The celestial empire is crumbling. Constant invasions from the barbaric Khans have all but destroyed the Imperial Bureaucracy. The Imperial family have been replaced by the Barbarian Kings. The Imperial Guard is no more and the cavalry of old has been replaced by skilled barbarian horsemen. Ancestral worship is popular once more and priest-mages of barbarian heritage who lead the Ancestor Cult are replacing the priests of the Bureaucracy. With the displacement of the eunuchs from power, conscription has fallen out of use.
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. - Ilwinter
Things kind of went back to the Early Ages when the Huns (or Mongols) overthrew the Bureaucracy, destroying the highly organized infrastructure that supported elite soldiers with advanced equipment, alongside specialized administrators and mages. It has been replaced by the rule of nomads on horseback, and the forgotten ancestor worship has returned with a vengeance.
This nation has access to a wide selection of magic paths, but (ignoring 10% randoms) can't recruit mages with any path higher than level 2. This means the nation will have to rely on communions or magic booster items to cast higher level spells.
Communions are a little tricky to do, since only the capital only Celestial Master has guaranteed astral magic. All other mages have only a 1/4 chance of 1. This does mean that T'ien Ch'i can potentially put any of its six available magic paths into a communion, but finding enough communion slaves fit for the task can be difficult. Extra fatigue is generated for communion slaves who don't have the paths for the spells their masters cast.
Since the nation does have the earth/astral crosspath, it is possible to craft the Crystal Matrix and Slave Matrix for communions, and extra boosters such as the Crystal Coin and the Crystal Shield.
When it comes to troops, this nation has access to mostly the same infantry as early age and middle Age T'ien Ch'i. These are still functional, if not quite as impressive as in the previous ages, simply because most nations and independent forces have better troops in the late age. However, T'ien Ch'i in the late age has access to Barbarian Heavy Horsemen, a cheap heavy cavalry unit that can also be recruited outside of forts. This means that it is feasible to build fewer forts as this nation and still produce decent armies. Late Age T'ien Ch'i also has an off-fort Mage.
Another interesting feature of this nation is the access to the Call Ancestor and Wrath of the Ancestors spells. These are combat spells that summon Ancestral Spirits. These spirits have poor stats, with 0 protection and 1 hp. On the other hand, they are also ethereal, sacred, and in possession of an armor negating paralysis attack. Making these spirits fearsome with your bless is an option; even without a bless, though, Wrath of the Ancestors can be useful as a Swarm alternative.
Special Race Attributes | Military | Magic Access | Priests | Buildings |
---|---|---|---|---|
Humans Foreign troop recruitment Neutral Temperature | Heavy cavalry and Horse Archers Decent human infantry | 2 (Rare 3) 2 (Rare 3) 2 (Rare 3) 2 2 2 Heroes *11232 *222 | 1 Communions | Standard Forts(Citadel) |
The Celestial City | The Heavenly Gate |
---|---|
Enables recruitment of: Ancestor Vessel Generates 11 per turn. | Enables recruitment of: Celestial Master Generates 11 per turn. |
The nation has two classes of units. First, you have the traditional T'ien Ch'i units present since the Early Age (General, Ceremonial Master, the various Footman and Heavy Footman variants, Master of the Way, and Celestial Master).
Second, you have the Mongol-themed barbarians (notably the Barbarian Heavy Horseman, a foreign recruit heavy cavalry unit that costs only 20 , and the sacred Ancestor Vessel) with their ancestor mages.
The ancestor mages are notable for being an interesting collection of recruit-anywhere 4-path mages with at least 1, high morale, excellent base stats, and magic gear. These properties mean they are some of the more resilient recruitable mages against assassin and seduction.
