Epic creature

An epic creature is a giant version of a creature. They are encountered in the Creature Stage of the game and in subsequent stages. Epic cells also exist in the Cell stage. Epic creatures appear randomly, and their appearance is dictated by specific criteria programmed to software.

They act like the creature they are based on, and will not attack non-epic creatures of their own species, and they will battle other different Epics should they encounter them.

It should be noted that epic creatures are totally distinct from Hyper-Sized Creature, the latter of which is much larger and only exists in Spore as huge skeletons and footprints.

Legless creatures and herbivores cannot appear as live Epics (Except in the rare case of an Epic entering a cocoon and transforming into one), but may be found dead early in the Creature stage and can be supersized in the Space stage.

Abilities
Epic creatures have a specific moveset, reflecting their size and power by using attacks that a monster such as Godzilla, Gamera or King Kong would use. Examples of these are as follows:


 * Strike: The epic will slash with one of its claws/hands. This only applies to epics with graspers.


 * Fist smash: The epic will wind back and slam it's fist into the ground. This has shorter range than strike, but does more damage. It requires graspers to use.


 * Stomp: The epic's famed Stomp ability. It will lift it's leg and stomp its feet. In the Creature stage, this can kill any creature instantly no matter how much health (not including other epics). It requires feet to use, so all Epics have this ability.


 * Super Stomp: A Harder, more powerful stomp. The creature will use much more effort in it's attack, and upon contact with the ground, it would make a small shockwave damaging those in range. It cannot be used in the creature stage.


 * Bite: The epic will throw down its head, jaws open, and bite the victim. All epics have this attack, because all epics have mouths.


 * Head swing: The epic will swimg its head from left to right once. This requires a strike weapon on it's head to use.


 * Tail spin: The epic will turn around, outstretch its tail then quickly turn back to whip its tail at the victim. This requires a strike part on it's tail to use.


 * Fireball: The epic will make a growling noise, then release a ball of fire from its mouth. this is a spoof of Godzilla. It does not exist in the Creature stage or Tribal stage.


 * Spit: This works exactly like the fireball, only it would poison the target, and it also deals less damage when compared to a Fireball. It is similar to the Spit ability, and requires a spit part to use.


 * Chomp: The epic will pick you up, take a bite out of you and then throw you, sometimes going far away from the epic. Sometimes your creature will catch fire.

Cell stage


Occasionally, Epic cells can be found in the Cell stage. They can range from just about the size of your screen to more than four times the size of your screen (as shown in the video below). These can kill your cell with just one bite. However, as your cell gets larger, the epics get smaller (in relation to your cell) and can be killed easily.

Creature stage


Epic creatures are not scared by the Raging Roar or soothed by the Siren Song. Summon Flock, however, can be used to deal minor damage on epics. But there is another way how to kill an epic which is called `kiting`. This technique involves having level 5 or 4 speed and level 5 spit. How the player does it is: keep running backwards when the epic creature is chasing you, and use spit as much as you can. The only problem is that it will take a very long time without spit level four or five, and even then, it takes quite a while.



In Creature stage, Epics can pick up a creature and throw it (likely earning Flight of the Bumblebee), and are able to kill most ordinary creatures with a single attack, as their attacks can take away 100 or more health per hit.

Rogue Creatures are able to survive multiple hits because they have 250 health, but will die instantly if an Epic stomps on it. They are slower than normal creatures and will cease pursuit shortly after losing sight of a creature.

When engaging an Epic, the most effective tactic seems to be kiting, using Spit in a hit and run manner. Multiple Rogue allies can help take out a few hundred hit points from the Epic at the start of the fight. Another good tip is fighting a relatively weak epic, especially one with no gliding ability.

Kiting the Epic through trees can cause it to be temporarily stuck. From here, you can just stand in one place and use Spit. Kiting back to your nest can get your kind to start attacking it, and they can even block it from moving while attacking it (this happens more frequently than in the trees). This is the fastest way to kill Epics since spitting alone does very little damage. Starvation can be a real issue during Epic killing, but if you can get it stuck in trees or at your nest you'll be losing HP more slowly than the Epic. If you don't get it stuck, be prepared to eat something while you fight from time to time.

