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

[WarKirby]

Someone already mentioned they lost him to a ship.

Flying to a safe place is nice, but this is THE LIVING INCARNATION OF A GOD.

He should not have to hide. He should not have to run. And unless you have the godslayer sword, I think he should be literally unkillable.

The time it takes to complete the draw and ascension is when you should be killing him. You're supposed to stop the bad guys before they finish their ritual/doomsday device/ancient summoning/whatever. That's how these things work.

If dispatching him remains as easy as it is now, it's difficult to see the point. You can't protect him with an army, since, for one, it would severely slow him down having to move at the pace of a group of phalanxes alongside him, and also because the Avatar promotion gives "more likely to defend the stack" which makes him the prime target of everything.

Farther to that, there's a sword that gives ridiculous bonuses against him, so that he can be easily killed by almost anything wielding it. That is his weakness. He really doesn't need to be so easily killable by normal means, too.

A half decent human player is almost guaranteed to be at the top of the score table by this stage of the endgame. So you should have the Godslayer. And if not, go kill the person who does and take it from them. But if Auric turns up on your doorstep and you don't have it, I think it should be game over.



Anyways. What I think should be done to Auric

1. Change his base strength to 45, and his ice strength to 15. His overall strength would be unchanged, but he would be less vulnerable to magic-immune units, which aren't too hard to come by in several ways*.

2. Remove the "more likely to defend the stack" from the Avatar promotion.

3. Add "heals x% after combat" to the avatar promotion, to make him much harder to kill by overwhelming with lesser units.

4. Make him immortal. Not the immortal promotion, but the "true" immortality, where you respawn in your capital every time you die, unless killed twice in one turn. The only exception to this, is that death would be immediate and permanant if his opponent has Godslayer.

5. Make his snowfall spell destroy all roads in tiles it hits

My ultimate point, is that I believe building Auric should be an "I win" button for the Illians. They have to go through a lot to make him, and he still has one horrible vulnerability. That's weakness enough. Losing to normal units in combat is really just ludicrous.


*
Dragons
Nullstone golems
Crown of Akharien
Magic Resistance + Resist cold + Hero (almost immune)

 

[Lade]

I think it should be less of a "Haha! I have strong unit!" and more of a "Haha! I'm gonna change the world to ice, and there ain't nutin' you can do about it!

First off, ascension should be removed, rather 100 turns after building "The draw", Auric appears in your capital

His stats would be revamped 100 basic strength, +200 cold damage, +100 ice mana affinity

However, when he spawned, he would be "held" in the capital until a certain % of the world was ice. (The number would change on map size)

As soon as you built "The Draw" a few changes could be made: Ice tiles are changed to +3 food, and the Illians could build a new host of units, such as more PoW, frostling, frost giants (look at the end of Wilbo's pedia!) and maybe some other stuff

Frostling if killed turn their tile to ice, forst giants are powerful but cannot move into anything but ice tiles, and all versions of the "snowfall" spell become permanent

Finally, you spend the rest of the game until another percentage of the world is ice higher then the one that releases Mulcarn is reached, where you win

I also wonder if it'd be possible to have every non Illian city disband if every tile in its ice (though I suppose some civs might be immune)

Of course, your fun gets put to end if someone manages to kill Auric...

Wow this post had a lot of typos

 

[WarKirby]

Have Auric appear 100 turns after building the draw? That's crazy.

100 turns is a long time at the beginning of the game, and that's when you're doing 10 seconds of stuff between pressing enter. By the endgame period when you're capable of building The Draw, you're going to have a huge empire to micromanage, and the average turn is 3-5 minutes of stuff before you press enter for the next one. It would take many long, boring hours to get him, and by that time, you could easily win the game by any other victory condition. And if you don't, an AI probably will.

 

[Fafnir13]

I agree that nothing save the Godslayer should be able to permanently kill him. Just give his respawn to capital a one turn delay. This means a truly determined player will still be able to wipe out the Illians even if they don't have the Godslayer. They'll have to fight Ulvin every step of the way, but that's the way it should be.
Of course, it would get a tad silly if the Illian player simply started sending Ulvin on constant suicide runs. There has to be some cost to the Illian player for letting him get killed. Killing a population or two in every Illian city (or perhaps a percentage of some sort) to re-resurrect the god would be both thematic and properly annoying. That or the sacrifice of a level 6 or so unit. You can get a lot of those, but you still don't want to lose them.

 

[PanzerWolf]

Lot's of suggestions here, but it all narrow down to one thing: How will the AI handle it?

 

[Zobo]

I strongly disagree with the notion of only godslayer being able to kill Auric Ascended.

The reason is simply that this way limits the emergent stories FFH can create. You narrow the story and the game when there's only one way to do something.

I do feel Auric needs to be buffed.

Immunity to first strikes, some first strikes of his own, perhaps cannibalize-promotion.

There are ways of making him harder without narrowing our choices too much.

 

[PanzerWolf]

I strongly disagree with the notion of only godslayer being able to kill Auric Ascended.

