Northgard - Nidhogg, Clan of the Dragon

Northgard - Nidhogg, Clan of the Dragon
N/A
Metacritic
60
Steam
53.708
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$4.99
Release date
4 December 2018
Full game
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
60 (261 votes)

The most alien of all clans, the Dragons follow ancient customs and embrace freakish traditions. They use sacrifice and slavery to further their goals, often earning the other clan's distrust.

Show detailed description

Northgard - Nidhogg, Clan of the Dragon system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows Vista or better
  • Processor: Intel 2.0ghz Core 2 Duo or equivalent
  • Graphics: Nvidia 450 GTS / Radeon HD 5750 or better
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
971630
Fullgame appid
466560
Platforms
Windows PC
Mac
Linux
Popularity
Reviews
Write a new review
Odin The Femboy King of Fwuff
Odin The Fembo…

There kinda just weak.... its dissappointing you pretty much lose militarly because the buff only applies if they are alone and you can only have 4 plus the dragon jotun from the rune but its also just bad.... the warchief cant do anything cause you wanna keep spread apart or your units are not as good... others can get buffs against the dragonkin and just overwhelm them making them even upgraded still shit against any other clan because the others can have a much larger army. if they are buffed and become stronger id love to play them more they have an intresting concept with the thralls and pyre. Maybe the dragon essence shouldn't run out as quick also because it just bleeds your economy for more thralls just to sacrafice and not even to help and use the hard labor because they are more usefull to be sacrafical.

Vaniloth
Vaniloth

Honestly I can't tell if I'm just bad since I only do single player, but compared to the other clans, I just can't figure out how to make this one work internally. If the spirit bar depletes, you just can't get villagers anymore. I don't even care what benefits you get from it, you have to keep that bar above 0. Thralls are supposed to be worthless slaves, and expending them to the spirit actually gives more points than a villager. But...you can also assign these slaves to most buildings to improve production. Since these thralls can get so expensive, they're actually more valuable than a villager so you can keep your production up. I prefer to build into high happiness and just sacrifice villagers.

As for military, Dragonkin is your only option. Tough early game unit, but hard to heal because it's mostly hp tanky. Mid game they suck. No ranged options, naturally smaller army size. They get out-scaled. The way to go in the early game would be to pull a ton of your civilians to invade local territories, and let your dragonkin tank. But this is very messy since you have to get everyone back to their zones, and it hurts production pretty badly. I could see that this could be powerful, but goodness is it strenuous.
The only time they work is in the really late game, when you have the big bois draconic jotuuns, and unlock everyone's spinning attack. Late game, when you have enough of them where they'll survive long enough. Their spin attack hits everyone around them. The value of that attack will increase as enemy armies grow larger. But that's real late game.
So...this has my downvote. One military unit...should be a simple faceroll army right? Yes, that is your only option, except it won't work most of the game, and you can't apply any kind of tactics to make up for it since there is only one unit type.

And...gotta be honest. Pretty let down there was no actual dragon anywhere. It's warchief is also just a generic person... and they're surrounded by dragonkin. There isn't even a skin available to let him fit in.
Cool concept overall, I like that the DLC exists, but the balancing needs work. Wouldn't recommend as your first DLC. Some games can still be fun.

Marn
Marn

This clan has a severe deficiency in the mid-game and 75% of matches will often stall out at this point or completely stalemate altogether.

This review is written for [CONQUEST] mode (the only mode I play)
This is the only Northgard clan I can't recommend.

What causes this mid-game stall?
The sacrifice system causes it. It's a cool system and it's very helpful early game but it quickly becomes an annoying anchor that will sink you in your mid-game stalling out your offensives. Thralls quickly become too expensive to keep buying for sacrifices so you end up having to sacrifice villagers instead. At a certain point in the mid-game, it feels like you lose villagers to sacrifice faster than new ones get plopped out from your town hall.

