Illians - suggestions thread

[Winston]

I've just had a bunch of ideas for the Illians so I thought I would post them here while their fresh in my head.

Illians have access to only one type of mana - ICE MANA - which is unique to them and available with knowledge of the ether and they get access to a Disciple of Mulcarn instead of Adepts - the disciple can build Ice nodes on existing nodes and each node gives xp bonuses to winterborn units.

The Illians can't research other sorcery techs or religious techs and can't adopt religions because they worship Mulcarn - sounds pretty restrictive eh?

BUT

The Ice nodes allow them to spawn Ice beasties such as Frostlings (yay!) and Ice Afinity units such as yhettis/ snow behemoths/ mammoths etc in a similar way to planar gates for Shiem

The disciples of Mulcarn upgrade to ice shamans and they double up as mages and priests and have access to a large range of Ice spells (Ice is supposed to be the strongest sphere according to the blurb).

If they get to 8 ice nodes (they start with 3 for their palace) and they have Divine Essence they can bring back Mulcarn and he counts as a national unit (cap 1 obviously) which means you can rebuild him when he dies.

If they get to 12 ice nodes and Divine Essence they can build a wonder to win the game (to replace Tower of Mastery) as this allows Mulcarn to regain his powers completely to create another Age of Ice.

The nodes for Mulcarn and winning would probably need to scale up/down depending on map size.

I thought these ideas were very flavourful so that they distinguish the Illians from all the other races.

If anyone has any thoughts on these suggestions or wants to make some other suggestions for how to make the Illians cool, unique, and fun to play then let's post em here and come up with a pool of ideas.

 

[Ekolite]

Sounds great. Would prefer the ice affinity units (Yhettis etc) to be ice summons rather then use the same mechanism as sheaim demons though.

Maybe they could rebuild barnaxus if they get his pieces, who, under their control, has a spell he can cast in cities that creates a unique building - barnaxus' worksop - which dissapears if he leaves the town. The building allows the construction of Ice golems in that city. (barnaxus built ice golems for mulcar in the age of ice). This might work better as a scenario though.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Not really a fan. They should definitely have Ice mana, but not be limited to it. Auric Ulvin after all can use other types of magic too. He was channeling Sun magic when he broke through the barrier separating the Shadowed vale from Creation.


I don't think they should be called Yettis; leave them as Ice Giants, as they were in AoI.


I'm definitely implementing the Ice sphere in my modmod when I have time. (I was pretty much done with it before .31, but will be reevaluating it somewhat to fir the new spell system, plus allow cross-sphere spells. It had already become my favorite sphere before I broke the modmod) The Illians will have some nice "White Hand" disciples with divine spells of the sphere, in addition to the arcane spells.


I don't know if I'll actually bring the Mulcarn unit back, but I do plan to make the Illain world spell bring back Drifa (and maybe Fiacra) and start another Ice Age. (It will be the latest and hardest spell to cast, but the most powerful)

 

[Charybdis]

I like that idea of rebuilding mulcarn though

 

[Winston]

Kol7, the Barnaxus idea sounds good and flavourful - I like it.
MagisterCultuum, I'm unaware of your modmod but it sounds interesting, I'll have a browse on the mod forums for it
I think we're on the same page with the White Hand disciples (Saruman ) as they seem similar to the ice shaman idea I had.
I havn't played much of the AoI scenario as I prefer the mod so I didn't realise they had Ice Giants in there - I was thinking Yhettis as in the white furry guys with claws - but both sound cool and Ice Giants would be easier to implement because a unit model already exists - of course they could always have a special eidolon unit - so one could be a summon and the other a special eidolon.
Personally I think playing a game with Mulcarn leading the units would be cool and that's why I suggested it - I also get the impression from the blurb that he's not totally dead so it makes sense that he would try to regain power and create another Age of Ice.
Your idea about bringing back Fiacra and Drifa sounds good - I think we're both agreed that the Illians aim is to bring back the snow.
Charybdis, I'm glad you like the Mulcarn idea

 

[Ekolite]

I think it would be better for the Illians to bring back fiacra or driffa instead of Mulcarn. I think Mulcarn would just be too much for a random map game, and I think it would be better in a scenario. Mulcarn would be too unbalanced as well, after all he is a God. Apart from that, love the idea.

 

[Calbrenar]

What if Mulcarn comes back in a weakenned state? And causes ice/tundra where he walks so he messes with the Doviello lands and has to build a couple things a la tower of mastery before he regains his full power.

If he's pretty strong to start with it would require the other players to take him more seriously and as he gets stronger it would be worse and worse to try to stop him and eventulally if he completed the final part he wins the game.

That would be pretty damn cool I think. They need a good mechanic to make up for being yet another agnostic civilization.

The only issue I can think of is making sure Mulcarn scales based on map size or number of players. he obviously needs to be much stronger popping out as a partial victory condition with 18 players who may jump you vs a duel map.

 

[Mailbox]

I think it would be cool if the Illians started out powerful (+4 xp in the capital), were weak in the middle game (from no religion), then got an option to regain power in the last stages of the game (bring Mulcarn back to life or restart the Age of Ice). I think this this is modeled fairly well right now but I'd like to see this concept fleshed out more.

Edit: It might also be cool if the Illians got a lot of negative modifiers for the early game as well. I'm sure the nations of Erebus aren't too pleased with what they did. If Mulcarn is resurrected, it would also be fitting if every nation delcared war on them.

