Dryads = Imbalanced
 

A level 2 troop

- against which enemies can't retaliate
- can charm a male humanoid to its side
- can sing a song that increases the initiative of elven troops by 3 for 5 turns
- can put enemy level 1-3 troops to sleep for 2 turns. This will RELOAD in 3 turns.
- can summon a huge stack of one of the two kinds of level 1 thorns. This will also RELOAD in 2 turns.
- cherry on top: Leadership 20

Insane.

cherry on top: Anga's Ruby ;)

Anga's Ruby is not the cherry on top of the cake, it's the watermelon. ;)

Even better, if you cast put stuff to sleep on turn 1 with your Dryads, then cast Phantom on the Dryads on turn 2, you can put everything back to sleep on turn 3. :-P

Yes they are imbalanced. IMO the Elves are easily the best race in the game. Dryads, Lake Fairies and Sprites with Anga's Ruby, plus Elven Archers and Hunters with the dwarven telescope. This is probably the best single race team in the game. Anyone care to disagree?

BTW Dryads are no use in the Land of the Dead. :evil:

I find it already ridiculous you can build a whole army around _one_ single item.

Do you mean because the undead can't be put to sleep? They still have the no retal and summon thorns, at the very least, which I think should be more than sufficient.

Yes, they are still of some use, but the Lullaby is the best strength of all.

To illustrate just how good Dryads can be, I am up to level 29 and Murock in my Impossible Warrior game, and I am finding that Dryads just own everything. This is because most Orc units are low level and able to be put to sleep (except Veteran Orcs, I think). My team is as follows (24,000 leadership):

1200 Dryads
200 Hunters
12 Red Dragons
9 Black Dragons
150 Knights

with 15 Emerald Dragons and 150 Horsemen in reserve.

A standard fight, rated Very Strong, went as follows. This was against Orcs, Goblins, Furious Goblins and Hyenas.

Turn 1:

Red Dragons wait, Black Dragons wait, Hunters hit something, Dryads use Lullaby. Red Dragons use special ability, cast Haste, Black Dragons move closer, Knights move closer.

Turn 2:

Cast Phantom on Dryads. Pick off one stack to destroy using the various units. Cast Thorns with the Dryads, near to the sleeping enemies. Cast Thorns with the Phantom Dryads. One stack is killed and rage is now over 50.

Turn 3:

Use Soul Drain (40%) on strongest remaining enemy. This can be cast every turn now. Hit the strongest remaining stack with everything, making sure that the summoned thorns absorb any hits from the enemy stack. Cast Lullaby with the Phantomed Dryads, putting everything back to sleep. Cast Phantom again on the original Dryads.

Turn 4:

Soul Drain again. By now there are several thorns wandering everywhere. They can spawn more Thorns from dead enemies.

Turn 5:

Victory, losing only 2 Knights. It would have been zero but I was a bit lazy. This is not using Resurrection at all; I only suffered one actual hit from 2300 Hyenas, 1400 Orcs, 2000 Furious Goblins and 2200 Gobins. :cool:

Yeah, Dryads are overpowered. :-P

great using of them I'm thinking about changing my shamans for driads and I'll try to work out something like this in Demonis if possible

Fine, go into Demonis with only Dryads. Good luck.

Eh? :confused:

In my warrior game on hard (not sure if hard vs impossible is huge here) I found Murock very very easy and I did not use dyrad (or any elves other than unicorns) nor did I understand how time back worked.

Basically, what I've found is that different areas of the game are easy for different classes. What I'm trying to say is that your technique work well in Murock but almost any technique i tried with warrior worked well in Murock :)

Both games with mage on hard had much more dififuclty in Murock...

yeah and I went into Land of the Dead with only Inquisitors :] I wrote I'll replace Shamans with Driads and try something like Zhuangzi posted with Driads in my army. I never wrote I'll make army of Driads :confused:

My post wasn't really specifically directed at you.

Is sacrifice overpowered? Is ressurection overpowered? Are Black Dragons overpowered?

Do we care in a single player game?

There are lots of ways to crush the game. Why make a big fuss out of Dryads? Do you guys really want them nerfed?

Not everyone gets Anga's ruby, or uses it.

