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| TC nation analysis and AAR | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 30 2012, 12:13 AM (6,061 Views) | |
| Fantomen | Nov 30 2012, 12:13 AM Post #1 |
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Voice of *****
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TC nation analysis and AAR Picking a nation for this tourney, I thought long and hard before settling for T'ien Ch'i. What I was looking for was first and foremost a nation that could theoretically adapt to beat any other nations, so not a one trick pony nation or gimmicky build of any kind. I also wanted a nation that only I played, for two reasons: first so I could be garanteed to play it in every duel, and second to minimize the access to training against my nation. It's a complex, challenging and fun nation to play, the kind of nation that really scales with experience. It has access to all magic except blood, and provides all possible crosspaths too. It has almost any tactical option you can think of, good archers, light and heavy infantry with good shields or high damage glaives, light lance cavalry, chariots and amazing sacreds. In addition to that it's capital mages are flying, and there is two nice flying sacred summons for them to raid with. The Celestial masters also have high enough research to take drain without falling behind other nations. Some things it doesn't have is: stealthy units, blood, thug chassis, high HP recruitables, heavy cavalry, berserkers, recruitable flying troops, high single magic paths apart from water. They also don't have any really high end non sacred recruitables. All things you might want in a duel. Some of these things can be achieved through summons and items, but the rest you'll simply have to forego. Bless EA TC has awesome sacreds that can be buffed to any elemental immunity, you also have sacred summons which are very good. I consider Water 9 the optimal bless for TC, because it's great for both your summons, your sacred recruitables, and the amazon cavalries (w9 lances). The amazons matter in a duel, since doubling your output of sacreds is huge, and if you find pegasi you'll have flying raiders. Pretender build The way I see it, there are three viable pretenders for this nation in a duel, The mother of rivers, the titan, and the jade emperor. Mother of rivers Apart from the obvious advantage of being a hot mama, the mother of rivers provides a perfect base for a conjuration rush based TC. You can get a cheap ass w9 bless from her, and awake she'll boost your water gem income to summon a crapload of river demons. She also provides a respectable piece of artillery with that high water path, and can bring her own gems for water based battlefield spells. The drawback with the Mother is that you're pretty much forced to rush conjuration to play her optimally, which is predictable, and being predictable sucks. So in the end I didn't use her. The Titan The titan is a special case. You take him awake with a A9 E4 bless and go to town spamming lightning from behind lightning immune wot5e. It's not a very good idea unless you're fighting an air based nation which you know is going to rush thunder strike. And it's only useful then if you know that your opponent does not know you're doing it. I considered taking him in the finals but deemed it too risky because I figured Raiel was too good to fall for it, and even if he did he would be clever enough to switch strategy quickly. I was correct in this, he didn't even go for TS at all so this build would have been a disaster. The jade emperor The more I play with this guy the more I love him. This is the build I used for the entire tournament, in every single duel: Awake, Air 1, Water 9, Astral 3, Dominion 8, Order 3, production 2, Cold 3, Misfortune 3, growth 0, drain 2. First off, his special abilities are fortune teller 66 and reduce unrest by 10 per turn, these abilities coupled with TCs awesome PD allows misfortune 3 and overtax capital at 130% without patrollers (more with patrollers obviously) these abilities also counters remote unrest spells really well (like wayward star, hurricane etc.). The magic paths he comes with are also perfect. A1 he starts with, and combined with the W9 it gives AOE 9(!) freezing mists and aim boosted falling frosts. W9 also gives us the desired water bless, Astral 3 allows him to teleport in to deliver this artillery power, and to cast baleful star at the enemy capital. The scales: Order 3 for the money and synergy with misfortune Production 2 to open up the ability to alter strategies by fast recruitment of your various troops. Cold 3 won't fatigue your sacreds and has great synergy with all your cold based evocations. But you can just as well take Heat 3, the sacreds don't care and it boosts your fire demons. I would go heat 3 against Niefelheim or Caelum, but otherwise I find cold 3 optimal. growth 0. I don't