The Dragon Hoard

[YohanLeafheart]

So, I finally had a hit onto the Big Red Dragon. Got my Hero (The Ashen Veil One, forgot the name), 2 conjurers, and adept and a ritualist. Buffed the hero and alone he took it, and what happened, nothing I can tell you that I got a lot frustrated for that, and many ideas of what to do with the dragon came to my mind. I will put them here This ideas are not self excluded, the second one would work perfectly with the first.

The Dragon Slayers

The Dragon Hoard would not only be one city with a Red Dragon, but 2 or more (depending on the map size) in diferent parts of the map. The Dragon would keep a Dragon Treasure, an ammount of gold that increases by a small percentage every turn (say 1%). Everytime someone fought the dragon and lost, a percentage of its hammer cost (let's say, 50%) would be add to the Dragon Treasure. When the Dragon is finally slain, the following would happen:

• Slayer of DRAGON_NAME: All the surviving units on the stack would get a Promotion called Slayer of DRAGON_NAME. The promotion would give:
  • +20% Attack Bonus vs. All Dragons
  • A Fear like ability that would have a 20% chance of entering in effect.
  • For X turns you would get a +y bonus on diplomacy named "ZOMG You killed DRAGON_NAME."

The Idea behind this is to represent the moral of the troops that defeated such a beast and the fear of the other nations of your military might. If any unit has 2 or more of this Promotion, it would become a Hero, after all, if you can survive against 2 dragons, you sure are something.

​

• Looting the Cave: After defeating the Dragon you would get the option to Found a New City or Loot the Treasure:
  • If you choose to Found a city, the Dragon Treasure would give the he city a bonus of ceil(Dragon Treasure / 100) to its incoming, and +2 , reflecting the huge amount of trade that Treasure would yeild.
  • If you Loot the Treasure, the whole Dragon Treasure would be add to your treasure, reflecting the pillage of the cave.

• The Celebration: For 2 turns all of your cities would celebrate your heroic deed.

The biggest problem with this idea, is that on the later game, killing the dragons would be too easy, and so, probably the aging idea below would be a nice add.

Age of Dragons

One of the things I missed was the Era Changes on the game. It is a nive thing of vanilla that I hope would be add in some way here. The Age of Dragons, is my first possible way.

"One day, the Dragons of Earth will raise. This Titans of the past will try to reclaim their right to rule the world with a fiery might. No city will be safe unless they are stoped."

During the game, depending on the speed, the Age would start, in X places of the map (depending on the map size) a dragon would spawn in a city (his cave). But instead of staying on it, on a 2 or 3 squares radius he would attack any unit that appeared, and come back to his cave (max 2 attacks per turn).

The Dragon would get XP everyturn, as a Hero unit, reflecting his aging. But Each of his promotion would give +10% Strengh besides the normal bonus (i.e. the City Attack I would be +30% City Attack and +10% Strengh). Making the Dragon even more fearsome.

After a good ammount of turns (again varying with Game Speed), probably twice or thrice (is this correct? ) each game, the dragon would have an Offspring. A Dragon baby with only 1 Strengh that never left the city, but it is a Dragon nonethless. The Baby would grow 1 Strength, every 5 turns, and when it is an Adult, Strength 16, it would live the mother nest, to find one for it self, destroying Villages, Towns, Mines, Roads and other improvements on its way. Everything it destroyed would be, again, add to its treasure, if the first idea should be implemented. When it found a neutral Hill, within a minimum distance of the mother (again, based on map size), it would settle and make the city.

The Bonus for kiling these Dragons would work the same as on the first idea.

Other neat Ideas

Some other things could be done, making it even nicer.

• Fear the Dragon: If a Dragon Nest is in the Cultural radius of your city, you get -X "Wefear the Dragon", where X is higher the close the Nest is of your City.
• I'm Afraid of no Dragon: If one civilization kills on the Dragons of the map, it gets access to an World World, The Dragon is my b****, with the following bonus:
  • +2 in every city
  • Free Courage promotion for units produced in that city
  • +50% on the city it is built
  • +4 (Increase chance of Great Bard)

This is it for now, if I think of something else I will tell you.

EDIT: Fixed some spelling errors.

 

[Sureshot]

Here are some quotes I remembered about dragons and possibly making them grow in numbers (I'm a big fan of that as well, though I do remember Kael saying he didn't really want multitudes of dragons)

I really like the idea of giving the red dragon the hero promotion. I find myself wishing it was a little more of a challenge to get rid of the big guy.

Along those lines I was wondering if it would be possible to have the red's city spawn some mini-dragons/whelps/hatchlings or whatever instead of the regular orcs. These little fellas could roam around the perimiter of the city like regular animals. That way the red dragon's city can have a countryside full of his little minions, making it a little bit harder to just amble up to the city and take it.

I really like this idea. In my current game I've got a barbarian city right on my border with huge culture and the giant red dragon. But I'm not scared, he doesn't move, and the only thing coming my way from there is Archers.

It'd be really neat if whelps roamed around the way animals do, but if they gain enough experience they can become a mid sized dragon that can enter civ borders (like a non-animal barbarian), and then after a certain level there if they take over a city they become a full sized one and become stationary there. It'd be like having mini-civs within the barbarian state, and allow serious Dragon fear pandemics.

