Drakes against treehugging freaks

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Are saurians overpowered?

nah, they are balanced, it's just that you suck.
12
29%
nah, it's just that they are really good against the (S)elfish ones.
6
15%
yes, increase the amount of xp they need to level.
1
2%
yes, make them neutral.
3
7%
yes, nerf them somehow else (please specify if you feel like it)
5
12%
someone should introduce caffeine cheese... mmmmm... caffeine and cheese
14
34%
 
Total votes: 41

(S)elfish weirdo
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Post by (S)elfish weirdo »

feh, while it is probably true that only n00bs get mostly burners against resistance not weak to fire, this is more because that the other drake units are more overpowered, rather than that the burner is underpowered.

Also:
I'm supposed to fight drakes in forest during night, while fighting saurians on grassland during day, now this does seem very easy, considering that a good drake player keeps the saurians safe during day and tends to hunt down elfs on grassland with drakes.

still no good strategy have been given to fight drakes and saurians, yet people keep thinking about caffeine cheese, so I quess someone might come up with one sooner or later...

the main overpowerness of the drakes is the fact that they have both chaotic and lawful combat units, no other race has this, and it allows them to fight with an edge at all times...
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telly
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Post by telly »

Ok, I'll elaborate.
Drakes are only good in short games from my view. They need to win quickly. Long term they have almost nothing. They can't really either attack or defend villages effectively and their units are very, very expensive. Another big weakness that very few people consider is that relatively speaking drake units benefit much less from healing than the other faction's units, because of their combination of high hp and low defence and, assuming their opponent can attack them, their cold and pierce vulnerabilities.

So what you need to do to is grind out the first few turns avoiding fights and carefully advance, taking over villages. Unlike against, for instance, northerners, having an income deficit isn't so bad because the drake player's units are so expensive normally they won't be able to afford to outrecruit you too much early on.

During night the drake player, because of their poor defence, should have to give up a lot more ground than you will during the day as you can make much better use of villages and healing and good terrain. Forget about saurians. I can't understand how they can ever be a problem. They are fast but if you keep your units covering each other they'll be dead before they can ever retreat the next turn and they are way too expensive for the drake player to use them very often in throw away attacks. Their chaotic-ness is another disadvantage from my pov as they are only most effective attacking supported by the beefier drake units.

Once you can drag yourself into a situation where you have equal control of the map and economy, you basically have it. Their units are that much more expensive that with similar incomes, you can just trade kills and outrecruit them. You can make better use of healing as well, like I already explained, so draw out fights as long as possible. Especially once you have superior numbers its really easy to rotate out injured units.
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

(S)elfish weirdo wrote: still no good strategy have been given to fight drakes and saurians

Sorry- I think I could break this down for you pretty well, but it would take a good deal of writing....So every time I consider typing it out, I think, "But I should be doing this instead-" (usually the this is caffeine-cheese-oriented, as you might guess.). So I end up not writing it out. As a Selfish person, I hope you can sympathise. 8)

Let me just run down the basic points....if you don't agree, we can talk it over on the server some time. In Real Time. :)

-They cannot hold the water villages by any realistic means. This means you will have an economic edge, and your immediate goal should be to prolong the game as much as possible, so that the discrepancy inflates.
-This situation forces them to attack you on your own villages, which will always be to your advantage. Most of the time, they'll have to put units on grassland to do this, and this is where the saurians fall apart. It will take a minimum of three saurians to take out an elvish fighter on a village- and really, do the math- even this works poorly. You must punish them when they do this. Chances are, they'll already have taken heavy damage from the kill or attempted kill.
-You want to have archers occupying your contested villages during the day, and Fighters during the night. You probably know why.....

Ah, see- this is getting long. Somebody wants me to come watch National Geographic.

Everything about the scenario is in the Elves' favor...Maybe you weren't using enough fighters, maybe you weren't sitting on villages and forcing the economic factor to become more pronounced. I wish you luck though.
Dubhe is a pretty great player from what I've seen, so I'm guessing it has more to do with that than the supposed overpoweredness :P of the Drakes.

If you lose that same match again, save it and post up the replay- we can break it down, old-school style.

8)
Last edited by Doc Paterson on August 21st, 2005, 1:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

woah- the Telly post must have appeared while I was typing.

For the most part, I agree with him.

Well said, Telly.
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telly
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Post by telly »

Actually I'm not sure the water villages are that much of a problem. I don't play blitz much but merman hunters seem so weak that they'll die to drakes in water most of the time as long as you can avoid getting surrounded. The closer village you can just jump on with a drake flare and some fighters if they ever try to take it and the sand bank blocks any effective counterattack.