The problem is that you need lores from all 3 trees for this clan to function: You need Colonization (tier 2 production) to power your expansion efforts / Draconic Frenzy (tier 1 military) for the military muscle early-mid game / Slave Trade (tier 3 trade) to keep Thralls affordable mid-end game. Most clans only need 1.5-2 trees to function while Dragon needs 3. This is a huge glaring weakness for this clan.

Cleave balance
So you need a lot of Lore generation but you also need a lot of Krowns generation to field your armies to a size large enough for cleave to start making a difference. Your main damage units cleave when upgraded. This is 'heckin cool and unique in the world of Northgard. This is the reason why they can't make this clan too powerful or else the cleave will dominate multiplayer balance.

Every resource is a priority at all times
Now you also need a lot of Food generation to keep expanding so you can get more Krown generation and Lore generation. Hold on now, I forgot to mention that you need a lot of Happiness to keep producing villagers fast enough to keep up with your sacrifice pit quota. That's right: YOU NEED EVERYTHING!

How can they fix this?

You fix this through the Conquest bonuses so that multiplayer balance doesn't get affected.
Conquest bonus 1: Dragonkin have +50 hp
Conquest bonus 2: All sacrifices give 1 more essence
Conquest bonus 3: Receive 50% more Thralls / +50% Thrall capacity

They should replace bonus #1 with bonus #2/3 combined together. The original #1 bonus should become the #2 bonus. The #3 bonus should be something completely new like "Sacrifice bonus is doubled"(ex +8 food becomes +16) or "If the sacrifice energy gauge is at least half full then you receive all other sacrifice buffs at 50% strength".

SinnerSanctified
SinnerSanctified

Here it is: Mid September 2022 and the Dragon hasn't seen a much needed rework in 4 years. I understand Shiro is a small studio, and they have other projects. While thankful that they haven't abandoned Northgard all together (can't wait for new story campaign), Dragon has been left by the wayside for some time. Out of all the clans available, It has the worst reviews, alongside Kraken, and for good reason. TLDR, much of the clans niches work against itself in various ways. The format will be pointing out each mechanic/lore that is unique to them, and how it falls short.

PRO
Sacrifical Pyre - a unique mechanic that sets it apart from other clans mechanically and aesthetically. Sacrifice Villagers to gain 2 Dragon Essence, or Thralls for 3 (you start with 2 Thralls and more can be bought from the Longship Dock). Having Dragon essence fills a meter, where the meter fills to gives a static bonus until the meter runs dry or the associated bonus falls off the meter. As you grow in fame, the bonuses get better.

CON
You can not pick the bonus you receive. The bonuses are totally random. The essence meter runs out faster than the bonuses fall off the meter. Only way to decrease meter to switch bonuses is to spend essence by creating soldiers who are permanently transformed "Dragonkin". Run out of essence and your Happiness will plummet, causing a loss of 20% production across your entire clan until you remedy it. In a situation where your food/wood/krowns/happiness is already negative, this can be an early death sentence for your clan. There is virtually no room for errors.

PRO
Thralls - Slaves who consume 1/3 the Food and Wood of a Villager, but only produce 1/2 of what a villager produces. The current "meta" argument is that Thralls are too precious a resource to sacrifice because of their Krowns cost (even though they give you more essence and it's clear from in game descriptions you are intended to) because of their alleged "efficiency" i.e., production vs consumption. Ok.

CON
Your maximum Thrall limit is tied to your villager population. The current "meta" involves sacrificing villagers, who are worth less essence (30% less) than offering a Thrall. This makes growing your population a slog, especially in the beginning when you're already fighting for resources, including happiness. Throw on top the fact that if your meter empties (it will) it makes it all the more impossible to grow because of happiness/production loss. Oh, and your military units cost essence too, 1 each, and Krowns. Basically, this causes population stagnation, where you'll hover around 20 vils and 10ish Thralls for most of the game before you inevitably get wiped out in 802 by Lynx, Wolf, or Boar.

