If you can build Auric Ascended, do you need him?

[dyx]

The stupid thing is how Civ handles combats. 60 strenght is very cool, yes, but you just need to throw some units against him and one will weaken him enough to be killed quite easily.
When playing Age of Ice I was quite disappointed by Drifa, because my third Assassin killed her. The second one got a bit lucky. In my last game I lost 10 Chariots/Horse Archers on Acheron (city on a hill with Guerilla), but the 11th damaged him enough that it took just two more. While AA is stronger than Acheron, you could kill him with like 20 Chariots. Which are quite cheap. If you just start pumping out units when you see The Draw completed, you easily, very easily, have enough units to overpower him.
Not counting tier 4. 4 Immortals could probably kill him, they surely would hurt him enough to be taken down by another unit afterwards. Poof, there goes a unit which costs the Illians a whole lot and you didn't even lose a unit.
If anything, Immortality is a must.

 

[ICanHasName?]

Good point. Run of the mill immortals get immortal. So does the angel Brigit, and certain other lesser units. Loki gets some sort of unkillability.

 

[Honor]

I'm with MC and WK on this one. If you are going to give the Illians an uber unit, give them an uber unit dammit!

Daris' suggestion also sounds interesting. Maybe AA could gain new promotions based on what percentage of the planet has been covered in ice or gain strength for each living unit killed.

 

[deadliver]

Auric needs to spread ice/snow terrain wherever he goes (temporary?!? Ack which gods' works are temporary beyond the machinations of upstart mortals!!!)

Of course, I think the 3 ice priests should do the same...hmm that means I think Auric should spread the same terrain in a radius around him.

 

[xalien]

If you have a good magic support then any unit after iron champion is just a shiny (and maybe fun) toy.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

(temporary?!? Ack which gods' works are temporary beyond the machinations of upstart mortals!!!)

All of them. The tale of the fall of Mammon clearly states that while the gods can still bend the laws of nature after loosing the power of creation, they can no longer change them permanently and thus anything they do will eventually return back to normal if they do not constantly act to maintain it.


Of course, there is no reason that Auric Ascended's temporary terraforming couldn't last hundreds of turns.

 

[deadliver]

All of them. The tale of the fall of Mammon clearly states that while the gods can still bend the laws of nature after loosing the power of creation, they can no longer change them permanently and thus anything they do will eventually return back to normal if they do not constantly act to maintain it.


Of course, there is no reason that Auric Ascended's temporary terraforming couldn't last hundreds of turns.

Wow you take this too seriously dude.

 

[Tasunke]

Auric snow should be "permanent" ... and Auric should be far less ... killable.

An Auric Ascended should be able to take a massive 100 unit army face to face, and have decent chances of winning. I think 70 strength (40 being raw strength) 5 first strikes, and heal 5% after combat should do the trick ... as well as, imho, +100% vs ships.

Also, if AA is mortal or more killable like yall say, then he should NOT always defend the stack. Only when necessary, being calculating like any other non invincible dude. Perhaps have the Godslayer act as an Anti-Auric marksman ... to prevent the "Auric hides in the trees" scenario.

 

[Rutee]

I'm going to break my "no posting while drunk" rule to point out that I am much more fond, philosophically, of Warhammer 40K's rules regarding this sort of thing: if you throw enough firepower enuff dakka at something, it will die. (Or at least need to put a hefty amount of effort into reforming in the physical plane.) Da Orkz and the Imperial Guard will be happy to explain this.
EDIT: Nearly forgot to mention that, naturally, I like that FfH preserves a similar philosophy. Certainly, Auric shouldn't be as comparatively unimpressive as he is, but the "enuff dakka" rule should still apply.

....The same WH40k where fluffwise, the Imperial Guard DON'T take down big bads (Just soften them up for some sort of Space Marine or other hyper badass to finish off), and where WAAAAAGGH! leaders count as fairly big bads themselves? I'm not reading you.

I don't see any particular reason why Auric /must/ be killable without the aid of godslayer besides balance, at the moment. Unless of course, I've misread the Lore.

