Question Dragons in combat

Gurthang · #1 January 17th, 2013, 10:32 PM

Hi, I just created my first dragon pretender ever.

He appeared in the form of a modest druid. I supposed that as soon as I launched him in battle (attack order) he would turn into beast shape and superbly fly upon his enemies. Instead he kept his human form and leisurly strolled towards the front line, while the infantry bore the brunt of battle. The fray was over by the time he reached it.

How am I to activate the dragon form? Does the dragon pretender need to receive damage in order to change shape?

All help appreciated!

Immaculate · #2 January 17th, 2013, 10:45 PM

they have a 'change shape' command. both in the tactical orders menu and on the strategic map.

JonBrave · #3 January 18th, 2013, 03:25 PM

If you "Change Shape" him to Dragon form in map, he will start combat as Dragon.
If you enter combat as mage, you can spend a combat round for "Change Shape" order. (Any round, e.g. Buff-buff-ChangeShape-Attack.) (Beware: if you leave this in his script, but enter as a Dragon, he'll change to mage!)
If you stay in combat as mage, if you take a certain amount of flak he'll auto-change to dragon.

parone · #4 January 21st, 2013, 08:51 PM

crap like this is what makes dominions so great. spend an hour building a pretender, do something like this, he gets killed on the first expo(or wounded and picks up some awful affliction) and there you are.

luckily, it sounds as though no harm done here.

anyone ever have luck with dragon pretenders? i seem to get mine killed an awful lot.

would love a "dragons for dummies" post...

Immaculate · #5 January 21st, 2013, 09:57 PM

you have to have awe. without awe they get killed really quick. don't bother with a dragon without a dominion of 9 unless you want to be VERY selective in your choices of provinces or unless you want to always work with allied armies.

parone · #6 January 21st, 2013, 10:14 PM

seriously Immac, is it that simple? cus man, i am like the dragon slayer. only problem is, i am always killing my own dragon!

Bullock · #7 January 22nd, 2013, 10:02 AM

I was wondering why everybody pick the green one? Is he better than others ?

JonBrave · #8 January 22nd, 2013, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immaculate

you have to have awe. without awe they get killed really quick. don't bother with a dragon without a dominion of 9 ...

Is that particularly Dragony, or just for any flying Pretender you intend to unleash?

Corinthian · #9 January 22nd, 2013, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bullock

I was wondering why everybody pick the green one? Is he better than others ?

On paper? No. In theory he is the worst dragon as he brings no diversity that you can not get from indies and his breath only does damage over time. A red dragon with F4-5 would allow you access to Zmeys and such and is also quit popular.

No, the main reason why the green dragon is popular is because of a "bug" in CBM were he gets dom 2 and the other dragons only gets dom 1. (Working as intended and will not be fixed apparently) This difference is not visible when looking at the dragon. Only by choosing it and looking at the scales menu.

And dragons are perfectly viable to use without dom 9+. In fact, the reason why they only start with dom 1 is because they were intentionally designed to not need Awe. I think all dragons I have seen in MP have had less than 9 dom actually.

Immaculate · #10 January 22nd, 2013, 09:12 PM

Also blue dragons can have huge defense ratings because water adds to defense. And obviously the fire dragon will have huge attack rating. What does the nature dragon get? He makes supplies. So yeah, worse breath weapon and ****ty secondary effect from the magic rating so they gave him more awe.

I like the awe 9 green dragon for a turn 1 SC.

I feel they need awe but i am maybe not careful enough in choosing who they fight and who they don't when facing indies.