PRO
Draconic Frenzy - Clan specific lore that replaces Weaponsmith, the first option for military lore. Military units fighting alone have 100% increased attack power. Sounds great right? Easy to get early, and makes clearing neutral tiles a breeze!

CON
1 unit with 2X attack is the same as 2 units with 1X attack. Too situational, and becomes largely obsolete come midgame.

PRO
Skull of Hrungnir - Clan specific relic, summon a Draconic Jotnarr for 200 Food, 1 year cooldown. Has lots of health, *slightly more powerful than upgraded Dragonkin with Legions military path

CON
You cannot risk losing a single one or the relic is wasted because of the insane cooldown. They can be easily nuked by a pack of Warriors with Charge ability, or kited endlessly by Axe Throwers/Trackers. Best to have them guard a territory solo (for that sweet, sweet Frenzy /s) until you have 3 or 4 of the big bastards for a game ending play....oh. Whoops. The game is over. Your opponent won by Trade, Wisdom, or Fame already.

Luckily, some tryhard Gold league and higher lads have found a few workarounds for this broken clan in desperate need of some Shiro dev love. Maybe if you can convince one of them to not gatekeep and show you de wae, you might be able to snag a victory or two out of twenty.

Konithir
Konithir

I wish slaves were a bit cheaper and Dragonkin Warrior a bit stronger, but after you enslave giants and get your own from the relic.. You just stomp over anyone and anything. One of my favourite clans.

BracnoLion
BracnoLion

Another great content for Northgard!
The Dragon Clan is the most different and interesting of the factions but maybe the most difficult.
Their mechanics give a lot of options to play but not a clear playstyle like the other factions.
For people who like and still play the games it's almost a instabuy, but if not interested or don't play anymore i don't think this will bring you to Northgard.

Highlord
Highlord

So this clan is vastly different to anything we've played so far. Unlike the Snake Clan it doesn't remove a victory condition in favour of encouraging domination or, if you can pull it off, any of the other avaliable ones. The Dragon Clan has a unique boost to their attack depending on whether the clan they fight is beating them in any given victory condition and this makes them a domination victory powerhouse where they can easily mow down anyone unprepared to fight these viscious underdogs.

Ausdragon
Ausdragon

Ever since the release of the game (back in the days of three clans, Goat, Wolf and Stag) I've been wishing for a dragon clan, asking for it in my Twitch streams and posting about it online. I said if the day ever came where they release one I wouldn't play any other clan. My wishes came true!
I've been on and off Northgard now for the past year and half but I always come back when new updates arrive, definitely not dissapointed with this one. The price for the clan is costly but the clan is much different to the others.
**Dragon Clan**
Not only must you focus on all the normal challenges every other clan faces but with the dragon clan you have the added challenge of keeping your Dragon Essence up and not letting it fall below zero. Sacrafices will be made and families torn apart but it's all for the better as you get added bonuses for lost loved ones. Each sacrafic can give you an added bonus whether it be +Resources, fame, lore or happyness which can make or break a map especially when winter comes and youre unprepared!
Theres the option of buying slaves (Thralls) and sacrificing them, or after unlocking the feature they may work on your farms, or any other resource gathering station. They do not take up a space the settler does instead you may have up to 6 people working on a hunters lodge 3settlers 3 slaves.
The clan does not have the normal military units instead they have just one dragonkin. Dragonkin use the dragon essence to create units, so be sure to have sacrificed enough kids before making warriors! They are strong, with an added bonus they can be stronger without allied units fighting with them. +50 attack
Dragon clan has the option to enslave Neutral units (Giants ect) after unlocking one of the lore perks. You will need to get their health low enough to ensave them first!

