Illians: Worth it?

[DrPepper836]

I've been trying out the Illians civ recently. It seems to me that they have a few big benefits:

1. They have ice mana, which is very useful and has an awesome tier III spell
2. They can build in any terrain
3. (IMO)Stasis is one of the stronger world spells
4. They have three heroes, so you don't miss out on religious heroes

But really, between having to DoW on every person in the game to ascend Auric (probably the most awesome thing ever, admittedly), the other bad effects of the draw to summon Auric, and not being able to adopt a religion, can you really keep up with someone who has a religion?

 

[CurseUppl]

IMO, in my game as them, your empire is just a means to an end. (Prince, normal speed, 20+ bots and 3 human players on a huge tectonics map)

I basically threw all my resources into getting Duin Halfmorn and Driffa (dragon), got Halfmorn leveled up with a twenty blooded werewolf escort (easy with raging barbarians) and a few greater werewolves and then my army just grew and grew and... grew. With two priests of winter (for the ice AOE) there wasn't anything they couldn't kill. The third priest of winter was with Driffa for defending my empire whilst Duin rampaged through the bots and two human players.

Built the Draw. Everyone war dec'ed me. Built Auric Ascended for extra defense along with Driffa and third priest. Razed cities until the AC reached 90 or so. Built Blood of the Phoenix so when the apocalypse happened, I lost no units. Another hundred turns or so of cleaning up and I won the game.

Fun game! No hell terrain either because Hyborem and the Shiem were one of the first to go. Ascended the throne of winter and ruled the world!

Could be I was just lucky though. Getting Duin can be hard since every bot worth their money will try and get him too. And Blood of the Phoenix isn't exactly an uncontested ritual (in our games at least).

Edit: Oh forgot my conclusion. I think they're fine without religion

 

[Worm4life]

Most of the time I like the Erebus map, but it's really annoying when Wilboman can't leave his starting city area because the one chokepoint mountain pass tile happens to be a desert.

 

[Senethro]

The Illians are probably the worst builder civ in the game due to their inability to take a religion. High initial, low eventual cheap happiness combined with no commerce bonus from Ice rivers causes the mighty Aristofarms to slide towards the break even point with cottages.

They're a rush civ. Stasis gives them 20 turns advantage and they have a lot of early/mid game advantages to turn into an army. Enchantment/Charismatic is important (production, +20% for melee units), Winter Priests are essential (Tier2.5 unit available at early Tier 2).

You're obligated to use these advantages to get a bigger empire than everyone. If you can find Letum Frigus then Shock promoted Horse Archers can quickly promote to Combat 5, otherwise a conventional Axemen/Catapult with sacrifical Ice Elementals does excellently.

Their midgame is bad. No religious heroes and Wilboman is terrible. He is worse than a Champion of the same XP vs. another Champion.

 

[Feyaria]

Most of the time I like the Erebus map, but it's really annoying when Wilboman can't leave his starting city area because the one chokepoint mountain pass tile happens to be a desert.

One Adept with Water mana is enough to deal with this problem.

 

[Worm4life]

Fun game! No hell terrain either because Hyborem and the Shiem were one of the first to go. Ascended the throne of winter and ruled the world!

Hmm? Does hell terrain not appear if infernals aren't in play?

 

[heisenberg]

Hell terrain does appear at high AC.
Its just that the Infernal capital would be in hell terrain, and hell terrain does spread from there.
Killing off Hyborem and the Sheaim and limiting the spread of AV would keep the AC down and prevent the spread of hell terrain.

About the Illians....
The map size is another pretty important factor.
Being limited to only 3 priests which are -very- strong for that early in the game, you pretty much have to heavily rely on them once u get them for one of the best earliest summons.
The smaller the map, the better these priests fill up the gap from the lack of religions and buildable priests.

And meh, Wilbo is just a Guybrush wannabe who can't !Sing! and is picky about where he sets his foot on.

Illians is all about their early game advantages, and being able to expand fast into hostile lands, such as deserts and jungles.



*kinda off-topic though, but Senethro's point about Wilbo did remind me of something else....
I was seriously annoyed to find, in one MP game I had as the Doviello, that Battlemasters do -NOT- have the usual bonus against melee units. Instead they have a tundra bonus...... but.... Who the Heck Fights a war in Tundra!? The Doviello doesn't even get any civ-bonus for settling in tundra unlike the Illians.
In the end, my Battlemasters were fighting a losing war against their Champion counterparts ='(

 

[Senethro]

But Battlemasters are cheaper, being Axemen hammers +40 gold.

 

[heisenberg]

Mahala ftw!~

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Hmm? Does hell terrain not appear if infernals aren't in play?

Hell terrain does appear at high AC.
Its just that the Infernal capital would be in hell terrain, and hell terrain does spread from there.

Hell terrain depends on the tile's Plot Counter, not on the Armageddon Counter. Whether a tile's plot counter can go up based on the neighboring plot counter depends on the AC, but no matter how high the AC gets it will not introduce hell terrain unless something has already caused the plot counter of at least one tile to go up for some other reason.


There are only 2 ways in unmodded FfH for the plot counter to rise not based on the neighboring plot counters and AC:
1. Infernal territory is changed to a plot counter of 100 ever turn
2. The Entropy Node Flair event changes the node's tile to plot counter 100.

Thus, eliminating the Infernals early and making sure that no one can build an Entropy node would guarantee no hell terrain.

 

[a_civilian]

Wonder (Chaos III) can create a 3x3 square of hell terrain, and it'll spread from there AC permitting.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Wonder (Chaos III) can create a 3x3 square of hell terrain, and it'll spread from there AC permitting.

Oh yeah, I guess that is a third way.