Otherwise its as you say, even if they can get even income its still not a good map for drakes. Its easy to defend and the rebels can just sit back and wait for the best moment to attack.
Last edited by telly on August 21st, 2005, 9:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

What with all this saying of "Drakes can't do this, Drakes really can't do that", what CAN drakes do? How do they counter your anti-drake strategies? Or are they just underpowered?
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(S)elfish weirdo
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Post by (S)elfish weirdo »

While I haven't tested it yet, I doubt drakes can't hold the sea villages, burners got 7-4 during day which is the only time mermen hunters do serious damage (7-3), also they can fight mostly in the sand as if no mermen is adjacent to it, the one on the far village will have 5 hexes to be attacked from
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

(S)elfish weirdo wrote:While I haven't tested it yet, I doubt drakes can't hold the sea villages, burners got 7-4 during day which is the only time mermen hunters do serious damage (7-3), also they can fight mostly in the sand as if no mermen is adjacent to it, the one on the far village will have 5 hexes to be attacked from
Do you really not know what I mean when I say they can't hold those villages "realistically?" If they're going to fight you with EXPENSIVE units on 20 percent defense (where you're 60 percent), they're throwing their money away and are dead already. They can't possibly fight such an extreme attrition war and maintain their land villages.
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

telly wrote:Actually I'm not sure the water villages are that much of a problem. I don't play blitz much but merman hunters seem so weak
In actual play, the costs and statistics favor Hunters over Sea-Burners :P greatly, and any Drake player who tries to fight a non-noob in the water will find his losses greatly exceeding his gains.

During day, a Sea Burner (in the sea) will do an average of 11 damage to a Hunter (28 x .4), while the Hunter will do an average of 17 damage (these exact damages can of course never occur, they're just per-turn averages that add up to the observed damage). Compare the costs; compare the damage- the Drakes cannot win in the sea, against anyone who plays it right.
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telly
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Post by telly »

I'm not talking about any sort of protracted sea battle.
Hunters have really low hp, so you can kill one without taking any significant risk in your turn with, say, two fighters and your leader, then pop back to land the next turn. As long as you don't give them any opportunity to surround you or multiple water hexes to attack one unit from, theres not much they can do to give you problems.
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Post by Doc Paterson »

telly wrote:I'm not talking about any sort of protracted sea battle.
Hunters have really low hp, so you can kill one without taking any significant risk in your turn with, say, two fighters and your leader, then pop back to land the next turn. As long as you don't give them any opportunity to surround you or multiple water hexes to attack one unit from, theres not much they can do to give you problems.
Like any battle anywhere, you have to predict what you think they'll do; if they obviously want to take that sea village,you need to have more than one unit in striking range of that potential battlezone. Maybe you should just try it. I'm sure you'll see what I mean. I'm not saying that what you suggest is completely impossible, it's just a situation that is unfavorable for the Drakes.
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Martinus
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Post by Martinus »

I tried it one time,my hunters died pretty fast so i doubt that strategy works (every time,maybe i just had bad luck). Usually i don't play elves vs drakes games so i can't say anything right here....
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Post by Martinus »

Besides the general informations for newbies like - try to kill saurians on the grasslands (...try to get a saurian on the grassland vs your fighter they have skirmish and most villages have about 2/3 squares adjacent which saurians have good def on) or try to get economical edge ([censored] saurians too easy and too fast get any village not-on-water i guess...)
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Faello
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Post by Faello »

Martinus wrote:Besides the general informations for newbies like - try to kill saurians on the grasslands (...try to get a saurian on the grassland vs your fighter they have skirmish and most villages have about 2/3 squares adjacent which saurians have good def on) or try to get economical edge ([censored] saurians too easy and too fast get any village not-on-water i guess...)
You're right Martinus - such advices are worth nothing if enemy is pro in skirmish tactics.
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Post by (S)elfish weirdo »

Martinus wrote:I tried it one time,my hunters died pretty fast so i doubt that strategy works (every time,maybe i just had bad luck). Usually i don't play elves vs drakes games so i can't say anything right here....
you attacked during day, didn't you? I believe the trick of doing this is to do it on the last turn of the day, so that the mermen will have 5-3 instead of 7-3, now I'm talking about good drake players, which I find impossible to beat, despite having beaten people like the son of inhilator when he used orcs (well, I lost that game but that was due to my allies who were overrun, I never killed the son of inhilator either, but I reppeled his initial attack which usually means victory for a (S)elfish player against orcs, seeing as how orcs are made for quick rushes and elfs for wars of atrittion, besides it's just an example, I've beaten good non drake players other times)
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