They may be extreme usefull in not few battles - true. But bein overpowered, they have to be usefull all the game - what is not true - later on nearly none of their abilities is usefull:

low leadership? (20) -> more you have - more you loose (vulnerable, low HP)

no retaliation? -> not such a big deal - if they can't kill their target on first hit ... still it is handy, but not powerful

Lulaby? -> how many units are later on lulable? really... not many as far as I know

summon thorns? -> yep - they can take some damage - but later on it is no big deal for enemy to sway away thorns like nothing (as later on are used area efect spells, abilities and mostly fire based)

Is fast? -> well, it give a clear bonus for tactics, but well, you need only one fast unit in army to get first cast and rage use. Other fast units just wait and hope not to be targeted by enemy spells/ archers

Increases speed of elven units? - This could be real handy - for hunters/ elves who by this spell may go first even second round (when you first round +INIT does not apply anymore) so this could get handy... but again, not powerful

Dryads provide very large variety of tactics and combinations, which may look cheating-like, still I voted that they are not overpowered.

Good point.

Actually we still may (or DEVS should) care if something is really overpowered, as it would take a lot of fun from the game... but no such spell/creature is in KB at all... would it be, it would look like this in the "how to ..." thread (and there would be only one, with replies like "it works")

first day travel to island xy - don't fight with anyone as the neutrals are too strong there, buy the unit Super-Griffon, you would need only 10 or 20 of them... their leadership is 10, they have resistance of 80% in all damage areas, have 1000 HP and deal 1200~1500 combined damage, can fly, steal life, have unlimited retaliations, are immune to armageddon and have regeneration - now on you don't need to think at all - you will win any battle just by clicking autocombat.

Dryads would not be as effective, if you players would not make it that effective (for instance, why you can win w/o loses when fighting your own hero who has twice as many units? - because you are the overpowered, not the dryads)

Counter question: Could dryads make sure you will win the last battle (only dragons and caster casting armageddon) w/o any loses? If you can answer yes- I will also re-vote that dryads are overpowered, as this is the ultimate battle (the second one is fighting baal)

The game isn't really meant to be balanced. Some units are just better than others. Orc Shamans and Necromancers are just better than Archmages even though they all cost the same leadership. Cerberi are way better than Dwarves even though they only cost 10 more leadership. Dryads are better than Miners and Hyenas. That's just the way it is.

But this way you will always pick up same units as they are the best until you want hadicap yourself :/.

While I agree that balance is not an absolute necessary in a single-player game, poor balance can be bad game design as it skews the challenge.

Saying something is only overpowered if it is useful the ENTIRE game is a false standard.

Being overpowered simply means having a usefulness greatly above the average.

KB uses a leadership system to try and equalize units (e.g., dragons are obviously better 1 for 1, but is a single dragon better than 1000 of something else?)- the reason that dryads are WAAAY above the average is that what you get per point of leadership is GREATLY undervalued, in terms of leadership.

Do dryads need a nerf? Not necessarily. Are they VASTLY better than the average, per point of leadership? Undoubtably.

Very well said.

I think they are a bit too strong personally

What a bombastic post...

The OP mentioned how overly powerful Dryads are in the game and that's all there is to it - Nobody whined about anything (except for you).

Suffice to say, Dryads are arguably more dangerous than all other level 3 units for the said reasons. Try fighting Sonya on Impossible.

Dryads are good for winning battles through attrition but would undoubtly die in great numbers against heroes and range units. Since most KB-L players use agile strategies (unlike the A.I., we don't win the entire game in one fight) to win, I don't think Dryads are actually that popular to get.

But on the other hand, enemies with lots of Dryads can be scary especially during mid-late game (i.e. Sonya).

Interestingly, my experience is exactly the opposite. Dryads are excellent at winning battles with minimal loses.

Lullaby, even if it works on only 2 or so stacks, is invaluable at letting you divide the enemy and take them out one by one (use phantom lvl 1 to gain an extra 3 turns of lullaby). This ability can't be stressed enough.

Similiar, the initiative song with a largely elf army allows a player to kill or at least cull the enemy before they even move.

Thorns provide a very good damage sink to minimize loses to your true troops.

