Terra Magna Mod

[Yekaterina]

I will do some analysis of the 3 new civilisations added in Terra Magna Mod, as well as some of the potential strategies. In the first few posts I will focus on  Han Chinese as they are so unique and have a very complicated structure tree. 

 

Han Chinese:

Has many unique units, structures and technologies to research. 

High dependence on farming and stone. 

Can consume a huge amount of resources but also very powerful if played with the right strategies. 

 

Village Phase:

Player start with 1 archer cavalry and the rest are just the classic 2 ranged, 2 melee and 4 women setup. 

Player cannot train any cavalry from the civic centre in village phase. Spearman cavalry can be trained from barracks in village phase. Archer cavalry need to wait until town phase. 

Archer cavalry is poor at hunting so players would rely on gathering fruits and farming. There is no farming bonus though, which is a weakness. 

Chinese archers cost 40 wood as opposed to 50. This gives you cheaper male labour force than other factions, but archers are poor at fighting. It would be recommended to use them for gathering resources and garrisoning in towers. 

Chinese women have much higher health points than average at 75 (2 times higher than Spartan women and 3 times higher than the rest), this makes them less vulnerable to raids and no need to research the loom. If you enemy is playing as the Chinese they think twice before you attack their women. 

 

Strategy for village phase: 

Focus on building farms and 1 farmstead. Research Iron Plough technology to boost your farming speed. 

Send about 20 to 25 women on gathering wood.

You need about 7 fields before town phase. 

Let archers train in barracks while phasing up. them use them to gather minerals as they can run quite fast.

 

Town Phase: 

Send archers to collect minerals, while keep training women and a mixture of spearmen and swordsmen to defend your territory. Prioritise gathering stone than metal. Normally you would want about 15 men on stone and 10 men on metal.

Send idle units to building defence towers. 

Build the government centre once you can afford it. 

Get a market up before you research nationalised industries.

You may want to place a minister near where your workers are. 

Protect your archers with melee infantry if you are under attack. 

 

City Phase:

Get fortress up as quickly as possible. Get the hero and then aim to get 10 catapults. In the mean time if you are under attack by rams or ballistas then hack them down with swordmen cavalry and palace guard swordmen. If your enemy has elephants then use  champion cavalry spearmen or war chariot. In any case you can spam out regular swordmen, and spearmen infantry to take down enemy siege. 

Build defence towers, fortresses and civic centres near your front line to take down enemy infantry. 

Civic centres can upgrade into a fortified civic centre at which point it is more invulnerable than a fortress, so they can be built on the edge of enemy territory. 

Use catapults to knock down enemy structures close to you. Build civic centres or fortresses to push back their border.

For a full scale attack, point 7 catapults at their civic centre and send in 2 siege towers with 10 archers in each to protect your catapults. On land use more infantry and cavalry to cover your siege engines from enemy fire. I would recommend taking down their fortress before targeting the civic centre. 

Build temples and research healer upgrades. Mixing a few highly trained healer into a crowd of infantry can significantly strengthen your attack. 

 

 

[Yekaterina]

Another key building of the Chinese faction is their government centre. 

Government Center:

They become available since town phase and can train ministers and research certain technologies for free (although they do take 90 seconds each). I would recommend building this as early as possible and then get the free upgrades as these can really help you get through town phase and also influence your later games. 

 

Civil service (Guanliao): All technologies and and buildings -10% cost -10% build time or and research time. Higher levels of civil service take more and more time off. 

This tech is definitely worth researching to at least the first level, because it will save you much resources and time later or especially when you are building fortresses and civic centres. Being able to build faster than your enemy is an advantage. 

Civil engineering: All buildings -10% cost and time to build. Quite similar to civil service. I recommend taking advantage of the free level one but there is not much point to go for level 2 and 3. 

Ceremonial administration: Ministers and healers take -20% time to train and +20% health. The free level is recommended as ministers and  healers are less susceptible to enemy attacks, so they can boost your army for longer. Also, your healers can join the action more promptly than your enemy's healers, which is an advantage. For short games, this tech is not worth taking to level 3 because it does cost resources later on. However, if resources are plenty and you are planning to play a long lasting game then it is worth getting all the upgrades. 

Nationalised industries:

Level 1: gather rates increase by 10% but markets take twice as long to build. 

Level 2: +20% gather rates but trading is 20% less profitable

Level 3: + 25% gather rates but bartering is 20% less profitable. 

I would recommend building a market before researching this. If your territory is abundant in natural resources then level 2 is worth it.  However, if you depend on trading or if your opponent wants to set up a trade route then do not research this. I do not recommend level 3 because you may need to barter for resources at some point. Only research this if you are absolutely sure that you will not ever run out of any particular resource. 

Sun Tzu's Art of War: heroes -75% train time and fortresses and barracks -50% cost. 

This saves up a huge amount of stone for you and enables you to afford twice as many fortresses, but at the cost of 1000 metal and 1000 food. In late games food won't be an issue but 1000 metal is a large sum. If you are not short of metal and you are on a large map then this is for you as being able to spam out fortresses massively increases your defensive ability as well as faster supply of champions or siege weapons. Worth considering if you will expand your territory. 

Two other techs: counterintelligence and espionage - same as any other factions. 

Ministers: 

If a minister is garrisoned in a building that researches technologies, then all techs decrease by 10% in both cost and time. This is perfect for garrisoning in a blacksmith or the government centre. 

Gatherers and builders within 40 metres get an efficiency boost of 10%.

Ministers can only be garrisoned in a Chinese building

The cost to train a minister increases by 20% for each new minister.