After giving the clan a run for its money I enjoy their different style of life and would recommend it to anyone whos serious about Northgard.
9/10 DLC

~Ausdragon

FakeSkinS
FakeSkinS

Just tried the Clan today and i gotta say it`s one of the more unique factions even when compared to other RTS games. Nidhogg relies heavy on staying in the thick of the fights. You can become one of the most aggresive forces on the map in order to enslave and sacrifice. Managing essence is also a nice new macro layer addition that flows well with the type of game style promoted by the clan. An overall MUST for any fan.

ProjectX
ProjectX

OP Clan and So Fun to play
keep going and Northgard Gonna be better and better :D

China
China

Worse than Snake DLC.

It's hard to play in muiltiplayer because of its mechanics. You need to sacrifice civilians and thralls and you rely on RNG for good lands if you want successful Dragon play.

.throzeN!`4f
.throzeN!`4f

An incredibly unique clan with many new features to shake up the typical Northgard gameplay. I wouldn't, however, use it in a PvP battle.

Please continue introducing these funky clans, they're a fun change of pace from the regular clans. :)

Emperor
Emperor

( Slight disclaimer - Lots of unorganized text ahead. Yes, I editted this just to put that. The first part consists of initial conflicts I have with both the DLCs in general. The review around the dragon boys here is below it. I'll bookmark it for ya. )

I honestly cannot recommend any DLC for Northgard. I am one of those people that just has to have the complete set whenever it comes to games though. Northgard costs around 30$ in USD for the base game alone, and usually we pay around 20$ here for a good game ( like the base game for Northgard ) here on Steam. I feel like these two clans should've been left into the other 10$ in the game. Ragnarok could've been it's own thing for players who like more challenge. 5$ Is a bit much for both of these clan DLCs as they provide only around 2 hours of content. I feel like 2$ per clan would've been more to suffice if you absolutely had to sell them. The devs make plenty off of that initial 30$ considering most devs make their money off of 20$ games just fine. If these clans were free and added along with the base game the devs would probably have a more loyal fanbase like the one prior to the snake DLC, and most of those people have moved on to other games. ( Important Note ) The way Northgard uses DLCs creates a stagnant environment for Shrio Games. They have 3 ongoing series, in which they have 4 games in total. Their first game came out in 2013, aptly named Evoland which got around 4000 positive reviews. A 4-person zombie shooter is coming up in 2019 apparently, Evoland 2 was between Northgard and Evoland. Currently Northgard is their cash cow, especially with these DLCs. This means they are less likely to focus on the development on future games because they will keep adding another clan to this one every year or so. Their zombie shooter may not be as good due to them having to rely on Northgard for a steady source of income. This is a bad state for younger developers, as it does not allow them to branch out as easily. I'm sure despite this small complaint, they will still release more DLC for Northgard in the coming years as long as people keep buying their DLC. Not people like me, but people who will fervently support it in the name of Northgard alone. ( End of Important Note ) I have recently been playing Bad North, and I believe they have the correct idea so far on how to do DLC. God correct me if I'm wrong, but DLC should not affect gameplay in a multiplayer setting, or in minimalistic games that are already short on content. The best DLC comes from the ones that affect the game skin-wise, as this is a way for people not only to support the devs - but are also rewarded in a way that is not fundamental to the mechanics of a game. Northgard gets it wrong in the aspect of not only do they mess with the mechanics of adding new clans - but the balancing issues seem to not be tested prior to release of a DLC. These DLCs are also not in a pleasing price range regarding US currency, as far as I'm concerned. To be clear, supporting the devs should not be linked with giving a player an advantage of variety of choice that changes game mechanics, and then exclusivising those who support the devs away from the general populace. This makes it so that you will always have the same people buying DLCs instead of newer people coming in - as they know that these DLCs will make them left out unless they buy it in a bundle all wrapped up nice and tight. Better yet just release a bunch of clans in a bundle, and bundle that bundle with the vanilla Northgard, and call it "Northgard Exquisite Edition" why won't you? ( Apologies if that seems a bit mean towards any of you that feel like Shiro Games is your best friend. )

