Ilians - begginers tips

Ok, we got a new version with the Ilians as a new whole feature.

Probably lots of you have alsready started playing them so what are your impresions and tips?

So far I have observed it is not good to rush the temple of the hand. The ice terrain destroys flooded plains, reduces mine output, cancels the gold on the river side, etc. In some cases if may be better to build it and I assume later when infernals are in game it is also crucial but for start I would be very careful with it. Luckily my capital had some fur and game or I would be stuck in pre-bronze age for a long time.


Anyone got other suggestions?

what i would like to know is what line of techs would be best to persue. Your hero (wilboman) is in the metal line, most rituals are in the early religious area, and auric requires omniscience! That's over half of the entire tree right there, meaning you'll have to cut down on eighter one or the other.

Farms, farms and more farms. The Illians are just begging for a specialist economy since they have overflowing food. When you get sanitation and Agrarianism, your farm tiles produce + 5 each, with no wasted . This allows you to build a wonderfully large sage population.

Another thing is to rush the Great library and settle all your great scientists in your capital. This may seem like it isn't such a good idea, but if you centralize your science production and make it independent of the commerce slider, you'll be able to expand at a rapid rate.

Conquest is the definite civic of choice when preparing for war. Although you sacrifice + 1 on each farm, you gain the benefit of all farm overflow producing your units. The key is to balance your growth with your unit production, using GP to switch between Conquest/Agrarianism (or just taking the 1 turn hit). Apprenticeship is nice as well, since Auric is Chm and +4 xp = 2 promotions. Slavery helps for setting up buildings and unit production. Military State allows Drafting every 10 turns (on normal), so you can use that to supplement your unit building.

The Illians are the most interesting civ in FFH2 imo and I hope to learn more about their synergies.

Cavalry rushes work particularly well for Defensive civs, Illians are no exception. On the contrary, with an easy 4 xp after researching Warfare and Education (running Conquest and Apprenticeship civics as previously mentioned), Horsemen and Chariots can immediately promote to Flanking I and II for a total 75% chance to withdraw.

I managed to pop poisons from a grave. Their assasins kick ass.

Finding the Letus Frigum proved quite useful.

In my game as them, I went down the religious line for the White Hand, then went for Wilboman, then towards Auric. It took time, but I was able to defend myself pretty easily. Of course, I got lucky in conquering my nearest two rivals (Khazad and Auric II) within 150 turns (Warriers only) and vassalizing the next civ down (the Amurites, it was a Erebus map so they blocked everybody else down the line) - after that, all I had to do was fight proxy wars using the Amurites, beefed up with some of my units. Once Auric came, I broke out and wrecked those annoying Elves.

"Oh, what's that Arendel? Your score is thrice mine? That's very nice, I think I'll kill you now. BWAA-HA-HA-HA-haaaaaaaaa........."

Temple of the hand is AMAZING when you're stuck in jungle. Jungle can't exist in tundra/ice, so it all turns to forest. No more slogging towards sanitation/elementalism--now you can get sugar/dye/silk at bronze working (and you get hammers out of chopping it down!).

Illians should be the first ones to settle jungle, always.

Does the Illian palace still give units produced in its city 4 free XP?

Monkeyfinger said:

Does the Illian palace still give units produced in its city 4 free XP?

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It appears that it does not.

I think that was a stopgap anyway, to kind of compensate them for having absolutely no special skills at all.

Although, now that I say that, free XP would suit the Bannor very well.... that's off-topic, sorry.

cabbagemeister said:

Temple of the hand is AMAZING when you're stuck in jungle. Jungle can't exist in tundra/ice, so it all turns to forest. No more slogging towards sanitation/elementalism--now you can get sugar/dye/silk at bronze working (and you get hammers out of chopping it down!).

Illians should be the first ones to settle jungle, always.

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Illians can also settle deserts without water mana before elementalism thanks to the power of their temple, and tundra is actually a decent location once you have mysticism. Jungle is no problem to settle as cabbagemeister pointed out. So the ability to settle nearly anywhere is a unique strength no one else has.

I've been thinking the strange idea that it might be in the Illians best interests to allow hell-terrain spread since the Illians will interestingly be least affected (not counting Infernals). It'll hurt everyone else far more than the Illians will be. To make the plan even sweeter the Illians can summon Basium for the extra muscle now that the tech penalty for teams is gone.

There seems to be a bug that if you snowfall and then temple of the hand before snowfall wears off, the terrain reverts. So be careful !

Their assasins are simply amazing, I had a lot of fun using them with stealth tactics against a Svar AI... as has been stated they do amazingly on any terrain, so they can afford to make better resource driven land grabs and I found a much wider settlement strat worked great with them... really try them out if you haven't it is a much different play style.

many praises Kael

Tip for Samhain and Stasis:

Timing both of them and using them about the same time that barbarians start to ramp up is a killer combo. The frostlings will help the orcs and every loss the AI takes will be unable to be replenished in time. If Samhain finishes at a critical moment and then the Illian player pops Stasis 2-3 turns later, tons of havoc can be wrought.

Stalin_Bulldog said:

Their assasins are simply amazing, I had a lot of fun using them with stealth tactics against a Svar AI... as has been stated they do amazingly on any terrain, so they can afford to make better resource driven land grabs and I found a much wider settlement strat worked great with them... really try them out if you haven't it is a much different play style.

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Stupid question perhaps. But what is special about the Illians assasins?

Mailbox said:

Tip for Samhain and Stasis:

Timing both of them and using them about the same time that barbarians start to ramp up is a killer combo. The frostlings will help the orcs and every loss the AI takes will be unable to be replenished in time. If Samhain finishes at a critical moment and then the Illian player pops Stasis 2-3 turns later, tons of havoc can be wrought.

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Be careful if there's a Clan AI around though, I was playing a game with Illians and Clan AI and the very instant Auric completed Samhain, the Clan popped 'For the Horde'...

Falc said:

Be careful if there's a Clan AI around though, I was playing a game with Illians and Clan AI and the very instant Auric completed Samhain, the Clan popped 'For the Horde'...

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For the horde is very powerful indeed with the Illians around. It sucks to be their neighbor when you fire off stasis and they cast for the horde...

Mailbox said:

Tip for Samhain and Stasis:

Timing both of them and using them about the same time that barbarians start to ramp up is a killer combo. The frostlings will help the orcs and every loss the AI takes will be unable to be replenished in time. If Samhain finishes at a critical moment and then the Illian player pops Stasis 2-3 turns later, tons of havoc can be wrought.

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Even more havoc is unleashed with raging barbs on at the same time.

I've been doing this to great effect. It even took out FoL ljosalfar in one game. It's also a great idea to plan a rush against neighbors while using Samhain and Stasis together. Civs have a really hard time defending against your stack(s) while they are getting assaulted by barbarians from every side.

The other way to use stasis is use it from turn 1 to ensure a strong start. Or you can do neither and simply save it during a war to prevent the enemy from building more troops, but I think the Samhain+stasis combo, or stasis from turn 1 are the best ways to use stasis.

Edit: double post from lag

Arctic Circle said:

Stupid question perhaps. But what is special about the Illians assasins?

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Unique spell/ability: When in snow terrain they can grant themselves Hidden.