the name Spring and Autumn, from the period of the same name in Chinese history. Chinese history is rich and there is plenty to draw upon. Daoism and its five elements, inner alchemy, and quest for longevity inspired the Masters of the Way as did the T'ien Shih—celestial master—of institutional Daoism convert into the Celestial Master of T'ien Ch'i. Heroes come in plenty in the Chinese tales and the Seven Immortals are all interesting figures. Sun Wukong and his friends are perhaps even more so. There is plenty of stuff to expand on should I or a merry modder find the time. Finally, T'ien Ch'i has been inspired movies from Hong Kong, China, and Korea. - Illwinter

The Celestial Empire of T’ien Ch’i is ancient. Since the founding of the Empire, peace has reigned and a Bureaucracy of great efficiency has evolved. Ministers and officials chosen by skill rather than birth govern the Empire. The Emperor and his family are considered divine, but are not involved in the administration. The cavalry of T’ien Ch’i is well known and the infantry is varied and versatile. The eunuchs who run the Bureaucracy are able to conscript troops for the defense of provinces as part of the taxes due to the Emperor. A magic tradition called The Way is practiced by hermits and scholars in the kingdom. Prominent Masters of the Way come to the Heavenly Gate in the capital to be ordained as Celestial Masters. These mage-priests can summon heavenly beings from the Celestial Sphere to serve the Empire.

Now that you're running a fully-civilized realm, you have the specialization that the T'ien Ch'i of the Early Age sorely lacks. Disease Healers, cheap Mages, troop organizers, and useful Priests are now all available outside of your capital, along with extra-special specialists such as Spies and Communion Slaves. Most of what was cool in the Early Age is still around in one form or another, too, such as Capital guys with access to many different magic paths at the same time, and those strange Water Mages that you don't need to build Forts for. To top it all off, your army has been given a somewhat-loving upgrade, with glorious discount versions of Marignon's Knights of the Chalice. The only downside is that your lore-rich region still doesn't have a whole lot of Pretender options to choose from… Oh, and this time you don't have Death, Demons, or Chariots!

The Imperial Ministry of Rituals has devised a method of countering 'bad omens'. Unfortunately, this has only made the 'bad omens' events twice as common, and thrice as common in forests and mountains. These typically lead to consequential bad events that range from annoying to disastrous, but they sometimes lead to events that are helpful; someone might find 3 Nature Gems they didn't want, for example, or an active Volcano site (providing 3 Fire Gems per turn) might pop up under some of your taxpayers. On the other hand, your Ritual Ministers (such as the Ceremonial Master and the Minister of Rituals) get a bonus chance to negate the results of the omens (on top of their Fortune Teller abilities), whether they're good or bad, with the Minister of Rituals being better with the bonus chance than they are with their typical divination check.

If you add a Swamp to the Empire, your invisible Emperor might get sick from it after turn 15. This is not great, as it adds Unrest and Misfortune Scales to the capital, but it could be profitable. His outlook is bleak on his own, with a roughly-76% chance of dying in the next turn and an absolute maximum of six turns to live, but having an Imperial Alchemist in the capital with give him another turn and slightly-better odds of surviving the next turns. If one of your nationally-recruited Disease Healers is in the Swamp, they might find a treatment that saves the Emperor's life, giving them a +1 pathboost in the process; the odds are around 75% for the Imperial Alchemists, and around 25% for the others. Ultimately his odds of dying are still higher than his odds of surviving, but the pathboost is quite nice if you can get it.

If the Emperor dies, this lowers Dominion in the capital by 3 (which could get you dom-killed), and adds 3 points of Misfortune and Turmoil to it. The resulting succession crisis hits two random provinces in the Empire, has one of your Prince Generals Assassinated by an Assassin (regardless of where they are), and ultimately undoes the negative effects on the capital (other than the deaths) during the next turn. Hopefully your single turn of increased nationwide event chance doesn't give your capital more problems.

Unlike most national event chains (and MA T'ien Ch'i has two more that I'll have trouble explaining), this one is not unique; as in real life, more than one Emperor can get sick, and the same Emperor can get sick more than once.