want to open up any bad events with death and I don't need growth in a duel. Misfortune 3. It's a pain sometimes but your pretender will prevent most of the bad stuff in your cap and you can handle the barbarians with PD. Overall you'll be fine. Drain 2, because your mages can research well anyways. This is a specific duel thing because you're so cap centric in a duel only the cap mages really affect the equation. Dominion 8, you need it for the sacreds and to fend off blood suckers. Initial turns The first turn I patrol with starting commander, prophetize scout, set Jah' de l'ai ho (the God) to research something, tax 170%, alchemize the 2 pearls to 1 fire and the 2 fire to gold, recruit 8 wot5e, a master of the five elements and 4 light shielded footmen (archer screen). Second turn lower taxes to 130%, set master o5e to research, expand with all troops and prophet, recruit a master of the dead (d1h1 mage for 80 gold), 8 wot5e and 2 heavy shielded footmen + whatever seems pretty. The thing here is that one master of the dead, 8 wot5e and 2 shielded footmen is a perfect expansion party. Just put them all way back, the footmen in the middle and the sacreds and mage in a corner. All troops go hold and attack closest, mage goes bless/bless/frighten/frighten/frighten/spells. This means you can recruit one expansion party per turn for only 80+200+20=300 gold. All the while researching 21rp per turn and overtaxing, saving up gold for your first fort. Correctly scripted your initial expansion party will not lose to any indie, so you'll be ramping up the provinces crazy fast, switching the death mages for celestial masters. Cut down on the expansion squad output and start site searching right away with your masters. I can honestly say that I have never before managed anything remotely close to this momentum on all fronts. When you get the hang of it, it's crazy fast. You should be able to pop a couple forts in year 1, and place them with consideration of maxing resources. You want to be able to field big armies. if you can secure an amazon province that is huge. From there on you really have to adapt to the enemy, and this is the tricky part. There are a fuckload of things you can do, and there is a very real risk of spreading too thin with too many strategies or to fail in execution. I will outline some major strategic options sorted by magic path. Conjuration If you luck out with the water, air and fore gems, a conjuration rush is a good option. With your amazing gem clock you can pour out a silly supply of river demons, fire demons and celestial hounds. The river demons are just awesome additions to your main army, as they add the niche of really high damage output berserkers. Great for killing enemy pretenders or other really tough units. The fire demons and celestial hounds given to a celestial master gives you excellent flying raidning parties that can be backed by the corresponding elemental evocations. I don't really see a point in ever pushing beyond conjuration 5, you'll always get more payoff in other paths at that point. Alteration It's a pretty good path too. You get numbness, aim, eagle eyes, body ethereal, luck wind guide and baleful star. Very worthwhile standard path if you're not especially focused on some specific counter. If you luck out and get a s3 celestial master and good astral income, both of which are likely, baleful star can be your winning card when you drop 2 of them per turn by late year 1. I could see a case to go alt 6 for doom and vitriols in a long duel, but I never got in a position where it made sense to go beyond 4. Evocation The major gotos are freezing mists, acid bolt, acid rain, stellar cascades and falling frost. Along the way you get the other elemental stuff for special situations. You'll need to have evocation 4 when the big battles arrive. The acid spells combined with eagle eyes or aim is your staple mage artillery. if you luck into a a3 celestial master put him aside to cast hurricanes. Construction The big deal is construction 2. Because here are the two items that open your nation up like nothing else. Crystal shields and staffs of corrosion. Celestial masters with crystal shields are absolute monsters on the battlefield, and gives them divine bless. The staffs of corrosion are just amazing artillery. In theory there is great stuff at construction 4, but in practice I never encountered a situation where it seemed worth it compared to other paths, so I stayed at construction 2 in all my duels. Enchantment Big risk, big reward. You don't really get anything important before enchantment 5, but once there you have the ability to buff your wot5e to immunity against anything, which is amazing both defensively and as a combo with freezing mist, thunderstrikes, fireballs and so on. You also get flaming arrows, castable by a celestial master with crystal shield and 3 fire gems, that opens up an entire new type of archer based army