Dryads aren't all that great when looked at on their own (their damage and HP is low for their leadership). It's what their abilities do that make them great. No retaliation and soaring are just cherries on top.

I am mostly refering to lategame battles where dragons, large shooter stacks, and all high-level-lineups are involved. But on the other hand, if you have Dryads in early and mid-game, there'd be no challenge at all. :-P

By the way, I've never used Dryads so my assumptions on their utility are pure speculations.

Look at my post on a fight in Murock (level 29) in this thread, then give it a try. I was thinking that one of the reasons Dryads are overpowered is because the Lullaby has 100% effectiveness and doesn't have a leadership requirement. Therefore one Dryad can put a whole army to sleep. Maybe this should be tied to leadership in the way that Evil Beholder's Hypnosis skill is?

The fights in Murock are so easy anyway... The toughest fights I had are in the Labryinth and Demonis, especially the stacks with lots of Level 4 and 5's.

I hope that was ironic. Dryads have the best HP to Leadership value of all troops (except Griffons combined with -30% leadership regalia) and they have a very good damage to leadership ratio beating most higher level units. Not counting items like Anga's and Isshara's Whip. They are probably one of the most versatile troops. Unfortunately a bit on the slow side without Anga's.

I'll take your word on it on the HP. I was typing from pure recollection.

I will say that both HP and damage per leadership calculations have to be adusted somewhat for attack and defense values differences between units, as those effect greatly the overall damage dealing and surviveability of a units.

But I'm all on board for the dryads are WAAY above average units bandwagon.

Dryads are one of the few units that have more HP than Leadership requirement. Also the damage of most lev 5 units is actually fairly poor compared to most lev 1 units even considering the difference in attack. Also low level units benefit more from Isshara's Whip giving in some cases a more than 50% damage boost.

As well as that item that boosts their hp.

I am no gaming genius, but playing on normal I find difficult enough, and I think that's what makes this game great -- different parts can be easier for one class or another, the different classes have real differences, and if you can find a way to "beat" the game using one class or item, meh, play something else. I've found plenty of these games impossible to play -- or let's say not worth playing -- because of the endless need to refight the same enemies on the same maps in order to build up enough level for that boss monster, or basically the game "runs on a rail" -- there's no real choice involved, you just follow the train to the end of the line. Great game, IMHO, because it's fun and filled with humor. I'm getting a lot out of these tips, because I suck so badly as a gamer ;) Most fun I've had since the original Dungeon Siege (which had LOTS of hidden secrets -- something this game could use more of, but it presents secrets in a fun way).

Yeah. It's a single-player game. One unit is way strongher than the rest? Great. You like them? Use them. You don't like them? Well, ignore them.Big deal. Still nobody tried to beat the game using peasants only. So no, the game is not broken. Don't fix it :D

That arguement didn't work in the past, and it is not going to work now. Just because this is a single player game, does it make it okay to have a unit that cost 1 Leadership, but with a single click of a button does 9999 damage to another stack? What? Thats absurd? Why can't you "just ignore it"? Game balance is important in a multiplayer game, but it is ALSO important in single player experiences too. And oh, exactly how do single players "just ignore" Dryads that are attacking them? Is there a "Ignore Dryad" choice in the game options? No, I didn't think so. Heck, by your arguement, since this is a single player game, is it perfectly okay to just have an "I Win" click power in Dryads? I mean, geez whiz if you don't like it just ignore it and don't use it right?

Yeah, that arguement is THAT dumb.