Edit 2: Maybe also make Ice mana very powerful but every single node in Erebus gives Mulcarn strength and perhaps speeds his return. That way using Ice mana is useful but a terrible risk to the world. This would also be a cool mechanic for Entropy mana and Hyborem.

 

[Calbrenar]

I think it would be cool if the Illians started out powerful (+4 xp in the capital), were weak in the middle game (from no religion), then got an option to regain power in the last stages of the game (bring Mulcarn back to life or restart the Age of Ice). I think this this is modeled fairly well right now but I'd like to see this concept fleshed out more.

Edit: It might also be cool if the Illians got a lot of negative modifiers for the early game as well. I'm sure the nations of Erebus aren't too pleased with what they did. If Mulcarn is resurrected, it would also be fitting if every nation delcared war on them.

Edit 2: Maybe also make Ice mana very powerful but every single node in Erebus gives Mulcarn strength and perhaps speeds his return. That way using Ice mana is useful but a terrible risk to the world. This would also be a cool mechanic for Entropy mana and Hyborem.

Agreed. Especially Edit 2

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm not sure about most of it, but I was thinking it would be really cool for a new variable to added to where units promotions have their affinity defined, which would determine whether only counts your resources or everybody's. Barbarian Heroes like The Four Horsemen and The Avatar of Wrath plus maybe Hyborem (or maybe the Gela instead?) and Mulcarn (if you plan to actually use the Mulcarn unit) would have this type of affinity while most units would only get to count their own civ's.

 

[Winston]

@Calbrenar - Mulcarn in a weakened state is exactly what I was imagining - the win condition is when he regains full power - other civs ganging up on the Illians would be a good counterbalance too. I like big events that mix things up during a game and I see Mulcarn as being one of those big events.

I was playing the scenario to get a better idea of the Illians - I found it to be quite lame compared to the main game but frost giants would be cool as a late game unit and Drifa is cool too.

In terms of a world spell maybe they should get something that globally changes terrain to being more snowy

 

[Soam]

As a god shouldn't Mulcarn only be reborn with the final stage complete? As a killable unit early on it just doesn't seem very... godlike. Or make it like in other fantasy when the great evil is trapped and has to slowly come out by destroying his bonds one by one until he can fully re-enter the world, and as I understand it Auric Ulvin is Mulcarn or at least an avatar of sorts so why not an Auric Ulvin unit that gains power as the bonds/ritual are broken/completed? Then Ulvin dies and Mulcarn is reborn.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I really think they should be all about bringing back the age of ice. If you ever played Lady Diedre Sky in Alpha Centauri, she tended to end up with her entire lands covered in fungus. I'd like to see this similar for the Illians.

New units:

Ice Mage (Replaces Adept)
Gains the ability Construct Permafrost (Costs money to create, ~35-50)

Permafrost tile improvement: Constructable on Tundra tiles (in your borders). Turns the tile into an Ice tile. Every turn there is a small chance that the squares around the Permafrost tile will turn into Tundra. After all 8 squares around the Tundra tile become tundra, an even smaller chance of the ones around those become tundra, extending out to 4 rings. Note that the tundra spread will continue into opposing lands, even if you can only build the permafrost improvement in your territory. A passice aggressive strategy, as it were.

Illian Palace: +1 Food and +2 Income on Tundra (Make up for the fact tundra doesn't spread irrigation, and can't get cottages)

Illian Only Spell Summon Dire Frostling: Requires Channelling II and an Arcane Unit. Summons a Dire Frostling that has 0 strength base and +1 Ice Strength for each tile adjacent to the casted on tile, that is tundra or ice. (So max of 8 strength if cast in the heart of frozen turf) has movement range of 1.

Unique Unit Ice Treader: Replaces Galley (?) starts with Ice Treader promotion

Ice Treader promotion lets the unit pass under Ice (water) tiles. My thinking is to put this on an early unit that they can build, and upgrade into later units, so we don't have to make a unique unit for each level of it. Traversing the icey north is going to be a pain if sea trade is undoable.

 

[Demus]

i agree with the illians spreading tundra/ice terrain, seems quite fitting imho. You'd just need a way to balance it.

 

[Calbrenar]

Soam if that is the case then that is a much better idea IMO. I wasn't aware that he was supposed to be an Avatar.

Zech why not simply make it so Illians can build cottages on Tundra and get Food from Ice (with fishing maybe?) You can't build cottages on forest but Elves can so obviously there's a mechanic to allow it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Forests are not a terrain but a feature. You can build forests there, it just usually requires you remove the feature. Letting them build on tundra/ice would be harder. I'm not saying it is impossible, but it would probably require some significant SDK hardcoding.

 

[xienwolf]

Or a special buildorder, which would require a unique Worker unit. But then not be available from slaves.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Or a special buildorder, which would require a unique Worker unit. But then not be available from slaves.

Hmm, that would definately be better than a stat bonus, but I'm guessing having tundra spread irrigation isn't the easiest change to make. It'd be more BALANCED to require them to actually build on the tundra (inherently) so they wouldn't have the equivalent of free upgrades.

 

[Demus]

Forests are not a terrain but a feature. You can build forests there, it just usually requires you remove the feature. Letting them build on tundra/ice would be harder. I'm not saying it is impossible, but it would probably require some significant SDK hardcoding.

Vehem managed to add wetlands, which has some special features aswell. Surely this can't be much tougher than that? Maybe it's too much for your average Joe, but most modders around here should be able to pull it off.

 

[Calbrenar]

Wetlands is also a feature I think