Illians Tips

[Onionsoilder]

Well, I decided I might try playing a a game as the Illians, which would be a first for me, but I have no idea how to do it. From what I've gathered the Priests of Winter is important, but how does everything else work?

 

[Jet]

Mechanics

Ice Mana - It's the same Ice Mana as anyone else who gets Letum Frigis gets*, but it's above average, and worth understanding.
1. Slow - nice against dumb AIs, similar to the Empyrean blinding ability.
2. Ice Elementals - I'm not a fan, but some people think they're strong.
3. Snowfall - excellent collateral damage spell.
* except that since you're Winterborn, Snowfall also gives you +10% attack that turn.

Stasis - Either use it right at the beginning of the game to slow the AIs down, or around the time start a war. (For example if you're able to do a warrior rush, use Stasis for that.)

The special rituals are just barely OK. The barbs attack you as well as the AIs. It might be worth it if you're in a defensive position and you think the AIs might not be. You're affected slightly less by the blizzards and cold terrain.

Ice temples change everything in the city's fat cross to ice, which for you is like grassland, and you don't get riverside commerce. It's also not affected by hell terrain. Use them if you need food, if you need to clear jungle quickly, if you need the +10% Winterborn bonus in a chokepoint, or if hell terrain is spreading.

The giant hero is not especially strong.

The dragon and avatar are strong, but very late. For the dragon, you need to have wiped out a civ. For the avatar, you need to declare on every other civ (in effect), and one civ will get The Godslayer avatar-slaying item.

Strategy

The most powerful stuff is late: Snowfall, Dragon, avatar. So if you're position/difficulty isn't strong enough to start breaking out early, you might want to turtle and tech at least until Snowfall.

In general you're well set up for defense, between CHA, DEF, Ice Temples, and Winterborn.

Knowledge of the Ether is a decent early choice for Enchanted Blade and Slow.

Since you can't rebuild the priests, you need Guardsman (or a lot of Assassins and cleverness, but basically Guardsman.) CHA can help, and the giant hero, but you'll probably need Aristocracy.

Healing is a limitation, since you only get the priests. So Divination for Spirit mana is a pretty good choice.

Agnostic makes you weaker on great people generation, healing, and culture bomblets. But there's still the exploit that you can get religious techs through the Eyes and Ears network, so that's a possibility late in the game.

Being evil and Agnostic means that you're more likely than usual to have to go against Basium (if you're going for Domination). So it might help to support other evil civs if necessary, to balance out Basuim and encourage somebody to summon Hyborem, since you can work around hell terrain with Ice Temples.

If you're on the offense:
* War weariness is something to keep in mind, especially if you're looking at a late-game breakout. The Illian palace is -0% WW, and you can't build Asylums. And (minor issue) Ice Temples remove river commerce, so Despotism is that much harder to maintain. So the Pillar of Chains and Tower of Eyes are good choices.
* You might find it harder than usual to roll with multiple stacks. It can be good to keep the Priests together to stack Snowfalls and protect them better. Combined with WW and limited healing, I've found that I want to raze more cities than usual, because I don't want to build up nickel-and-dime WW defending them. Instead I want to fight my battles where I have the full strength of llian SOD to prevent losses.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Okay... so from reading this and doing some thinking, it seems that Agristocracy seems the best civic setup(No loss on Ice, 2 from farms helps make up for lose riverside). Then there's Royal Guards, to protect the Priests. Going for magic early is beneficial with Ice+Enchantment. How does slow stop the AI? And what do you mean by spirit mana, isn't it life that gives your units extra healing?

Seems that as long as we're going down the magic path, grabbing Necromancy early might help... Entropy slows enemy healing/allows Rust, while Death can let your eventual Archmages turn into Liches... more Snowfalling.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

life gives +1health in cities, courage (spirit 1) enhances the heal rate of your units

 

[Bill Bisco]

Just think of Illians as a generic civilization that you want to rush building priests of winter for. I would not be concerned about trying to summon the dragon or Auric Ascended.