Sleepy - watch for "dumb" and similar words please, ok?
1.) This game is modable.
2.) Gameplay is about 30~45 hours, you get dryads near the game end and are usefull only on few islands... so maybe it was developers intend to to make some hours much easier - to not make the game only about difficult battles... but to enjoy some easy battles where the player would say "wow, this was easy... "
3.) Yenko's argument is very good IMHO, worked on many other singleplayer games, and works now and will always work...
4.) Civilization 1 is in my opinion best strategy game ever seen on PC, is single player (not talking about civnet) and semi-advanced players could very soon exploit some units that totally could overrun other civilizations, just by slight change in strategy... on the most difficulty levels... I never heard anyone complaining about "request on remove democracy and diplomats from the game - you may win with nearly no efforts"... as it totally did not work in civnet
5.) If you don't want spend time modding, you don't want remove the dryads from your stacks, you still want hard battles -> sorry, no cure right now...
6.) When playing the game again - players may have new motivation : "When I will get my overpowered dryads, it would help me to wing without loses and save time while traveling back for new units -> Hence higher score and nice screenshot in this forum for 0-loss achievement"
7.) For me are vampires making the game much more easier... I repeat - FOR ME... (this is quite subjective), but from the first minute in the game - my brain was overclocked to find a pattern - glitch, special combination/strategy that would make me the total victor in any battle... this is how human brain works -> tries to find "subways" that would get the brainowner max results with minimum investment... Congratulations! By finding this out, your brain works as designed... so about what you complain? Would you not be able to find a strategy that would make you able to win over "Impossible" enemy stack, you would be advised for Ginko / green tea or other brain supporting drugs and try again...
8.) I feel sorry for anyone who feels bored by finding powerful unit... but if he/she is not creative enough to take some action and remove the boredom, I have a flash news for such: It is impossible to 100% balance anything... even multilayer games are far away of balance... look at MMORPG forums-where players share farming places, mostly cheating like bugs/glithes... but their motivation is to have max level -> that is their "fun"...
9.) There are some nearly 100% balanced strategy games... chess, dame... but of course if you don't mind the "overpowered" fact that one player starts as first...
10.) being a developer, reading players comments of type:" I have found this overpowered unit, when you combine it with these 20 clicks and 5 skills and 3 artefacts and then use this sequence of special abilities and moves, and prepare and save and load and use these 12 spells... you can win after 24 rounds w/o loses) I would celebrate like Paris Hilton... as this would be my happiest reading in my developer sequel... -> why should be clear, if not clear, no need of worry... What is important -> how far is my definition of overpowered unit from the one for dryad-> My version: " When the battle starts, just click this button of this unit and you win..."... can you somehow feel the difference? No? Yes?... good luck

Go re-read my post. I said the ARGUEMENT was dumb, not the person. You want to see personal attacks? Go re-read the way these pro-dryad people responded to one of my posts in the Tips forum in a thread called "Totally fed up with Dryads". In it you'll see lovely phrases such as "idiot", "whining", "crying", "shut up" etc. etc. hurled this way. I applaud you for wanting civility in this forum, but I find it interesting that you did NOT object to the way THOSE trolls posted even though you had replied in that thread. If you are the least bit honest and unbiased, I suggest you start denouncing the conducts of those people.

I noticed you dodged my original question : so IS it okay to have a unit that costs 1 Leadership but with a click power that does 9999 damage to another stack just because this is a single player game? If not, WHY not? I mean, its a single player game right? If you don't like it you just don't use it, correct?

Oh, and I noticed you also dodged the question about the fact that even in a single player game, the players are still forced to deal with Dryads using their cheesy attacks on them, because there are no "Ignore Dryad" checkbox in the game's options.

Pray tell, exactly how does a single unit of Dryad manage to put 200 Royal Snakes, 100 Inquisitors and 250 priests all to sleep? The game uses Leadership to balance a creature's powers, like Evil Beholder's Hypnosis, Demoness' Charm, etc. etc. But the game not only allows Dryads to break this rule, but it can totally render useless ALL applicable stacks in the battle field. Its an auto-hit, has unlimited range, and geez whiz it is RELOADABLE. Just this one power alone makes Dryads absurd, not to mention the fact that it has 10 or 12 other things going for it too to make them way out of balance.

And since you brought up Civilization I - imagine if Chariots were 10/5/4 instead of 4/2/2? Would YOU have supported it just because Civ I was only single player at the time? Golly, by your arguement I would "feel sorry" for anyone who would feel bored by finding such a powerful unit. What? You wouldn't want the devs to fix it? Why not just ignore the 10/5/4 Chariots?

Since when it is UNIMPORTANT for gaming elements to be balanced in single player experiences? You and those who take your position keeps on harping on this as if it is some kind of gaming industry fact. You seem to want the players, or the modding community to address a problem that the developers was being paid for in the first place. Sorry, no dice. Every successful single player game out there is where they are because they don't allow things like this.

