~Dragon's Breath Playing guide supplied by The ST Adventurer's PD Library. Solution should be of use to anybody playing the game on the PC. Start off by selecting to play with Ametrin (the green dude!), since his castle is in a good position and you get to meet some superb traders. ~MONTH ONE Send your Dragon (Estor) to conquer and keep the village of morlic on the West of the map. Your dragon should take this with ease. ~MONTH TWO Now put the tax rate up to 'FULL' and leave your dragon in the village. ~MONTH THREE You should now have more than 100 Gelds in your coffers. Spend the lot on the Trader who willingly sells you Celatis - or the one at the top of the list - for ten Gelds. Now go to your village on the map and cast a spell on it. Turn the condenser on to ONE COAL, HEAT on ONE. Now add TEN of the Celatis at 'NORMAL'. Add Churl (Normal, condenser 'OFF', heat ONE), until the mixture grows vicious (about 8 or 9). Click on the arrow and sit back in awe! Your village should now be virtually invincible (apart from plagues), and the uprising should be at about zero. Immediately put four eggs on the boil set to about half-heat - or however much you can afford, remembering that one egg costs you 9 Gelds a month. Leave your dragon there for now. Go ahead and advance a month and you find that villages keep on being established and instantly give themselves to you. Advance about four months with your egg heat on 'FULL' and you should be getting your hands on about 200 Gelds a month. Be sure to check your map regularly. Also check the Trader each month and buy as much of the following chemicals as possible: RASGON, AROLIG, ILEGE, CELATIS, DLEGA, CHURL, ULIN and OEGENESE. As soon as your four dragons have hatched, put on three more and put up your babies' EYESIGHT, WISDOM and SPEED. Don't worry about strength - that comes naturally. You can afford to turn a blind eye to village rebellions because at any point you can send in a good dragon to make them succumb. But be sure to put up Estor's wisdom to 'FULL'; otherwise he becomes very thick! By now you should have advanced many months and be getting at least 400 Gelds per month. If you've played carefully you should have many more territories than the enemy and after just a few years, you should be able to get your hands on about 70,000 Gelds. Be sure to watch out for the time when one of your opponents sends dragons out to search the land because this means the hunt for the Talisman in on! At this point you have two options. The first is to destroy the enemy completely, casting chronic plague spells on all the enemy villages and constantly attacking them with dragons. Employing the callous method, you should soon wipe out your enemy and all you then have to do is repeatedly search the countryside for the three Talisman pieces. If you find them, well done! Sit back and enjoy the end sequence. The other option is to search the area without killing the enemy. Save your game onto at least three different disks at different months, making certain that these are all within the last five months. In this way, if the enemy should find all three pieces, you still have a good position saved on disk. You can tell if the enemy has found a piece because either he won't move his dragon or there are constant battles going on for just a single piece of land. If you find a piece of the Talisman, look over the place indicated by it and load up your last saved game. Now capture the same place - there's less chance of the enemy realising that you've found a piece. Eventually, you can track down all the pieces and you've won the game! ~SPELLS TO TRY ~------------- There are many useful spells, but these are some of the more effective. DRAGON DIRECTOR Rasgon x 2 (or 3 for Mega Power), 1 heat (grind). VILLAGE DIRECTOR Celatis x 10 (very strong), heat 1, condenser 1 (normal). STRENGTH Ulin x 3, 1 heat, normal. HEALTH Oregense x 3, 1 heat, normal. EYESIGHT Ilege x 4, 1 heat, normal. WISDOM Arolig x 5, 1 heat, 1 cool, normal OR Dlega x 8, 1 heat, 1 cool, cut. SPEED Arolig x 5 (or less), 1 heat, normal. VILLAGE GROWTH Charl x 9, 1 heat, normal. VILLAGE DISEASE Sadiel x 8, normal, 1 heat (or variations). Be sure to remember the following points: (1) Never attack a village with a Barbarian in it. There's a high risk that you'll die! (2) Remember to INCREASE wisdom - it can become very important. (3) You won't find any Talisman unless your dragon has FULL EYESIGHT. (4) Speed is essential! (5) With all your dragon's faculties set on 'FULL', your dragon can usually conquer a village with a population of as many as 2,000 people. (6) Wisdom is vital for your success. (7) If the village has a high population, there's no need to guard it with a dragon. (8) It's a good strategy to improve the population to full in as many villages as you can manage. ~ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Contributed by John R.Barnsley.