Social abilities can be used with epics, but only if you have befriended a nest of normal versions of the epic. Despite this, you cannot add epic creatures to your pack. It is unknown whether this was intentional or whether this is a glitch.

Very rarely, if you have hunted the normal version of an epic close to extinction, it may be terrified of you.

If you do a mating call near an epic it will stop whatever it was doing and roar at you. You can use this as a distraction by pressing backspace/clicking the mating call button and then running while the epic is distracted.

It was once thought that having the Epic near your nest is a good way to go because you can keep re-spawning, but it was later found that when you re-spawn, the Epic's health is restored fully to 1,000. Their health will only re-spawn however if you have the second official Spore patch installed. However, if the Epic is standing in the nest when it kills you, your egg will hatch directly beneath it, which protects you from damage because the Epic cannot back away to a point where it can hit you. You can now attack the Epic using Strike and Bite with no risk to yourself.

When fighting a Epic creature near your nest, your nest members will not die, instead they will distract the Epic. This is a good strategy because the epic is only after you. A good strategy is to keep walking backwards while spitting at the Epic to avoid getting stepped on.

If you find a rock pinnacle near an Epic without charge, you can use it as a defense against the Epic. It is possible to spit through rocks, and the Epic will not go around the rock unless a nearby creature moves it and it sees you afterward. This method takes quite a while, but it has almost no risk.

Killing an Epic in Creature stage gives you the Epic Killer Achievement as well as 100 DNA and a full stomach (for omnivores and carnivores).

Another way of dealing with Epics is to use spit to lure them to your nest. Occasionally the Epic will get stuck at the edge of the nest and with your level 4 or 5 spit you can attack from a distance while your nest mates fight it. If you have installed patch 3, dying will restore your health and the Epic will still be there same health. You can gets its attention again by spitting, and then your nest mates will Slash and bite at it until it goes down. You will still get epic killer achievement.

The number of Epics on a planet is not determined by difficulty, but it is set in stone for any planet regardless of difficulty.

Early Creature stage
During the early Creature stage, it is possible to see epic creatures that have only 500 health, which some have deemed "Half-Epics"

Tribal stage


In Tribal stage, the player will find one or two Epics in his continent. The player can kill Epics easier in this phase by having many tribe members with weapons. Killing an Epic in Tribal stage gives a lot more meat than standard creatures for Omnivorous or Carnivorous tribes.

It should be noticed that though Epics may follow your Tribesmen back to your tribe, they rarely, if ever, will enter it, most likely due to the large amounts of buildings make it hard for it to move about.

The best way to take down an epic, especially those that move especially slow and lack wings, is to use spears and keep at a distance, especially when one uses one tribesman to lure the beast in circles as his allies continue to pelt it with spears.

If you do kill an Epic in Tribe Stage, you can get from 100-300 Food (specifically Meat), or even higher.

Sometimes, an Epic may come across a tribesman with a maraca. The Epic will walk up to the tribesman and sometimes, just before the Epic delivers a deadly blow, the tribesman will raise his maraca just above his head and shake it lightly. The Epic will be slightly surprised, and then, like a baby entranced by a shaking rattle, it will start staring curiously at the maraca and examining it, turning it's head from side to side inquisitively, for some time. The Epic will have calmed down by now and, also like a baby, will reach out and try grab the maraca(along with the tribesman). And then, ALSO like a little baby, it will chew at the maraca and tribesman, then throw it to the ground angrily and walk away. This, along with the fact that the religious music of Civilization Stage vehicles can charm Epics, suggests that Epics, with their bestial and simple minds, are more fascinated by music than other creatures normally are.

There is usually 1 Epic in Tribal Stage.

Civilization stage


The player will find one or two Epics in each continent. They use a fire-breath attack (this is probably meant to be a spoof of Godzilla) against units, aircraft and buildings, and can also use more standard swipes and stomps. The epics have 3000 health. The player can defeat Epics with military vehicles, with the city's turrets, or religious vehicles(Fighting them with aircaft is probably a spoof of King Kong). When you send religious vehicles after them, it makes them stop attacking and they will dance. this will wear off in a moment. On the timeline, it says that you `charmed` an Epic. Killing Epics in Civilization stage doesn't give anything to the player, but Epics do high damage to the player's vehicles and buildings, destroying vehicles in only a few hits. This can make war and trade more difficult. If an Epic enters a city, it will be attacked by the citizens and it will shortly after be killed off, even if it still has health. This may be more of a feature than a glitch made by Maxis to prevent total destruction of a player's city. A useful tactic for when Epics enter cities is to delete all the buildings and keep respawning turrets.

