Some Illians Questions

iamdanthemansta

Edward of Woodstock
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I've been playing the Illians a lot recently, I really enjoy turning everything to snow it give me a really visceral this is my empire sort of feel, and I had a few questions:

1) Temple of the Hand turns things to snow but if the temple is destroyed when the city is taken or destroyed does the terrain go back to what it was before?

2) If the terrain stays the way it is are other civs less interested in invading since the land is so bad for them?

3) Does the Ice 3 spell snowfall damage your own units?

4) Besides being the Illians or finding Letum Frigus is there any way to get ice mana?

5) How exactly does slow work?

6) What do High Priest of Winter do? They're just so out of the way tech wise I never seem to get them.

7) Without religions is there any way for the Illians to change alignment?

8) If I play the Illians with another leader can they get religions and religious techs?

9) Does Stir from Slumber require anyone to kill another civ or do the Illians have to do it?

10) Does The Deepening always spawn a blizzard and is there anyway to tell where?

11) How exactly do blizzards work?

12) What in the world is the point of Samhain?

13) Do most people use Stasis really early or is there another good time?

14) Does Drifa get the hero promotion?

15) Does anyone else feel there is a natural synergy between the Illians and the Pact of Nilhorn?

Thanks. That's a lot more questions than I realized I had creating this thread.
 
Just the ones I can answer off the top of my head and without checking the manual/Civilopedia (haven't played Illians or used ice mana in a long time):

1) Temple of the Hand turns things to snow but if the temple is destroyed when the city is taken or destroyed does the terrain go back to what it was before?
No, it's permanent.

2) If the terrain stays the way it is are other civs less interested in invading since the land is so bad for them?
Probably not, as the AI is dumb. :p Human players are a different matter, of course.

4) Besides being the Illians or finding Letum Frigus is there any way to get ice mana?
No, it's supposed to be rare.

6) What do High Priest of Winter do? They're just so out of the way tech wise I never seem to get them.
They're like regular priests except they get ice spells instead of divine spells. The high priests have higher base strength and Channeling III.

7) Without religions is there any way for the Illians to change alignment?
No, you're stuck as evil. Sorry.

9) Does Stir from Slumber require anyone to kill another civ or do the Illians have to do it?
You have to be the one who makes the kill.

12) What in the world is the point of Samhain?
It's there so that computer players can annoy you. :p I see no point in building it, personally. If you build it too early, it slows you down too much. By the time it's reasonably affordable, the frostlings are too weak to cause much of a problem for anyone.

13) Do most people use Stasis really early or is there another good time?
Using it when you're at war is a good idea. If you're the only one who can build units, it makes it a lot easier to get the upper hand.

14) Does Drifa get the hero promotion?
Like other dragons, no. They'd be too powerful.

15) Does anyone else feel there is a natural synergy between the Illians and the Pact of Nilhorn?
For what reason in particular? I'd say the elves have more synergy because of their lack of siege units and the giants' ability to bombard.
 
You can get Ice mana from the Illian palace if you play as Elohim and conquer an Illian city, and then build the palace in this city.
 
3) Does the Ice 3 spell snowfall damage your own units?

I don't think so.

5) How exactly does slow work?

I believe it removes haste and makes the unit you cast it on -1 movement points.

8) If I play the Illians with another leader can they get religions and religious techs?

I believe most of the temples/units have NONE as a UB for the Illians, so there would be little point, even if you can.

10) Does The Deepening always spawn a blizzard and is there anyway to tell where?

Yes, and I believe if you have the map info about the area where it is, it appears on the tile.

11) How exactly do blizzards work?

They downgrade terrain and hurt units. To be moved you have to tow them around with a priest of winter, casting a spell every turn from one tile away.
 
Ah, thanks for all the replies. I'm still not exactly sure if there is actually a good time to use Samhain. Does anyone know what the barbarian hero units Samhain spawns does? Also is snowfall modified by Empower since it seems to cap out at 80% damage? It also seems that since High Priests of Winter just get the same Ice III spell that it's better just to get Archmages instead. Finally does anyone know for sure how the snow effects other civs interest in invading you since since I've been playing Illian no one really has tried much to take my chilly lands? Thanks for all the replies they've been really useful.
 