for you. I successfully used a secondary flaming arrow army in the final against Raiel. Thaumathurgy There is stuff in there you can use, I didn't bother with it. I'm sure there is great things you can do with it, I just never found myself in a situation where it was optimal. So the second part of strategy is the troops. I won't go into length here. Your basic squad is wot5e with light shielded footmen blockers, to this you can add any of the other troops to meet the threat at hand. They are all very good troops, though I never bothered with the mm1 infantry. It always seemed better to get more numbers that the minor protection boost. Glaives to chop up tough stuff, composite bows for weak stuff, chariots for Low defense infantry, and light lance cavalry for emergency damage output (the low resources makes them very massable, but they die quickly). The troops combine very well, but you better script them carefully since they all have specific jobs to do, you need to make sure the right troop type gets the right job on the battlefield. On a macro level, your goal is to overpower your opponent. The whole idea of this build is that you keep ahead of your enemy on all fronts. Your power curve needs to be more progressive than his is. You need to keep a steady aggressive pressure up even when you are building up your defenses, retain that advantage in gems, research and income. You can afford to play a game of attrition against Van and other elite focused nations, show your opponent how quickly you can pump out solid squads tailored to beat different threats and how little losing some of them means, laugh at his raiders as your flying summons and small squads of wot5e retakes them faster than he can raid you. Don't stay with a single strategy, have one army pelt him with acid rains while another whips out flaming arrows and the third rolls over him with massed chariots. Be reactive, sensitivity to what your opponent is fielding is key, since you have all the counters but no all purpose setup you always need to field the right one. It's all about speed, about being far ahead in every way. Lose your momentum and you will lose the duel, but why would you? |
| This sentence is a logical fallacy. | |
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| Fantomen | Nov 30 2012, 12:15 AM Post #2 |
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Voice of *****
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Reserved for section 2, which will be comments on the different duels played. |
| This sentence is a logical fallacy. | |
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| namad | Nov 30 2012, 05:45 AM Post #3 |
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Chud
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very well written, really teaching me a lot, giving me a lot of insights, respecting your victories, and anticipating a possible second tournament in the distant future. |
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| HeatEXTEND | Nov 30 2012, 08:26 PM Post #4 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Very nice and transparent. |
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| parone | Nov 30 2012, 10:30 PM Post #5 |
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Foe of Paragraphs and Capitalization
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love this fanto couple quetions from an unapologetic newb what is a wot5e? i didn't think tien chi had chariots? is this a modded nation? |
| All that matters is that two stood against many-that's what's important... | |
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| Immaculate | Nov 30 2012, 10:41 PM Post #6 |
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A cruel and feckless taskmaster with an ethical blind-spot wider
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1) warrior of the five elements. 2) it does- maybe they are called nobles or something like that. 3) no. |
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| parone | Nov 30 2012, 11:59 PM Post #7 |
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Foe of Paragraphs and Capitalization
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thanks imac |
| All that matters is that two stood against many-that's what's important... | |
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| TheDemon | Dec 1 2012, 08:47 AM Post #8 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Macro-level strategy wins games. Glad to see you mention it, it's something a lot of guides and AARs miss. |
Download DE 0.13 here, released May 13, 2012 | |
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| <span style=Calahan</span> | Dec 1 2012, 09:53 AM Post #9 |
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Here fleeing from the tyranny of Shrapnel dictators
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Very nice write-up Fantomen. Although I was a bit surprised by this bit...