The fact that you think those who object to Dryads are *using* them is where your misconception begins. Tell me, would NOT USING the 10/5/4 Chariots in Civilization I have solved your problem when computer players were sending them against you? No, I didn't think so.

some people have a moral opposition for fun... "all units must be the exact same, with no special abilities, no creative uses, and no extra powers"...
bah.

PS. And those people are even wrong, because they are wrongly focusing on the dryad as the ultimate unit, when it clearly isn't.

Dear Gamers of KB & Concerned Friends of "Dryads",

KB is a game for our pleasure and entertainment (or even experiment if we are willing). Hope everyone will take it easy.

I do not think they are grossly "overpowered". Personally, i like to cast "sheep" on them and watch them run around.

Ha ha. Happy holidays to all!!

Danny

I'm with Sleepy on this one.

The attempts at simplifying the dryad situation to black-and-white as a defense are misplaced.

No, Dryads aren't the "ultimate" unit.

No, Dryads don't completely "break" the game, especially if you don't use them.

So? Dryads are still a serious example of being off the curve that is set by the vast majority of the other units in the game.

Good game design, especially in a game that has repeatedly demonstrated that balance is a factor (e.g., leadership system to balance units, level, rune, and crystal system to balance spells), still means balancing elements to a reasonable level.

Dryads could do with a balance tweak, and are probably one of the biggest examples of a needed tweak in the game.

Being single-player does not equate with not needing good balance. It may make things less urgent, but if the developers care about this being a well-designed game (which they obviously do), fixing unbalanced elements like the druid would go a long way towards that goal.

Yet, nobody plays any of the perfectly balanced games, but people rave about games with a wide variety of unit strengths. Why? because overly balanced games are BORING. If nothing actually CHANGES about a unit except its physical appearance the game gets boring really fast.

With the current system though, you get a wide variety of units with a wide variety of abilities and/or basic power level, and people are having fun.

I disagree that Dryads are so great. I use primarily ranged units and I found that I can usually kill the enemy with magic/ranged attacks. On the off occasion that a unit manages to cross the battlefield it is met with ice thorns or the ice ball which will give me the one extra turn to kill him. A unit like archmages can shock enemies often enough while attacking and doing damage to make him more valuable. Plus archmages have 90 hp so they won't die from a giant's stomp or a necromancer's attack. (i just got resurrect in the elf land so i was using inquisitor + gift until now...).

When the computer controls dryads it wastes several turns. they cast sleep & thorns, and only 1 or 2 of my guys are sleepable and the thorns get killed right away with fire rain, (kills 1000-1400 thorns with my lvl 25 warrior with max chaos magic).

Point is... dragons are nice because they are tough and fast, but dryads are not as mobile and and lose a few here and there too easily. So they aren't worth an artifact slot that could benefit my overall strategy instead of one unit only. (not worth sprites or lake faeries either).

You seem to have a very simple view of balance meaning identical. Starcraft, which is held to be one of the most balanced games ever, is extremely popular precisely because balance as achievable with extreme diversity.

Your whole premise of balance can only be achieved with identical stats is disproven by this very game. Nearly the entire roster is well balanced, despite being diverse.

It's precisely this good balance everywhere else that makes the dryad stand-out like a sore thumb in an otherwise balanced and diverse game.

Again, oversimplifying the discussion to black-and-white strawmen isn't helpful: balance can be achieved without being identical.

balanced yet diverse? starcraft is not very diverse, this game however IS diverse.

And the good players are saying that dryads are not "all that"

Pick your argument and stick to it. Do you fundamentally feel that balancing isn't needed in a single player game (as your previous posts stated) or do you feel that dryads specifically don't need it, but that balancing itself is fine to do?

By bouncing around, you come off as simply being stubborn rather than reasoned.

And frankly, you might also want to get out from behind "the good players" skirts as support for an argument.

i am saying that balance is not needed AND that it just so happens that despite not NEEDING to be balanced, the dryads ARE balanced.

At least, balances with the SLEW of other "game breaking" tactics... things like using invisibility on a fast unit, mining mana with spring of magic to res everything, phantom/summons + sacrifice to finish a battle with MORE units than you started with etc etc etc...