Just go standard Iron Axemen+Catapaults, with some adept support perhaps.

 

[Nor'easter]

I played a recent game as the Illians, so here's a few random thoughts.

Stasis -- in addition to what Jet said about when to use it (turn 1 or when you start a warrior rush), another possibility would be to cast it right when you finish the Samhain ritual. The hope would be that the barbarian frostlings will harass your rivals, who can't replenish their losses. If you're lucky, you might have a rival wiped out.

As for the Illians' other rituals, Kael said in a different thread that the Deepening (creates random blizzards and changes random plots to tundra) is mainly intended to be a distraction for your opponents, while you're presumably moving on to bigger and better things. (I'm paraphrasing.) The White Hand is important, you want those Priests of Winter.

Since you asked, Slow is a spell that literally slows opposing units (unless resisted). They can't move for a turn, you can attack and pick several of them off.

Jet pretty much covered Temples of the Hand creating ice terrain. One thing, though: ice terrain IS affected by hell -- the ice itself doesn't change, but resources will change to their hell equivalents and you'll lose any forests, so if you've built lumbermills you'll need to replace them with something else.

Finally, if Letum Frigus is on the map you'll want to find it and have a unit explore it. If you do, Auric gains the Aggressive trait in addition to his other traits. (I always play with All Unique Features, so I know it'll be on the map somewhere.)

 

[Onionsoilder]

Just think of Illians as a generic civilization that you want to rush building priests of winter for. I would not be concerned about trying to summon the dragon or Auric Ascended.

Just go standard Iron Axemen+Catapaults, with some adept support perhaps.

Actually, the main reason I wanted to learn to play Illians was for multiplayer, so I don't care about Auric really(though it would be nice to get the trophy). Most games have someone who goes Hyborem, and I usually go Basium to counter, and I'm getting tired of being Basium. Illians sounded like something new, since Snowfall does excellent damage(and demons aren't resistenct to it) and Hell Terrain can't spread in ice(well, not the hell terrain demons get combat boosts from). Also, if someone else summons Basium, I could probably work some sort of deal out with the human instead of the AI hating me for being Evil. I mean, we both want to kill demons, right?

If Unrestricted Leaders is on(sometimes is for multiplayer), I might even go Financial. I would then have 3 3 Ice farms, and best of all would be useless for anyone who conquers me(best they could get is 2 with Agarianism) Even with Scorch, it would still only be Tundra - they would need Vitalize to get a truly productive city.

 

[Bill Bisco]

Actually, the main reason I wanted to learn to play Illians was for multiplayer, so I don't care about Auric really(though it would be nice to get the trophy). Most games have someone who goes Hyborem, and I usually go Basium to counter, and I'm getting tired of being Basium. Illians sounded like something new, since Snowfall does excellent damage(and demons aren't resistenct to it) and Hell Terrain can't spread in ice(well, not the hell terrain demons get combat boosts from). Also, if someone else summons Basium, I could probably work some sort of deal out with the human instead of the AI hating me for being Evil. I mean, we both want to kill demons, right?

If Unrestricted Leaders is on(sometimes is for multiplayer), I might even go Financial. I would then have 3 3 Ice farms, and best of all would be useless for anyone who conquers me(best they could get is 2 with Agarianism) Even with Scorch, it would still only be Tundra - they would need Vitalize to get a truly productive city.

Basically keep in mind Onionsoldier, that with our arbitrary RP restrictions, it changes the dynamic a bit. Since you can't attack til turn 100, there are a few things that mete out in your favor.

For example: Classic start is more useful for Illians since you start on quick on turn 48 so you have 52 turns of peace instead of 100. I wouldn't do stasis at turn 1 (48), but probably turn 3 (51) since on a great start one would need 4 turns to build a warrior immediately. That'll delay your opponents 15 turns I believeand then at turn 65 they'll be able to start building.

