Dominions 5 - LA Tien Chi - National Overview

[@daral9217]

Wish the game was more clear about what does or does not work with unaging. Unaging only really gives the smiths a chance at not being old they are one of the units that are effectively forced to be old. This becomes very clear when you do an age comparison between the smiths and the Celestial masters with and without unaging the difference is stark.

[@olle7498]

Death explosion + charge body + enough fire and shock resistance + ancestor spirits = fun.

[@lowlife4103]

I love TC and won my first noob game playing them in LA. Ancestor smiths with unaging have very impressive stats. Unfortunately they are not all young, even with the bless. GSS + flight and luck make them good counter thugs. Flying shield, regen, temper flesh, ethereal, luck and a mossbody fluff makes them really tough physmoss tanks. Twiceborn + transformation is good on expensive mages. Can give you tough chassis for army support casting late game. To counteract horsemen stopping to shoot: Mixing in melee troops along with your horse archers gives the squad a higher chance to continue a melee assault after their first target is destroyed/routed. Thank you for the video Lucid! I love the weapon bless ideas.

[@sgtflintlock6904]

Man, I wish poison weapons didn't require a death scale, because I'd love to experiment with it, but I can never justify the pop kill.

[@DarkSideBrownie]

Seems like it would make more sense as a requirement for death weapons or withering weapons. Poison and venom are so common in nature it doesn't seem like something that necessitates death scales. Maybe a Death secondary bless cost.

[@xeroprotagonist]

I did some random theorycrafting for Tien Chi a while back and I came up with some ideas. The need-not-eat tag on a lot of the summoned units and mages means you can pile up huge numbers of them in one fort to make it very difficult for you to get knocked out of the game, but EA and MA are probably better at doing that than LA (unless you take Half Dead to give all your sacreds NNE, maybe). Their nation-unique items are actually really good and so cheap to make that you can give them to everyone, especially the Sword of 5 Elements, but LA TC can't make the sword with no fire access (though they can still make the armor). What they get instead is the Ancestor Smith's forge bonus which gives them a different lineup of cost-reduced thug gear. LA TC can kit out recruit-anywhere Khans and later Ancestor Smiths (note their high combat stats even after age penalties) with cheap gear, and every Ancestor Smith can cast Summon Earthpower for reinvigoration. Depending on what you do with your bless and what gear you give them, you can have a thug with monster combat stats and strong self buffs that dual wields but is still fatigue neutral, maybe even with quickness. Especially if you make an enemy army tire themselves out swinging at a horde of longdead and ethereal spirits first/hit them with Curse of Stones/etc. then a group of thugs like that can cut through them like butter without taking any damage, and meanwhile your army can be safely in the back shooting arrows until they run out and come in to clean up. A Khan with a Shademail Haubergeon and Implementor Axe can use the raid action with a +30 pillage bonus so you can continually pillage opponents' unguarded provinces with a high success chance with just one guy. A khan with just a handful of horsemen can do the same thing, but without stealth. Pillaging doesn't produce that much money but it'd certainly pay for one khan's upkeep and just about any opportunity to have a unit that makes you money rather than costing you money is worth considering in this game, and killing large numbers of your enemy's population every turn adds up. D random Ancestor Smiths with E&D pathboosters can also make Eye Pendants that provide disease healing. So taking death scales isn't necessarily the worst plan, I think. You can recruit your troops anywhere so you're generally better at using mostly depopulated lands than most civs. IMO the key to using death scales with non-undead nations is to make sure your enemies' populations also die and that you are prepared to fight in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and hopefully they are not. LA TC could even cast Burden of Time, Twiceborn its D mages, and keep its Celestial Masters alive with Internal Alchemy and protected with celestial summons while everything else dies.

[@danieltabin6470]

I really want an MA nation that is a connection between the Sauromatians and LA TC. I'm thinking it would be inspired by Turkic mythology but would be represented as a multi-ethnic steppe confederation that is migrating east. Real nomadic confederations of the migration era (such as the bulgars) often included Turks, Slavs, Iranics, and other people of unknown origins like Huns and Avars.

[@gibbcharron3469]

This exists in Dominions Enhanced! It's called Tartary, and goes all in on foreign-recruit mages and cav.

[@Bill_Garthright]

Yeah, this one was fun to play. Any nation I remember so fondly afterwards is a great pick. Thanks, Lucid.

[@NobodyNobody0000]

Thank you for continuing to do such a great job with these National Overviews Lucid! One thing that really stands out about your commentary is how well you strategic considerations that go beyond just game mechanics. It really shows how much experience and knowledge you have when you talk about things like timings and the different tools to "crack nuts you can't crack" so to speak. Things like that give a lot more in depth view of the nation than just the surface level things people can see from the in game description or the mod inspector like the nation's mages and summons and such. Appreciate you including those kind of things in your commentary! One thing you touched on here was the match-up with Vaettiheim which was interesting. Have you considered doing a video on match-ups? Or maybe include a match-up section in overviews like these? It'd definitely be exciting to hear your thoughts on what one nation can do particularly well to counter another and the counter play to that and such. It seems like Unaging could be a benefit to LA Tien Chi (even if it just reduces instead of eliminating the aging penalty) just like it is to MA Shinuyama, so it's such a shame the Eastern pretender selection is so limited in Nature. That feels like such a gap especially when it's as bad as LA Tien Chi having only the Master Enchanter for a Nature option. I hope Illwinter will give more thematic Pretender options that could give more viable gameplay routes too. Speaking of pretenders though, a combination suggestion and question: how do you feel about the Phoenix? Since you mentioned stacking weapon blesses, LA Tien Chi can get an awake 6F 7A Phoenix with neutral scales for both Flaming Weapons and Thunder Weapons, or probably preferably go dormant for +3 or +4 scales depending on Dominion. It also gives you the magic phase moving fire caster you mentioned like the Kami of the Sun and a high level caster for rituals in those paths. It seems like it could be a good build to me but I'm not sure how to best utilize it. Going Dom5 and dumping to Heat 3 lets you get +6 other scales, and maxing Growth with the other +3 in any combination of Order and Productivity negates the income penalty for temperature scales while letting your cavalry have the better movement from no snow. Or you could take the -9% income and get max Luck (maybe hoping to get the Immortal heroes?) or max Magic. Is it alright to ask for your thoughts here? I'm going to save the max Luck version for a single-player run but I don't think I could pilot the nation as well as you. In any case, thanks again for all your hard work and effort making quality content! Hope that 2023 goes well for you!