( About the dragon boys )
Honestly I think this is a fairly weak clan, differing from their snake counterparts. The devs attempted to make this clan into something resilient and reliant on money. Often I find the money that I spend on thralls would be better put to just simply upgrading a building. Your main source of dragon essence should come from thralls as far as I can tell, as they will fill up a bar nice and night whenever sacrificed. This apparently is not always the case. Slave Trade ( Tech ) helps with this a little bit, but I imagine focusing on lore and money at the same time to get to it would be a tedious task. The mood penalty doesn't really help whenever you haven't sacrificed. I think the mood penalty should be removed, and there should be a combat efficiency decrease on your dragonkin due to the lack of essence. It would help if Dragonkin fed off of essence instead of food, as this will make more of a place for your thralls ( whom consume food as well ) and separate your military from the citizenry. Therefore you can have more thralls running around, ready to feed your dragonkin. The price for thralls should also go down. The first pair should cost around 10, and you can continue your price ramping. The way it is now deprives you of market functions, and it will be a battle between your food producers and marketeers. Thralls are bought through your merchants, food productions is increased by your thralls, happiness stability is thrall-reliant, and it just becomes this vicious cycle until you eventually can't pay for thralls anymore. Which I imagine it would be pretty hard to manage all of this while you have the snake clan on your doorstep, and you're losing food because your thralls are eating the food - and you can't get the medicine tech for your healers who are healing your dragonkin, and your merchants are dying from starvation. Whenever you play this clan, it's kind of like going into loan debt whenever you could just pay for the item/service up front. I'm sure some experts to the game can manage this, but I reckon the experts are going to be what's left after you have newer folk tired of paying for DLC. I've noticed two bugs while tooting around with this DLC. One is that the essence meter seems to be a bit... "jiggly." Whenever sacrificing someone, the bar would kind of do the splits for me before jiggling back into place like a good bar should. Two, after assigning a thrall to a building, and them sacrificing them to the dragon Gods - emptying the building results in the unoccupied sign not showing for that building. I'm not sure if these two bugs are for everyone, but that's what I'm experiencing. This leads me to believe the DLC wasn't play-tested. The current way the dragon clan is set up is that it's mostly RNG based, that shouldn't be the case for a clan that is resilient. We currently have the bear clan for resilience anyway I suppose.
Now for some good things. Ehm... the sacrificial altar is pretty nice, and running your own slave business is a fun prospect. I like the idea of mixing your villagers with dragons, but I would like to see that in a more "intimate" relationship. As in I would like to have the villagers be more interactive with this dragon-ness. Perhaps the amount of essence you have stored increases their overall strength? Something along those lines.

Sorry for your eyes if you have trouble reading all of this poppycock, but unfortunately I already spent my 5$ on this DLC, so I cannot buy you some glasses.

If anyone wants to contact me for questions, further opinions, criticism, or just to yell at me - feel free to friend me.

Bonkers
Bonkers

Northgard is an excellent game and I highly recommend it. This DLC, however, is an absolute mess.

The Clan of the Dragon is an interesting clan with unique new mechanics. The problem lies in their complete and utter inability to compete in any victory condition other than Trade.

Their only fighting unit is the Dragonkin, which is quite cool-looking, but utterly worthless. It can take a warrior one on one, but the fact that the training camps for the Dragonkin only increase your warband by 1, in addition to the monetary cost of the Dragonkin itself, makes it actually inferior to the normal fighting units (who can simply swarm the Dragonkin and decimate them quite easily).

The high costs of the Dragonkin would be crippling enough by themselves, but add in the necessary cost of buying Thralls (which increases astronomically with each purchase and only decays slowly month-by-month) and suddenly you have such a monetary crunch that it forces the player to focus almost exclusively on money.