Added:
Also, it'd be neat to have similar things with other types of creatures. Like a huge Kraken or other sea monster spawns in a coastal barbarian city and doesn't leave (nesting or something) and then its younglings roam around the sea like animals (no going in civ borders), if one gets lucky and levels up a bit they get bigger and become mid sized and capable of attacking cities, and then if they level enough and take over a coastal city they become huge and stay in that city to progress their species.

Maybe make them get slow xp on their own (someone recommended this for the big dragons, which would really help) so that they do eventually get there, but because its a slow system players have plenty of time to prepare for beast attacks.

 

[Bad Player]

I like the ideas!!! you put forth but Kael's the man in charge and knows what he's doing and where the mod's headed.

Maybe a test map using these things could be made and see what people (esp the design team ) thought about them?

 

[tyrantpimp]

I like the idea of the dragon gaining xp like a hero, they are pushovers later in the game thats for sure.

 

[Grillick]

I like the idea of the dragon gaining xp like a hero, they are pushovers later in the game thats for sure.

I'd rather see the dragons gain xp like an adept, or a disciple unit. That way, the experience they can gain isn't capped, so there isn't a time when they stop getting better, but you continue to do so.

 

[evanb]

[/INDENT]

• Looting the Cave: After defeating the Dragon you would get the option to Found a New City or Loot the Treasure:
  • If you choose to Found a city, the Dragon Treasure would give the he city a bonus of ceil(Dragon Treasure / 100) to its incoming, and +2 , reflecting the huge amount of trade that Treasure would yeild.
  • If you Loot the Treasure, the whole Dragon Treasure would be add to your treasure, reflecting the pillage of the cave.

• 
  
  The city in which Acheron resides contains the Dragon's Horde world wonder, but your ideas also sound interesting.
  
  

  Age of Dragons

  There has already been an Age of Dragons in the FfH universe -- the first age (as per the History Extract). And I believe there are enough Dragons in the mod. I'm sick and tired of dragons everywhere in fantasy games (Heroes 5, especially...).

 

[QES]

Many of these ideas have merit, and when it gets to the "quest" section of development i'd not mind at all seeing many of these or more ideas implemented.
-Qes

 

[Lord Vermillion]

I think these ideas are excellent, and should be implemented A.S.A.P......but thats just my opinion

 

[Mahatmajon]

I wouldn't mind a much smaller & minor tweak to improve the dragon. In addition to the Dragon Hoard wonder providing bonus gems it shoudl also provide +100% and maybe +1 or +2 .

 

[QES]

You know, in my opinion, itd be very cool if the Horde, and Red dragon were seperate from a barbarian city entirely. Somewhere on the map could be "the horde" a feature in whatever tile (hills or desert, or tundra maybe) the red dragon gets spawned in. Then the red dragon should wander around and DESTROY things. Personally, it'd be great if the red dragon could never capture cities, but run amok throughout the world before someone finally killed the bugger. Maybe whenever the dragon got damaged, he'd be forced to return to the "horde" location and rest. The longer the red dragon lives, the bigger the "horde payout" is when someone finally finds it (and kills the red dragon).
-Qes

 

[Chandrasekhar]

As long as the red dragon gets a spell to return to the hoard as soon as he sees it threatened.

 

[eerr]

dragon slayer promotion- +1 xp per turn indefinately(200?) +1 icombat, same power as fear
given to the unit that slays the dragon
only if the dragon was above the units icombat to start(after hp)

 

[Kael]

Im going to boost the payout of the horde now that buildings can grant 3 bonus's. Instead of just granting gems, it will grant gems, mithril and gold.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Im going to boost the payout of the horde now that buildings can grant 3 bonus's. Instead of just granting gems, it will grant gems, mithril and gold.

Hm, maybe I should try the Grigori...

 

[Kael]

I also let Acheron start with the new Stoneskin promotion. The stoneskin promotion protects the unit from any damage in the next three hits. If a unit takes 3 hits in a single combat the promotion goes away and the battle continues as normal. If the unit doesn't take 3 hits they won't take any damage and the promotion remains.

Make it a little easier for Acheron to ignore minor damage, you gotta win at least three combat rounds with Acheron to take out his Stoneskin.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Does he regain it at the beginning of each turn? And also, will Eurabatres and Abashi get this?

 

[Kael]

Does he regain it at the beginning of each turn? And also, will Eurabatres and Abashi get this?

Nope, once his stoneskin is lost its lost. And I dont have any plans to give it to Eurabatres or Abashi (the players of those civs will need to cast it themselves).

 

[vorshlumpf]

Very cool. Anything to help poor Acheron is okay by me.

- Niilo

 

[Frozen-Vomit]

Aren't Dragens immune to magic? This should make it impossible to buff your Eurabatres and Abashi with stoneskin.

 

[QES]

Aren't Dragens immune to magic? This should make it impossible to buff your Eurabatres and Abashi with stoneskin.

It's "natural" stone-skin. The Spell-promoiton simply represents it.
-Qes