(Gold) Dragon - OP?

[resieg]

Gold Dragon is really a nice experience - but tbh, arent they much OP?

I found a lair before turn 5: easy to make a vasall, easy to join.
Only the upkeep (54 with mod) make me avoiding mass production.

(They also have meditation, and with mass killing they are champions in no time).

But I have the feeling, with 3 of them I could march to the homes of the enemies just like - that.

Btw. in the "Item Forge" there are no items available to give a freeze (ice) protection for the whole stack - right?

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

The gold dragon is a contender for strongest unit in the game.

But you need to

A] find a dwelling
B] Annex it (either a tough fight or a hefty gold investment)
C] Upgrade it (another hefty investment)
D] produce the dragons

Even once you get to D], you'll find that it takes many turns to build a single dragon (Unless you get VERY lucky with treasure sites in the dwelling's domain) so mass production isn't really a thing.

So in the late game, even if individual dragons are really strong, they'll be vastly outnumbered by produced/summoned tier IV units and so can't really win the game on their own.

That said, if you find a dwelling that early and manage to get a dragon before other end-game units come into play, you'll definitely have a window of opportunity. In that scenario you got lucky.

[resieg]

Ok thanks - got lucky surely.

It helped to have the "Empire Building Mod" with gold creating buildings. And I started with a Metropolis - so paying the 700+ for an early vasall was no prob.

And the dragons place had stuff, so to create a dragon (450) took only 5 turns (just one turn with forced speed).

[Reality]

I don't like dragons since it takes 17 turns to make their required buildings compared to 10 turns for a Giant. (with the default 70 production).

Of course with 800-850~ gold worth of buildings I probbably would have spent it making a pack of archers or a tier 2 wall of meat to run down half the map and just left the dwelling auto-producing merchandise.

[resieg]

Ok, not OP ... good to know ...

But still nice to play with them imo ...

[resieg]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

... So in the late game, even if individual dragons are really strong, they'll be vastly outnumbered by produced/summoned tier IV units and so can't really win the game on their own. ...

Ok, when I thought they are invincible (hehe), I was wrong ;) (did an experimental test with 3 dragons and a low hero in the walls of the home city of the Orcs [King lvl] they almost succeded, but died in the end. Sob.)

So i draw back my 3 dragons instead, and Orc followed (open field).
They came with 5 Orc Tyrants and like 3 Manticors, some heroes and much other stuff (Warbreeds). They all died, all of my 3 dragons survived luckily.

After some regeneration, I took the home city - Orcs had about 20 units there in the mean time.
Quite impressive.