Better Know a Pretender: The Green Dragon

[Foodstamp]

The dragon form has stealth in CBM as well?

Right, in CBM I agree on not needing awe, 20 armor is enough to take care of most indies. I think the rational for increasing the poison attack is that, left as is in vanilla, it simply does not compare to the fire or ice attacks of the other two dragons.

[WingedDog]

Don’t miss our special offer: let your Dragon out expanding without awe, collect all possible afflictions and get a free title ‘Dragon of thousand wounds’.

Seriously, I have seen in several MP games aweless Dragons of my opponents been killed by independents, or had mass afflictions after expansion stage. Also I had personal negative experience: in YARG game I used Blue Dragon with dom7. On turn 7 or so he had received a lucky hit from militia troop and ‘Disease’ affliction was successfully added to his already present ‘Limp’ and ‘Chest wound’. Very next turn he received ‘Mute’ as a result of disease, and it didn’t go well with my long-term strategy.
It isn't nessesary you will repeat my story, but tests I made afterwards displayed Dragon without Awe is a gamble. If you feel lucky - sure, try it, I know I won't anymore.

Another thing I understood through my experience: Pretender SC’s should be expandable. I see no sense of spending too much design points on someone who’s main job is to risk his life on the battlefield. Adding extra death path on the Dragon costs a lot, but he is capable of expanding early without it and Fear and Soul Vortex wouldn’t save him from horde of undeads + Rigor mortis in midgame. IMO SC’s are better combined with high dominion and good scales, if strong death magic is so viable for the nation it is better to choose another pretender.

[OmikronWarrior]

Originally Posted by Grijalva

Right, in CBM I agree on not needing awe, 20 armor is enough to take care of most indies. I think the rational for increasing the poison attack is that, left as is in vanilla, it simply does not compare to the fire or ice attacks of the other two dragons.

That may be half true. The Blue Dragon has the best breath attack: AoE:3, AP, and high damage. That being said, I think the Green Dragon actually does comparable damage, its just damage delayed due to the nature of poison. On the otherhand, the Red Dragon has the worst breath attack because it is only AoE:1. The damage in that one square is great, but none of the Dragons have the precision to be accurately hit a single square, even at close distances. Larger Area of Effects help this, somewhat.

Perhaps more importantly, all of the breath weapons on the major three Dragons are a sideshow, a little something to do to weaken the enemy before engaging in melee and routing the enemy with Fear while staying alive with high protection and HP. The more important reason to choose one Dragon over the other is to pick up an important magic path for diversity. Even the Red Dragon, probably the weakest of three though still fine for Turn-2 expansion, lets an Archery heavy nation without fire magic cast Flamming Arrows.

Just checking out the new Green Breath Attack, it confirmend by suspicions. With a larger Area of Effect, it misses less often while poisoning a lot more soldiers. The average independent walks away from a bile attack taking 2-4 poison damage the first round. Under CBM, soldiers easily take 2 doubling that and insuring their eventual demise.

Its hardly game breaking in the grand scheme of things, but AoE:10 definitely makes the Green Dragon better than the other two by a long shot.

@Foodstamp, No Dragon has stealth in Dragon form, not in the game and not in CBM.

Originally Posted by WingedDog

Don’t miss our special offer: let your Dragon out expanding without awe, collect all possible afflictions and get a free title ‘Dragon of thousand wounds’.

Seriously, I have seen in several MP games aweless Dragons of my opponents been killed by independents, or had mass afflictions after expansion stage.

Another thing I understood through my experience: Pretender SC’s should be expandable.

Well, of course they are more vulnerable without awe, but awe+0 costs 250(!) design points on a dragon.

Granted, my aweless dragon would simply be a caster by midgame, maybe with an affliction or two, but having awe isn't really going to change that situation; the midgame is simply a dangerous place for a big green monster with few slots.

I guess I just see the dragon as a cheap early expander who is a good choice for nations that lack decent starting troops but need good scales. I lack your bad experiences with the dragon too, though there is a significant risk of getting afflictions, true.

However, I did try something similar to your example for a recent game (that's now going poorly for me )

As MA Ctis I chose an awake, dom4, earth4, n4 dragon with good scales (O3H3D1M3). I took earth for a few reasons: 1: ctis has none of it and earth is one of the hardest magics to bootstrap. 2: it boosted his protection by 2. I know that sounds funny, but in tests that seemed to make a significant difference in how often he would get early-expansion-afflictions. Lastly the E/N bless is helpful (but maybe not worth it in retrospect) for some of their sacreds.

In tests and in that particular game, the dragon fulfilled his job quite well, boosting initial expansion without being too vulnerable. When he got himself killed in that particular game, I found that (when resurrected) in druid form he still had N3E3! I'm not sure why this happened, perhaps because he was killed in dragon form? Anyway, it was a bonus because he was still a valuable earth-caster-forger in that case.