 

[Tasunke]

idk .... I used ONLY guardsmen to kill one a those Necron Pyramid thingies once

Albeit, Necrons can have more than one death Pyramid ... Illians get only one Auric Ascended

 

[KillerClowns]

....The same WH40k where fluffwise, the Imperial Guard DON'T take down big bads (Just soften them up for some sort of Space Marine or other hyper badass to finish off), and where WAAAAAGGH! leaders count as fairly big bads themselves? I'm not reading you.

I don't see any particular reason why Auric /must/ be killable without the aid of godslayer besides balance, at the moment. Unless of course, I've misread the Lore.

Ah yes, now I remember why I have that rule. I can't think of any fluff examples off the top of my head, though I could've sworn there were some, and I was likely mixing up lore and game play.
Besides, I'm starting to think that maybe a godslayer-only solution is the only solution to make Auric Ascendant worth the investment he requires. I'm recalling a recent game as the Illians in which an attempted ascension served as a last prayer against the Infernals and Balseraphs. In retrospect, I doubt even that would have been enough, despite having basically turned my entire empire into a machine for speeding up ascension and losing most of my population to the Draw, and the AC bump it causes which, in the same turn, caused Armageddon...
We can all agree Auric needs a boost, though.

 

[K7avenged]

I agree 100% that he needs a boost.

You put yourself is a never ending war, sacrifice half your people, boost up that AC count, and all you have to show for it is a unit that has a nice spell and can still be killed in the conventional method, just doesn't seem appropriate to me. If you're going to make someone go through five hells just to get the guy, the least you could do is give him some immortality to anything but the godslayer. I mean the Illians can't even bring back thier priests, or build more! And now their god can just be zerged down.

 

[Tasunke]

Basically all u need to know is PRIEST RUSH!!! PRIEST RUSH AND KILL STUFF !!!!!

and if ur priests die then u fail at Illians and u play another civ. jk LOL

.....Sarcasm Alert .... hellas yea

 

[eerr]

Eternal Endurance-
A god cannot loose more than (enemy base strength) in health from each battle.
If the enemy would do more damage than that, he withdraws instead.

 

[KillerClowns]

Basically all u need to know is PRIEST RUSH!!! PRIEST RUSH AND KILL STUFF !!!!!

and if ur priests die then u fail at Illians and u play another civ. jk LOL

.....Sarcasm Alert .... hellas yea

I really hate to say it, but that is about my play style. Especially in Fall Further, where the trick is to turn every node you find into Ice mana, save for a metamagic node and the occasional miscellanious node for whatever problem flies your way, and basically defend your cities with Frostling hordes. I've wiped out civs in the early game without so much as a whimper via priest rush.
Priests of Winter and the Temple of the Hand seem to be a better draw for the Illians than Auric himself. I don't even think I'll bother to attempt ascension next game I play as them.

 

[cyther]

It really isn't worth building Auric. I guess if you wanted a trophy for getting him you would do it but it is far too easy to kill him yet far too hard to get Auric.

The fact is that you don't need Auric if you can get him

 

[Tasunke]

Yep. It'd probably be fun to play against a successful Illian AI however. Just look at the Kurios game by Shatner. I admit, however, that he did not actually fight the Illians directly- but that kinda AI illians is a neat trick.

AKA- if the most powerful civ in the world creates the draw (and its not a human) makes for a fun game certainly ^_^

 

[phildev]

I'd very much love to feed AA to my Eurabatres. But the AI never gets to create him.

Good point, I have yet to see AA in a game that the AI has built.

 

[mahazel]

I created AA only once and after ~30 turns quit game with not-so-pleasant word on my mouth, when he was killed by 5(!) Sidar champions without Godslayer (Balseraph had it, Auric was injured after attaking a city) :/

I really like MC ideas.

 

[Selrahc]

I always wondered why ascending Auric wasn't just a victory condition. Unique to the Illians, possibly replacing the Tower of Mastery victory condition for them.