I still think it is just a good battle.  Your level 14 and the dragon is level 13.  You are well equiped.  You effectively use items and were able to shrink the dragon on the second attempt.  The first match you were able to do it on the thrid try.  You were able to resist the effects of fear, which is a big deal when fighting any of the dragons.  Since you are essentially the same level as the dragon, I really don't see why you are saying life magic is over powered.  It is two equal level characters in a pretty good fight.  The dragon is a brute force monster, and you are taking away his best advantage by using shrink.  I still don't think the choices that the Dragon are making are the best tactically and in a 1 vs 1 match between these two, or even in the other recording you would lose more matches than you win.  Hopefully as Frogboy refines the AI, these things will improve.  I still think it is a good fight and a good win for you.

If you were several levels lower than the dragon, than I think you would have a better argument that life magic is over powered.  But if you are a level or two within your adversary, it is good tactics on your part and/or poor tactics on the part of who you are facing.

The game isn't really all about levels, though. I mean - would you rather face a level 15 dragon or a level 15 mite group? I think it's reasonable to expect a level 15 dragon to be stronger 1v1 than other level 15 units, even sovereigns. The main problem though is they need to not nuke half their own health with the breath attack.. and once that is fixed, they need to use their abilities far more often, they resort to regular physical attacks (easily countered) too often.

Right, but before I get Fireball in the fire string, and Thunder Strike and Storm in Air.  For some reason I think Blizzard is level 4.  Every game has that spell that just changes things completely.  Once you get it, it is the turning point in the game and things start turning.  This game seems to be level three spells.  Your tactic will get even better once you get well spring and you can start healing multiple units at the same time.

To be perfectly honest, I think the developers have let all magic become overpowered.  Oddly enough, at the same time, it is watered down because everyone has it.  This is the problem with the super stack of champions.  Even with the changes, building troops is really not necessary at all.  I turn Champions on sparse because I do not like how they have developed through the beta.  Unfortunately, I think I just read a thread by Kael or Frogboy that they may make changes to increase the importance of champions.  I can barely see how that is possible.  There are so many, and they become so powerful, I limit them just because.

Believe me, I am all for limiting the ability of magic.  I think the change of letting everyone have access to magic was the wrong way to go.  But that is what they wanted to do.  Things I would change.

Don't let Sovereigns have access to anything above level 2 spells unless they take the Path of the Mage.

and not or

Champions, don't let any of them have any spells at all unless the Sovereign imbues them with the ability cast it.  Let the imbue cost 3 hit points per level of spell you are letting them imbue. One spell at a time.  If you want your champion to be able to cast shrink.  that will cost your Sovereign 15 hit points.  Better be worth it.

*******Edit********

level 15 mites---death of a thousand cuts (or bruises)

I thought I saw the dragon hit itself with its fire breath.  That was a tide changing moment.  Like I said, I think the dragon controlled by a player would win both of these battles well over half the time.  The first thing would be to charge and hit the sovereign with a fire breath, get in position to tail sweep to keep hitting multiple targets at the same time.  The dragon continually does not take advantage of its best attacks.  By then, the players strategy has taken effect.  Even then, he does use a lot of resources to defeat the it.  Again, I don't think shrink is over powered, I do think it was one of those spells that starts turning the tide for a player.  But tactics are a bigger problem, than the spell.  If the player gets hit by fear and does not move for the first three turns, he is equally screwed.  I love getting dragons to play in my army the first thing I go is firebreath the sovereign and champions and as many units that fit in the AOE.  I really think I could be the player is I was controlling the dragon--both battles.

Bigger, smarter tougher monsters need to take better advantage of their spells and specials.

Add a Counter counter counter measure.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

i don't think they should be immune but I do think they need boost to their resistance.  But I still think they need to use their abilities better.  When you get Dance with Dragons and add one to your army, they are just devastating.  They will wipe out entire armies by themselves.  They can take down entire cities alone even if it is reinforced, but you have to select your targets a little better.  I have only been able to add Fell Dragons so far, but like them.  Once they improve the tactical AI, Dragons will be will be very difficult to deal with.

You could also go through their life stages.  Level 13 are young dragons.  Add some level 20s to the game.  I would prefer they just improve the use of abilities and select their targets better.

*****Kael or Frogboy*****

you do need to fix the tailsweep---there is a pretty hefty tail when you use it.

If anyone wants to try to beat a Clambercoil Dragon.

I have Procipinee level 9, practically no gear, but she does have level 3 life magic

Svedd, with a pike, leather armor,

They have tutelage, evade, and nature's cloak cast on them.  Both champions are also on horses.

I also have 5 leather clad Destiney's Guard.  They also have nature's cloak and evade cast on them

I am not sure how to share files.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/102157901/Dragon%20Test.EleSav

So far this has been a pretty rough game.  I am trying to figure out how to use Procipinee, so the AI and world are on normal (I think).  I have sparse resources, normal magic, and dense monsters.  The random event just took place and the dragon appeared just outside my borders.  Two sets of Skaths have been giving me a little bit of trouble, and greatly restricted expansion.  A dark wizard is off to the west of my fortress and skaths are rampaging.  Skaths and Ophidian are to the south of my town.  Along with a syndicate base.  South of that is Verga, and apparently he has not had so many expansion restrictions.  I tried the above fight but I left with an escape scroll to continue the game.  I kept the save to give it a try a couple other times.  Once I was able to shrink the dragon on the first try and I still got smoked.  Another time, I never did get him shrunk (that was a whoopin).  I tried auto resolve a couple times but that never worked.  The only time I won was after I shrunk the dragon on my second try, used growth on Svedd and then auto resolved.  Other than that, I think the dragon is about 14 out of 15.  There is probably a combination, but right now the dragon is not a threat, it is behind my borders and is not wandering.  There is no way I would even try to take the fight.

