How to beat the Red Dragon

[Pine Needle]

My statistics classes are long in the past, but I imagine the results in Maelstron are statistically insignificant. The balance issue is always so important and Rick and Mike obviously consider it with every change.
 51 games:

1 Red Dragon 24.3% 9 37 2 Lizard Men 18.2% 4 22 3 Warlock 17.6% 3 17 4 Cimmerians 17.4% 4 23 5 Necromancer 17.4% 4 23 6 Illusionist 16.1% 5 31 7 Druid 15.4% 6 39 8 Sorcerer 15.0% 3 20 9 Amazons 12.5% 4 32 10 Nomad 12.5% 1 8 11 Gnome 12.0% 3 25 12 Atlantians 10.7% 3 28 13 Underworld 10.3% 3 29 14 Tyrant 10.0% 2 20 15 Ancient Ones 9.8% 4 41 16 Demon Princes 9.7% 3 31 17 Ranger 7.7% 3 39 18 Pirates 7.4% 2 27 19 Sacred Order 6.7% 1 15 20 Halfling 6.3% 1 16 21 Dwarven 5.6% 1 18 22 Black Dragon 5.0% 1 20 23 Darkelven 4.3% 1 23 24 Elven 0.0% 0 17

I imagine the statistical significance is more on the top and the bottom, i.e. the top kingdoms are the best right now and vice versa, but the confounds are too many to count- players, scenarios (e.g. recent no human game) etc.

Still, I'd like to know how to stop the dragon. Thoughts?

Here are mine:

Be a hard target- if you are next to the Red, consider a stronger military kingdom, sea capital.
Make Red a target- I've seen this a couple of times. AM can crush the Red early, or maybe DW in the mountains or elves in the woods?
Stay hidden?

Red does not have many brigades, and needs lots of food. 
Any way a wizard can beat the Red early? I'm stumped.

Not that there needs to be a way. In reverse, I don't see anyway the Red could beat a wizard late, for example.

[Wookie Panz]

My statistics classes are long in the past, but I imagine the results in Maelstron are statistically insignificant. The balance issue is always so important and Rick and Mike obviously consider it with every change.
 51 games:

1 Red Dragon 24.3% 9 37 2 Lizard Men 18.2% 4 22 3 Warlock 17.6% 3 17 4 Cimmerians 17.4% 4 23 5 Necromancer 17.4% 4 23 6 Illusionist 16.1% 5 31 7 Druid 15.4% 6 39 8 Sorcerer 15.0% 3 20 9 Amazons 12.5% 4 32 10 Nomad 12.5% 1 8 11 Gnome 12.0% 3 25 12 Atlantians 10.7% 3 28 13 Underworld 10.3% 3 29 14 Tyrant 10.0% 2 20 15 Ancient Ones 9.8% 4 41 16 Demon Princes 9.7% 3 31 17 Ranger 7.7% 3 39 18 Pirates 7.4% 2 27 19 Sacred Order 6.7% 1 15 20 Halfling 6.3% 1 16 21 Dwarven 5.6% 1 18 22 Black Dragon 5.0% 1 20 23 Darkelven 4.3% 1 23 24 Elven 0.0% 0 17

I imagine the statistical significance is more on the top and the bottom, i.e. the top kingdoms are the best right now and vice versa, but the confounds are too many to count- players, scenarios (e.g. recent no human game) etc.

Still, I'd like to know how to stop the dragon. Thoughts?

Here are mine:

Be a hard target- if you are next to the Red, consider a stronger military kingdom, sea capital.
Make Red a target- I've seen this a couple of times. AM can crush the Red early, or maybe DW in the mountains or elves in the woods?
Stay hidden?

Red does not have many brigades, and needs lots of food. 
Any way a wizard can beat the Red early? I'm stumped.

Not that there needs to be a way. In reverse, I don't see anyway the Red could beat a wizard late, for example.

Regional Spells should hurt them badly and of course take their food away.  Anything that hurts their moral is helpful.

[Strongwill]

Well, from my experience two to three kingdoms hitting you on T3 can do the trick?

[Senior Tactician]

I've actually been toying with an idea against any invader, I'm calling it either the possum, or the turtle, and it plays to my natural desire to enter the game slowly  The idea is that if you suspect aggressive neighbors, and control a kingdom less than capable of defending yourself against such, you simply build a single town, preferably on the water or hidden, that produces enough food and gold to replace that of your region.  So when your neighbor comes in and takes it... you just let him come in and take it.  There are other ways to ensure your income after the loss of your region, but this one is very reliable.

While they are taking your region, you can weaken them with agents and spells, but you don't send any assets that might be at risk, mostly politicals but also any brigades you might want to keep.  Keep everything safe and just keep developing assets with the gold and food from your honey pot.