The Dragon Spirit bar is a neat mechanic that adds a new wrinkle to the game. Sadly, however, it decays so fast that you are forced to destroy Thralls or villagers at a tremendous rate just to avoid the horrific negative happiness from having no Dragon Spirit. Added to this is the Dragon Spirit cost of training Dragonkin. Overall, it just creates a hindrance to gameplay rather than creating interesting new choices.

For the time being I will be forced to give this DLC a negative review. However, I think a few things could be done to improve this clan and make it quite wonderful.

--Increase the Warband size increase from Dragonkin camps to 2 from 1.
--Either lower the cost of the Dragonkin or boost their innate attack speed to help them deal with swarms of enemy units.
--Remove the happiness penalty of not having any Dragon Spirit. The inability to train new fighting units and lack of Dragon Spirit buff should be incentive enough to sacrifice someone.
--Remove the exponential price increase for Thralls. Increasing by 10 krowns each time would be fine.
--Allow the player to select which Dragon Spirit bonus they want if their current spirit level has surpassed multiple different bonuses.
--Give them some sort of defensive capability to resist the numerically superior enemy armies.

If some or all of these changes were implemented, I would happily change my review and recommend this DLC. As it is, I honestly feel like I wasted my money.

Olorin
Olorin

I love this clan, very unique and refreshing, I hope there are more to come like this one !

All I wish is that they reworked the current Dragon Clan military that is very lackluster and weak late game, would be awesome to have a Warchief Dragonkind or some other stuff like that !
Nonetheless, keep up the good work Shiro Games, you're awesome :D

Akira
Akira

Don't buy this.
Literally the weakest clan in this game.
And not just a little bit weaker, it's like far more worse than other clans.
It's nearlly like unplayable.
The balance (echo and military) for this clan is a mess. I'm even wondering weather the designer learned math or not.
Slave is a good concept, but wow, hey those slaves are even more expensive than the dragonkin (far more).
Slaves are nearlly useless, considering how much slaves you need and how much it is. (you really needs a lot for sacrifice)
Comparing the buff which sacrifices give you, this system is utterly a drawback for this clan, because you really needs to pay a lot for your happiness keeps working.
Yes, you are right, it's a debuff. How great.

FluffyFruitCake
FluffyFruitCake

Weak clan and unbalanced gameplay

Virus
Virus

The new dragon clan is terrible!
I was trying this clan in solo and I almost got reck. I can't imagine to play this clan in ranked game.
I'm used to this game and I can clear easily the AI with any clan in the game except this one. IT is a clan based on the RNG.. You can get lucky or not with the bonus bar. The dragonkin units is okay, but in late game... they are terrible. These units shine early game, but you can't rush early since you lack of ressources to do it lol!

Conclusion:
-Good to colonise many territory early game.
-Bad clan to rush.
-Bad unit ( Dragonkin ) Late game.
-Military Path Conqueror level 3 for this clan isn't good ( increase decolonisation speed by 5%)
-You get nice bonus with the bar, but you need to make sure you money income is high all the time to buy the thralls.

I don't recommend to buy this DLC except if you want the achievements...

Fancy Toothpaste
Fancy Toothpaste

Pros:

> The new units looks really cool.
> Thralls are a novel concept.
Cons:

> The new units cost more then regular ones and aren't worth the uptick in price.
> You can only make two different types of units (dragon kin and warchief).
> The party size is horrendously low.
> You have to constantly sacrifice thralls (or villagers) or your happiness will plummet.
> The rate in which you have to sacrifice thralls is extremely high.
> The bonuses you get are completely random, and usually not worth the stunted population.
> Thralls become extremely expensive to obtain as the game progresses (money).
> This forces you to either capture new thralls from enemy clans or focus on obtaining as much money as possible.

This DLC had some cool ideas but the clan isn't worth the hassle. Buy this DLC if the devs balance it, otherwise you can go without.

