Killing a dragon.

[StarDancer]

Hi everyone.

It's been a good ten years or so since I've played and I see many things have changed. One thing I'm wondering about is the killing of the dragon.

I seem to recall that when we had a dragon on our lands we would pick one prov to be the dragon slayer. Everyone would send that prov soldiers and he would send them at the dragon. It was a group effort by everyone in the kingdom.

We now have a dragon in our kingdom and I just read a post from our Monarch stating that "All TMs must kill the dragon. Only TMs. Attackers are not required to kill the dragon."

Is that the norm now? That only TM's kill the dragon?

[Verminator]

It is assumed that a T/M can carry excess specs that they will never use for any purpose other than sending at the dragon. Some kingdoms prefer that their T/M provinces carry a LOT of excess specs, so that they can shoulder the load of the dragon slaying, allowing attackers to keep their military intact. It's a preference call really, not neccesarily "the norm" these days.

[StarDancer]

Well I guess this just confuses me. lol I don't think I carry anymore extra specs than an attacker carries extra thieves or mages.

[Shifty11]

In my honest opinion; You calculate the total health of the dragon and divide it by however many players you have in your KD, and have everybody send that many specs to fight it.

Rogues can propaganda to send specs and soldiers to fight the dragon, so they should be able to send at least 4x as much, so depending on however many rogues you have in your KD you might find yourself only required to send 0.6-0.8x.

[nooblet]

The change is that specs can be used to slay dragons; therefore it makes sense to place the burden of slaying primarily on provinces that won't normally be hit, rather than sacrficing the defense of an attacker who is then easier to chain.

Most kingdoms will split the burden roughly even with t/ms contributing slightly more, and chained attackers can release some of their defense to slay. Also, attackers with offspec will often send those first, especially if they're chained, since offspec are a lot more expendable than defense in most situations

[Zobo]

T/Ms are widely unaffected by war, and as war goes on, their defense because more and more UB. It's not much to ask to throw more specs at the dragon, than an attacker who may have grown and is already running lower DPA than they should, or an attacker who has been chained down, and has little to no defense left.

T/Ms have the economy and the ops to replenish military readily, as well, during war. And after a war win, they get all these free spec credits that they're not going to use for anything.

T/M and Faery is interchangeable, because if you're playing anything else, you better be attacking too. Faery is the only race that is excused from the dinner table that is attacking (and we still encourage our faeries to make 2 masses a day).

[StarDancer]

Okay, it makes a little more sense to me now. Thanks

[Palem]

The dragon is effecting everyone, so everyone should contribute to killing it. It goes much faster. (Obviously there are exceptions, but it's true for 99% of the server that can't kill a dragon the same tick it arrives)


Your nw/220 = Specs to send at dragon.

[StarDancer]

Thank you Palem! This I agree with. Makes the most sense and is fair to everyone.

[lastunicorn]

t/ms will almost never be targeted for attacks, thief ops, or mage ops in the ghetto unless the war is already won. Attackers, especially active ones, will be the target of all 3. Exchanging acres, losing troops, and getting fbed are huge hits to your economy. Just take a look at the aid thread during war, and you'll find that t/ms have excess gc, while attackers constantly need more. I don't think unless you have more than 5 t/ms that they should reasonably be expected to slay dragons without some help from attackers, but they should send more specs than attackers.

I never really understood the rationale of a dragon slayer. Why not just send the soldiers to the dragon yourself?

[Palem]

Thank you Palem! This I agree with. Makes the most sense and is fair to everyone.

Well don't get me wrong, there's definitely some merit to TMs sending more and attackers sending less, but to totally take any responsibility away from people is the wrong approach.

[Azureflames]

Dragon slayer was useful when you dealt percentage based damage to the dragon and had to send x soldiers to deal 1%.

[br3nt00]

its situation dependent. early in a war when the faeries arent quite as UB then the attackers should send to help kill the dragon.

later on in the war when attackers are getting railed and faeries are comfortably UB then faeries should take out the dragon by themselves (im assuming you've got ~4 of them). not only to save attackers dspecs, but also to repop with peasants to increase income and draft as soldiers to aid out. sitting with 100k def when the nearest enemy attacker has 60k is not optimal.

[Mandol]

50-70% of the dragon are killed by the hole kingdom(Except chained provinses). The remaning %?s are killed by your TMs. Its depend on how "UB" your TMs are.

Also killing a dragon is easy, but killing it the right moment is the trick. Wars can turn over in a matter of a tick if planned well by the leaders. (This days its too easy to fund dragons, so some times its better to keep it around and name it as a pet or you will waste all your specs killing them 1 after another:).

[Zobo]

50-70% of the dragon are killed by the hole kingdom(Except chained provinses). The remaning %?s are killed by your TMs. Its depend on how "UB" your TMs are.

Also killing a dragon is easy, but killing it the right moment is the trick. Wars can turn over in a matter of a tick if planned well by the leaders. (This days its too easy to fund dragons, so some times its better to keep it around and name it as a pet or you will waste all your specs killing them 1 after another:).

If this is the case, you should consider running more ops for econ control, or delaying hostilities to make FGs, Rob the Vaults, and Plunders (if they come in with lots of gold stacked up).

Edit: I guess I don't see that many long wars, but most often after the second dragon, the third is either going to take a long time, or won't come at all.