People are finishing the game without loosing a single units. Dryad is definitely a "power unit", but there are much MUCH more powerful things in this game.

check out those threads:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=5727
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=4979
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=5467

And many many others... there are some about undead armies (specifically vampires) and some others, damn I can't even remember off the top of my head all the methods of completely dominating the game.

Dryads are just a cog in the "power puff" strategy... that is... get anga's ruby and dryads, lake sprites, demoness, and i forgot the other females... anyways the demoness can swap places of friend and enemy troops, the sprites have a no retalian attack with very VERY high damage and extremely fast movement (especially with the ruby giving +3 initiative +3 move +3 morale etc... and morale itself giving 30% boost to attack and defense)

Geez, the fuss about the Dryads. They have awesome abilities, and they are FUN to play with. As an unit in the hands of the AI, they are not such a threat(will be the first to die anyway). They can cast their stuff (under Ai control)which can be countered (mass dispell?) and that's pretty much it. I'm much more concerned by the dragons, in fact. Since the AI does not have the ability to come here on the forum and whine about units and OUR cheap tactics we use against it, i'm not concerned about the whole 'imba' issue.
Hypnosis+Sacrifice is imba. Resurrect is imba. Mana-harvesting is imba.Poison cloud+mana spring is imba. Half our skills are imba. Using the Spirits of Rage is imba (AI doesn't have Spirits, sigh :) ).
Completing the game on impossible with ZERO losses is imba. Then, one can argue that half the game is 'imba'.
Play the game, have fun, gimme a break.

Pointing out a bunch of other broken or cheesy things somehow makes Dryads not broken or cheesy?

That's like someone pointing at other people mugging or rioting and trying to claim that his shoplifting is okay because there are worse offenses elsewhere.

That made me lol'd

Sleepy, Sleepy, Sleepy.

Riding this tired old horse again, are we? No matter how many times you beat it, it will still be dead. (yay for mixed metaphors).

[QUOTE=sleepy;62962]Pointing out a bunch of other broken or cheesy things somehow makes Dryads not broken or cheesy?

That's like someone pointing at other people mugging or rioting and trying to claim that his shoplifting is okay because there are worse offenses elsewhere. /QUOTE]

No, what Taltamir is saying, is that, compared to these other tactics, Dryads aren't that unbalanced, even if they were unbalanced to begin with.

Let me just sum up all the arguments why they are NOT unbalanced:

1. You won't get them until the latter half of the game, by which time, most units you face that are actually a threat are either undead, level four+, or immune to mind spells, which removes the only truely powerful ability that dryads posses.
2. Their damage SUCKS. 1-4 damage is absolutely brutally bad for their leadership value. Even Anga's ring doesn't help much. Though their pathetic speed, even with the ring (not enough to get them across the map unless you have tactic lvl 2) means they won't be in combat much (EDIT: at least in the first round, and by the end of the game, that starts to be the only round that really matters, cause most fights only last 2-3 rounds)
3. Their other abilities aren't amazingly stellar. Sure, summon thorns is nice, but thorns are really weak, and do fairly pathetic damage, though i'll admit, their distraction value is highly useful. No retal is nice, but their damage sucks, so it doesn't really matter. They have other minor abilities as well - elven song (only 1 charge, and only useful for elves, and let's face it, if you are using dryads, you're probably using sprites and wood fairies too, and they already have tons of initiative), and some others that i can't remember (i think +1 morale to ents and thorns, which aren't highly useful units, though they have their place and also some ability that makes humanoid males sometimes miss (annoying, but survivable)).

