The Greedy Green Dragon's Guide to Hoard

Hoard is an enjoyable but often overlooked game. It is not yet tremendously popular, and with there so few guides it is high time to provide a general introductory guide. This guide aims to help the young aspiring dragon. Within, the basics of mechanics and the controls will be covered. It also will discuss what to look out for and be careful of as a dragon terrorising the land. From there we move on to the game modes, as well as some strategies that work, with hints and help for treasure, stealing the princess and co-op games.

You are a mighty flying Iguana that can breathe fire, but you are not invincible. There are also other dragons that are your competitors. If you are not daring, predatory and smart, they will grow larger than you, and then you are just another small enemy to be crushed.

Raiding Basics and Accumulating Wealth

Here we discuss the basics, wealth, the modifiers and what nabs the most loot.

Use WASD to move your dragon around, hold down left mouse click to shoot your flame, right to activate special abilities. That is it, guide finished, thanks.

You must destroy fields, mills, castles, wizard towers, markets, taverns, a small range of other buildings and enemies like knights and archers to receive coin. Once the coin is dropped you fly over it, and when you wish or are full, you fly back to the base and let it accumulate. This isn't hard to do, but as you only have so many minutes, the rush is on. Luckily, princesses are just like gold (are you saying princesses are items?) and you can bring them back to the hoard one at a time. If you are full of treasure, you can still bring a princess back, so keep that in mind. Now you want to get a large hoard, so how to do that?



You start off small, looting fields, towns and wagons, and as you gain more coin your modifier will rise. It will move up to x2 and then x3. You must raid and venture out to get more coin, although some foolish wagons will actually go through your base on some levels (are the merchants insane?) on the way to the towns, so they are easy targets.

Leaving the base makes it vulnerable to theft. Once towns have upgraded and start producing adjoining buildings, thieves will be a part of the game. Thieves are easy to spot with their little bags of gold, and they hesitate just before they dive into the hoard. If they get in, they will fill up and then head for home. If they steal even a single gold piece your modifier goes down to nothing. The modifiers come back pretty quickly if you keep the hoard safe, but it hinders quick growth. So you must protect the base while also leaving it periodically to load up on booty. Make sure that when a thief gets to your hoard, they are greeted by a fiery welcome.



If you are defeated by a knight, archer or wizard tower, your modifier also resets. If you are a high defence dragon, you can take more hits so your modifier is a bit safer. If you steal a princess, bring her back and then she is stolen by a knight, the modifier also resets. Then you have to chase down the princess and return her, which wastes more time.

For the largest increases in coin, you want to ransom princesses you capture travelling from major castles, and you will need to seize the gems from wizard towers. Gems pay off immediately, but the princesses you have to protect until they are ransomed. Keep the coin flowing in, vary what you attack so the other stuff has time to build up and only stop to protect the nest so you keep your modifier high.

Dragonslayers: How to Defeat Them And What To Be Wary Of

Even a mighty fire-breathing giant lizard has problems. Here we cover those enemies that can drive your dragon back to the nest.

First are the archers.



Their damage isn't great and their rate of fire isn't brilliant, but they can take down a low defence dragon rather quickly if they are in a large group. How do they get that way? Well you have left the city alone for too long, and it has filled up the surrounding squares with all the archers it can. Individually not a major problem, they are damaging protectors when backed up by wizard towers. Then you may dodge the lightning bolt only to receive four arrows for your trouble. Solve this problem by keeping cities oppressed, looted and killing any archers you see.

Next we have the Knights



Knights are fast moving enemies that try to charge your dragon. What side they hit your dragon doesn't matter, they will do massive damage. They are based at the towers and castles, but if a princess is taken they venture out to take her back. Love hearts trailing behind, they rush back to the nearest castle. If they get there the princess is gone. Destroying the tower won't bring her back. If they rescue a princess they will become upgraded to black knights (usually). These aren't much better, except their attack is even greater and their hit points are higher.



Now to defeat knights of either type you will need to skirmish them or have a highly upgraded breath weapon. If you are breath 3-4, you should be able to kill them before they hit you. If you are less, you will need to blast and move and then blast again. Now be sure to use terrain to your advantage. Knights cannot cross water, so you can use that weakness. They also cannot move through high peaks, so if you are atop a peak you can blast them as they approach. You can also nab a princess, and then head to water on a level, and lure all of the knights to this foolish quest. As a dragon, water is your friend, so be sure to fly over it.



