Illians at terraforming the world to ice

[EmptyWolf]

I like the new ways Illians can terraform lands into snow and tundra, but I noticed none of them are permanent with the exception of temple of the hand.
Currently the only ways (unless there's some I don't know of) for Illians to terraform land to snow/tundra is:
Temple of The Hand - snow in city radius
Snowfall (tier 3 ice spell) - the snow on the tile is temporary
The Deepening - about 25% of the world turned to tundra but it's temporary
Blizzards - limited supply of these, requires a priest of the hand and is temporary.

Overall the only 'permanent' way to terraform tiles into snow is the temple of the hand's city radius effect. Snowfall can be used again and again only to revert back to normal but that requires a lot of those limited-supply level 3 snow casters and lots of micro-management.

FoL gives bloom to create forests (even outside your own territory) and converts forests in cultural territory to ancient forests.
Scorch turns plains to desert, and snow to tundra.
Vitalize simply upgrades terrain on a single tile up one level each time it is cast.

Yet Illians have no way to permanently terraform/(downgrade?) the world to snow, with the exception of the temple of the hand affecting only city radius. I realize that 'snowfall' works best with the effect as temporary so the possible places for a spell to convert terrain on a tile to snow would be a 2nd spell of Ice III, or simply an additional ability 'freeze' of high priests of the hand (that would probably be the best fit), although there are most likely other places that would work.

I'm just wondering what other's thoughts are on the lack of permanent snow terraforming for the Illians. It's a strange shortcoming to the Illians' goal of locking the world in frozen stasis and I don't see why they lack the power to cover their own land completely in snow when they are capable of creating their demi-god of winter, Auric Ascended.

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

I haven't gotten to finish a game with the Illians (nor, sadly, am I liable to do so...) but I wanted to know. Does The Deepening only affect the world for a certain amount of time? And what about blizzards? Are they only temporary? I thought it was really weird that so many of mine had gotten stuck on mountain ranges..

 

[BugReportage]

Only if snow terrain can turn it into hell. I'm already annoyed that there are white patches because hell terrain never spreads to snow.
Hyborem hates snow and I hate snow too.
(Except in reality! I love snow! It's so pretty! ^____^)

 

[WCH]

Hell terrain does spread to snow. You can tell because the resources change... horses become nightmares, for instance. The graphics don't change, but that's fine. Also, if there are any gaps in the snow, those gaps will go obviously hellish.

 

[BugReportage]

oh really? That's lame
Lol I guess I don't have to hunt down and kill illians every game so long as my wonderful hell terrain is spreading. I guess Agares/Bhall and Mulcarn can share after all...
On second thought, that's ugly, I'm goona still kill Illians first every game. >_>

 

[EmptyWolf]

I haven't gotten to finish a game with the Illians (nor, sadly, am I liable to do so...) but I wanted to know. Does The Deepening only affect the world for a certain amount of time? And what about blizzards? Are they only temporary? I thought it was really weird that so many of mine had gotten stuck on mountain ranges..

Yes the deepening is sadly temporary.

14. Added The Deepening ritual (Illian only, freezes the map temporarily and spawns blizzards around the map).

As for the blizzards stuck on peaks: you can pull blizzards off peaks with priests of the hand and I'm assuming the blizzards stay but I could be wrong.

Hell terrain does spread to snow. You can tell because the resources change... horses become nightmares, for instance. The graphics don't change, but that's fine. Also, if there are any gaps in the snow, those gaps will go obviously hellish.

Fortunately the terrain never changes from snow.

 

[Mailbox]

I'd like if Blizzards spawned in Illian lands and moved slowly around, while having a second effect. Blizzards would have a chance to downgrade terrain permanently to tundra if not tundra/snow and Blizzards would have a chance to downgrade tundra to snow. Illians should not be pleasant neighbors to have.

 

[EmptyWolf]

I'd like if Blizzards spawned in Illian lands and moved slowly around, while having a second effect. Blizzards would have a chance to downgrade terrain permanently to tundra if not tundra/snow and Blizzards would have a chance to downgrade tundra to snow. Illians should not be pleasant neighbors to have.

The snow terrain from temples of the hand would be the perfect Illian spawning grounds for blizzards and that would make a temple of the hand actually desirable in every city for the spawning chance of blizzards and the defense/weapon the blizzards are. Mailbox's idea of blizzards having a chance of making the change permanent sounds great and it makes blizzards a little more scary for non-illians. As with the blizzards, The Deepening could also have a chance of tiles permanently downgrading tiles to snow or tundra since in the description it cools the entire world. I don't think either of those would be overpowered since both effects can be undone by anyone and would be based on a chance percentage anyway.

Everything except temples of the hand seems to be a temporary conversion, and that makes it impossible to have snow last anywhere except by temples of the hand. If one would so desire they could convert Erebus into nothing but a desert (scorch). It could also be converted into pure grasslands covered in forests (vitalize and/or bloom), so why not the Illians having the capability of permanent snow outside their BFCs, even if only from blizzards and The Deepening?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

My idea to strengthen Hyborem and Balors but limit them to hell terrain pretty much requires that I add hell versions of Ice and Tundra. I see no reason why these shouldn't be able to create Blizzards in the same way as Burning Sands create Flames.