Sprite | Unit Name | SpecialAttributes | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Mounted Scout 30 13 1 | Stealthy (50) mounted | More expensive than independent scouts, with a slightly higher map move, offset by not having the usual Forest Survival and Mountain Survival that independent scouts have. | |
General 80 41 1 | mounted | The General and the Khan are your main generals. Both can do formations, and they have the same map move, so they can fill the same roles. The Khan is more expensive but can lead more troops and gives his troops +2 morale instead of +1. The Khan requires 2 recruitment points to recruit, but this is offset by him being recruitable outside forts, so no fort turns need to be spent. Note that all your other commanders can only lead 10 troops, so these are your only national options for leading your armies. |
|
Khan 135 41 2 + Foreign Rec | Pillager(5) mounted |
||
Ceremonial Master 45 3 1 | 1 Sacred | A cheap 1. The nation doesn't have higher holy access, so these are useful to bless Ancestor Vessels in armies you field not with your Prophet or Pretender. Can be a great use of the last commander point in a Citadel if you can't afford to start a second mage. | |
Master of the Way 135 1 2 | 111100% 9 Sacred Need-Not-Eat | The Master of the Way is the nation's cheapest mage but also its weakest, with only two Arcane paths. They can still be useful combat mages, especially if you go into Alteration (for Frozen Heart & point buffs like Mossbody, and Quickness). But your more expensive mages are far more impressive. They're not very efficient researchers, costing 15 per , but they're still slightly-more-gold-efficient than the Ancestors and slightly-more-fort-turn-efficient than the Celestial Masters. |
|
Ancestor Smith 220 16 2 | 2111100% 13 Sacred Forge Bonus(1) Old Age(67/50) | The Ancestor Smith is a useful combat mage with access to the same paths as the other two ancestor mages below, but distributed differently. He is notable for being the best Earth Mage in the nation, meaning he can cast the usual earth buffs: Summon Earthpower, Legions of Steel, and Strength of Giants. They also get a 1-gem discount when forging magic items; Paired with Dwarven Hammers which they can forge with Earth Boots, you can reduce the cost of items made by the Ancestor Smith by 3 gems! The Nature randoms can also serve as budget thugs with Ironskin, Temper Flesh, Personal Regeneration, and (if you have a fluffer) Body Ethereal or Mossbody. The Ancestors have good stats (for Humans), even with the old age penalties, and come pre-equipped with decent magic gear (but no helmet); this one comes with an Ancestor Sword, which has a Fear effect and decent attack/defense bonuses. Unlike other ancestor mages, the Ancestor Smith does not come with Spirit Sight. |
|
Spirit Master 220 11 2 | 1211100% 13 Sacred spirit sight supply Bonus(20) Old Age(127/100) | The Spirit Master is a useful combat mage with access to the same paths as the Ancestor Smith, but distributed differently. Notable for being the best nature mage in the nation. The 211 randoms are particularly valuable in combat, because they can cast Strength of Gaia for an extra nature path boost. |
|
Ancestor Guide 220 11 2 | 1211100% 13 Sacred spirit sight Old Age(67/50) | The Ancestor Guide is a useful combat mage with access to the same paths as the Ancestor Smith and the Spirit Master but distributed differently. He is notable for having a chance at 2 and always being the best possible death mage in the nation, enabling him to cast things like Horde of Skeletons and Shadow Blast. Every one of them can cast Wailing Winds with a Skull Staff! Unlike his peers, he does not start with a magic weapon, but his Quarterstaff provides him with decent defense. |
|
Celestial Master 220 5 4 Capital Only | 12111100% 10% 15 Sacred Need-Not-Eat | The Celestial Master is the nation's only capital-only commander. With 12111100% 10%, he has access to all of the nation's paths except death. He is slow to recruit, but notable for typically being the nation's best water or astral mage. He is important for summoning your Celestial Soldiers. |
Sprite | Unit Name | Special Attributes | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Footman with pike 10 9 9 | A lightly armored soldier with a length 5 pike. This soldier's only advantage over the Footmen with glaives is the length of his weapon, enabling him to repel even spearmen. Since his attack is low, this is rarely worth it. Part of your national province defense. |
||
Footman with glaive 10 11 9 | Glaive Footmen come in three variants. The glaive is a high damage two-handed weapon, making these troops fairly dangerous, especially against heavily armored units and thugs. With Strength of Giants, glaive Footmen will 27 damage per hit; you can buff this further with Army of Giants if needed. The Heavy Footman has decent protection at the cost of only 8 map movement, higher encumbrance, 1 less defense, and moderate resource cost; while the light and medium Footmen have 12 map move, which is enough to often move through 2 friendly plains provinces. |