Water won't protect you from the most dangerous opponents, that being wizard towers. Their damage is immense and they can send you and a whole team of dragons back to the nest defeated in a wave of lightning bolts (wizard towers together in a ring of defence are very dangerous).



The bolts continue, and that is why I say water won't save you. They pass across the map and can nail an unlucky damage mid-flight. Even if they didn't set them off in the first place. If you are on the nest you are safe, but otherwise you will need to evade. I find a flight of four to be most beneficial to evading the bolts.

To defeat the wizard towers, blast and move, blast and move. At first the wizard towers are slow to fire, but the next upgrade is fast, large and deadly. It may take some time to take down such a tower, but two dragons in cooperation can quickly defeat even a fully upgraded wizard tower. Once a tower is laid waste, there will be a gem. These aren't like princesses, they count towards your gold carry limit and they slow your dragon down. Really worth taking in co-op, may get you thrashed in competitive play.

Lastly, giants!



These mighty late game foes stomp around and collect as much coin as they can. When killed they drop a major payday amount. So much so that you will probably need to make two trips.

They are a bit slow and clumsy, and a fast dragon can outwit and skirmish them to their demise, but you have to be careful about being hit with a giant tree. So don't get hit, and practice your dodging on knights before you face the giant. I would recommend powerful fire, good speed, and you can use the fireball power-up if you want to be safe.

Treasure Mode: And Keeping the Best For Yourself

Treasure mode can be involve a lot of deviousness. It is all about the final score, and there are many ways to get there.

For a start, you want to get some initial upgrades. Burn and loot until you can upgrade your speed, your breath and then a touch to load. You need to cover the distance and get back quick. You need the load to make your trips more worthwhile. The speed is to escape other dragons, dodge and bring back princesses quickly.


Come back to my nest and let me show you the size of my... gemstones.

Giants and mage towers pay the quickest rewards. Giant don't emerge until later though. Destroying castles can make the map a little safer when you do take any princesses from those towers/castles that remain, but no castles means no princesses. I like destroying a castle once in a while since they pay quite well. Also I like slaying a whole lot of archers.



Now to intimidation. If a town is a few steps upgraded and has outer buildings and archers, you can, on competitive modes, make that town your own. Speading the dragon brand if you will.



You need to damage it and its buildings heavily, but not destroy it. This makes it vulnerable to other dragons, but if they are not occupied, then they will start to send bribes straight to the nest. Awww yeah, every dragon likes a pay off.

Not everything they send out of town will be a bribe to you (the cads, do they not know who their lord is?), so you can hang around your city and pick off extra tithes. On hanging around the city, it can be beneficial, if you have a lead to stay at your city (or patrol between two cities) and drive off any dragons with the aid of the archers. You can't have a wizard tower nearby, they don't accept subordination.



Wizards are then your sworn enemies, but Knights can be useful if you can shepherd an enemy dragon into them with arrows and fire. A castle near your town also means princesses will make the trip from the tower to your town. A trip they are unlikely to finish.



You want to make sure that no thieves get into your base. It wrecks your multiplier and it is embarrassing. So when you see them coming, hunt them down.



The last points concern engaging other dragons. It can be very beneficial to blast a dragon as they are coming back from their first raid. Everyone is on an equal footing, there are no upgrades in play. This is quite a frustrating trick though, and is likely to piss off anyone as they did the work and you reap the rewards. Vengeance is likely after this, or rage quitting if you maintain the dominance the whole match.

I would suggest avoiding battles with other dragons unless these situations come up:

1) If they are injured, go for it.
2) If they have to fly into or past you to move to their base. Some of the levels have some bottlenecks you can use.
3) If you have taken a lot of fire breath upgrades, go for it. Even with a low defence you can do a great deal of damage very quickly.
4) If they are filled to the brim and you are empty. Especially if you will get an upgrade from this hoard and you will stop them from getting the next upgrade.
5) You have an upgrade active like fireballs, and you can injure them before they get into breath range.
6) If they have a princess and knights aren't too close.

Lastly, for treasure, improve your speed as soon as possible. The tortoise does not win here. Wreak utter destruction and loot as fast as you can!

Princess Rush: Stealing All The Fair Ladies

Princess Rush is my second favourite mode with other human players. It is an enjoyable race to see who can secure the most princesses, of which there is kept a tally. You will need to assail their wagons, grab them and bring them back to your nest for s̶e̶x̶y̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶s̶ ransoming.



