Illians, snow, and hammers

[MaxAstro]

I play the same way. If the city has at least one food resource I usually only have one farm or so for that city, with the rest of the tiles being cottages (except hills which I only mine). I dont think I build windmills ever.

I don't think I could play like that... XD I always go specialist economy, so I have a hard time NOT putting farms anywhere I can...

 

[sputnik323]

One way to fix some of the balance issues with illians is allow them to make farms on any ice, not just the ice by river tiles and spred irrigation (kind of funny to think of irrigated ice). And when ice is created in their land it should not melt within their cultural borders. that way ice hills take care of production and ice takes care of food. Tundra should have a hammer bonus for illians too, like plains for other civs.

 

[Ringtailed]

maybe I missed it, but what's my incentive to build Temple of the Hand as Illians? just the combat bonus on ice? it seems like the economic penalties outweigh that benefit...

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It lets you build cities in terrain most people would avoid (tundra, desert, and such) and make them productive.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

The Illians (regardless of having the temple or not) get +2 food on Ice (Snow), while for everyone else it is yieldless. Farms, Cottages, etc., can be built on any food producing tile, so the Illians alone can build here. Having that much Ice can be bad for production, but you cities can still reach a decent size and would be pretty worthless to your enemies.

 

[Ahriman]

It also instantly turns jungle into forest. Which is huge! You can productively colonise the jungles before any other faction.
(It is funny seeing the equatorial regions on the map going to the ice-faction, who immediately turn the tropical rainforests into boreal forests).

I think that the balance is quite interesting. On average, they have slightly weaker terrain than anyone else, because they lose the commerce bonus from rivers, and have more difficulty getting hammers. Though they get a small combat bonus.

But! They get this medium terrain quality everywhere, no matter how bad the base terrain is. There really is no really bad city placement for Illians, as long as there are a couple of hill tiles. While this isn't such a big deal on map scripts with really nice terrain, its great on maps with big swathes of desert and jungle.

A question that I haven't investigated yet; does the ice ever go away if you lose the city or are invaded by the AI? Or is scorch/vitalise the only way to ever turn the ice back to terrain productive for other factions?

I think I am also correct that ice is unaffected by the armageddon counter, so the Illians are an evil faction that are unaffected by the spread of hell (and have a quick counter for it, just whip out a temple of the Hand).

One slightly annoying thing; if I capture a city with a pagan temple already built in it, then it instantly turns into a temple of the hand, but I don't get the ice effect.
Illians need to auto-raze the temple of the Hand when they capture a city.

I do think that +1 hammers from tundra (not ice) might be worth implementing though.

 

[MiKa523]

It lets you build cities in terrain most people would avoid (tundra, desert, and such) and make them productive.

It also transforms jungle into forest, which then gives you production in either way.
Edit: 2 slow, just woke up :/

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

It also instantly turns jungle into forest. Which is huge! You can productively colonise the jungles before any other faction.
(It is funny seeing the equatorial regions on the map going to the ice-faction, who immediately turn the tropical rainforests into boreal forests).

I think that the balance is quite interesting. On average, they have slightly weaker terrain than anyone else, because they lose the commerce bonus from rivers, and have more difficulty getting hammers. Though they get a small combat bonus.

But! They get this medium terrain quality everywhere, no matter how bad the base terrain is. There really is no really bad city placement for Illians, as long as there are a couple of hill tiles. While this isn't such a big deal on map scripts with really nice terrain, its great on maps with big swathes of desert and jungle.

A question that I haven't investigated yet; does the ice ever go away if you lose the city or are invaded by the AI? Or is scorch/vitalise the only way to ever turn the ice back to terrain productive for other factions?

I think I am also correct that ice is unaffected by the armageddon counter, so the Illians are an evil faction that are unaffected by the spread of hell (and have a quick counter for it, just whip out a temple of the Hand).

Wonderful points about the Illians... Interestingly, it doesn't take a lot to make a city decent, but no single city is ever truly amazing, but on the other hand, they can build settlers strangely fast once they've got a city all setup, which doesn't take too long either.

I was experimenting with that, seeing as Hyborem decided to spawn right next to me. Apparently, Tundra actually beats out Hell terrain! There were splotches of it covering his territory. I'd guess the same goes for Ice.

Also gonna try using that 7 Pines wonder, seeing as it's inside my borders.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

+1 hammer on tundra wouldn't work I guess... all they got is snow, tundra is nowhere to be seen in Illian territory

 

[Ahriman]

Another point; if you have a city with great terrain (flood plains, rivers).... you don't have to build a Temple in that city! You can just keep the superior terrain.

+1 hammer on tundra wouldn't work I guess... all they got is snow, tundra is nowhere to be seen in Illian territory

Once they build the temple, correct. But a +1 hammer on tundra would encourage them to be able to grow/expand into the arctic regions before doing all their terraforming, and it would also give them a nice bonus with the thawing ice age start condition.

 

[sputnik323]

I had quite a bit of tundra on my land because for some reason my ice kept melting. The temple doesn't seem to create ice permantly when there is already melting snow on the tile. (IE. high priest casts snow, or blizzard makes tundra before the temple is complete.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I had quite a bit of tundra on my land because for some reason my ice kept melting. The temple doesn't seem to create ice permantly when there is already melting snow on the tile. (IE. high priest casts snow, or blizzard makes tundra before the temple is complete.)

were you playing with "end of winter" option enabled? maybe that's the reason why the ice was melting, just my 2 cents of course.

 

[kumquatelvis]

I've had no problems with production in my game as the Illians, even building a good number of wonders. Of course all of my cities had at least three hills, and the Heron throne was a good help.

 

[Bitwise]

Losing the commerce bonus in my river cities is too painful to justify using the Temple except in the most horrible of city locations.

 

[overdark]

Losing the commerce bonus in my river cities is too painful to justify using the Temple except in the most horrible of city locations.

I noticed this too. I'm guessing this is something that can't be easily fixed, either.

 

[Annex]

If you build a temple of the hand in a city with a nearby oasis, the oasis stays!

Also I built a workshop on a snow plot and it took away both food instead of just one. Is this supposed to happen?

 

[Fafnir13]

Losing the commerce bonus in my river cities is too painful to justify using the Temple except in the most horrible of city locations.

It's a bonus of +1. How is that painful? Unless you're talking about flood plains, I don't understand the infatuation.

I haven't had any production trouble with my Illian game either. A few hills with some forests and I'm good to go. Yeah, I could be doing slightly better with some forests on plains or some hilly plains. No big deal though. Ice gives plenty of food, helping me support a specialist heavy economy.

 

[sputnik323]

were you playing with "end of winter" option enabled? maybe that's the reason why the ice was melting, just my 2 cents of course.

Yeah I had the end of winter option thought it might give me an edge

Noone liked my idea of them building farms on any ice square? I think that balances out any hammer losses, especially with conquest. plus there isn't a lot of rivers to build next to in the artic, a place I like to expand to with illians.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

It's a bonus of +1.

multiply that 1 for a lot of tiles, then multiply again for a lot of cities, and you lose tons of money

sputnik, I do agree. I think that Illians should treat snow just like it was grasslands as far as improvement-building goes.

 

[Farmer Bobathan]

Gekko]sputnik, I do agree. I think that Illians should treat snow just like it was grasslands as far as improvement-building goes.

The Illians (regardless of having the temple or not) get +2 food on Ice (Snow), while for everyone else it is yieldless. Farms, Cottages, etc., can be built on any food producing tile, so the Illians alone can build here. Having that much Ice can be bad for production, but you cities can still reach a decent size and would be pretty worthless to your enemies.

they can build stuff on snow