The reason is simply that this way limits the emergent stories FFH can create. You narrow the story and the game when there's only one way to do something.

I do feel Auric needs to be buffed.

Immunity to first strikes, some first strikes of his own, perhaps cannibalize-promotion.

There are ways of making him harder without narrowing our choices too much.

Yeah, that's true. I haven't tried a game with Auric Ascended in yet, but looking at the overall stats, he is quite ok. Eventhoug he is a god, he has still materialized to "this" world to interact with it. That also meens the world can interact with him, e.g. no need for Godslayer if you have other options ("You can't touch without being touched" - Newton). The first strike suggestion looks ok (I didn't realize he couldn't be promoted, but combat V with 100% extra could be too good...)

 

[Gigify]

Yeah, that's true. I haven't tried a game with Auric Ascended in yet, but looking at the overall stats, he is quite ok. Eventhoug he is a god, he has still materialized to "this" world to interact with it. That also meens the world can interact with him, e.g. no need for Godslayer if you have other options ("You can't touch without being touched" - Newton). The first strike suggestion looks ok (I didn't realize he couldn't be promoted, but combat V with 100% extra could be too good...)

He takes practically the entire game to get and he can be defeated by standard Units don’t you see something wrong with that.

His previous incarnation held the entire world of Erebus in his icy grip and he was near untouchable by anyone or thing even a fellow God fell before his might it took the worlds greatest Archmage to ever live wielding the most powerful weapon in all creation to defeat him and even then it was hinted to have been an awesome battle and yet now that he has risen again he can be defeated by a random unit of Crossbowmen

Personally I’d give him promotionsplus a spell (or ability) that’s kind of like Crown of Brilliance which would be practically the same except it doe’s cold damage and maybe gives units in its range the slow effect this would in my opinion would show the effect it would take to even approach Auric with that storm following him every where

 

[Mailbox]

I agree with other posters who have said that his main strength is in his Snowfall, and any attempts to buff him should be there. It would be cool if Auric's Snowfall was permanent as well as the destroying all roads, improvements, and features in enemy territory. That's what I edit it to in my game and it works very well for cleaning out even the most determined of defenders.

Auric himself should be vulnerable but the effects of his storm should be nightmarish and time consuming to reverse. At most, I'd say the Avatar promotion could get a few more first strikes and maybe a 5% heal after combat. That would be fine for making Auric powerful but not invincible, as it seems the team wants him to be.

His previous incarnation held the entire world of Erebus in his icy grip and he was near untouchable by anyone or thing even a fellow God fell before his might it took the worlds greatest Archmage to ever live wielding the most powerful weapon in all creation to defeat him and even then it was hinted to have been an awesome battle and yet now that he has risen again he can be defeated by a random unit of Crossbowmen

Well, it is important to note that he's a new version of the God of Winter and obviously the team wants that new version to be vulnerable to common arms.

 

[WarKirby]

Do remember that exactly half of his strength is ice element, which is unprecedented among every other unit in the game. Nothing else has that large a proportion of it's power as magical.

It makes him horribly vulnerable to anything with magic, or cold immunity. Any unit that can achieve 15 strength (eidolon, phalanx, sphener, mardero, many other things), combat 5 (easy if you have that strength) and magic immunity (crown of akharien) can take him on with 50% odds.

It's one thing for it to be possible to kill him, but the kind of experienced units you're going to have at that stage of the game can make it pitifully easy. 4 eidolons are replaceable. Auric is not.

Mardero can be given mobility, and can easily stand outside auric's range, sprint along a road and hit him out of nowhere, and kill him instantly. With no godslayer.

AND you can't even protect him with an army, like you would your other heroes. because he always defends the stack.

Not being able to be promoted is a serious disadvantage for him, or he could jsut be given shock, etc to remedy this kind of thing.

 

[Mailbox]

But Auric shouldn't be on his own, if you're towing the 3 HPoW, Drifa, and Wilboman around in addition to him, then he has plenty of defense and lots of cold power to stop the average unit. The magic resistance promotion takes Combat 3 and then ice resistance is another level. Then that unit has to wade through multiple casts of snowfall every turn and unless it also has march and a priest, it will definitely take a huge amount of damage. If the Illian player is watching what they're doing, then Auric is nigh unbeatable but he does have weaknesses.

The crown is a very specific case and as the Illians, you should be prepared to fight over it if you see it built because it is one of the few valid threats to Auric, as 4 casts of snowfall will highly damage even magic resistant units.

 

[WarKirby]

But Auric shouldn't be on his own, if you're towing the 3 HPoW, Drifa, and Wilboman around in addition to him, then he has plenty of defense and lots of cold power to stop the average unit.

You're missing a point I previously mentioned. Regardless of what army you tow around with him, Auric IS on his own. Because the Avatar promotion gives him "more likely to defend the stack", meaning you can't protect him with lesser units.

Then that unit has to wade through multiple casts of snowfall every turn and unless it also has march and a priest, it will definitely take a huge amount of damage.

