Illians and Snow

[[to_xp]Gekko]

so, I'm curious to know how the Illian people survive in a frozen wasteland. where do they get that +2food from? since they're human and I'm pretty sure they can't eat snow everyday, there must be something I'm missing right now. are they just masters at finding the scarce food that's available there, or is there something else going on here?

 

[Seon]

They are expert ice-fishers, I expect . I also wondered about this. How in the world do they manage to farm on snow? I think that 2 food is coming from everyone providing for themselves in the Illian cities. It still does not explain the farm business

 

[thomas.berubeg]

Ice ferrets. Lots and lots of Ice ferrets. and the occasional ice mouse.

 

[cyther]

In the Age of Ice they had techs from Mulcarn that helped them out a lot. Maybe some of Mulcarns teachings were left behind after he was killed.

 

[Kael]

"Ignore the man behind the curtain."

Its purely a balance thing so that they can survive in terrain they should be accustomed too. I would prefer to envision that they are merely accustomed to getting by with less (ie: sacrifice the weak effect without the civic). But this has the disadvantage of making them love plains and grasslands even more (which in reality they would, no one wants to live on the frozen wastes, not even the illians).

So for balance they got something which makes players want to seek out snow terrain for them and convert their lands to cold wastes. Its an interesting interaction with hell terrain (making them mostly immune) as well as to invading armies (who really dont want their lands. All balance stuff, but the flavor doesnt make much sense.

Or else the yellow snow is a lot better for us than we know.

 

[Guybrush!]

"Ignore the man behind the curtain."

Best answer to any gameplay confilcting lore question ever.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I initially assumed that the added food may be explained by better being able to store food, rather than producing more. It doesn't really explain snowy farms though.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that makes sense. who needs refrigerators when you've got ice everywhere?

 

[WarKirby]

I would have thought they'd have hardy crops blessed by the Priests of Winter, that grow in cold temperatures.

 

[Thimblyjoe]

I like that explanation, let's stick with that.

 

[Avahz Darkwood]

Winter Wheat?

 

[cIV_khanh93]

I'd just always assumed that Mulcarn helped them out...

 

[Lade]

I wish it got the commerce bonus next to rivers. I just assumed as above that Mulcarn helped them out.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

It may not help, lorewise, but I just assumed it is a way to make the game mechanics represent the fact that Illians can live under harsh conditions.
However, I would prefer other mechanics, like specific improvements on snow that would fit a lore, instead of farms on snow... Something like what Valkrionn did with Malakim in his Malakim+Rerelease mod for FF...

 

[Kael]

It may not help, lorewise, but I just assumed it is a way to make the game mechanics represent the fact that Illians can live under harsh conditions.
However, I would prefer other mechanics, like specific improvements on snow that would fit a lore, instead of farms on snow... Something like what Valkrionn did with Malakim in his Malakim+Rerelease mod for FF...

It isnt that Illians have the ability to build farms on snow. Its that the illians get +2 food from snow tiles. Farms require at least 1 natural food yield from a plot before you can build them so indirectly the illians are able to build farms on snow tiles. But its really just a side effect of their ability to get food from snow.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Technically, a tile must have at least 1 food yields and be a <TerrainMakesValid>. It would be easy to deny the Illians the ability to farm Snow tiles while still giving them +2 food for the tile itself.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

It isnt that Illians have the ability to build farms on snow. Its that the illians get +2 food from snow tiles. Farms require at least 1 natural food yield from a plot before you can build them so indirectly the illians are able to build farms on snow tiles. But its really just a side effect of their ability to get food from snow.

If it was like in Malakim+Rerelease, snow wouldn't give food, but you could build an improvement on snow, that would give out some food, and not allowing these improvements to be build next to eachother, we could have a nice lore-fitting(I am sure there should be a propper improvement for the Illians to do this job) mechanic that would encourage the Illians to choose snowy terrain.

 

[Pike the Hands]

From a pure balance perspective I don't see why anything should be changed, though. The Illians aren't particularly overpowered through the whole food-from-snow thing or even the farms-on-snow thing.

 

[cIV_khanh93]

we're not saying its unblanaced. This is the lore forum

 

[Pike the Hands]

Right. And pardon me if this is presumptuous, but when the conversation turns to discussion of changing things it stops being entirely about lore. When changing something, the first thing to ask is this- is the current system in need of changing, given that fun and balance trump flavor? How complicated would a new system be and how would that compare to its added utility? It's only my opinion, of course, but I think the Illians are fine from a pure balance point of view and altering their mechanics to better suit lore would be damaging on some level to their gameplay (if nothing else due to increased complexity). Maybe your opinion differs.

Anyway, that's my explanation for bringing up balance in the lore forum.