| abstract
| - The Illian race is at the core of the game's story. Fall From Heaven II takes place after a long, magically-enforced ice age with all civilizations attempting to rebuild their former empires--that is, all civilizations except for the Illians. For the Illians the ice age was what composed their glory days. They thrived in the snow and ice and they plan to restore and revert the world back to the Ice Age by reviving and summoning their God back into creation. This goal will eventually pit the Illian player against all other players in the game: if you ever come close to reaching your goal of summoning Auric Ascended into the game, by constructing The Draw (a prerequiste Ritual), you will automatically declare war on all civilizations in the game, and cannot make peace or have any diplomacy for the rest of the game. This tends to make playing the Illians an interesting experience. The first thing you will notice when playing the Illians is that they have access to Ice Mana via their Palace mana. Although the Slow spell (obtained from Ice I) isn't particular great, it is comparable to Blinding Light (Sun II), and you get it earlier. Summon Ice Elemental (obtained from Ice II) is quite a decent summon for a Channeling II spell for both invading and attacking. However, the reason why Ice Mana shines is found in Ice III, which allows an Archmage to cast Blizzard, which does 20-80% damage to all units within 2 tiles (and transforms those tiles to Ice, which gives Illian units a bonus due to the Winterborn promotion). This spell is possibly the most potent spell available to multiple units in the game, due to the high damage cap and the huge range. Illian cities are unique in that they treat Ice tiles as grassland--that is, a worked Ice tile provides 2File:Food.gif like a Grassland tile. Several things to note about this: 1.
* By building the Temple of the Hand (a unique building for the Illians that replace the Pagan Temple), you can transform all tiles within radius 2 of the city to Ice, so you can settle cities anywhere (e.g. Desert) and transform those cities into Ice tiles that act as Grassland tiles for the Illian Race 2.
* Since only you can get a benefit from Ice tiles, transforming your cities' land into Ice can discourage enemy conquests, as a captured Illian city on Ice produces no food and will quickly starve as your opponents cannot gain the 2File:Food.gif/Ice tile. 3.
* However, there is a tradeoff with the second point (above): Grassland tiles normally give an extra +1File:Commerce.gif when adjacent to a River. However, Ice tiles do not give this extra bonus--this forces you to consider carefully if it is worth the loss in commerce in riverside grassland cities to build the Temple of the Hand to make the city more defensible. Although the Illians' hero unit, Wilboman, doesn't come until Iron Working, the true strength of the Illians appears once you have constructed The White Hand Ritual, which summons the three Priests of Winter into the city that builds it. These are exceptional Channeling II units that can learn to cast Ice I and Ice II spells, and can become the spearpoint of an invading force. However, take care to keep your Priests safe, as you cannot build any more and upgrading them is the only way to obtain your Channeling III Disciple units to cast Blizzard. Illians are one of the game's villains, and therefore best way to win the game is to simply eliminate everyone else. This goes well with the Illians, because upon destroying a civilization, the Illians can build the Stir from Slumber ritul, granting them Drifa the White Dragon (provided they have researched Divine Essence), which is a 14+7 Ice strength Dragon. Once the Draw and Ascension is complete, you gain access to Auric Ascended, which is a 60 strength flying unit that can singlehandedly win the game. However, upon gaining Auric, watch out for the civilization highest in score that isn't the Illians: they will be awarded the Godslayer equipment, which, when equipped on any unit that fights Auric, auto-kills Auric. If Auric Ascended is slain in combat, the Illian player will lose all of his leader traits due to the death of the leader.
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