Is it Blizzard or something?

I've started a normal Epic game as Grigori.
On turn 10 or like that, all the tiles around Midgar had turned to Tundra.
In several more turns, they've all turned to Frozen and stopped changing.
What was that and what am I expected to do? Hell, my population was reduced to 1, and I need 40 turns to build a common worker, to work on some Corn in frozen region, to deal with inevitable famine...

Get the hotfix linked in my sig. There was an error with the way I wrote religious climate changes (forgot to make sure you HAD a religion before the check for climatechange) which can cause either your terrain to freeze until you have a religion, or the game to crash.

Sounds like someone completed the Liberation ritual and unleashed the Frozen. Turn 10 is way to early for that, though. Are the Illians nearby? Could be a blizzard I guess. You should be able to see a large white cloud over your affected region.

I'm not a big fan of the Frozen in its current implementation. The AI, which normally never completes rituals, has completed Liberation every game recently, and fairly early for that matter. And often it makes absolutely no sense for them to do so.

My current game has Xivan T'nava controlling the Amurites. It's about turn 150, the AC is at 4, and they just founded FoL. Another 5 turns they complete Liberation and soon enough half of my land is frozen. Now I am running around trying to get someone with Vitalize or Scorch to reclaim my lands. Why in the Sam Hell would they invite this upon themselves. It makes no sense.

Valkrionn said:

Get the hotfix linked in my sig. There was an error with the way I wrote religious climate changes (forgot to make sure you HAD a religion before the check for climatechange) which can cause either your terrain to freeze until you have a religion, or the game to crash.

Click to expand...

Ah, thank you.

Actually, I'm quite proud of myself, that I was able to deal with and force-launch the production (thanks to corn, sea resources and workers), but nevertheless fix is appreciated)

TitanZ said:

Sounds like someone completed the Liberation ritual and unleashed the Frozen. Turn 10 is way to early for that, though. Are the Illians nearby? Could be a blizzard I guess. You should be able to see a large white cloud over your affected region.

I'm not a big fan of the Frozen in its current implementation. The AI, which normally never completes rituals, has completed Liberation every game recently, and fairly early for that matter. And often it makes absolutely no sense for them to do so.

My current game has Xivan T'nava controlling the Amurites. It's about turn 150, the AC is at 4, and they just founded FoL. Another 5 turns they complete Liberation and soon enough half of my land is frozen. Now I am running around trying to get someone with Vitalize or Scorch to reclaim my lands. Why in the Sam Hell would they invite this upon themselves. It makes no sense.

Click to expand...

I noticed this too. It seems like the ritual has a very high priority for everyone - doubtless it can be cut back by civ, but is it possible to link its weight with Neutral civs to the Armageddon counter to fit the burn-or-freeze idea?

My 2g: I don't really see any reason for any civs to WANT to call the Frozen into the world. They destroy perfectly good land. Do what a simple religion switch can do (White Hand). Become horrendously powerful very quickly, etc.

Even Auric wouldn't complete the Liberation, because then he's got competition for the Sphere of Ice. Who in the world would WANT the Frozen?

I'm going to make the AI less likely to summon them, but I think we should also make the 'Liberation' ritual useful for the casting civ. What should we do with it? I'd like something interesting.

Maybe something in keeping with the Stasis theme? Prevent declaration of war for 25 turns (from others)? Mini-stasis (5 turns of no production)?

Maybe Taranis is thankful for you releasing him, and so allies with the person who completed the Liberation

I don't want an Alliance, as that's the Mercurian's thing.

A mini-stasis could be interesting, but people would probably hate it.

Allow production of a minor hero unit. Perhaps the lore can be that he was the mage responsible for completing the ritual. Give him mage strength plus 3 defense and let him start with all level I elemental promotions, channeling II and Spell Extension I and II. A good name would be fun, but I suck at naming.

*tosses out another idea*

Maybe adds a building to your cities, and all subsequent ones (i.e. Catacomb and Mage Guild) that gives a small bonus to all your units. Like 5% strength or something. Nothing big, but still noticeable.

I'd rather avoid spawning a unit, want something more interesting.

Edit: Also, main reason for the buff is the AI. I want to give them something for building the ritual. A single strong unit doesn't help them much, whereas the building idea, however boring, DOES. Better alternative, but still not one I like for the whole 'boring' reason.

One more idea, then I'm headed to bed.

The backlash of magics caused by the Liberation touched some of the people in your empire. These people seem to be able to channel limited Ice Magics, and have a tendency to take up the path of the Frozen Warrior.

Frozen Warrior: 3 str, Winterborn, Channeling II, Ice I. Little mini-mages that can only learn part of the ice line. Their main advantage being that they can be built en masse. I'd make them cost slightly more than a Champion, due to only needing one promotion to start summoning Ice Elementals, but still being as weak as a Warrior.

Edit: Maybe make an "Ice-Touched" unit for each line that can only be created with the Liberation. I only thought of the warrior one though, would need help for other lines.

Would you be able to have it give a one time promotion to all the civs units a la Blood of the Phoenix. Perhaps giving a promotion that gives a small strength boost like 10%, but also has a +20-30% strength on ice type terrains?? This gives the civ a small boost in general and a big boost against the frozen and an incentive to take on the White Hand religion. Perhaps if the strength boost is 30% give a -1 political modifier against all civs (-2 against the frozen) for performing the ritual.

Edit: Perhaps call the promotion "Frost Hardened"

This isn't really related to Valkrionn's question, but what would people think about making blizzards not appear until the Deepening is created? That way, the blizzards don't start instantly when Liberation is completed.

They will still be spreading snow from Temples of the Hand, but at least that's only in their empire.


I've been planning to add an "Orb of Sucellus" event that happens after Liberation is completed, like the Godslayer event. The idea is that someone (i.e. Kylorin, if it's Kylorin who is in the Godslayer event) has collected the shards of the Orb of Sucellus and brought them to the most powerful nation on Erebus. They can be reforged by any arcane unit in any city with a Forge, or something like that.

Once reforged, the Orb of Sucellus would do something like:

a. Block Blizzards from moving into a 2-plot radius and destroy them if they try.
b. Give all Ice Demon units within the 2-plot radius the "Sucellus's Wrath" promotion, which gives them -20% or so combat and increased vulnerability to fire and nature damage. It would be auto-removed when the unit left the area around the Orb of Sucellus.
c. Give all Winterborn units another promotion, name not decided on, that does basically the same thing only it's not as powerful (only -10% strength, maybe even less, and less of an increase in vulnerability). It would be auto-removed when the unit left the area around the Orb of Sucellus as well.

However, that's more of a method to help fight the Frozen, not an unrelated benefit. You would be summoning the Frozen for the purpose of fighting the Frozen. So something else is needed.


I like the idea of Ice-Touched units. Out of all the ideas thus far, I feel it's the most appropriate with the lore of the Frozen.


Alternatively, I had an idea for a building which would be created by a unique Ice II spell (I had designed a unique set of spells for the Frozen, long ago, before discarding them), that randomly granted units built in a city with it the Unchanging promotion- which is what gives Taranis his city defense bonus but also makes him Held.

Maybe this building could be built in all cities on the map, but instead of randomly granting Unchanging units in the city can use a spell which will destroy the building but give them Unchanging.