There are Usually 3 Epics In Civilization Stage.

Space stage


In the Space stage, normal Epics will become much rarer than before, likely due the fact that empires with powerful weapon systems killed most of them, they appear in habitable planets and will act as they do in Civilization stage. They will attack creatures, UFOs and cities with a fire-breath attack. Sometimes they will enter and attack a colony, but won't attack the city hall. If they enter it, just like in civilization stage, will get attacked by the colony's citizens.

Beware when colonizing planets, because epic creatures can do really heavy damage. Killing Epics in Space stage doesn't give anything to the player. They also are too large for the cargo hold. Strangely, Epics have the ability to survive on T-0 planets.

Sometimes, when the player puts animals in a planet, an epic creature will generate on it.

Also, if you abduct sentient species and put them near the epic, sometimes they will start to attack it with spears and stone axes, rarely, killing him, unless he is weakened by the UFO tools, in other cases they just run in panic as soon as they see the epic. If the sentient creatures win they start to make a roar-like sound, then wander the place. You get nothing for doing this and it doesnt work with normal animals.

Supersized Creatures


Only appearing in Space stage, Supersized Creatures are a sub-class of epic creatures. They are creatures affected by the UFO tool "Supersizer", and are not natural, but artificial Epics. Apart from this, they act exactly like Epics, stomping and swiping at things, sending fire-breath attacks, grabbing, biting and then throwing creatures, etc. They also can be easily killed by the UFO's weapons.

Galactic Adventures
Epics can be put into adventures in Galactic Adventures. To place one, simply place any creature into the adventure, hold shift and scroll the mouse wheel. The creature will automatically skip from Rogue size to Half-Epic size, then can be made even bigger. Hyper-Sized creatures cannot be created. Epics will be as powerful as the person who is making to adventure wants them to be, by dragging the damage slider and health slider up. As soon as a creature is turned into an epic, it will have the ability to breath fire balls.

Spore Hero
Epic creatures appear in Spore Hero, but aren't as vicious.

Trivia

 * If you ally (or at least get a friendly blue face) with an Epic's species, it will act friendly towards the player, waving and dancing. However, they cannot be added to your pack, most likely for balance reasons.


 * Epic creatures will normally fight each other if left alone in an open area, generally one dying, although rarely the 2 Epics will kill each other in the fight, this is actually to a players benefit, it leaves them 2 less Epics to deal with.


 * It is possible to duplicate an epic creature in the Space stage by using a Supersizer on another Epic.


 * "Epicize","Epicized" - Occasionally the player will find a notice like this on his "My Spore" page in the "Events" section:

"(UserName) epicized (CreatureName) in the Space stage. Thu January 15, 2009"

This notice appears when a player has epicized another creature in the Space stage. It seems that it is phrased that way for brevity and consistency.


 * Epics are quite weak compared to Captains in Spore Galactic Adventures, with the spit-and-run tactic mentioned above, only with missiles or another ranged Captain ability. Captains are also much more versatile than basic creatures with use of certain utility items such as the jet pack or shield.

Known Glitches

 * Although technically not a glitch, there is a rare occurrence that will cause an extremely large number of epics to spawn on the player's planet. It is unknown what causes this, but usually, all the epics will be made by the player. It is also possible for there to be no epics on the players starting continent


 * In the Civilization Stage, it is possible to find a normal sized epic which is the same size of the rest of its species. However, it makes the same sounds as an epic, and has 1,000 health.


 * Rarely in Creature stage, if a Rogue dies, it will turn into a friendly Epic that is in your pack.


 * Sometimes, if you try and kill an epic in the creature stage, it will heal wherever you go. To solve that glitch, just save and exit.
 * In one bit when you kill an epic, it will fall between a tree and some bones and it will start moving by itself like it was still breathing
 * Sometimes in space stage, can you se a dressed epic of your game creature.