Let me also state the "it's a single player game" argument, as i understand it.
1. Since you are playing on your own, against the computer, you have the power to decide whether or not you use any given unit. So, to pick a totally random (cough, cough) example, say you don't like dryads, and think that using them makes the game too easy, DON"T USE THEM
2. You're probably now going to say, "but what about the dryads i will be fighting? I always lose against them". The answer to that is that, firstly, they won't show up in any more than 1% (at most) of all the battles you fight in the entire game, so, really, it shouldn't matter that much. Second, if you always lose against them, then adjust your tactics. This is one of the best features of the game. There is no troop combination that you can pick up at the beginning of the game and use until the end. The different areas force you to change your tactics. Eg: you get to Ellinia for the first time, and explore around. You notice that many of the troops in the area are weak against fire. You then go to the Land of Death, and discover that the undead also have somewhat of a weakness to fire. You see Red and Black dragons for sale there, so you buy them, and clear most of both areas with their tanking awesomeness coupled with their ability to hit several stacks (useful hint: ice thorns (lina ability) + red/black dragons = heavy damage with no retaliation). Next you boldly go to Demonis, ready to do some more Dragon ownage, only to find that demons are 50% immune to fire, and laugh in the collective faces of red and black dragons. (in case you couldn't tell, "you" here is me in my first game of KB). The game forces you to change your strategy against different foes. For Dryads, don't use level 1-3 troops, except undead or mind immune ones. Or focus your spells on neutralizing them (either with direct damage or blind lvl 1, or pygmy, or teleporting a stronger stack with high init (horsemen, for example) good and close to them, and watch the carnage. Or use your own dryads, cause they are lvl 2 units, and vulnerable to their own lulaby ability.

Does that about cover everything, Sleepy? This dead horse can`t take much more beating.

Your amazing lack of knowledge of lullaby, the dryad's most powerful ability, completes discredits any position you have on dryads.

At least know the damn unit if you are going to argue about it.

I guess I must have missed it when you flashed your "intrawebz dead horsez appointer badge". Isn't it convenient for you to just declare something you don't want to see discussed as a deadhorse, and you think everyone should trip over themselves and comply with your judgement.

Just because you *want* this to be a dead horse does not magically make it so. Why? See, I can do the same too. Its easy. Here's an example : Ryastar, ryastar, ryastar, still trying to defend this dead horse which cannot be defended any more? This dead horse can't take much more beating.

See? Are you now under some magical compulsion or obligation to suddenly stop talking what I don't want you to talk about? No, I didn't think so.

Trying to tell other people online what they can or cannot discuss is ultimately futile. The only CONTROL you have is to hit the "Back" button on your browser if you can't stand reading criticisms on Dryads. Your demand for people to be silent didn't work in the past, and it isn't working now.

But I *do* enjoy watching you try futilely to attempt to control other posters' actions.

So, the lesson for today's class is that you can either try to talk people into being silent and fail, or you can Exercise. Personal. Responsibility. but not reading that which you cannot tolerate. No one is twisting your elbow to keep on clicking this thread. So tell me, which way do you think will get you what you want, trying to control others, or exercise control over your own actions?

Class dismissed.

if half the game is "broken" and "overpowered", maybe it is not the game but your expectations that need to be adjusted. I just love the idea of there being creative rule uses that are exploitative...

You know what else has specific rules that can be exploited? physics. thats why we have air planes, space ships, guns, etc...

"Dear Lord who art in heaven, I have a bug to report... airplanes are TOTALLY broken, they are just way overpowered, I demand you nerf them at once or I am taking my business elsewhere!"

For me finding something out like hypnotize + sacrifice is merely discovering the science behind the magic and using the laws of physics to your advantage. (for example, lets say sacrifice requires a unit to perform part of the magic ceremony itself, like say, stabbing its own heart with its weapon as you cast the spell... hypnotizing the enemy and making them commit suicide sounds perfectly logical!)

Ryastar, YENKO, thumbs up for two very well written posts..

Stepsongrapes: Lol, did you even read my post? Read point 1 again. If i understand english correctly, i`m pretty sure that i covered lulaby. Let me reiterate my point: since you only get dryads in the last third of the game, by which time most dangerous enemies are undead, mind immune or level 4-5, lulaby isn`t that useful. I do see that i neglected to mention it by name, but i would think that by mentioning all the groups that are unaffected by lulaby, and then mentioning how those units render a dryad`s only truely powerful ability useless.

Sleepy: yet again, you conveniently only focus on one part of my entire post, namely, the beginning, where i just used some stupid introduction to my post. I think it`s hilarious how you read so much in to a comment that took me less than thirty seconds to write, and i thought about for even less time, and ignore all my arguments. I am in no way trying to control what you post. I admit that the whole dryad argument is annoying me, so i wrote my arguments clearly in my last post here. For someone who, in an earlier post (number 34 in this thread) accused and abused Gatts for ignoring parts of your argument, you ignored an awful lot of mine, namely, all of it. Practice what you preach man, or it destroy your credibility.

