No Ice node

[Angel-Julia]

Hello,
I cant seem to build ice mana nodes, i researched elementalism, but that only opens up water, sun, earth, fire. i couldent see it listed anywhere else, even after researching necto/alteration etc i still couldent build ice nodes
I have one ice from the Illian palace, though want more for free promotions & afinity.

the infrastructure for ice is in place, with spells etc, just not the ability to build the nodes.
even in world builder it is not possible to build ice nodes.
I tried adding it to some of the xml files unit build build possibilities, though obviously i also need to add it somewhere else.

I'd like the possibility to build ice nodes, especially since i'm playing an Illian game, and i like to stick to lore approaches in my games, instead of going the usual fire+death combo.

 

[Ash_Highwind]

In base FFH2 there are only two icemanas one from the illians palace the other from letum Frigus, witch you should seek out for the Agression trait for your leader.

Sorry no icenodes unless you play Wildmana, or the other modmods.

best wishes

 

[Angel-Julia]

that kinda sux, its strange how you can build multiple nodes of other spheres, and not ice. well that kinda makes the ice ellemental ice-affiliation kind of redundant. it also seems kinda wrong Lore-wise to build fire nodes as Illian.

and there isnt Letum Frigus in my game.

I got half-way through coding in Ice mana into the game(how i think the game should be), then got bored of going through the .XML files, so i just WB'd 3 Letum Frigus over 3 mana nodes. i had elementalism, and that's where i figure Ice mana should be unlocked. I defionutly prefer that than going un-lorelike with fire mana for Illian. yes i know i can use water, wind etc, but it doesnt feel right for Illian: IMO ice is what i should be using lore-wise. I then turned down the aggressive trait offered by Letum Frigus in order to only gain mana(how it should be coded with ice mana available at elementalism) and not impact the game with a free aggressive trait.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Ice mana is limited in part because Ice spells are all very powerful. Slow is devastating against melee armies, ice elementals are good summons who would be extremely good with stacked ice mana, and Snowfall is arguably the best T3 spell in the game. Restricting access to ice mana helps balance issues and adds flavor to the Illians.

Although I personally think it would be better if the Illians only had the ability to create more ice mana--possibly through a ritual.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

In my modmod only Priests of Winter, High Priests of Winter, and (the mortal) Auric can build Ice Nodes.

 

[Angel-Julia]

yeah, snowfall is a nice spell, i guess that's the main point of ice. ice elementals afinity is useless if you cant build more ice mana nodes, slow is ok i guess, but my 5 adepts casting slow didnt stop the enemy melee SOD as it wore off, and they cast haste.

 

[Corlis]

Lorewise, the reasoning is that the old god of Winter was just recently killed, so the whole sphere is kind of unfocused at the moment. Opening up Ice once, say, The Draw was completed might make sense.

 

[Emptiness]

Ice Affinity doesn't need the abililty to build unlimited Ice nodes to have a point. One Ice node = +1 Str, 2 Ice nodes = +2 Str. The fact that you can't reach +3 doesn't make the +1 or +2 meaningless.

 

[Angel-Julia]

yeah, +1 does still do something.... though not quite enough. each mage can only cast one spell. so you have to chose which to persue. e.g. you have 3 nodes, for T2 spells you could chose to summon a spectre with +3affinity, OR an ice elemental with +1 afinity. on top of that the ice elemental can not be obtained through free promotions, so it also takes promotions.

so, we have a few options
1: Wrath+3 death afinity+empower5
2: Ice elemental+1 ice afinity+empower3

If you could build ice nodes then you would have:
3: Ice elemental+3 ice afinity+empower5
which is more on par with the other T2 summons.

I understand the flavour in only Illians(or people with letum Frigus) being able build ice nodes and getting the massively powerfall T3 ice spell. I'd suggest that the priests of the hand (Illian ritual UU) are capable of building ice nodes. that would make ice a feasable alternative for the Illians instead of the usual death/fire.

 

[a_civilian]

If you could build ice nodes then you would have:
3: Ice elemental+3 ice afinity+empower5
which is more on par with the other T2 summons.

These are the t2 summons:

Spectre: 3 strength with affinity, +1 move, fear (+1 strength with tower of necromancy/effective +2)
Fireball: 4 strength, +1 move, flying, collateral, bombard, no defense (+1 strength with tower of elements)
Host of the Einherjar: 5 strength, +1 duration after winning combat
Pit beast: 5 strength, +1 duration after winning combat
Ice elemental: 5 strength (+1 strength with tower of elements)

Ice elemental is the weakest, but not by far. Of course, hosts and pit beasts are themselves rarely used.

 

[Angel-Julia]

Yes, they look similar on paper.
I think the main thing is that the stacking or afinity is missing with ice elementals, that's one thing i really use with the spectres.

and then the extra 2 promotions wasted as you cant get Ice2 or ice3 by having 3 or 4 mana nodes respectively. these 2 wasted promotions then convert into 20% less strength on the elementals.

I am used to getting my most of my spell promotions through the use of mana node transformation (metamagic), so using all promotions on C5+SE2.

combining the inability to stack afinity on ice elementals and the wasted promotions does set back the Illians potential use of ice simply due to the inability to stack ice mana.

anyway, in the end i stick to ice in my Illian game because it just feels too wrong to use fire as Illians.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Obviously Ice feels weak when compared to Death; so does every other mana type. Comparing to Death, and especially to Spectres, is unfair. Death is by far the strongest military mana type, even taking into account that it has some very severe diplomatic consequences (which Ice doesn't have). If you want the best magic-based military, you should always always go for Death nodes.