||
Medium Footman with glaive 10 14 9 | |||
Heavy Footman with glaive 10 20 9 | |||
Footman with Shield 10 11 9 | Tower shield and spear Footmen also come in three variants parallel to those of the glaive footmen. These are blockers; the tower shield makes them excellent at enduring crossbow fire and gives decent defense, but they do dramatically less damage than the glaive infantry. | ||
Medium Footman with Shield 10 14 9 | |||
Heavy Footman with Shield 10 20 9 | |||
Archer 10 12 9 | The Archer is armed with a composite bow, useful versus lightly armored targets. You can cast Wind Guide with national mages, but not Flaming Arrows; so the Late Age's ubiquitous independent crossbowmen are usually better against heavily armored troops. Part of your national province defense and starting army. Can help neutralize enemy crossbowmen with the Fire Archers order. | ||
Barbarian Horseman 20 12 24 + Foreign Rec | Pillager(2) mounted | The Barbarian Horseman is a lightly armed and armored mounted archer with a composite bow. Interestingly, he does have a buckler, helping slightly versus enemy archer fire. In most aspects, he is outshined by the Barbarian Heavy Horseman. Still, since both are recruitable outside of forts, there might be cases where the lower resource cost is important enough that you prefer to recruit these. | |
Barbarian Heavy Horseman 20 27 24 + Foreign Rec | Pillager(2) mounted | The Barbarian Heavy Horseman is perhaps the defining unit in the Late Age T'ien Ch'i army. At first glance, he might seem similar to the Barbarian Horseman, but this unit is an upgrade in many ways. Heavier armour, a heavy lance rather than the light lance, a shield rather than the buckler, and a hoof attack. Altogether, this unit is an extremely cheap heavy cavalry unit with a bow as a bonus. Like the Barbarian Horseman, the Heavy Horseman can be recruited outside of forts, meaning it is possible to mass these more easily than their resource and recruitment costs indicate. | |
Ancestor Vessel 50 32 46 Capital Only | Sacred Pillager(2) spirit sight Mounted | The Ancestor Vessel is the nation's capital's only sacred unit. In addition to being sacred, this unit is an upgraded version of the Barbarian Heavy Horseman, with better stats, better armor, spirit sight and the Howling bow, a composite bow doing magic damage and with an extra fear effect on damage. |
The national heroes of T'ien ch'i are immortal mages, unchanged across the ages.
Sprite | Unit Name | Special Attributes | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Ho Hsien-Ku - Immortal | 12 11 Sacred immortal Supply Bonus(20) Healer(1) Ethereal flying Female | A flying immortal with paths available on your air random Spirit Master. Can be used as a highly mobile Swarm raider, but her main value is the Healer ability, which is especially useful on a nation with many old mages. Ethereal means she's less likely to die to archers than other unarmored human mages. | |
Lu Tung-Pin - Immortal | 11232 19 Sacred immortal ambidextrous(3) | A very useful hero, providing Astral 3, as well as your only national fire access. The fire/water cross path can be used for Manifest Vitriol, and with a fire booster, Rune Smashers and acid magic. Your only national mage who can lead big armies, and could be used as an assassin-resistant commander. |
|
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) | An extremely old mage. His individual paths are available on national mages, but immortality can be very useful. One interesting application is to Cloud Trapeze onto an enemy army and cast Power of the Spheres followed by Wind of Death, without risking any gear. |
Late Age Tien Chi's specialty is being able to site search 6 paths at level 2 (or 9 if you can afford remote site searching) and then use those gems to put up a full suite of major battlefield spell in the game using just 25% randoms on recruitable mages, boosters, and crystal communions (immune to magic duel).
Major ritual magic is more of a weakness for the nation, due to the lack of paths above 2:
What is the best spell you can use in combat. What spells the best support your national lineup, Is there weakness that you need to fix? Any tricks you should be aware you have?
Earth, Death, Nature are your main combat paths, with Air, Water, and Astral as sides.
Your main butter is spamming old men with reliable magic paths. Only 1 in 4 will get astral magic, but you only need 5 mages and one booster to cast the fun late-game stuff, which also doesn't seem so bad as you should be spamming Ancestors from every fort.
Earth Grants useful protection and while destroying the enemy's armor, like Marble Warriors, Maws of the Earth, and Destruction.
if you can get rid of enemy hats, go Rain of Stones.
Nature can grant some other buffs, like increased size and recovery for your summoned army and mages.
With communions, it is possible to perform some higher-level Air magic like Storm & Fog Warriors, though T'ien Ch'i has a tougher time gathering potential Slaves than most Communion Nations (since only its capital Mages are guaranteed that 1).