[@LucidTactics]

Thanks for the nice feedback mate. Yeah cool idea for a pheonix, i dont exactly love the chassis but thats a very cool weapons bless build that can lend help with flaming arrows and such & the mobility on the chassis is super nice.

[@carlhallstrom3330]

oh shit its finally happening! Lucid Tien Chi!

[@ahgolux]

Thanks for making content for this game!

[@ancalagon4747]

Thanks Lucid. Entertaining and informative as usual! Lots of things I didn't think of. In SP I tried a Far Caster (for Frozen Heart spam), Wither Weapons bless and gave my god F4 (so he could summon a Flame Spirit for Flaming Arrows). It was fun.

[@DarkSideBrownie]

Was just going to mention the water air ones can at least kill most thugs with frozen heart spam when you roll them out to counter raid.

[@Doombot221]

I feel like the master of the way is at this age more of a helpful access to some cross paths for forging. Like, your only easy access to S2 with an earth cross path and some other stuff. Plus in a pinch being communion helpers. But once you have the variations you need it really falls off

[@neversaydie6032]

I love this nation but the horseman stopping their charge and switching to bow always at the wrong time make it super frustrating.

[@Bill_Garthright]

When I played them (just SP), I found that "attack rear" worked pretty well, because they'd have to kill the closer units just to get to the guys they were trying to attack. So, if I remember this correctly, they wouldn't stop to shoot until they got to the rear. There might be a downside to that, if you didn't have huge numbers,... but I generally _had_ huge numbers, since I could recruit them anywhere. Edit: Oh, I guess Lucid said that in the video, huh? I shouldn't have commented _first._ :)

[@yeoldedude7464]

I love N2-D-H mages for the holy wight tartarian transformation too. Not many nations has those crosspass, and LA tien chi is the one who can pull that trick.

[@DarkSideBrownie]

It doesn't seem practical, but could you pillage/raid to remove enemy income and then when you take the land you bring in a few celestial hounds to patrol the unrest down? Also, such a cool Mongol kind of effect with a horde of horsemen who instill terror in enemies.

[@emilsoderman3691]

I always kinda feel EA TC is the one that never gets played? Other than the anti-dogpile game I don't think I've ever seen them played.

[@LucidTactics]

They are really strong imo. Their mages are tricky to use very well, but they have amazing sacred doom stacks.

[@qaz120120]

Play it please

[@tarsis6123]

Did you know unaging doesn't do anything useful for them, most of those mages will *still* be old? With the occasional one coming out like 49 of 50. It's a waste of bless points in my mind.

[@LucidTactics]

It makes them less old(less penalties - like minus 1-2 enc), a decent number of the non nature ones (like a third) not old at all. And hardly accumulate winter afflictions because they age at a slower rage) It also makes them much more resistent to wind of death. May not be your first choice but no reason not to look at it.

[@TheAleatoriorandom]

Nice!

[@sammydavis5628]

This game is so amazing. LA TC has far better magic outside the cap than EA TC but EA TC is somehow still at least viable and probably actually good? How does an EA human nation have water as the only path above 1 outside the cap and no reliable astral and not be awful? Such a great game.

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

:)

[@Waterpls]

This guide is a bit too optimistic. Nation is pretty average in power, and most of it's power lies in one-trick pony dirt cheap cavalry, backed with pretty good sacred archers. Mage core is unreasonably expensive with high enc, old age and not easy to use paths. Some of the strong features are hard to apply, like you have access to Moss body and forge bonus, but hey no thug chassis except old age human size. You can't rely on big communions because your comm slaves are expensive and rare. You can use communion for buffs, but again you troops are good because they are cheap, not because of exceptional stats. Lack of blood in blood oriented age is a very bad omen too. In most games LA TC story is early success and then helpless crush in late game.

[@LucidTactics]

I think they are very good in the mid game too - though the deep late game is pretty spooky for them unless you make very good plans for it. Also, i think you point how you dont get good communion mages etc - yeah you arent really going to have the best doom stacks, but a little bit of mage support goes a long way with the mages that you do have amongst the horselord chaff hordes.

[@Lancelot2000Lps]

The weapon bless for the Celestial Hound is not good because only the claw get the bless all attacks with intrinsic weapons get no bless.

[@LucidTactics]

Oh i had no idea about that damn

[@LucidTactics]

Actually just tested it - it does work on bite. I think its only natural RANGED weapons it doesnt work on.

[@Lancelot2000Lps]

@@LucidTactics Oh ok thanks that makes them really good 4 attacks per place with 1+ weapons bless, i am big fan of withering weapons they work so nice in tandem with the sacred cav. and solar weapons, and then unaging or frostweapons. And imprisient you get really got scales!!! Ps. i love your vids plz let them come!!!

[@sombrewarhammer]

@@LucidTactics Correct