Dragons

[s0830887]

Sorry if this has been asked already. A quick search in the search box didn't yield many particularly useful results. As with all of the questions I post, a disclaimer: I appreciate the 'without context it's hard to say, it all depends, they all have their place...' etc. I'm more just asking for a general commentary on what dragons are most useful at what times with maybe a few brief examples. I play for a pretty small KD, 1/4 T/M, 3/4 attacker, 2xday logins.

Example:

Sapphire dragon seems to be the order of the day amongst the big guys, but why is that? Is it mostly to lower the enemy attacker T/M defenses so your T/M's can bring the pain or is it to lower enemy T/M abilities?

We would usually run with something like: Emerald, Emerald, Gold. I have no idea if that is any good or not - it just seemed intuitively useful. The dragon colours are new since I started playing again so to be honest I'm pretty clueless.

Thanks in advance for any help

[Runefire]

Sorry if this has been asked already. A quick search in the search box didn't yield many particularly useful results. As with all of the questions I post, a disclaimer: I appreciate the 'without context it's hard to say, it all depends, they all have their place...' etc. I'm more just asking for a general commentary on what dragons are most useful at what times with maybe a few brief examples. I play for a pretty small KD, 1/4 T/M, 3/4 attacker, 2xday logins.

Example:

Sapphire dragon seems to be the order of the day amongst the big guys, but why is that? Is it mostly to lower the enemy attacker T/M defenses so your T/M's can bring the pain or is it to lower enemy T/M abilities?

We would usually run with something like: Emerald, Emerald, Gold. I have no idea if that is any good or not - it just seemed intuitively useful. The dragon colours are new since I started playing again so to be honest I'm pretty clueless.

Thanks in advance for any help

All have their place.. context.. depends on goal. . etc etc :) My thoughts, not that I lead any super war kingdom, am simply a minion who does as he is told.

Regarding the use of Sapphire amongst the top (or actually just about most KDs these days I think), it is both. Makes NM/NS runs pretty powerful against attackers, and amongst the top it helps cause most often they are super pumped and so are probably running a higher TPA/WPA than smaller kingdoms. But opping through Sapphire dragons can be pretty nasty.

Ruby dragons if they are heavily trained. That decrease in ME can help protect your UBs or help you start to chain provinces that might be near UB, or those pesky T/Ms. I think it can be a nice first dragon as they are often the first killed and the likes of a Sapphire, Emerald or Gold are properly better the longer they are on the opponent.

Emerald could be good if you are waving people home, kill that valuable offense.

The only one I have never really seen used is the Gold dragon. Any time the KDs I have been in have had it on them have laughed and kept it.

[Musmatta]

We are a rather good war kingdom, we had 5/7 two ages ago, last age 6/5 etc. We are just a 20 man kingdom fighting other at simular size, ending the ages between 7-10mNW so we are not the larger war kingdom.

Anyway, we usualy fight economical warfare. We do keep a good econ amoung ourselvs, not gonna tell u how ;) But we almost always start out with a sapphire (if its killed fast, another sapphire) then a gold dragon (and another gold again if its killed fast).
We manage to found our dragons quick so thats usually not a problem.
What we have found out with this is that sapphire let us ruin income from top income provs fast as a freak, letting us reduce income from everyone down to basicly zero in a matter of the first day of war. This is where the gold dragon comes in handy, the gold dragon reduce its even more since it lower BE, and not only that. When they all are under 50% BE, other offensive builds and towers for runeproduction, farms for food etc does not realy apply anything for the province. In the long run, we usualy beat this cus we can affourd retraining while they cant. We have enough runes for spells, they have not etc.

We do also check throne page often, our attackers keep a high TPA for robbing gc, runes, food whenever a prov has some to take.

8 out of 10 wars for us is a loss in acres since we are fighting econ, but 8-9 out of 10 wars is a war win for us. Gold dragon is good, if you fight this way.

[copious]

Depends on your strategy going in with dragons.

Are you sending one offensively or defensively?

Examples Dragons sent to achieve different purposes:

Offensive:

Emerald Dragons sent by Orc/Elf/Faery KDs intending to mutiplicatively stack Orc increased damage losses + Pitfalls + Bribe Gens.
= (+15% Enemy casualties when attacking) x (+15% Enemy casualties when attacking) x (+25% Enemy casualties when attacking) x (+15% Enemy casualties when attacking)
= 1.15 x 1.15 x 1.25 x 1.15 = 190% losses on the enemy side.
Cleric personas compliment this strategy exceedingly well as your own offense is conserved further.

Defensive:

Emerald dragons sent on Orc/Avian/Dorf KDs used to limit their gains (Orcs = 130% gains x 0.85 = 110.5%, Dorf = 90% gains x 0.85 = 76.5% gains)
Also increases their losses, or attempts to use the enemy's activity and speed against themselves (vs Avians)
Non cleric personas are more susceptible to this strategy played out a longer duration.
Warheros, naturally, are immune.

Offensive:

Sapphire dragons sent by heavy TM KDs on KDs with all attackers only.

Defensive:

Sapphire dragons sent by heavy attacker KDs to counter better TMs in TM heavy KDs.
Running WTs kd wide fortifies this strategy.

Offensive:

Gold Dragons sent on high draft KDs to penalise their BE and building utility.

Defensive:

Gold Dragons sent on Dorf KDs to mitigate the bonus high science dorf KDs have stacking with +30% BE.
Assume Dorf has +15% BE science: 130% x 1.15 = 149.5% BE
Gold Dragon = -25%BE = 149.5% x 0.75 = 112% BE

Dragons sent right can also limit opponent's warring economy, or make opponent TMs hittable
(if say, you sent Ruby with the intention of breaking 2 enemy TMs before / during war, (through Massacres or Trads)
Sometime KDs only surrender when their endgame looks bleak and irrecoverable from (breaking 3 of 5 TMs, for e.g)

[tras19]

Sapphire will protect you from tm heavy kds or give your tms the boost they need if they struggle to op. Ruby is good at beginning most wars to protect your top or to drop the enemies top. Emerald is good against an attacker heavy kd to slow down gains and kill more troops. Gold are just wicked but you need to keep it on them for extended periods of time so they good after a day or two in war

[jsmeaze]

Ruby, gold, gold, gold

Or Em, gold gold gold

Against some kingdoms sapphire gold gold gold

[tras19]

anything really then gold, gold, gold.... haha

[s0830887]

Thanks for the advice you guys. Interesting to see what you think - I never really thought of dragons as being both offensive and defensive. Still learning, for sure.

Another question - a lot of KD's we have fought have left their dragons instead of killing them. What is the value of this? Is it common? We kill all of ours as quickly as reasonably possible. Is leaving them alone an actual strat or just laziness or bad co-ordination or what?

[tras19]

thats called tanking a dragon. it just sometimes happens in different strategies and kd setups that sometimes tanking a dragon is better than killing. killing dragons requires specs to be lost. this is dropping your kds defense/offense as well as your networth. so sometimes it is better to tank. i prefer killing most of them personally but different kds run different ways.

for instance say your kd has awesome tm power but lacked attack power. you have a sapphire dragon on you and you can still op almost all their kd easily enough. if you know they have funded a different dragon that would be worse on you, then you can tank the sapphire. this will force them to waste gc by either sending the new dragon before the sapphire has been killed, or by having a bunch of gc tied up in a dragon that they dont wanna send til the sapphire would be dead. you would keep some kd nw intact and cost them a bit of extra gold by tanking that sapphire for a couple days.

[Ahab]

What copious said +1.