Your forts have a lot of options for production. Lots of utility commanders and cheap mages. Many commanders are Fortune Tellers, so you can tank Misfortune more easily.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Scout 25 4 1	Stealthy (50) mountain survival Forest survival	You get two options for gathering info, a normal scout and a Spy. very few nations have Spies! You're paying 45 extra Gold (and passing on buying another Scout that turn) for better info, higher Stealth, and possible trolling.
	Imperial Consort 70 1 2	stealthy(70) spy Female
	Eunuch 35 5 1	Patrol bonus (15) Defence Organizer(2) tax-collector	A general-purpose commander, he can be used for expansion, but he's better at maintaining the stability of your territory. Not just effective at patrolling and shuffling your doods, he also also increases local PD for free. It's worth having a few early on, roaming the lands & setting up defenses.
	General 80 41 1	Mounted	80 Leadership and well-equipped. He even comes with a bow, so he can stay within your other archers and participate alongside them.
	Ceremonial Master 45 3 1	1 Sacred fortune teller(10%)	Can lead your sacred expansions and counter undead.
	Minister of Rituals 70 5 2	2 Sacred fortune teller(10%) Bringer of fortune(2)	Step up a priest with more holy spells. Giving up mage production In a fort to Having a stack of them also will boost good event, Hopefully causing an influx of Gems, Gold, and mabey unique mages.
	Imperial Geomancer 65 4 2	11 9 fortune teller(10%) Old Age(55/50)	Your Communion mages. Decent researchers, Communion slaves, and Masters for battlefield Earth. You will want a lot of them, at least in the mid-game.
	Minister of Magic 65 4 2	1100% 10% 11 adept researcher(+4)	Purely a Research monkey, with 11.2 Research Points (on average) for the price of 9. They're not very useful in combat, but the 1 ones can make Owl Quills.
	Apothecary 65 2 2	1 7 supply bonus(10) resist poison(5) Disease Healer(1)	On top of being slightly cheaper than indie 1 mages, he removes Diseases. He's your cheapest option for boosting Supply. When not needed for that, keep him with your Geomancers for when Winter comes.
	Alchemist of the Five Elements 85 2 2	11100% 10% 9 supply bonus(10) resist poison(8) Disease Healer(1) Alchemist(25)	For twenty additional gold, you get an Apothecary with 1.1 (on average) extra paths. Amusingly, only a little more than half of them can actually make use of their Alchemy skills. 11's are the stars of the bunch, being your only off-capital Fire access for Transmute Fire and Lightless Lanterns.
	Master of the Way 135 1 2 + Foreign Rec	111100% 9 Sacred need not eat	Decent mages you can also recruit outside forts. They make up most of your mage core as low-level casters using gems to cast lv 2 spells. In combat, They can all spam Frozen Heart. Air randoms can Summon Lesser Air Elementals and take advantage of Celestial Master Storms. Astral's can form communions, and Nature's can restrain enemies and chaff with Swarm.
	Imperial Alchemist 220 4 4 Capital Only	1111, 21100% 10% 17 resist poison(8) Disease Healer(2) supply bonus(20) Alchemist(50)	A fusion of the Master of the Five Elements from EA and an Alchemist. Still a jack of trades mage, Decent to have a few for sight searching and forging. Their only downside compared to EA is that they aren't Sacred, increasing their upkeep. Oh, and that they're slow to recruit.
	Celestial Master 275 5 4 Capital Only	1211,21100% 10% 19 Sacred need not eat Spirit-Sight	While less mobile than its EA incarnation, & with less path variety, the Master now has cheap Slaves in the form of Geomancers. Celestial Masters can be rough on their Geomancers, but it's worth the high battlefield Air/Water/Astral/Nature/Holy. Out-of-battle, they're needed for your Celestial Hounds and Celestial Soldiers.
	Prince General 230 38 2 Capital Only	Sacred strength of the spring(50) Mounted	Sacred 120 Leadership, having more HP during Spring but less during Autumn. He could be a light thug, in the Spring, if your Bless is good.

