Overpowered Faction. Requires reduction.

[Caphriel]

Drages are actually pretty good.. They do well at day and there is saurians for night. And saurians have good pierce resistance... Drages have anyway like -10% pierce resistance, so its not even so effective... Well yes, they have bad defence, but they have alot of hp and as I said, they can rule at day and night whit +25% bonuses.
What is actually their weakness?

Their weaknesses are fragile units, expensive units, difficulty holding ground at the wrong time of day, lack of a cheap, cost-effective general-purpose unit, and exploitable resistances.

Despite having a lot of HP (relatively speaking ), their units are very fragile. Less than 10 extra HP doesn't make up for 30-40% defense values, especially when their units are so much more expensive than the units they have a few HP more than. Saurians have good evade values in terrain, but terribly low HP and a weaknesses to 4 out of 6 damage types.

Furthermore, a mixed force of saurian and drake units will be neither very effective at night, or at day. Half your units have a bonus, but half will have a penalty. And against many factions, a mixed army will contain a great many underperforming units.

[Yoyobuae]

Despite having a lot of HP (relatively speaking ), their units are very fragile. Less than 10 extra HP doesn't make up for 30-40% defense values, especially when their units are so much more expensive than the units they have a few HP more than. Saurians have good evade values in terrain, but terribly low HP and a weaknesses to 4 out of 6 damage types.

The way I see it is that Wesnoth default era is designed so that units with ~35 HP are potentially killable in one turn. This is taking into account that ZoC can limit attackers to 2 or 3 depending on situation. Any more HP than that can potentially deny CTK (or at least require all hits for kill, lowering the risk quite a bit).

With two attackers it's hard to kill a 40+ HP drake, except maybe for Undead/Loys/Drakes (or by using a weapon special of some unit). This plus the fact that most drakes will be able to retreat quickly,probably to a village to heal, balances their fragility somewhat.

I've seen this tactic used to great effect vs Rebels (they attacked a mostly drake force at night, but didn't manage any kills before new drakes were cycled in). Also Northerners during the day tend to lack the damage to make kills.

Saurians have their uses in specific situations mostly. Their damage is pretty low, so even at night they just barely match what drakes can do. But the usefulness of a very fast skirmisher or a very fast mage/healer can't be so easily denied (ie. need to finished a near dead unit protected by ZoC or root elves out of forests). Their pierce resistance comes into it's own vs Loyalists.

[Cackfiend]

ugh


I use to be the biggest advocate of the "drakes vs undead is unbalanced" arguement but the issue has been addressed:



Drakes no longer have as many hps due to the way resilience works now and you will find many of your units no longer having those precious 1-2 hps left after an adept hits it

Adepts no longer have the strong trait which means 66.6% of them are Quick which is incredibly important vs the mobile drakes

Zombies and Ghouls have even been changed to the new Fearless trait which are two of the most important units vs drakes.




If you think the matchup is unbalanced watched some replays of LichKing... we are 1-1 vs eachother in undead vs drake and honestly its mostly due to the map and probably more importantly who is player 1

[Zorro]

Adepts can scare the drakes but may be catching up very quickly, a dangerous game against a good player drakes.
it is better with the Undeads have a good army of zombie

[Hulavuta]

If drakes had the normal defense that the other races had, no one else would stand a chance. However, the maximum defense they can get is 40%, giving the enemy a 60% chance of hitting, which is considered the "good" amount, and they have many weaknesses. Against Drakes, archers are very potent, horseman are probably even better.

[Rigor]

Drakes are quite vulnerable to the first turns where u can easily put drakes under heavy pressure because one drake cant defend properly vs 3 units on one side while facing a 2v5 situation on the other. and thats where the problem for drakes begins. defend the village? lose a unit? give it up and have almost forever less gold while your opponent has an upkeep advantage?

on the other hand, when u manage to kill some units with drakes and maybe finally level up ur drakes to monsters, its pretty hard for the other player to 1) not get depressed and 2) fight back drakes especially when its a careful drake player like nelson in the replay. it was a ladder match for 31 turns and i daresay it was pretty darn good he used clashers and backed them up with augurs that would give them back 4 hp every turn, again and again.



and there is this speciality about the den of onis and only drakes have this advantage

glouk will certainly remember

[Yoyobuae]

Hehe, such a shame that map designers usually shy away from lava hexes. I understand the potential balance issues, though.

[Caphriel]

In general, unwalkable (as opposed to impassable) hexes are a terrain advantage for Drakes, Undead, and Knalgans, not just drakes. Like any other terrain type, they're okay when used carefully and in moderation, though.

[Rigor]

thats not what i meant,
tell me the % bonus for the drakish attack and you know what im talking about.

[Yoyobuae]

Wow!!! Didn't notice it was 50%. I though lava worked like "iluminates" (ie. no effect during daytime).

Hehe, it would be real nasty getting leadership+lava+daytime bonuses together.

[Caphriel]

Oh. Oh! I thought you were referring to the extra attack hex

[Dixie]

Wow!!! Didn't notice it was 50%. I though lava worked like "iluminates" (ie. no effect during daytime).

Hehe, it would be real nasty getting leadership+lava+daytime bonuses together.

I might be wrong but, since Lava should generally be considered "in caves", wouldn't the daytime bonus be void (the illuminate one replacing it altogether) ?

[Velensk]

This is not the case. The lava terrain simply gives bonuses like daytime and they stack with the actual bonuses from daytime.

[chaoticwanderer]

This is not the case. The lava terrain simply gives bonuses like daytime and they stack with the actual bonuses from daytime.

Did I misread your post, or did you just say that daylight stacks with lava?

EDIT: Reread previous posts....and I have to say wow. I had no idea lava worked that way. That's incredibly awesome, but isn't that slightly unbalancing? I mean the lava effect isn't going to be seen that often, but when it does, it could be very devastating in favor of the drake player, such as with Rigor's example.

[Rya]

I think the lava is usually supposed to be used together with the map ability "ignore daytime" which also changes the "day" icon when hovering over it and shows a cave instead. I think then the daytime will always be considered as neutral, so that there is no stacking.