You can get Ice mana from the Illian palace if you play as Elohim and conquer an Illian city, and then build the palace in this city.

Last time I tried I found that the Tolerant trait does not actually let you build other civ's palaces anymore. (It still looks that way in build orders, but once built it switches to your palace to prevent you from being able to have multiple palaces.)
 
1. Permanent
2. nope, they still want to invade you - its even funnier when they try to keep the terrain, though it makes more sense now than it did before the AI knew how to terraform
3. yes, it does - however, yours are generally damaged a bit less due to winterborn (-10% cold damage)
4. create a colony on another continent and vassalize them? note, I believe the first colony will be of your same nation, but all future ones are given a random nation
5. dunno
6. a high priest has extra strength and can cast slow, ice golem, and blizzard. Basically the archmage spells. However, if you don't have reagents, it can still be wise to get them, or if you want to do a multipronged attack - 3 priests and auric to smash city a, 4 archmages and drifta to smash city B, 4 liches and an army to smash city c, etc.
7. nope, no way to change the alignment
8. answered above
9. you have to make the kill
10. it does, and you have no idea where they'll spawn, but you can find them on the map later
11. answered above
12. its worthless, unless you are stuck on an island continent all to yourself... maybe...
13. i like to use it several turns before I go to war - so on normal speed, it lasts 20 turns, I use it and then 10 turns later I go to war. This gives me a bit to ramp up while they can't. Of course, often I find myself not bothering...
14. nope - he's a dragon, he doesn't need it :p
15. no, not really.

-Colin
 
I think the correct answer to 12 is : it is even worse for you as Illian, as the frostlings have a bonus on snow/tundra, so you'll have great pain getting rid of them.
 
Tolerent allows you to build the Illian palace and get ice mana, I just played a game with patch J. I moves your palace there and you don't get an Elohim palace anymore, but you get Ice mana and Enchantment Mana.

I found Tolerent to be really broken with Illians, you cant build World units but all of the Illian super units are created out of rituals... I've got the Priests of winter fighting alongside my monks and am guessing I can get Drifla and even Auric as well, though I haven't teched that far yet.

I'm not building temples of the hand though, that would be a bad idea in this case.
 
Just to add a note about what I figured out about the spell snowfall. It does damage your units unless they are on the same tile as the caster. It seems to only damage the tiles around the caster. Also does anyone know how Auric's snowfall is different since I seem to remember that one could kill.
 
Auric's is just a way more powerful version, and is not damage capped.
 
12) What in the world is the point of Samhain?

13) Do most people use Stasis really early or is there another good time?

One suggestion I saw a while back was to try to time it so that you complete Samhain around the time the barbarians start spawning, then cast Stasis. Your opponents will have to face the combination of frostlings and normal barbarians but, unlike you, will not be able to replenish their losses until Stasis ends. That probably won't work too well with the new AI spamming military units, but it might be worth a try to see what happens.

Another possibility with Stasis is to cast on the very first turn, giving yourself a 20-turn headstart on everybody.
 
A Q about stasis,as someone that's just been frozen for 20 turns,will hammers from chopping forests be stored in the city for when I get out of stasis?
 
A Q about stasis,as someone that's just been frozen for 20 turns,will hammers from chopping forests be stored in the city for when I get out of stasis?

Dunno, but if blight hits at the same time the unhealthiness will tick down during Stasis whilst population stays fixed. Therefore never do Stasis if Blight seems likely.
 
3) Snowfall can damage your own units (according to the FFH2 manual which has a link in this forum) AND it can cause war!

5) Slow removes haste, can be resisted, and -1 movement (with a 30% chance of wearing off each turn). - see the FFH2 manual
 
Bad Player, answering questions that were asked 5 years ago is one thing. Answering questions that were answered 5 years ago, on the other hand...
 
sorry bad player,guess the necro caught you out,It didn't seem worth starting a new thread for my Question-post 13,and this was the closest post to an answer when I searched.
 
A Q about stasis,as someone that's just been frozen for 20 turns,will hammers from chopping forests be stored in the city for when I get out of stasis?

Yes.

/5char
 
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