Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - General Q regarding difficulty, gameplay, story, etc

Hi,

Just some questions I'd like to ask about certain aspects of the game.

1) How much effect does the starting dragon choice have on the gameplay?

I ask because you can eventually get all dragon skills before you get to the third chapter (well, at least I have done so). So apart from the starting skills, is there any real/actual difference between the dragon's apart from looks?

2) The princesses storylines, how different depending on choices?

Just wondering how much, if any, differences there are to each princesses storylines based on the choices you make?

For example take the elven princess, you can either encourage her to try things against elvish tradition which lead through a series of choices. Now on my first playthrough I took her as my queen and encouraged her to try things. I'm wondering, do the choices change if I replayed and encouraged her to stay true to her elvish ways? So for instance - instead of the statue choice, would I get something else?

I know I could always replay things, but I usually don't have too much time to play, just recently had a spare day to myself to play.

3) What is up with the super ramping up of difficulty in Chapter 3?

I understand the storyline reason for chapter 3 to be harder than the previous 2 chapters, but I just got to it and it immediately kicked my butt so hard I cried! (lol ok, didn't cry). Your starting position is terrible, few units and surrounded by enemy who has huge economy, can produce massive amounts of units and immediately invades multiple zones with overwhelming force...

First thing I did was build war factories on my outskirts and produced units asap... thankfully I had a good stash of gold at this point. Ended my turn and got 4 zones invaded at once, 3 which were possible to be resolved successfully by auto-resolve. ! was so not in my favor I had to try the RTS (I had like 20% chance of success with 5 cards and best general.. pfft!)

And I frankly could not win the rts no matter what. it was 2 small bases, lowish population.. started with 1 population center, 3 empty building places and 2 places for canons. No expansion points, no other build-able/capturable pop centers and a small map where the 2 bases were close together. I started the map with 4 Devastators & 2 Armor's vs the enemy ai which started with something along the lines of (might have actually been slightly more) 12 Devastators, 8 Warlocks, 8 Armors, 10 Hunter's & 6 Grenadier's. I started straight away building the cheap 15 supply building, set my devastaors into siege mode... but before I could do anything the enemy rolled in with all it's units and wiped me out. I did use my dragon and tried to get the enemies with the big bad spells I had researched (iirc ring of fire and and big killer.. both master level spells, but can't remember their names sorry). Didn't do much as the dragon died in like 3 seconds.. Also tried setting dragon up for support/healing.. same story. Also tried using merc cards, all they did was delay my defeat.

This super ramping up of difficulty... is not fun for me. I play the game on casual difficulty because I'm more interested in the rpg elements, the choices and storyline. For me, it feels like I've suddenly gone from casual play to insane difficulty... and while I didn't expect chapter 3 to be a walk in the park, I also didn't expect what feels like such a radical jump up in difficulty. I know I am not good at the RTS side, or controlling the dragon very well... but this rts I don't feel I had any hope of actually doing anything.

- I play on casual
- I play on slowest speed to give me time to react and play
- I have a medical condition which effects my eye to hand co-ordination, so am not the fastest or most accurate to respond to things
- The power level of that being was at 105%, as I had used him once to foolishly adjust a race's relationship (which in the end I didn't need to do.. duh). I don't know if this effects how hard/easy/bad chapter 3 is.

I feel that my only choice regarding this particular zone is to sacrifice it, move my units out and loose the gold income from it. I just don't see how I can keep that zone at all. I may just be terrible at the game (lol I am... rts is not my strong point).

4) Just what effect does a certain being have on the game (apart from what happens in chapter 3 storyline)?

Considering you have an option of allowing it to feast on things, which increases it's power level - what does this actually do?

- does the strength of the enemies (ie # of units, type of units, etc) in chapter 3 increase as the power % goes up?
- do you get better/more cards the higher the power % goes up?
- do you actually get more than cards or racial relation's from allowing the feasting?

5) World map movement

Is there anyway to change/adjust a unit's movement part over the world map? Apart from moving it manually 1 zone at a time?

I ask because I've gone to move units which have 3 or 4 movement points and they have the zaniest movement paths which take them right out the way to get to a zone. I've also lost units this way, because they moved into/through enemy held zones and died in the fight this caused... and this when they easily had a path than did not need them to go into/through the enemy controlled zone. I found that there were times I had to move a unit 1 zone at a time to ensure that did not happen...