Anyway, I think we just have a different cost-benefit opinion of early SCs, a dragon with awe still looks tasty to me, just not my flavor.

@OmikronWarrior

You make good points but I think that you are mixing up the CBM green dragon with its Vanilla counterparts. I was referring to the CBM dragons.

In CBM, the dragons all have boosted aoe attacks, I don't know how else the stats have been modified. But still, the green dragon may be the best for the reasons you mentioned.

[LDiCesare]

I wouldn't compare a dragon and a wyrm. They fill different roles in my opinion. Wyrms are pure SCs, expendable, better used with awe and 0 magic path.
Dragons are early expanders, not expected to last long in this role (whereas a magic-less wyrm remains efficient longer) and a good single-bless chassis.
I prefer blue dragons over the rest because an F bless is somewhat limited, while W increases the dragon's defense and is more useful in general (at W9). Nature can be a good bless, but those nations that benefit from it most will likely want an E bless on top (all giants). The bile attack of the green dragon in vanilla is just worthless, whereas the ice breath is useful, if not much.

In my opinion, your pick a dragon because you want to expand fast and benefit from a bless (I got some good results with W9 blue dragons with EA T'ien Ch'i for instance). Once you've built enough armies that your dragon no longer has indies to take out, bring him back to a lab, or a province where you want to push your dominion, and have him forge stuff/research until he is needed for a battle with some army support.

[WingedDog]

Originally Posted by Grijalva

I found that (when resurrected) in druid form he still had N3E3!

Ressurected pretenders loose 1 point in each magic path. Since your Pretender was originaly N4E4 - after ressurection he becomes N3E3.

Originally Posted by Grijalva

Anyway, I think we just have a different cost-benefit opinion of early SCs, a dragon with awe still looks tasty to me, just not my flavor.

Sure, I was just sharing my personal experience, so people who want to try Aweless Dragon were aware about possible consequences.

Oh right, I was confusing the effects of pretender-death with those of the "mute" affliction.

[OmikronWarrior]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

I wouldn't compare a dragon and a wyrm. They fill different roles in my opinion. Wyrms are pure SCs, expendable, better used with awe and 0 magic path.
Dragons are early expanders, not expected to last long in this role (whereas a magic-less wyrm remains efficient longer) and a good single-bless chassis.

Care to explain why Wyrms remain as efficient SC's longer than Dragons?

Just looking at stats, the Wyrm does have the advantage of natural regeneration, some extra HP, and a second head. That is not really a deal breaker either way.

I think you mean to say that Wyrms can be killed and do not loose paths because they did not have them to start. OK, there is a lot of truth to that. Still, a good player can manage risk and still use a Dragon very effectively in combat depending on the opposition. Also, there is not a lot of difference that I can think of between a Nature-5 and a Nature-6 human mage. Meaning if enough Nature is bought, loosing one in a path is not a deal breaker.

I prefer blue dragons over the rest because an F bless is somewhat limited, while W increases the dragon's defense and is more useful in general (at W9). Nature can be a good bless, but those nations that benefit from it most will likely want an E bless on top (all giants). The bile attack of the green dragon in vanilla is just worthless, whereas the ice breath is useful, if not much.

In my opinion, your pick a dragon because you want to expand fast and benefit from a bless (I got some good results with W9 blue dragons with EA T'ien Ch'i for instance). Once you've built enough armies that your dragon no longer has indies to take out, bring him back to a lab, or a province where you want to push your dominion, and have him forge stuff/research until he is needed for a battle with some army support.

There is really nothing here that is not in my write up, except the bit about the Blue Dragon being best (nothing else considered), which is probably true. I do disagree about the breath attack being worthless. A sideshow, yes, but it can and will kill enemy troops. Yet, the reason to pick any Dragon is the extra path is provides (and flying).

That being said, I think Pretenders should be approached in a more general sense when writing guides about them. There are multiple reasons to pick a Pretender, I view my job is to explain those reasons, then explain what the Pretender can do, and then leave it up to reader to figure out what he or she (OK, he) wants to do with the Pretender. This is especially important because a lot of Pretenders are available to multiple nations and giving a specific strategy for one nation might not easily transfer to others.

[zlefin]

one VERY important point to consider with green dragon is its ability to (barring a nasty mute or feeblemind affliction) cast Gift of Health; which can cure any afflictions he's gotten earlier, as well as even being able to heal a feeblemind or mute gotten after you've cast it (as long as you still live). GoH + regen is always strong, and lets the dragon be quite dangerous defensively even later in the game. Of course whether you can get up GoH in a game depends a lot on game size and your nations, but it's an important point to consider for the green d.