Do you really need to trade half your initial gem stash to get 4 light shielded footmen*? As you can recruit 1 without alcing any gems, and I doubt Indy Archers (at I assume Indy 5 settings) are going to get through Tower Shield, Protection, and firing at max range to cause damage before the W5E's chop them up. And if going for 1 I can't see why an upgrade to the Heavy variety isn't fine, as doubt the MM1 is going to be a problem for expansion (and given that you use Heavies in the other expansion armies) *(by the way, what unit are you refereing to here? Noithing matches that exact name, but I've assumed you mean the Tower "Footman" that doesn't have the prefix Medium of Heavy.) Or even just alc the lone Fire gem to get 2 Heavy Footmen if you are concerned using just 1 is risking "a lucky hit forces him to rout" scenario. As here...
... you say that your subsequent expansion armies make do with just 2 archer decoys (of the heavy variety). So I find it a little odd the lengths you go to in order to get 4 Archer decoys (of the lighter variety) on turn 1 for your starting army. As I'd imagine if any army could get away with being light on decoys, it would be your starting army (as you can also be ordering your Archers to reduce the number of enemy Archers from the off, further reducing the chance of a lucky hit) I'm certainly more than happy to bow to your wisdom on this though, given the duel champion crown you are soon to be /actually/ wearing, and given I've never played a duel in my life. And if it's best then it's best. Just that I was nodding my head while reading the rest, but the above really stuck out for me. (plus they're pearls man. And I can't sit quietly while lovely pearls are being so cruelly and mercilessly defiled :() |
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Never try to help pig-headed douche bags. It's never worth the trouble, as some people are just too stupid and arrogant to listen Sombre is an egocentric asshole - Jarkko Calahan can spread shit with the best of them. | |
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| Fantomen | Dec 1 2012, 01:48 PM Post #10 |
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Voice of *****
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The starting army has a different mission than the following minimalistic squads that are for pure expansion. First of all I'm scripting it differently, the four shielded footmen are put in the front on guard commander while the noble commander is placed all the way back. This pulls enemies in for a sandwich charge between the wot5e and the pikemen, while the archers get the opportunity to fire archers at close range. This is especially useful to take out heavy cavalry provinces without losses, something the more minimalistic expansion squads cannot do. Heavy footmen are to slow to draw the cavalry because they risk ending up too close to the pikemen and wot5e, I need them to pass behind the lines before melee starts to avoid arrows from falling there. But only two light footmen aren't tough enough to consistently survive the first volley of arrows in the front, that's why I need 4 of them. The big deal is that the high income farmland next to your cap on twolands, which often contains heavy cavalry, can reliably be taken turn 2 this way, and from there you can either use this squad to take other tough indies or to go straight over a choke and harass the enemy right away, which I usually do as it gives the illusion of a rush and fucks with your opponents head to mess up his priorities. It is then very nice to have mapmove 2 when retrating back for reinforcements. |
| This sentence is a logical fallacy. | |
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| frosted | Dec 2 2012, 08:25 AM Post #11 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Wow this is awesome. The best part about this is that, I think you could have asked 90% of the community which nation they'd think would win this and almost nobody would have guessed TC (which is why nobody else ran them). It's impressive that you were able to achieve the kind of speed that you were. I know that in our duel you simply steamrolled me (and almost every other player you faced). Very few people would have thought TC capable of the kind of lightning speed aggression that you managed. How viable do you think this kind of setup would be for a larger game? Also, how the hell do you answer this? When I was planning for our duel, the only other option I could come up with was essentially dragon rushing you. My plan would have been to attempt to shadow your expansion parties and/or potentially eat them. In the end I decided to try to just fight it out with a straight TS rush. But simply underestimated how fast you were able to produce threats. The other problem dealing with TC is their really effective PD. If you try the raid route, 20pts in PD will often produce attrition or completely shut down a raiding party with a bit of extra support. Excellent PD, plus the gem income, solid research, cost effective summons, the potential to field recruitables that have total immunity to the element of your choice. Plus incredible speed. What are the weaknesses? What were you scared of? |
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| Fantomen | Dec 2 2012, 06:51 PM Post #12 |