All Ancestors know some death magic, so many can Shadow Blast and spam ghost or skeletons when they go off-script. Wailing Winds and Fields of the Dead are some late-game death. Soul Vortex with regenerating bodyguards around your communion mages will help with turbo communions.
If you recruit Masters of the Way, you can use them to spam Frozen Heart.
LA T'ien Ch'i is a nation with a normal Death endgame despite Blood being the Defining power of the late age.
As most mages are Death, finding every death gem with Dark Knowledge is important in this Gem scarce game mode.
Summoning Trolls or Lamia are can be used as additional communion batteries for your Ancestors with Soul Vortex.
It cost a lot of earth gems and requires holding a cave or Wasteland, hidden-in-terrain spells give you mages.
Your troops are behind in the trends of the age so transitioning to summoned troops is a good idea. Spirit Masters can Construct Manikins and Mandragoras.
Corpse Constructs are subjectively good chaff depending on who you talk to and how buffed they are given how many you can make with Storm Spool and Lightning Rod using only a single .
Mound Fiends a good spamming undead with the limited magic sites. Ziz are also fun as siege units.
Call Celestial Soldiers Give Quality troops especially with all the earth and nature buffs you can give.
The Ancestor Smith mages are great forgers; with a Dwarven Hammer, they can forge cheap items for just 5 gems (it's the late age, so saving gems is particularly valuable). National mages have good thug paths and stats on an old, human chassis. They can make excellent counter thugs and can be used as light thugs with an Unaging bless, and could be strong after using Transformation or Twiceborn to get a stronger chassis.
T'ien Ch'i's Barbarian Heavy Horseman is perhaps the best scales expansion unit of the Late Age.
During expansion, you'll often want to place your heavy cavalry in a line on hold and attack, so they fire a couple arrows and then charge into melee. (This generally performs better than trading arrow fire with independent crossbowmen). If you have any Ceremonial Master commanders in the squad, make sure they are far behind other units while still being close enough to bless your Ancestor Vessels.
The tactical AI for the T'ien Ch'i cavalry (and all other mixed archer/melee units) can be quite problematic if your goal is to use them as heavy cavalry, not archers. The problem is that cavalry on attack orders will often switch to firing their bow after killing or routing the squad they initially targeted. In large battles, this can often lead to unexpected defeats, where a weaker enemy force that would be easily beaten by massed cavalry is able to surround and kill your cavalry units individually while 90% of your force fires mostly ineffective arrows.
There is a workaround for this tactical problem: If you include a unit without a bow in a squad containing horse archers, the entire squad will generally continue fighting in melee. You can use the infantry in your starting army for this purpose, and it is a good reason to recruit a few independent Heavy Cavalry to mix into your squads.
The fact that your Ancestor Vessels have a bow can be quite tactically useful as the game progresses for protecting your sacreds in long battles. Usually, the only way to keep elite troops from charging into battle is to give them a Guard Commander order.
If you put squads of Ancestor Vessel and Barbarian Heavy Horseman on Hold and Fire, they will stay put, giving you as much time as you like to cast buffs while contributing somewhat to the fight with their bows. When they run out of ammunition, they'll all charge in together and hit enemies that may already be disorganized or fatigued from fighting any other troops your brought (infantry, province defense, mercenaries). Firing bows in Dominions does generate any fatigue for the archer, so your ancestors will be hitting the enemy fresh. The downside is that your elite melee troops will not be fighting in melee for the first 10 turns of the battle; this tactic can be counterproductive without the right mage support.
One way to use this hold-and-fire strategy is as a way to buy your mages time to paint point buffs like Mossbody and Luck with all 5 scripting slots (and possibly more with off script casting). (Unfortunately, Quickness will make archers fire two arrows per turn, resulting in the quickened units running out of ammunition early and thus charging alone).
Later on, this tactic can be particularly nice in combination with a fatigue play (using some combination of Curse of Stones, Grip of Winter, Rigor Mortis, Relief, Quagmire, and delaying spells like Swarm) as a way to ensure most of your attrition falls on your more easily replaced units. Fatigue plays combine particularly well with this tactic, because enemy troops have to walk across the entire battlefield in order to close with your ancestors.
List some example pretender builds. Try to use the following format to keep authorship and pretender design rationale clear.
Youtuber Saquenay discussing and playing the nation (2020)
Youtuber GeneralConfusion discussing and playing the nation(2019)
Exercise in Masochism by TiredTaleTeller.
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 |