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

[mo123567]

I'm near the end of my game as the Illians and Acension is about to be complete. When Auric ascends he will find that the world is pretty much already his.

It seems that if you are in good enough condition to survive loosing half of your population and declaring perpetual war on everyone long enough to complete an expensive ritual with a civ that is already production starved, then you probably don't even need the super unit that you get in the end. Is this on purpose? Is Auric Ascended just so powerful for fun but not neccessity?

 

[Lade]

Depends, but mostly yes.

The only time I can think of him beign really necessary is if you controlled a huge contintent, but on your way to a conquest victory, your enemies were halfway across the ocean. Then a flying ultra unit is useful

But most of the time using a combination of Drifia and three ice3 High priests of winter can get you a whole lot further then declaring nwar on everyone

 

[Monkeyfinger]

He does make things go a lot faster, simply for the fact that his uber spell can directly kill. At the stage in the game he shows up enemy stacks can be a hundred or more strong; you can wear that down really well with high priests of winter, but it will take a long time to actually kill. Long enough for an assassin, shadow or marksman to potentially show up and ruin your fun. With AA it's "soften stack with high priest version of snowfall, kill the entire thing with AA's version." Bam, 1 turn, 100 kills.

Even if he is a win more condition he's always worth building, unless the game doesn't even last long enough. But if the mop up phase is dragging, AA will put a swift end to it.

 

[Zechnophobe]

The real question is whether the 'draw' is worth building I think. Gimping yourself, and going to war with everyone, just to build a win more unit seems a little silly. I mean, he is awesome, and I'm sure it's fun, but strategically sound? Meh.

 

[Mesix]

Yes. I needed to build him to get the trophy. Then I moved onto the next civ.

 

[Mailbox]

My first game with the Illians after them being added as a race in Ice I actually ended up facing down a powerhouse elven empire that was 3-4 times my size with endless armies and the mercurians being there to resurrect every dead elven unit. It was an impossible game to win until I got Auric. The war between Auric ascending and me casting the draw was one of the bloodiest I've ever seen in a FFH2 game and ended up with me losing 2 of my three high priests of winter in a desperate defense of my capital.

Of course, I quit the game after he was killed by a privateer but it was a lot of fun until then.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The real question is whether the 'draw' is worth building I think. Gimping yourself, and going to war with everyone, just to build a win more unit seems a little silly. I mean, he is awesome, and I'm sure it's fun, but strategically sound? Meh.

The draw's population kill is easy to recover from unless you trigger blight at the same time with the draw's AC hike (protip: Don't be a dumbass like I was when I first played the Illians. Be careful to avoid doing that.) The war is the question. If what's standing between you and victory is a massive empire with an army of the sort that you need AA's snowfall to quickly dispatch, well, war's inevitable, isn't it? That just speeds it up a bit. Any minor empires that you haven't vassalized/aren't already at war with someone else probably won't be a factor.

If your prospective opponents are more balanced and you want a military victory, it can be better to just skip the draw -> ascension and just fight with your high priests plus a conventional army.

 

[Jabie]

AA is a double-win mechanic, speeding up the victor to complete the game.

As reagrds the Illians, I'd quite like to see Stir From Slumber moved to an earlier tech and made cheaper and have Drifa as a buildable unit which requires the Stir From Slumber Ritual to be completed. In this way other characters and items from Age of Ice could become available.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I was wondering why you have to go through so much just to summon Auric Ascended, until you guys reminded me that his spell can kill. Now I actually have what it takes to wipe out that stack of 200 crusaders.

 

[WarKirby]

Maybe auric should just be completely invincible to anyone without the Godslayer sword.

60 strength is a ig number, but in practice it just means a few extra berserkers/phalanxes/champions to bring him down. You could create ann army big enough to overwhelm him many times over in the tine it takes to create him.

Or at least give him the Cannibalize promotion. I know I'm going to do it through the worldbuilder for my game, at any rate.

 

[Mailbox]

I'd just prefer that his Snowfall destroyed all improvements, roads, and features in non-Illian lands. That way you couldn't rush him with a huge stack unless you were willing to approach him tile by tile while being hit by Snowfall every turn.

 

[WarKirby]

I'm not asure about all improvements, but I can say without a doubt that destroying roads is a great idea.

Heavy snowfall frequently blocks roads in the reeal world.

 

[Gigify]

Maybe auric should just be completely invincible to anyone without the Godslayer sword.

60 strength is a ig number, but in practice it just means a few extra berserkers/phalanxes/champions to bring him down. You could create ann army big enough to overwhelm him many times over in the tine it takes to create him.

Or at least give him the Cannibalize promotion. I know I'm going to do it through the world builder for my game, at any rate.

I was disappointed with Auric when I found he could not gain any promotions so any off the dragons (Except Dufia due to using magic damage) given Time to gain Combat 5 can easily overpower him due to there magic resistance hell an Iron Phalanx with combat 5 equipped with the Crown of Alkenhan (spelling) in theory can take him down

 

[zup]

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

 

[Vernacular]

AA is great if the Draw has hurt you. If you were able to withstand the Draw without ramifications, then it the unit is fairly pointless. Of course, there is no problem AA and his priests can't stop with some snow.

I always thought he should be reborn in the capital when killed unless the killer has the Godslayer.

 

[WarKirby]

To be honest, it sounds like auric has some issues.

I agree it shouldn't be possible to permanantly kill him with anything but the godslayer. And not being able to gain promotions kind of sucks

And so much of his damage being dependant on ice, makes him extremely vulnerable to anything with magic immunity.

I think he needs some improving. 60 strength or no, he doesn't sound worth the effort it takes to make him.

 

[Verily]

The draw's population kill is easy to recover from unless you trigger blight at the same time with the draw's AC hike (protip: Don't be a dumbass like I was when I first played the Illians. Be careful to avoid doing that.)

Actually, it sounds like a good strategy to me. Blight's calculation is based off of current city size, among other things, so you get less Unhealth if your cities are smaller, plus you have a larger Health cushion in your newly reduced cities. But it hurts everyone else more: They get more Unhealth.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

I always thought he should be reborn in the capital when killed unless the killer has the Godslayer.

That's a great idea.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

Flight is a better defense mechanism than any of these ideas being tossed about, and he already has that. End turn on lake or peak, win (as long as the lake isn't by a coastal city with a ton of ships inside)

 

[megamanx06]

i think the point of all the debuffs is to make it so that you focus on 1 city and not really care about any of the others, possibly losing all the ground you've taken.