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Voice of *****
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I was scared of Raiel and Thedemon, and diablo was a joker since I didn't know him before. I was scared of a really bad misfortune 3 event getting past my fortune teller god and shutting me down the first turns. I was scared of blood sac strategies and most of all worried about just doing some stupid fatal misstake. However, I don't think a dragon rush would have worked very well. |
| This sentence is a logical fallacy. | |
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| frosted | Dec 2 2012, 08:05 PM Post #13 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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I didn't think it'd work either. Which is why I tried my luck with TS and seeking arrow spam. Here was some of my thought process for evaluating TC after seeing Fantomen pilot them a few times. After playing a couple practice matches with Fant earlier, my money was on her to win the whole thing. 1: A passive game will be a losing game due to TC's potentially incredible gem income and site search rate. She was capable of easily exceeding 20 gems/turn year one. 2: Going into year two, wot5e can support full elemental immunity. When running an air centric nation that will potentially shut down 2/3 of your tools: TS spam, air elementals, etc. 3: Their PD is fantastic, preventing any kind of low investment raiding from being worthwhile. If you want to raid them, you're going to have to seriously spend to make it happen, and even then - if the PD you encounter receive any kind of support you're likely in big trouble. Everything said and done, going into year two - I couldn't really see any method for a nation like TNN to deal with TC's ability to become economically dominant (sick gem income) while also being capable of fielding full lightning immune recruitables backed by terrifying acid evocation. I also underestimated the effect of remote unrest spells. Patrolling away the unrest is fine and good, but unlike previous opponents Fantomen used this timed perfectly with various offensive moves. Requiring 20+ troops patrolling away unrest while also fielding multiple offensive teams before turn 15 forced me to spread my already thin defense even thinner. Admittedly, Fantomen is a much stronger player than I am. But with that said, the only viable tool I felt I had was seeking arrow spam, which although great was nowhere near enough. Does TC in a duel have any significant weakness Fant? |
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| Fantomen | Dec 2 2012, 09:09 PM Post #14 |
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Voice of *****
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No stealth, so your opponent can see all your movements. A clever opponent could capitalize on this to outplay the TC player. But generally I think the whole idea about TC is that it has no specific big weaknesses or strengths but instead diversity and answers to everything, BUT each answer is very specific. So the potential weakness is being lured into doing the wrong things researching the wrong path, feilding the wrong troop and sp on. That's why the lack of stealth is potentially a big weakness. |
| This sentence is a logical fallacy. | |
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| Boo | Dec 7 2012, 04:17 PM Post #15 |
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*Spicy* Crew
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Apparently the button for creating new topics and adding replies are next to each other! This should have gone in Fantomen's T'ien C'hi thread. Couldn't it be possible to outproduce TC under ideal circumstances? I'm thinking of the Lanka situation, where you can run a parallel gold and blood economy to leverage recruitable sacreds, archers, and masses of blood summons alternatively reanimated longdead/ghouls which can be done even while raiding in enemy territory. Fundamentally you overtax or tax fully even while blood hunting, but markata are superior patrollers. Aggressively blessed Lanka sacreds should be able to handle most rushes but raiding might be a threat to blood hunting. When done correctly the result should be a superior (doubled) economy. As long as you continuously recruit Raksharaja you have a strong evocation base. Evocation opens up thunder strike, wailing winds, and shadow blast, all very strong spells for the Raja. Having to deal with two sources of enemy units (blood + gold) while research to deal with high-end evocations seems like a difficult prospect. The build I had planned to use if I had been part of the tournament was high water minor fire Mother of Rivers dormant, with dumped production, heat, but high growth and order. Used aggressively mainly, to leverage massive acid rains. The reason I didn't enter the tournament were many, but a large one was that I thought that this type of build would require more micro and better scripting than I would be able to perform in a duel setting. A feature I saw some potential in is the lankan ability to generate ghouls and thus reducing population of a province combined with their demons' need not eat and wailing winds especially. |
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