Clambercoils, even after you shrink him, you just cannot do any damage to him.  His armor is still just brutal to get through.  The poison bite is just awful, and he does fire off his breath weapon.  I probably need better weapons, but I have had some trouble getting resources.  Now that I have a pretty good army I expanded to the north and got two iron mines and a cyrstal mine.  I will probably come back, because I am going to need a dragon to take on Verga.  There is a massive difference between a clambercoil and a fell dragon. 

Try turning up the world difficulty if you think dragons are too easy.

There are 2 difficulty settings, one for the WORLD and one for the AI PLAYERS.
For your own experiments, try setting one to really low, and the other to insane, you will notice the difference .

The world difficulty basically changes monster behavior, (and at later levels, monster HP).
Don't think it changes anything else specifically, if it does its kind of hidden (or I'm oblivious to it).

The AI difficulty changes things depending on where it is on the bar exactly, easy difficulties will have the AI have less starting gold for example, while higher difficulties will both raise AI intelligence, but after each difficulty after challenging the AI will gain benefits like extra income/starting gold, extra resources and HP.

Somewhere in between on the easy settings the players.. is supposed? to get some boosts, I don't remember where that is, I don't babble a whole lot on the easy difficulties

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Fun to watch.  Thanks for doing it.  Couple things I just did not do when I tried to fight him.

The only thing weird is I played that thing ten times and it used fire breathe every single time as a first attack. He usually smoked about two or three units every time. I would usually shrink him on the second try, but got him on the first try once. Never tried slow, I was always trying to maximize damage by using growth on the ones that were left.

Still, bad descisions by the dragon. First fire breathe should have hit Svedd and the two guards, instead hit just the one guard. Never used a Tail Sweep that would hit all of them as well.

I am actually in a lot better spot now in the game.  I was actually pretty content to just leave him alone, while I rushed more buildings. I had a feeling I was falling behind because of how slow I was expanding.  I rushed the iron ore mines to max level as well as the crystal mine to try and catch up.  I am pretty far behind in military power, but my research is kicking but.  I have the Hosten's Library, Merchant Bazaar, the Great Mill, and Eroegg's Tower ( I ight have another wonder).  Time to crank up the war machine.  My Destiny Guards are in chain mail, with fire axes.  And Svedd found Spectral armor, and I really like that spear.  Except Verga is starting to act up and he is 75 to 100 points higher than me in strength.

I love the Rusty Vambraces for the treasure.  That is just awesome.

***edit***almost forgot

Be careful, you might ruin a lot of things changing these items, I see a delicate balance between damage reduction and self healing, the self healing costing more than 100 Gold in the shop, + the mana costs etc. (I am trying to say: Remember the opportunity cost, and figure out where you want it to be).

I like salted pork and would hate to see it go, quickest solution I would find would be a cooldown on salted pork and similar items, but I have no idea how that would affect gameplay.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

You could also change growth and shrink so the effects only last three turns.  The resistance of the dragon makes the shrink about a 50/50 proposition.  Also, other spells have the three turn limit built into them.

***edit***you can also limit the number of potions, pork, bread, and herbs you can carry at one time.  There is a limit on the number of items, but no limit other stuff.  I think is hilarious that you are going into a fight carry 8 pieces of salted pork and 3 healing potions.  Not to mention the 18 wolf pelts you are lugging around.  YOu would think that would hurt your initiative a little bit.

Harmonius needs to learn the lesson I learned.  Do not show the developers how you wipe the floor with AI, because, instead of fixing bugs and adding content, they will focus on nerfing stuff.

For example, I once posted a long, meticulous post about upgrades.  I pointed out interface problems, bugs, and a balance issue.  It was ignored.  Then someone took just the balance issue, and showed how one could upgrade for cheap. 

The developers swooped on the 'exploit'.  Forget that it was due to them computing gold costs from the arbitrary item price instead of production costs.  Forget that the upgrades were already too expensive.  Forget that one could not upgrade well designed units, because the game does not track what is marked as upgradable and what is not.  Basically, forget everything except the nerf.

It's more than a month later. Every single issue I pointed out in September is still around, except for the exploit.  But upgrades now cost full resource cost plus about three times as much gold as it would take to rush a brand new unit.

Need more examples?  See how ridiculous and insane are absolutely unenjoyable.  See the extra traits AIs get (up to 9 for sovereigns) which make it so that an Yithril pioneer could beat a Krax spearman, if the tactical AI was any good.

Does anyone play ridiculous for anything but boasting rights? I know I don't.

Take a look at Dirge of Ceresa, which got nerfed while better spells remained untouched.

STOP SHOWING STRATEGIES THAT WORK UNLESS YOU HAVE A STYLISH WAY OF BALANCING THE PROBLEM.

As long as a dragon can come to your city because an AI awakened it, we do not need to get rid of the three-four synergies that can deal with it.