One major difference FFH has from vanilla civ, is that fast units are extremely easy to get. Any melee unit + mobility I + road* = 6 movement per turn. I know snowfall's range isn't that vast, and that's not even counting haste, for which there should be at least one caster in every large stack. And you're generally going to have roads becuase the time you fight auric is when he's invading your territory.


Auric comes so late that it's pretty logical to assme you're going to be facing endgame resources with him, and a handful of late game units are capable of crushing him into the ground. Snowfall doesn't matter if he can't hit you
*of course you're going to have engineering by this point.

 

[Fafnir13]

Wait, he can't be given any promotions? Am I reading that right?

It would be cool if Auric's Snowfall was permanent as well as the destroying all roads, improvements, and features in enemy territory.

What I would really like to see is the "End of Winter" option's effect only in reverse. That would probably be a tad processor consuming, so letting Ulvin change the world into ice one piece at a time doesn't seem too bad.
Speaking of ice, letting him freeze over oceanic tiles would be good. Allow him to be defended when at sea at the very least. It's not like it would be permanently cutting off continents from one another either, as gates are available by then if you are at all keeping up with the Illian's teching.

 

[bluedevil99]

Though Auric is an extreme case, you could ask this question of most late-game heroes. I mean, am I really going to kill anything with Abashai that I couldn't with 4 Eaters of Dreams and 4 Liches? And I seriously wonder if anyone has had Eurebates be anything other than a nice insurance policy for those last few turns before cultural victory. Now that I think of it the only times I felt late game heroes maybe made the difference between me winning and not has been in the official scenarios--maybe time to go back and play Blood of Angels or The Cult as the Illians.

 

[WarKirby]

Eurabatres doesn't require you to complete an expensive ritual, declare war on the entire world, lose half your population, then complete another expensive ritual.

That, I feel, is where the difference lies.

 

[bluedevil99]

My point is there are already a (small) number of FfH features that are basically "late game shiny things".

However I re-read your post above and you do have a point. I hadn't realized Auric can't be promoted, and don't understand the case for that. Yes there's the "he's already a god" argument but I think it's completely reasonable he could grow stronger as he exercises his powers even after having ascended. You seem to be making the basic point that, given what you need to get Auric, he should be able to take on at least a smallish (4) stack of reasonably promoted T4 units single-handed. I absolutely agree. Or in other words, for what he costs, he better be REALLY shiny.

 

[FireBlaze]

Well I personally think that he should be almost impossible to be killed w/o the godslayer, but in responce to the post above-

He IS the god of statis, he won't be learning new things every time he kills a warrior with the swipe of his hand. It would be interesting to give him his own promotions, either by experience, or every X (x being whatever number) ammount of turns he gets another special promo to represent him getting more power the longer he's in the world, and getting used to his powers.

 

[mo123567]

My main point was not questioning AA's usefulness but rather his usefulness to a civ that is powerful enough to survive the sacrifice it takes to get him.

But, I guess if he was made a lot more powerful, almost invincible, then it could be justified to put your civ on the brink of elimination to get him but, as it is, he's not worth it unless you don't really don't need him. He's kind of a catch 22, so to speak.

 

[WarKirby]

My point is there are already a (small) number of FfH features that are basically "late game shiny things".

However I re-read your post above and you do have a point. I hadn't realized Auric can't be promoted, and don't understand the case for that. Yes there's the "he's already a god" argument but I think it's completely reasonable he could grow stronger as he exercises his powers even after having ascended. You seem to be making the basic point that, given what you need to get Auric, he should be able to take on at least a smallish (4) stack of reasonably promoted T4 units single-handed. I absolutely agree. Or in other words, for what he costs, he better be REALLY shiny.

He's not shiny enough to beat Eurabatres, who is completely invincible to his snowfall attack, and half of his strength. He would have decent odds in a one on one battle, unpromoted

Once eurabatres gets past combat II or so, he can destroy auric easily.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I think the best case scenario for AA is if there is an ocean between you and some massive rival empire, especially if said empire doesn't like you. See, the AI can do intercontinental warfare if given time to prepare - that is, decide it wants to launch an invasion, spend many turns organizing a fleet and loading troops onto it, sending the fleet to its target's borders, then declaring. But an AI suddenly thrown into a war by something like the draw is disorganized and needs a long time to gather its military to prepare for an ocean-spanning fight. In that time, you can complete ascension unbothered (unless you still have neighbors, but in this scenario none of them are a serious threat. Well, if they are, just hold the line with your high priests until their god can hit the scene and slaughter them.)

Clearing a beachhead on a mature lategame empire is hard for a human. They'll send their entire army to meet you, and it will win, while your ships will be in danger of being sunk by their navy... unless you have a god that can kill entire multiple stacks at once with a spell. Send sacrificial warships to bait the enemy navy then snowfall it when it gathers in one area. Land with sacrificial troops, let them be destroyed by an army, then snowfall them with high priests followed by Auric. You don't really have these kinds of options with just high priests, because they can only wound the enemy army, and you tend to lack much to chase them down and finish them off with.