Line Troops are made up of 3 tiers of body armour. Even the lighter armored grunts are well protected from Arrows. Whatever the breastplate, almost all wear Half Helmets, which negates most damage inflicted to the head.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Footman 10 9 9		Light infantry that trades a shield for a longer two-handed spear. Will repel most units and other spears. Requires the least amount of resources, so most spamable.
	Footman 10 11 9		Man with a big slashing damage weapon. Not well protected or proficient at hitting above-average defense targets, They are good at hacking apart very low defense but high armored and or HP targets.
	Footman 10 11 9		A mainstay mass line unit. Average Prot with a Tower Shield that negates most damage.
	Archer 10 12 9		Having Composit bow in the MA they are the most spamable option to turn Archery buffs spells into damage.
	Imperial Archer 13 21 16		Take an archer and pay more for Full-scale Armour. Often not worth it since you could get Crossbowmans for the same price.
	Imperial Crossbowman 13 21 16		the defining threat of the LA in as age doesn't have the widespread heavy enough armour to resist it. Even before buffs, they sacrifice the rate of fire of bows for high damage, Armor-Piercing damage, ignoring 60% of enemy prot.
	Ministry Footman 12 14 14		The in-between light and Heavy armour. Has better Prot than Leather but without additional encumbrance or Combats speed penalties like Full scale. And even point higher in Moral and Defence Skill. it is preferable to Spam numbers or go with the Highest protection. Can be situationally viable if you need above average body armour but not be any more adversely affected if a fatigue-causing enchantment is up.
	Ministry Guardsman 12 14 14	patrol bonus(1)	like a cross between Footman with glave and Ministry Footman, but also have a patrol bonus, Making them a more efficient unit with Eunuchs to patrol out unrest and find Stealthy units. Is a step up from footmen glaves as they are more likely to survive being hit and hitting their target.
	Imperial Footman 13 20 16		A footman in Heavy armour and +2 moral, and +1 Attack and Def(but result in no change in def because of the armour penalty). More expensive than the less protected but spamable Footman, but they create a longer-lasting bulwark to hold the enemy up.
	Imperial City Guard 13 20 18	patrol bonus(2)	Well armored Glaives, if your going to use Glaives for a job, using them is your best option.
	Imperial Guard 15 23 21	bodyguard(4)	Imperial Footman with higher damage slashing weapon, could be used as your most expensive frontline option, but the best calling is bodyguarding mages. Although they are not good at stoping normal Asstaions methods (Water Elementals, Summon Spamming, Diseases Demons), the best they can do is Being there when their charge is attacked and buy time for the confusing mage to finish his buff cycles and rain death on the assailant before its too late.
	Horseman 20 11 24	mounted	Like indie Horse archers but with better stats. cost more recruitment points, but use full as flank attackers.
	Heavy Horseman 25 21 36	mounted	Step up from Horseman. With better Prot and an additional Hoof attack.
	Imperial Horseman 35 29 46	mounted	Proper lance calvery, having a higher damage potential.
	Red Guard 50 38 46 Capital Only	Sacred strength of the spring(50) mounted	Very good sacred heavy calv. Often beat out Imperial Horseman despite being cap only and more expensive. Very effective expanders. You may have to mind what season it is, as despite their high defense they are most likely to die in one successful hit during the fall.

As T'ien ch'i, You get immortal Mages. They have human stats but still useful for Light thugging and Casting spells. Keep them way from Soul Slayers.

Sprite	Unit Name	Special Attributes	Comments
	Ho Hsien-Ku - Immortal	12 11 Sacred immortal Supply Bonus(20) Healer(1) Ethereal flying Female	Her primary utility is being a medic. True Healer is useful for fixing up important injured commanders. Being Ethereal helps with survivability but not much else new in combat.
	Lu Tung-Pin - Immortal	11232 19 Sacred immortal ambidextrous(3)	He is A Celectial Master that randomized Astral 3, and practiced his leadership and Fighting skills. He can lead big army, be a light thug with his high att & def skill (held back by Human HP). If you don't have a proper pretender, you can use him to empower and climb higher into Astral.
	Li T'ieh-Kuai - Master With The Iron Crutch	222 17 Sacred immortal Fear(7) Old-Age(865\500) Spirit-Sight plague carrier(5) Start Affliction(100)	The crouchy old man, don't let him be around your other troops. Can't Fly but can Cloud Trapeze to get places. He is your strongest national Death mage, Able to forge Skullstaffs and make Ziz for sieges. if you empower him or make communions, He brings out Wailing Winds (buff troop Moral first) or Wind of Death (all but your mages will become old by the end of the battle).

Has a spread across the elemental paths plus nature and Astral. nothing goes above a 2 except for water.

As an astral mage, you will have access to the higher level spells in combat with a Communion. with a Celestial Master or Imperial Alchemist with Crystal Matix at its head.

• Celestial Servant: Conj 1, 11 1. ( Celestial Servant x1) not a spell you want to cast. Slightly better in MA as your ready encouraged to spam Geomancers which are the most efficient mage to summon them. if you have a bunch of Geomancers, Servant could be more gem efficient siege chaff at the cost of giving up a lot of research for a turn but you will need to take a lot of Supply bonues to prevent your own forces from starving.

• Ambush of Tigers: 3 Conj 3 for 10 (summon Tigerx10+[lv]). Fast moving two attacker. Can flank.
  

• Herd of Buffaloes: 2 Conj 3 for 10 ( Buffalox5 + 1/2 [lv]). Decent units being like Berserking Nobles. Will die quickly when faced with big numbers but more proficient then nobles at killing Size 4 and bigger enemies that they can't trample.

• Celestial Hounds: Conj 4, 11 4. ( Celestial Houndx2). Flying Patrol dogs. Useful if you need a lot of patroling like catching glamoured enemies. Die quickly because of lower prot. Could mass them for better harnessing results?