The only unique thing I see about Illians is the capability for an early priest rush, as well as the Temples of the hand adding some to production. Otherwise, like I said earlier, they're just a generic civ, and I would go Iron Axemen + catapaults to win the game.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Just a quick note on ice mana...

If the AI sends a huge killer stack towards your cities and you have Letum Frigus available you will be very happy if you invested a lowly adept with Slow.

In a recent game I had a mediocre defense on my border towns and only mages in my interior cities (inspiration/hope trained) so the AI thought he would have a go. I had just acquired Letum Frigus and so on my borders I set up some adepts with slow and when my enemy rolled in with a (I kid you not) 40 strong stack of horse archers, catapults, and swordsmen I was a bit concerned until I realized all those units were bound together per the AIs understanding. I only needed to slow ONE unit to keep him from moving an inch. Had he thrown everything at one of my border towns I would have slaughtered at least half the stack, but I still would have lost the city and perhaps others. With Slow, however, I was able to just sit there and pick away with fireballs and other attackers while the AI stack just sat placidly on a grassland tile surrounded by forests and hills.

 

[Legba]

Is there a way to get a 3rd ice mana?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yes, its called Worldbuilder.


Also, you could try liberating colonies. The first one you liberate seems always to be of your civ (although as the Illians I notice they often have Infernal or Sheaim minor leaders instead of Braeden or one of the Priests of Winter), so you can demand the Ice mana from their palace mana.

 

[Bill Bisco]

Yes, its called Worldbuilder.


Also, you could try liberating colonies. The first one you liberate seems always to be of your civ (although as the Illians I notice they often have Infernal or Sheaim minor leaders instead of Braeden or one of the Priests of Winter), so you can demand the Ice mana from their palace mana.

Are colonies enabled on FFH? I have no idea how to do it.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Yes, they are allowed by default, although I believe there is an option to turn them off.

To liberate a colony, you go to the City Details Screen (I think that is what it is called), the furthest left button at the top right of the screen. You then press the liberate button near the bottom of that screen, if it shows up. You must have at least 2 cities on the same continent as each other but a different one from your capital in order to liberate them as a colony. The popup that appears when you press the liberate button lets you choose between groups of cities to liberate as colonies and between individual cities you can liberate to other players. Unfortunately, you have to liberate all cities on the same continent together and cannot choose to keep any of them.

 

[Emptiness]

...but you can settle two cities, liberate them, settle two more cities, liberate them, and so on.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Not exactly.

I seem to recall that you cannot liberate a new colony on a continent where you already have one, although having another sort of vassal on the continent won't prevent it. You can wait until your colony breaks free and make another one there, and then hope to compel your older colonies to capitulate.

 

[Bill Bisco]

That's interesting Magister. I got Averax the Cambion and for some reason he was Svartalfar, he got the Sinster promotion too. Yeah, and I can't get Basium or Hyborem this way. Ah well.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Kael tried to make it so that all colonies would be led by minor leaders and at least the first of the same civ, but the game seems to pick what minor leader at random with no regard to what civ the minor leader ought to lead. I believe that, according to their back story, 6 of the minor leaders should be Infernal, 4 Illian, 3 Balseraph, 3 Sheaim, 2 Hippus, 2 Svartalfar, 1 Amurite, 1 Sidar, 1 Bannor, 1 Elohim, 1 Grigori, 1 Malakim, 1 Clan, and 1 Doviello. Basium and Hyborem are not considered minor leaders.

 

[Bill Bisco]

It seems that in both of my tests; my first colony was a minor leader, while every other colony was a major leader.

 

[someone67]

Also, you could try liberating colonies. The first one you liberate seems always to be of your civ (although as the Illians I notice they often have Infernal or Sheaim minor leaders instead of Braeden or one of the Priests of Winter), so you can demand the Ice mana from their palace mana.

Another way would be to force the Elohim to turn one former Illian city into their capital and to capitulate. It is more complicated, but it should work for sure.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It won't. Several patches back Kael made it so that Tolerant trait leaders can still only get thier own Capitals, even if the capital is moved to a city where any other building would be a different UB.