I'm not sure how to make Blizzards spread out from Illian lands without being really hard on the processor.


I strongly dislike Blizzards permanently terraforming, but I think that temporary terraforming would be good.

Illians should also be able to cause the Ice feature to spread in the seas.

 

[the343danny]

Maybe the temple of the hand snow should act like the "seed" of ice. Then the ice would slowly spread inside the borders. This would get rid of those annoying grassland spots on your snowy land. Maybe after Auric is summoned, the ice can spread outside borders.

 

[sputnik323]

My experience with the illians is that it would be nice if one of their spells permantly changed a tile to snow, like the temple... that would account for a bug that sometimes snow melts even when there is a temple.

Then have sun I and fire I change the tile back to its origional state. that way all civs have the chance to combat permant changes - not just turn snow into tundra, and the illians still have an effective weather attack.

 

[EmptyWolf]

My idea to strengthen Hyborem and Balors but limit them to hell terrain pretty much requires that I add hell versions of Ice and Tundra. I see no reason why these shouldn't be able to create Blizzards in the same way as Burning Sands create Flames.


I'm not sure how to make Blizzards spread out from Illian lands without being really hard on the processor.


I strongly dislike Blizzards permanently terraforming, but I think that temporary terraforming would be good.

Illians should also be able to cause the Ice feature to spread in the seas.

Hell-ice would be interesting and a nice replacement to the strange thing of ice staying ice yet it's hell terrain. Snow is a real hassle to sanctify the way it is since it looks just like non hell terrain.

Wouldn't two near-identical types of blizzards solve the processor intensive issue? The one spawning in Illian lands not leaving Illian territory, and the other being how it currently is. It's not exactly what the original idea was but it may work.

How exactly could the ice-spreading-into-the-seas be implemented? One way is an additional effect of The Deepening. That would also bring the small chance of ships being frozen into ice. Another possible way is priests of the hand on ships pulling blizzards into the ocean and freezing the water into ice.

Maybe the temple of the hand snow should act like the "seed" of ice. Then the ice would slowly spread inside the borders. This would get rid of those annoying grassland spots on your snowy land. Maybe after Auric is summoned, the ice can spread outside borders.

That really fits the Illian theme. I don't know if it would be processor intensive or not, MC would know. The only thing I'd add to that is destroying Temples of The Hand(capturing Illian cities) would slow/reverse the ice effect (sort of like hell).
The weird patches of desert/plains/grasslands in Ilian lands don't seem right at all.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

Maybe the temple of the hand snow should act like the "seed" of ice. Then the ice would slowly spread inside the borders. This would get rid of those annoying grassland spots on your snowy land. Maybe after Auric is summoned, the ice can spread outside borders.

I love these ideas too. Sort of like FoL but with snow/ice instead of Ancient forests. And with the spread crossing borders after Auric ascends, it gives another incentive to kill those Illians before the whole world turns to Ice.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

lots of nice ideas here, I agree that a couple more ways to turn stuff into snow permanently would fit the illians very well ( blizzards definitely need a buff imho ) . snow spreading kinda like hell terrain sounds good, and I definitely agree that we need a different graphic for hellish snow. and water freezing to ice sounds awesome. ice elementals and other frosty units should have this ability too. some units could have a "path of ice" ability that freezes tiles they walk over ( temporary or permanently ) , you could also add similar abilities for hell terrain, flames, grasslands etc. this was in AoW and it was lots of fun. frozen lakes and sea should then become walkable by ground units, adding some more strategy to the game

 

[PapaMonkey]

I'm playing as the Illian's now, and these would be great changes.

One thing I noticed, but have not seen posted anywhere is that when Priests of the Hand are upgraded to High Priests of the hand, they loose their ability to move the storms. I don't think that should be...

I should go post this under bugs. The more I think about it the more sure I am that it is a bug.

 

[JFred]

1 - Illians workers still seem to work slower Snowy Tiles... Why ?

2 - Illian's snow riverside + water mill = ... > ??? where's the + ???

Wrong place for this post maybe ?

 

[Moofalot]

I think snow spreading out from the temples is too much like Hell terrain. Instead I think they should just stick with an effect like the Deepening, where the entire world's temperature is lowered over time. Maybe after Auric ascends it'd have kind of the opposite effect of deserts appearing after using nukes in Civ4. Tiles have a small chance of downgrading as Auric reduces the temperature, and the only way to stop it and let the world heat up again is to kill Auric.

 

[JFred]

An effect like the Deepening, where the entire world's temperature is lowered over time.

That makes sense, indeed... or like an Armageddon Counter, but on the Sunny/Icy side of the matter... ?

 

[xienwolf]

It would be interesting if the game were set up so that the Temporary Terrain counter for each tile would not count down while Auric Ascended was in play. Then when the Illians bring out Mr. Bad they can start to permanently freeze the world. Well, permanent until Auric is killed, then the world begins to slowly thaw back out.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

nice idea, it fits a God well and it gives him a unique feature that's not 100% combat related... plus, it would make a lot of sense for the other civs to try and get Auric Ascended killed so that they can get their plains and grasslands back