They protest of course, and once you grab them every knight will come bearing down upon your position and follow you back to the nest. They must be fought off (and the loot of the dead contributes to the hoard) but on competitive modes you also have to be careful of your princess being stolen or worse happening to you on the way back with the princess.

I mentioned that you can have a full load of gold and carry a princess. At this time you are highly vulnerable. If anything takes you out, you will drop the gold and the princess. Knights or dragons can grab the princess and the gold is vulnerable just lying there.

Keep this in mind, because if an enemy dragon has taken a princess they will be returning to their nest at some point. You could waylay them on the way back, blasting them as they attempt to pass you. Because of the way combat works in Hoard, the stationary dragon is at an advantage. This means you can block a pass and take a princess off a defeated dragon.

It is also possible to steal a princess from an enemy's nest, but this can be a problem. You basically want high fly speed, and you have to beat the ransom timer while avoiding the enemy dragon. An unwary opponent can be heavily exploited, and it feels good to win at a game of cunning, so this is a risky part of Princess Rush but quite rewarding.

In Princess Rush, coin still matters, because it governs upgrades. If you don't take advantage of securing early upgrades, you can then lose the princess rush as you face a superior adversary. Because of this, princesses don't really matter until a minute in.

There has to be towers or castles for princesses to emerge, so another tactic is to get ahead on points and destroy every means of princesses emerging. This is quite an active choice, and impossible on some levels, but it can be used to keep a lead for a time.

So good luck grabbing the princesses and remember to be ruthless in making them yours.

Co-op: Go Team Dragon!

In co-op you work together with a group of other dragons for an accumulated score. That does not mean there is no competition or that you or others act in the general interest. Co-op can be fierce with bitter rivalry, or it can be the games with the most teamwork and enjoyment.

There are a few ways of approaching co-op. The first is to each do your own thing in a section of the map. You split up don't interact with each other much and you control your territories, bringing in as much loot from the regions as you can before returning. If a region is quite developed and has been left to grow, you may alter your hunting grounds in the second half of the match. This approach can get a good score.

While all the dragons are away though, beware of thieves sneaking in!



There is only one hoard to protect, so this is easily done, but if no one is paying attention thieves can steal thousands of gold while everyone else is roaming about. The hoard is especially vulnerable to thieves when dragons are teaming up to take down giants and wizard towers away from the nest.

Co-op it will be noted, removes the abilities to intimidate cities into sending tribute. It may be your decision to destroy a town for the loot or let it grow, but they cannot become your servants in co-op. You must hunt for your wealth instead.



Another approach to co-op is to define and distribute roles among the dragons. As an example, I may upgrade my dragon to be a blaster with a powerful fire attack, but my ally may take far more speed and load upgrades, to quickly take what we capture back to the nest. A further dragon player could be assigned to focus on capturing princesses, and in this case, they would not need a range of upgrades except speed and some fire to halt the knights. Their role is to snatch damsels and then secure more.



Co-op is an excellent team game, and it is less high stakes than treasure or princess rush with friendships not so much on the line.

Conclusion: Ready to Fly

This beginners guide to Hoard is now at an end. With the modes and some strategies detailed you are more than ready to begin raiding, burning and stealing or improve upon your first steps into this game.

Time is of the essence in this game, so you must be cautious as well as daring. Ruthless as well as cunning. You may be cowardly or cautious, but choose the best time to strike. For competitive modes, remember to control the land.



Watch our for even a single thief, as they can damage your hoarding efforts.



Always steal princesses, even from another's nest if they are not there to stop you. Don't make the mistake your enemies did, ensure they are ransomed and not stolen again.



With all this in mind, you are ready to fly. Have fun!

[𝔗𝔢𝔞 ❀]

Cheers.

[lillydemorte]

Thanks for sharing!

[𝔗𝔢𝔞 ❀]

Thanks.

[Slyferknight]

cool

[Crit Boosted Fall Damage]

I have over 130 hours in this game, played it when I was young. Actually super fun.

[BLORG]

thx

[𝔗𝔢𝔞 ❀]

Cheers Luna.

[Kuri0s]

Thanks very much!

[𝔗𝔢𝔞 ❀]

Thanks Hippyshake!

[Hippyshake]

Terrific guide!