6) Race relations irrelevant on casual?

I ask, because by the time I hit chapter 3 all races were on 90-100% - was this because I was playing on casual? I just thought the decisions made and such would have more of a consequence.. Though I'm sure it's because casual is designed to limit the issue's you might have by your choices so you can more easily experience the story, choices and take over zones easier.

Anyways, thanx in advance for any replies.

Edit - I was intentionally vague about somethings, so as to not spoil things for those who have not gotten to chapter 3 yet. I obviously know what happens up to getting to chapter 3, but have not finished the game yet.

1
only matters at the beginning since you'll soon have every skill there is

2
I don't know for certain but I think there are 2 endings per princess

3
hehe I found it to be fun since the last chapter actually challenged me for 3 turns

4
you'd need more than just my data to accurately determine it's effects

5
yeah I had some problems with this too your one tile at a time is the safest option

6
Even on casual the race likes matter but it's less extreme I think

Playing on Normal my highest racial favour is 80 and my lowest is 25. You must be doing something differently. I also wonder if there's a difficulty bug, I forgot to build anything in the second turn of my chapter 3 and yet most of my battles were 50% or above without using cards. Using only a couple of cards I've been able to win every fight, some of that is down to still being able to win 50% duels consistently using Dragon Form but mostly the Imperial Army has been able to overwhelm my enemy through weight of numbers. There's been some luck I've won 7 or 8 75-90% autoresolves but the campaign doesn't sound nearly as brutal as you suggest.

The one potential difference is I totally rejected the demon's offer in Ch 2 as I was expecting this all along. If you gave him a lot it may possibly have worked against you.

Rack - the racial % I ended up might be a combination of casual and options I made throughout the game. I started off by angering the dwarves, undead & imp's a lot and making the lizards and elves love me. However as the game went on, I started getting more council decisions which let me push up the undead and imp's rating, and I even got dwarf rep as well... all the while loosing some elf and lizard rep, but I kept the lizards happy due to my queen, and she also helped with the dwarves. Decisions I made regarding commander's also helped balance things out. I was not actually intentionally trying for this result.

Regarding the fights - I tended to use the RTS for most of my fights in chapter 1 and 2, simply because I was always getting terrible success rates. I found fights which would not win with auto-resolve I could fairly easily win in the rts - so I used the rts rather than loose. Oh, and never had gold to pay for generals anyways... too busy churning out units. I only did the auto-resolve if it was 80+% for me.. otherwise off to the rts I went.

I didn't find chapter 1 or 2 too difficult, but it's what I expected on casual. However, chapter 3.... really made my eye's pop at that first fight and how ridiculously hard/impossible it was. auto-complete gave me a 10% chance to win, and the rts was impossible for me to win - but as I said, I'm not that good at rts side... or using the dragon, so maybe it is winnable... but I didn't feel that way.

RTS was fine for me most times, since there was usually 1-2 easy to reach expansion points where I'd move my initial units to, while they moving started building 1sdt building, then cranked some units out waypointed to expansion, grabbed 2nd/3rd pop building, got 2nd unit building going.. blobbed and then just attacked enemy base(s) - I'd waypoint buildings where I was fighting and just keep a constant stream of units building. This never failed me on casual (yeah, I realize this kind of play would not work vs harder/better ai or against other players)... till I hit chapter 3 and that 1 fight where this strat was not possible at all.

I only used the daemon once, and regretted it. I also suspected something was going to happen - deals with daemon's usually do not work out well in the long run, so suspected something would bit me badly if I freed him to go do his feasting. I do wonder how much effect his power level does have, as well as what you'd actually gain from it. I also wonder what happens if you do the 4 ultimate sacrifices.... if that is even possible.

Regarding the bug - maybe there is a bug, and maybe that would explain why things are so hard for me in chapter 3 ;/

I too am curious about what power level does. As for chapter 3, you carry the gold you earned in chapter 2. It was a bit hard for the first few turns, but since I started with over 200 gold I was able to simply churn out enough units to even the tide. It is a welcoming jump in difficulty though. As for the race relations, it is easier you always sided with the majority (that can raise them quick but you can get some iffy bonuses), or more likely casual has some effect on relations. I usually end my games with someone as low as 25% on normal.