• Call Celestial Soldiers: Conj 6, 21 15. ( Celestial Soldierx5) Summon a good number of Sacreds with beefy stats and a hard-hitting glave. It can be used as late-game linemen in addition to humans and Living Mercury.

• Contact Huli Jing: Conj 6, 2 30. ( Huli Jingx1) powerful and very stealthy Fox Spy mages. She is likely to get a large spread of crossmagic, likely to possess 5 to 6 total paths. In addition to raiding, she can shadow your armies then pop up unexpectantly to lay down big spells like Mass Regeneration and Foul Vapors.

• Internal Alchemy: Alter 5, 21 10. Reduces the caster's age by -15 years but has a chance to give the caster insanity. Your troop lineup is unlikely to get old unless hit with Decay but occasionally useful if you luck into a strong indie with the given paths.

• Celestial Chastisement: Evocation 5, 3. A gem-less version of Control, Inficts some damage and then takes control of the target but only works against magic beings. A lot of good units are Magic beings.

• Thousand Year Ginseng: Construction 5, 8 1. Improved version of Internal Alchemy with no side effects. Most nature mages are not close to old, but some times you have to shave down 5 years for indies or someone that was hit by decay.

• Living Mercury: Enchant 5, 7 11. Living Mercuryx1) What if Water Elementals had a poison cloud. Effective units to hold and kill what its holding up, having the defenses of a purely liquid creature. You do have to be careful when scripting as they will also kill your own troops if they get close. Good Idea to give everyone poison resistance as your first action.

A lot of the nation's magic power comes from Imperial Geomancers communions

the Celestial Master grants Water magic along with Air. Geomancers Do the Earth and Astral, and the Alchemist can do all the elemental and nature cross paths if stitched into the communion.

There is a lot of spells you can do from buffing or raining army-wide death with Gifts from Heaven, or spam persition magic like Mind Burn or Soul Slay.

Your also likely to have some lesser Alcamest to spam lesser nature magics like Swarm or Vine Arrow.

Wide and shallow give you a lot of unique spells but makes it hard to use the more powerful rituals.

gets some good national summons you could consider Summon Crocodiles as Mind Burn sponges.

You also get a lot out of Transmute Fire efficiently turn fire gems into gold (turning earth gems to gold give out less value)

As a nation with so many cross paths on one mage, they have the most variety in terms of Items. Forging several Robe of the Magi and/or Ring of Wizardry would be a massive reward for your nation on your Imperial Alchemists.

• Sword of the Five Elements: Const2, 11, 22. Grants the user Reinvigoration and a lot of Attack and Defence skill. Useful on a Mage to protect himself and reduce Fatigue. (thug weapons has better DPS effects). Because of price, could mass-produce them to give to all mages in a communion.
• Armor of the Five Elements: Const2, 11, 22. Light but high prot armour that grants additional minor resistance to Fire, Shock, poison, and Magic. Useful on thugs.

• Chi Shoes: Const2, 1, 4. Let the wearer make an additional attack. Useful on High strength units but competes with more important Boot items like better map movement, quickness.
• Jade Armor: Const6, 21, 84. Depending on the thug your trying to make could be a replacement for Boots of Quickness if need a different kind of footwear, or save gems on by fusing quickness with body prot.

This is probably the most difficult section to get consensus for. Describe how strong the nation is during expansion, the early, mid and late game, and what makes it strong/weak at each of those points. This should give readers an idea of where the weaknesses of a nation lie (if they have not been shown already) and when to take advantage of a nation's strengths.

List some example expansion strategies here. If a strong bless or pretender is required then leave the specifics for the pretender section.

List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.

Add links to guides or other overviews for this nation here.

Nations
Early Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Ulm • Marverni • Sauromatia • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Mictlan • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Agartha • Tir na n'Og • Fomoria • Vanheim • Helheim • Niefelheim • Rus • Kailasa • Lanka • Yomi • Hinnom • Ur • Berytos • Xibalba • Mekone • Ubar • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Therodos
Middle Ages	Arcoscephale • Ermor • Sceleria • Pythium • Man • Eriu • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Machaka • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Asphodel • Vanheim • Jotunheim • Vanarus • Bandar Log • Shinuyama • Ashdod • Uruk • Nazca • Xibalba • Phlegra • Phaeacia • Ind • Na'ba • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Pelagia • Oceania • Ys
Late Ages	Arcoscephale • Pythium • Lemuria • Man • Ulm • Marignon • Mictlan • T'ien Ch'i • Jomon • Agartha • Abysia • Caelum • C'tis • Pangaea • Midgård • Utgård • Bogarus • Patala • Gath • Ragha • Xibalba • Phlegra • Vaettiheim • Atlantis • R'lyeh • Erytheia