Way to put words into people's mouth just so you have something disingenuous to argue against. I CHALLENGE you to do a search for the word "half" in this entire thread, and tell us who claimed "half the game is broken or overpowered".

Can't find it, can you?

Read the thread topic again to see which single issue is being discussed. When you try to make things up by putting words into people's mouth, you will be called out and made to look foolish in front of all.

I made a list of just SOME of the ways to dominate the game, you responded with the above message. Meaning in your view those things I mentioned are broken and cheesy. (rather then just awesome and useful if used correctly). I am not putting words in your mouth, you said it yourself.
I'll give it to you, it is not LITERALLY HALF (I was being figurative), but it is a significant amount. And from the list I made the dryad is by far the LEAST useful, important, or overpowering.

If it isn't half, and you failed to find any quotes of people making that claim, then the lesson of the story here is to not make things up just so you have something to argue against. Here is another lesson : its a logical fallacy called "strawman" (google this if you need)

And there you go again. You used the word least in all caps, as if that somehow turned your PERSONAL OPINION into FACT. Cause it doesn't, and stating a personal opinion does not a logical arguement make.

But of course, you STILL can't explain why pointing out a bunch of other broken or cheesy things somehow makes the broken and cheesy Dryads NOT broken or cheesy. Want to debate something? Learn to use logic and reasons. Smoke and mirror will *also* be called out and you'll just end up looking foolish.

Class dismissed, again. :)

Having fun, sleepy? Good job only responding to the weakest arguments anyone brings forward, and, if you can't find any weak ones, just latching on to one small part of the post, and creating a whole rant around it. As i said in my post, above (where you created an imaginary set of motives for a small statement that i wrote just because i wanted something funny-ish to start my argument (though even i didn't that it was all that funny)), Taltamir is NOT saying that these other things being broken or cheesy makes Dryads less cheesy. What he IS saying, is that, since these other things are far worse, more broken and cheesy than dryads (considering that they aren't, this isn't hard), IN COMPARASON, dryads aren't that bad. (for reasons why Dryads aren't broken/cheesy, try actually reading my post, instead of what you did do, as i explained above)

And Sleepy, actually read people's posts. In the quote you gave, Taltamir specifically said that he was being figurative, or exagerrating for effect (it's called hyperbole, try googling it), so, no he did not mean half, and he said he did not.

Class Dismissed (you do realize that ending your post with this every time looks arrogant, stupid and pretentious, especially since you fail to actually teach any lessons in your posts)

hI, i might be crashing here, but i just wanna know. is there a place in elven lands that sell dryads in hordes? i've completed karador's quest, but the only dryad source i found is in the magic valley's magic tree, and the dryad supply has dried up.

Not that I know.

Check all the shops everywhere in Ellinia, that's your best bet to find more Dryads.

I don't think Dryads are imbalanced. They are very useful against some enemies and nearly useless against others - for example:

(1) Heroes/units that cast fear on them - you instantly lose control
(2) Magic resistance creatures

Dryads are perfect for troop conservation against daily encounters, but for tougher fights (very strong, impossible) it is better to swap them out with some thick-skin melee such as Royal snakes, Horsemen and Griffins.

I say absolutely they are... they are highly adaptable and useful in nearly every encounter... I am just pissed I haven't found any =P

Don't think there's really much to debate. It's a strong unit with some big situational advantages. Would the game be more or less fun if you removed all such units? For me the answer is, less fun ofcourse. As long as there's a bunch of viable strategies and army line up's I don't think any devs are wasting their sleep over it.

On a related note, I disagree that the female ruby army (dryads+lake fairies+sprites) lose their power in demonis+labyrinth+final fights. With sacrifise and resurection all these fights where all a breeze without losses apart from the final fight which did make a pretty heavy dent on the army but it's the last fight and was never a question that I wouldn't win the zerg fest so not really that bothered :)

note: If anything I think the last fight versus only lvl5 was probably the most boring fight in the entire game with zero strategy chooices just zerg zerg kill kill.

I do believe they are potent, but they are there for the Impossible level, imagine IF they werent there, what would you use? I also think when ye get to the dragons they will get pwned!