Dominions 6 - Middle T'ien Chi Strategy at a Glance

A new series where I do my best to give my first impressions on how I would recommend playing some of the nations of Dominion 6. A lot has changed and I hope my perspective as a Dominions 5 veteran helps you get started!
Do note I have not actually played a full multiplayer game as many of these as the game has only come out recently. I may redo some of these videos with more practical experience and information in the future.
If you have other ideas or suggestions on playing the nation, please write them in the comments below for others to see and discuss!
Shoutout to Sturm for creating the viewable summons at the pretender screen mod
Here are also some discord guides from ExasperatedCultist, a fantastic dom6 theory crafter.
Thugging 101: / discord
Okay, Pretenders!: / discord
Fort Placement: / discord
00:00 Summary
00:40 Units
01:16 Commanders
02:21 Summons
04:31 Roster Gameplan
05:21 Spell Recommendations
07:20 Pretender Design
09:27 Gameplay
Here are my written notes if that helps too
MA Tien Chi
Summary: Dynastic Medieval China fitting a jack of all trades archetype of infantry, mages, bereaucrats, and powerful mythological summons.
Commanders prevent bad events, cause good ones, increase province defense for free, and cure diseases.
Province defense contains extra units.
Many different ways to be played.
Unit Summary
Versatile roster containing human troops of all flavors.
Archers are very good.
Customize roster to war target:
Cavalry are good versus everything, but expensive.
Shield + archer versus light armor, elves.
Shield + crossbow versus heavy armor
Two handed pike / glaive versus giants.
Sacred Cavalry expand well, but are average for knights
Commander Summary
Has a spy, H2 priest, lots of fortune teller, inexpensive researchers.
Eunuch provides free province defense up to 19, cheap commander.
Geomancer workhorse mage.
Apothecaries exist to keep geomancers alive.
Imperial Alchemist elemental workhorse mage and mercury summoner.
Celestial Master sorcery workhorse mage and celestial summoner.
Summons Summary
Huli Jing is great glamour access mage. Worth the price.
Celestial soldiers are very strong, weak versus many small targets. Competition with hounds.
Celestial Hounds are a great deal. Competition with soldiers.
Celestial Servants suck.
Living Mercury is VERY strong, but can cause a lot of friendly fire if unprepared.MATCMATC
Non-National Summon -
Manticore
Combined Roster Summary
Different playstyles depending on planned wars
- A lot of archery with flaming arrows and a sturdy and replaceable frontline
- A lot of mage evocations with a sturdy and replaceable frontline
- Many hard hitting infantry buffed with astral, earth, nature
- Supplement with either strong frontline sacreds, a puppy airforce, or poisonous blobs.
- Easy communion access to every spell school except death and blood.
Spell RecommendationsMATCMATCMATC
Communion M/S
Summon Earthpower
Strength of Giants+
Temper Armors+
Weapons of Sharpness+
Body Ethereal
Flaming Arrows+
Gifts from Heaven
Rewrite Fate+
Foul Vapors
Note* there are too many spells to fit here for this nation. They have efficient access to a lot.
Pretender Design
The nation can be seen as weak and this pretender needs to do SOMETHING soon. Which is unfortunate as one would love the diversity.
Unfortunately small selection of pretenders
-- Strong Bless
-- Titan
Gameplay
(Early)
Spam units of your choice, I prefer using the heavy cavalry early on.
Make many forts as you will need an endless amount of imperial geomancers.
At least 1 apothecary per fort for disease healing
As soon as you research [key spell] for your strategy, site search with at least 1 imperial alchemist AND 1 Celestial Master.
An F2 Celestial Master can turn 10 F gems into 525 gold
(Midgame)
Your armies NEED mage support to survive versus most enemies.
Imperial Geomancers provide not only fantastic buffs for your units, but also a great evocation in gifts from heaven.
-- They are very versatile and one does not need to always use the same script. Keep your enemies guessing!
The capital mages can provide some great battlefield magic, but their main job will be converting ALL of your water/air gems into summoned power.
-- Use crystal matrices to add imperial geomancers to communions if necessary!
(Late)
Huli Jings will help break you into very deep glamour. This great because you desperately want to be painting LUCK buffs on your units.
Continue mass summoning A/W units, can now add some fay units too!
Try to have many different armies with good mage support rather than doomstacking. The nation is very susceptible to army wipes.
Foul Vapors and Wailing Winds are both very strong spells!help here.

[@ZanGames]

I completely forgot to talk about the two national items this nation can forge at construction 3.
Armor of Five Elements: 2E2A for 5 fire/cold/shock resistance, 1 magic resistance, 4hp, 17 protection is a CRAZY good deal. Especially if you craft it with a hammer to reduce the cost by 2 gems.
Sword of the Five Elements: 2F2W for a 8 damage sword giving +3atk and +4 defense, and more importantly +2 reinvigoration. Very few weapons give reinvigoration. Less exciting than the armor in my opinion, but can find itself a good place in the hands of a thug or super-combatant as a second weapon.
The armor is a huge deal and can be mass produced to protect important mages.
While here, the nation does have some national spells but they are unimpressive.
Chastisement is good, but has short range and requires very high astral to cast.
The reduce age spells are not typically useful.

[@stephenlucas8836]

4:48 don’t forget you can also eagle eye and evinom arrows.

[@ZanGames]

That is also a good combo! I am not the biggest fan of envenom arrows only because flaming arrows tends to be so much better.
The difference is that flaming arrows just needs to hit the target to trigger, envenom arrows needs to actually do damage. The important difference here is shield blocks. Block a poison arrow, no damage. Block a fire arrow? Still roll armor vs 8 AP fire damage

[@CantusTropus]

Oh wait, I know this strategy! It's called "cast Gifts From Heaven"!😅

[@ZanGames]

Not the only option! But who doesnt want to try it!

[@DarkSideCookies]

@@ZanGames I mean it did get a completely unnecessary buff haha

[@Milorada7375]

I did not make this build myself but fighting the AI using the community meme mod, dread seemed strong on them. The Red Guard rider and horse both get the dread, and the soldier and servent sacred summons are tankie enough to survive long enough for dread to take effect. Especially because in 6 as you said, soldiers are now two to a square and servants are size 6 and can share square with other things which they couldn't really do in Dom 5

[@DemonsthenesDominions]

Yeah fear is kinda bugged in Dominions 6 right now in my opinion; just works way too quickly when you have 4 auras per square.

[@ZanGames]

Fear is crazy strong overall. Definitely synergizes with the potential sacred spam this nation can do.

[@Merelyfish]

Mmmmm yes, in favor of the great ming

[@stephenlucas8836]

Could you think about covering MA Atlantis, like how it’s the poison weapon faction, but I don’t remember anyone ever covering it even in 5.

[@ZanGames]

Added it to the list! It will be a while to get there, but I do love me some poison barbs.

[@diggles27]

Gesundheit

[@user-wg1fp4zn6s]

How do fortune tellers work? Do they stack?

[@ZanGames]

Each fortune teller has a separate chance at stopping the event. So if you have two, its not 10% + 10% = 20% chance of the event being prevented.
Its 90% * 90%= 81% of the bad event happening. (19% of it being prevented)
Same math can be used for bringer of fortune.