This doesn't change the fact that Ice is a very strong military sphere overall, possibly second or third strongest. Let's compare to the other strong military spheres:

Ice vs Fire:
T1 spell: Ice
T2 spell: Fire, barely
T3 spell: Ice, even with stacked Fire mana

Ice vs Air:
T1 spell: Ice
T2 spell: Air
T3 spell: Ice

Ice vs Entropy:
T1 spell: Entropy
T2 spell: Entropy, barely
T3 spell: Ice

Ice vs Body:
T1 spell: Body
T2 Spell: Body (as long as you don't need summons as cannon fodder)
T3 spell: Ice


So Ice, without any mana stacking, checks in at 4th overall behind Death and slightly behind Entropy and Body. Not too bad. If Ice DID have mana stacking, it would far and away be the strongest sphere, arguably even stronger than Death. So basically you're advocating to make Ice stronger or as strong as the most unbalanced sphere in the game. I don't think this is really necessary to make Ice worthwhile.

 

[Angel-Julia]

I agree, ice is fairly strong in T1 and T3.
I see your points about the strengths of ice. i guess I just miss the afinity and the free promos, though i see it still has significant advantages with some strategies.

Generally i end out with nearly all T1 via the use of metamagic and changing one node to everything while picking up essential promotions in 4-6 battle buffers. indeed, in T1 you have a lot of essential buffs, like haste, enchant blade, rust, blur etc.

generally i promote my first two mages as homeland buffers with metamagic2, enabling me to cycle through the T1 options, then after picking up the promotions to my buffer adepts, while just Combat promos to my DDs. i make 3+ of my intented T2 sphere (normally fire, sometimes Death) and then upgrade all my adepts to mages at once, picking up their T2 spell in the process. if using death i stack afinity. if possible i try to make 3 earth nodes to pick up free stoneskin for my mages, enabling them to better farm exp in combat.

then when it comes to T3 i chose my summon of choice (Sun is a great option for the +2 afinity), and convert ALL nodes in my kingdom to that sphere, and so gaining the promos and super afinity. if mana nodes allow having 4 death at the time of upgrading will get free liech promotions.

now with ice it is not possible to get the free promos, so stacking mana becomes obsolete. this has drawbacks as mentioned above, and wastes 3 promotions, though i suppose it still opens the door for other spheres.

I guess you could always make 3 earth for getting stoneskin for the ice-elemental summoning mages.

or go for some other T2 support, Air for an AOE blast before the elementals, or fire for the bombard/collateral before sending in your elementals.

yes T3 ice AOE is fantastic, even worth the extra 3 promotions. after 2 blasts you'd max out the stack DMG, (or nearly 1 blast if on a C5 arcmage), thus meaning that it's good to acompany the AOE with some other spheres. Death is an obvious option for the wraths to clean up after the Ice3 AOE, also picking up Liechdom in the process. maybe even using fireballs for bombard may bahe benefits. first bombard, snowfall AOE, then attack the low HP units with your stoneskin mages for the exp.

somehow it feels like the best combo may be mixing ice and fire(not very lore-like for Illian), thus using the 3 fire nodes to pick up free promotions. thus enabling bombard to make the ice elemental attacks more effective, and also for the mage attacks after snowfall AOE.

I think it would be great if there was more variety in magic types used based on which civilisation chosen. e.g. each civilisation gets 20% extra dmg from one sphere of magic. thus each race will favour different spheres instead of the usual range of T1 buffs and then T2 fire, and T3 sun/death. that would add a bit more flavour to the civilisations.... though on second thought i guess htey kind of already have that with their free mana.

 

[DaveGold]

yes T3 ice AOE is fantastic, even worth the extra 3 promotions. after 2 blasts you'd max out the stack DMG, (or nearly 1 blast if on a C5 arcmage), thus meaning that it's good to acompany the AOE with some other spheres.

How about taking along some units to accompany the AOE? You needn't worry about your other spheres then. Units + aoe really is enough.

I agree, ice is fairly strong in T1 and T3.

Ice tier 2 is good but not because of any mages. The priests of winter find their summons very handy and it comes into the game early enough to function with just 1 level of ice mana.

I think it would be great if there was more variety in magic types used based on which civilisation chosen.

There's plenty of variety if you want to look for it. You're not playing the Bannor very well if you want to conquer the world with summoned spectres.

 

[Kranden]

I actually got the illians to trade me an ice mana in my most recent diety game. OHH MY GOD I have at least 14 archmage casters because I dominated a swarm of sons of the inferno as the clan. SOOOO op

 

[avalonnn]

I like it this way. It's a rare mana that you don't need too much. My builder strategy focuses on spirit, life, mind, health, earth, enchantment, and law. I only regret not having entropy and sometimes need fire.

 

[Kranden]

I like it this way. It's a rare mana that you don't need too much. My builder strategy focuses on spirit, life, mind, health, earth, enchantment, and law. I only regret not having entropy and sometimes need fire.

As long as I have fire body and Enchantment I can pull through anything, everything else is optional Haste fireballs regeneration and +1 weapons on a stack are just too good not to have.

 

[Azhral]

In my SP xml modded version I boost the ice affinity of both the Elementals and Auric. Quite simply, since you can only have a max of 2 ice mana its not that overpowered, and the only team that can really take advantage is the Illians, and this just gives them even more reason to hunt down and control Letum Frigus.

Ice Elementals boost to +2 Ice Affinity, remove one base Str
Auric Ascended remove +30 cold damage and add +30 Ice affinity

 

[a_civilian]

I'd rather make them less dependent on finding Letum Frigus, not more...