I was going to suggest you sending the save file and I could see how it compared to my map situation, but we may not be on the same patch version (I went with GoG). This might also be why your map situation is different.

I also remembered something I did at the start, in turn 1 I immediately retreated out of one of my territories because it was next to an overwhelming enemy force. Because I had stockpiled 100 gold I was able to retake that territory the very next turn, and go on to stomp the adjoining territory on the following turn.

As far as race relations went I went with Ophelia to check out a claim one of the writers made on this forum. Consequently I annoyed the undead immensely and got no other bonuses.

As far as the RTS went my strategy was similar on normal (which is still a pretty low difficulty), the only difference is I would frequently either fake out taking a map point so as to stall for time, or use Trooper's building capture ability (which is completely overpowered) to take anything the enemies took early on. When the dragon spawned I was generally able to completely overrun the enemy around the capture points and gain an economic advantage. Lastly I'd just blob into the enemy base. In Chapter 3 things have gotten harder so I have to make feints to lure the enemy army away from his base.

Are you sure? With each princess I have played you get a bonus roughly equivalent to a level 1 faction bonus (always played opposed to the faction though, maybe playing with the faction only gives race relations). What claim might I ask?

About your first question. Not just they have different starting skills , each dragon type also has different damage,overheat rate,and HP with

Mountain dragon :
highest damage and overheat rate(also has the best damage per heat ratio) , lowest HP

Sabre dragon : In the middle

Zephyr dragon : Lowest damage and overheat rate(Has the worst damage per heat ratio ) , highest HP

Fairly sure, I got a bonus when I chose her, but a constant stream of negatives every time I advised her to rebel against their teachings. It was a pure gameplay debuff to no end whatsoever.

It's so hard to make the undead like you. You should at least get some kind of other faction bonus.

I think I got a couple of useful cards out of it, but when talking about the bonuses I was just squaring how in my game it was harder to get the factions to like me.

Rack - sounds like our starting positions in chapter 3 are the same. Was the territory you retreated out of in the lower right hand side? I can't remember the name, but it started next to 2 red zones which had like 10+ enemy units sitting there which move straight into my zone on the first go.

I know I lost a lot of elvish relations because I turned the elvish princess into a meat guzzling wino! The elves were not impressed about that lolz. But since I was able to side with them on a lot of council decisions it didn't matter all that much. Although I had to say a big fat NO to some of the looney stuff they wanted to implement...

Arrg! Another thing I forgot - the trooper's building capture ability. That would actually be pretty handy, use it to capture the defense buildings as invade a base.. I admit I'm terrible at micromanaging units... so tend to forget to use a units special abilities. I do wish there was an option to set abilities to "auto activate when appropriate" - like take the Armor's ability to do a PBAoE shock attack... that could be set to automatically go off if in range of 1-2+ enemies for instance..

As for version - I'm on Steam, so not sure if the saves are compatible or not.

Espoir - so the Mountain Dragon has the lowest HP? Heh, that would explain why I would go splat as the dragon so quickly. I might just go the Zephyr Dragon next.. even if it has the worst auto-attack, can always focus of skills and spells.. and actually survive! lol

Does the overheat rate & such effect the dragon attack/defense/support skill? Or just the dragon's normal attack?

Just normal attacks and I assume the overheat rate effects skills like Acid Blaze and Breaching Fire (there is an overheat rate, but I didn't test the same skill with different dragons).

That sounds like the same position, next to the capital. I think if I had attempted to keep control of that zone I could have been in a lot worse situation. As it stood I was able to claim that part of the map by the end of turn 3 with a modest expenditure of gold on additional troops. If I'd lost those troops I'd have had a large army on my doorstep and no means to deal with them in the short term. I wouldn't have then been able to redirect those forces to the rest of the map and things could have been much tougher.



I can't account for the differences then but there must be something that gave you all those extra boons to relations.




I'm largely in the same position, I managed to use a few unit abilities, Shamans Charm, Juggernauts Imp Bunker Buster, Troopers Building Capture and Devastators Siege Mode. There were still a tonne of abilities I just couldn't handle though because they were so fiddly and I had so much on my plate. There's already been a discussion about this and really autocast wasn't practical but it's a shame there weren't alternate upgrades. Choose between Armour's PBAoE or an upgrade that makes it do explosive damage to enemies when it is destroyed. Shaman's Charm or an autocast dispel.