So, after they have taken your region, the most important thing that happens is that other players notice that they have taken your region.  In a contentious game, this often shifts the balance of play against your opponent.  Of course in a game full of new or casual players it may not do much.  But it may cause other kingdoms to move on your opponents home region.  So you keep an eye on that by diving his PCs there, and when it happens, that's when you make your move to reclaim.  If that doesn't happen, you wait to see your opponent attacking his third region, then you move to reclaim.  Your opponent only has so many orders, groups, and other assets, so when he goes off to attack another region, he'll have fewer to defend yours. 

Each kingdom is going to have different ways of dealing with the RD, or any other kingdom for that matter.  In the game that just completed, as the DE I simply built an army the Red would not have been able to match.  Any kingdom that can recruit orcs can do that, although, I think there are only four of those.  Orcs are probably the most powerful brigade type next to Red Dragons.  Not because each one is strong, but because of their special ability.  15 orcs have an attack value greater than 15 of any other type of troop besides Red Dragons.... and I don't think you can actually get 15 red dragons until pretty late in the game.

The orc moral (with 15 orcs) gives 55% to the group value, making their above average attack value of 2630 become a whopping 4076.  But they give it to the whole group.  So the skeletons you get literally for free go from a measly 1850 to a substantial 2967.  Attacking a city twice will give you a dozen elites, replace your losses and repeat, filtering elites out of your group, and regulars back in as you go.  You get a massive group that ends up being fairly tough as well, in a relatively short time.

If it were not for the sea of aszure, I would have been able to introduce the Red Dragon king to my group, alas, I was not paying close enough attention to my group disposition to be able to sail them when I needed to.

[Senior Tactician]

Actually it occurs to me that I have indeed defeated the Red Dragon previously with an army of mostly Orcs.  I was playing the Tyrant, Painted was the Big Dragon, we ended up at stormgate on the same turn.  I trounced the red and grabbed the city on the same turn for the win on turn 14.  I think Painted was also up for the win on that same turn, and the entire game came down to that one battle.

[Strongwill]

Good information

[Pine Needle]

Good information

Very nice. I like orcs, too, but didn't know the math was that strong.

UncleMike did the turtle as the IL in the first game I played (as the WA). The Nomad took his region but the IL kingdom did just fine with one monster hidden town.

[Pine Needle]

In the ice age game we're playing now, Wildings are like double orcs- +5% attack AND defend per brigade. Much more limited in a game with seasons, but I'd seriously look at kingdoms that get wildings in another ice age game.

I've mucked it up otherwise, however, sadly.

[The Painted Man]

Actually it occurs to me that I have indeed defeated the Red Dragon previously with an army of mostly Orcs.  I was playing the Tyrant, Painted was the Big Dragon, we ended up at stormgate on the same turn.  I trounced the red and grabbed the city on the same turn for the win on turn 14.  I think Painted was also up for the win on that same turn, and the entire game came down to that one battle.

Trounced is a bit strong as I believe you took more losses, but I'd agree with the rest of it.

[Ry Vor]

This is an interesting strategy thread. 

I really don't think the Red Dragons are a great threat to win, but they are an early threat to their neighbors.  Again, games would be different with full diplomacy.  This was sort of the idea in first and second cycle when the Witchlord was, as in LOTR supposed to be the main threat and the others would know casualties would be high but you have to take a hit for the team. 

But then in North Carolina they pumped up the Giants and made the Witchlord capital always in the water in the Sea of Terror and in those days you had brigades drowning, and they were always in the Northern Mists so you would find their capital and drown their brigades and wizards on turn 3.  I didn't do that (design). While I am bitching, the spelling errors and syntax mistakes most notably in unusual encounters happened when North Carolina decided to convert to Clipper (???) and apparently had to retype everything and had an explosion of grammatical and spelling errors.

My impression according to The Gray Mouser is that first winter is brutal for the Red.  So although Zanthia seems attractive, when winter hits turn 4 and that's the first you can get companions, it's a quagmire.  Also yes, I am aware of the Amazons taking out the Red Dragons played by an Alamaze Champion quite early. 

From the stats produced by Pine Needle, first, appreciate the effort.  Next, I think we have to repeat the question of kingdoms vs. players.  I think, that is sort of I work to and hope, the kingdoms play completely differently but are all capable of winning.  BUT, players, especially the better players (until recently) would take the more assured kingdoms, such as the Ancient Ones and Demon Princes and not the Dwarves, Elves, Halflings etc. 

Still, even given the stats, it is interesting the military kingdoms are doing better than the wizard kingdoms in Valhalla.  

The possum strategy is creative, unique and interesting. 

I always appreciate this kind of contribution (the contributors to this thread) to the community.   I of course had a career outside Alamaze, but I think I am most proud of having maybe the only software/computer game that has been played for 35 years.  Also that back in the days of Paper Mayhem and Flagship that other designers were saying Alamaze was their target to attempt to equal.