Green Dragon and Gold Dragon

Rampart creatures
Level 1
Centaur
Centaur Captain
Level 2
Dwarf
Battle Dwarf
Level 3
Wood Elf
Grand Elf
Level 4
Pegasus
Silver Pegasus
Level 5
Dendroid Guard
Dendroid Soldier
Level 6
Unicorn
War Unicorn
Level 7
Green Dragon
Gold Dragon
Towns

Green and Gold Dragons are level 7 creatures of Rampart town. They are recruited from the Dragon Cliffs.

"Green and gold dragons deliver devastating damage in the form of poisonous or sulfurous breath. Green dragons are immune to spells below the fourth level and gold dragons are only affected by spells of level five." ^{RoE manual}

Both dragons are affected by Dispel though.

Placing Green and/or Gold Dragons (as well as any other living Dragons) in the Skeleton Transformer will give you Bone Dragons instead of regular Skeletons.

Tactics and info

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Toughness

The Green Dragons have lower defense than the Red Dragon, but the same health value. However, the Gold Dragon has the third highest defense for a town-aligned creature, only surpassed by Arch Devils and Archangels. Its health is lower by 20% (50 health) than the Black Dragon's, though, and equal to that of the Chaos Hydra and Archangel, which can both be resurrected, unlike the Gold Dragons. Its defense upgrade bonus is the second highest in the game, a bonus of 9 defense, and only surpassed by the Angel's upgrade bonus. Even with the high defense stat, the lower health makes a difference and the Gold Dragons shouldn't take too much damage or will start to lose their numbers.

Offense

Both Green and Gold Dragons have the same damage value, together with the Red and Black Dragons. The Gold Dragons have their attack stat higher by two than the Black Dragons, though. Together with the Breath attack, these dragons can deal high amounts of damage to enemy troops. Still, beware that the enemy can make them kill your own units indirectly, so be careful with their placement. Its attack upgrade bonus is the second highest in the game, a bonus of 9 attack, and only surpassed by the Angel's upgrade bonus.

Efficiency and cost

Since they won't be dying too easily and can also be resurrected, the Green Dragons are worth their gold until the Dragon Cliffs sees an upgrade, but should be bought only in quantities you need, as to be able to upgrade their dwelling later on. However, even the base dwelling requires much ore and gold to build, together with the fact that it requires all other base creature dwellings to be built (except Dwarf Cottage) and also a level 2 Mage Guild, makes the recruiting of these dragons something obtainable only in the second or third week from the start of the game, depending on how many resources and mines you find. The upgraded dwelling for them requires Mage Guild level 3 and also a high amount of ore and gold .

A Green Dragon costs 100 gold less than a Red Dragon, but a Gold Dragon has the same cost in gold as a Black Dragon.

Tactics

Because of the Gold Dragons' level 1-4 spell immunity, they are suitable to be used in tactics often called dragogeddon. In dragogeddon, a hero with preferably high power skill and Armageddon spell attacks with an army only consisting of creatures immune or very resilient to the Armageddon spell. The tactics may be used in "hit-and-run" tactic, to advance through wandering creatures or even to slay enemy heroes. However, Armageddon spell is available only in evil alignment towns' Mage Guilds and thus not in Rampart, so make sure there is an Inferno, Necropolis, or Dungeon on the map, which you capture, getting a chance to learn Armageddon (you may edit settings of the game so that your enemy plays for an evil town, or, playing for an evil town, set Rampart for your enemy and hire Gold Dragons when conquered). Note that Conflux won't help in learning Armageddon, even though its creatures are often used for Dragogeddon. Note that Green Dragons are useless for Dragogeddon, since they are immune only to 1-3 level spells!

When using any of these dragons, dealing the highest possible damage by targeting enemy archers or important enemy troops is a crucial thing, which can also be done with the help of Breath attack. A good tactic is to attack a relatively weak enemy stack which stands next to an archer or other enemy troop, allowing the dragons to deal much damage while taking back as little as possible (or even none, if the targeted enemy stacks is killed). However, only the base creature can be resurrected, so be sure to back up the dragons with Unicorns and/or Pegasi. Beware of breath attack which may kill your own troops as well.

When facing these dragons, one of the highest priority is to get rid of them, especially due to their offensive capabilities and high speed of the upgraded creature. Indirectly damaging Green or Gold Dragons via magic is possible by either buffing the own troops with Slayer (which yields +8 attack against level 7 troops) or other buff spells or summoning a creature with any of Summon Air Elemental, Summon Water Elemental, Summon Fire Elemental or Summon Earth Elemental spell. Green Dragons can be killed by 4th level spells, though, and quite easily if the hero has a respectable Spell Power. While they hit a bit harder and have a higher movement speed than Black Dragons, the Gold Dragons lack the full magical immunity, making them popularly targeted and dispatched by Implosion, a fatal thing for them. It would be great to force Green and Gold Dragons damage their own troops via breath attack, e.g. hitting them with a weak stack and causing retaliation which will kill much more of their allies than of ours.

Due to the resurrecting part of the Sacrifice spell being actually a regular level 4 Resurrection, Gold Dragons can not be brought back with Sacrifice, despite it being a level 5 spell; but they can be sacrificed (while it's almost useless since you wouldn't sacrifice a stronger troop for a weaker one).

Skill bonuses

While not getting such an immense bonus from skills, like creatures as Titans do, there are still some good skills to take in consideration. Armorer is a very good to choice to keep the dragons' numbers up, while Tactics allows more friendly troops to assist the dragons easily, even if not a necessary skill to have for a Rampart army, due to its high speed. Offense is, as usual, a nice skill to have, especially with the dragons' Breath attack.

Trivia

Gold Dragons first appeared in Heroes of Might and Magic III, while the Green Dragon was the base dragon creature of the Dungeon equivalent faction in Heroes of Might and Magic II, which was upgraded two times to Red and then Black Dragon. However, the equivalent of Rampart in the first two Heroes of Might and Magic games had the Phoenix as its highest tier creature. In a twist of irony, after the war with Mutare, which happened right between the 3rd and 4th games in the series, all dragons went almost extinct, the Green and Gold Dragons being replaced by Faerie Dragons and Phoenixes (from the then-extinct Conflux) in the Rampart armies, according to Jennifer Bullard's development documents.

• A Guide to the Jennifer Bullard Papers, 1999-2003
• Jennifer Bullard - Lost manuscript files (Celestial Heavens)

See also:

• List of creatures