Ryvucz
Ryvucz

It's good for half off. You have to make regular sacrifices to keep your spirit bar from hitting empty causing a -10 unhappy penalty. Sacrifice one of your clan members for a +2 to the bar, or a thrall for a +3. The gauge empties fairly quickly.

The Dragonkin is really weak and can be overrun by neutral enemies. It is your only military unit aside from the warchief, which isn't available at start due to cost.

You can purchase two thralls at a time, with the cost increasing by 40 gold each time you buy them. The cost goes down by 2 gold per month. IT shows why people feel that this is a trading clan, because you need gold for thralls.

You have one military unit per territory cap, IF, you purchase the needed building on each territory you own.

Kaydonidre
Kaydonidre

This clan is actually quite good !

It may not suit all and every player but it provides unique and new ways of playing Northguard. In brief, you have a weak economy that you need to buff with slaves BUT you also need to fuel your happiness and get some god favors with sacrifices.

So in addition to keeping an eye on the usual stuff, you have to learn how to balance your "Happiness in Slavery".

One of the most striking feature is the removal of the happiness or production debuff for wounded members ! This means that not only you can ingore healers early on, but you can also expand quite quickly by letting villagers slay wolves around your territory. If they get injured, doesn't matter. If a slave is injured ? Even less problematic as they are doomed to be consumed in the altar sooner or later.

Dragonkins are weak at first but with the correct upgrades, military pathway and an appropriate favor, they become much stronger. They have a bonus if they fight alone, they can either have a regeneration or a power buff, depending on the Gods. This calls for a lot of harassement, raiding and manoeuvering. They also acquire the ability to enslave your foes during battle which can lead to interesting outcomes.

So yeah, not the bread and butter of every player, but that's the purpose of a multi-clan game. I personnaly like the challenge it offers and the new learning curve (maybe stepper) you have to get over with if you want to master the Dragon.

nice сoск
nice сoск

Most challenging clan of all. Game mechanic is peculiar and in some way amusing. Dragonclan provide a fancy gameplay with a blood bar which is a key instrument for earning success: sometimes unpredictable, but still solid to take a stand on the map. Neither OP nor lousy if you're able to comprehend a "dragon".

Byteamins
Byteamins

Its alright, just look out for essence gauge and thrall count.

Kas_Leviydra
Kas_Leviydra

If you want to bring on the challenge pick up the Dragon Clan and push yourself to master it, if you're still learning the game you might want to wait a bit before you pick up the dragon clan as they have a high learning curve and a spartan feature set that makes them hard to play.

The Dragon clan is very unique and quirky, relying on a sacrifice to the gods to stay in he running for all those extra buff and perks the other clans have. This Clan does well with a higher world hostility and on the Ragnarok setting as their military unit is much stronger allowing you to progress where others would need 2-3 units to make headway. More with less in place of specific resource buffs you can assign up to 3 thralls to aid in the gathering of a resource provided you got the correct lore tree skills. Happiness and Money are your two most important resources you need to work on. Money for the Thralls, Happiness for the lows when you don't have the thralls to throw into the pit.

Pros
Strong Military unit with a powerful AOE once upgraded
Civilians & Thralls can leave and attack other areas!!!
Thralls albeit at a diminished cap can gather resources in place of regular civilians freeing them up to be military units
Random buffs ranging from healing, attack buffs, resource buffs etc.
No production debuffs from being wounded!!!
More people to gather resources with a total of 6 units per building 3 civilians 3 thralls
Focused on fighting

Cons
1 military unit type
1 military unit per camp (2 if its upgrades) vs the 2 per military camp (3 if upgraded)
Once you go Dragonkin you can't go back its
Sacrifice gauge depletes by 1 when you make a military unit knocking you down from a buff
lack of a ranged unit
lack of a specialized Warchief
no other resource buffs from lore
constant need for upkeep on your sacrifice gauge

abesli
abesli

I had a really REALLY bad first impression and left a down vote on this DLC last month but after trying it for few more times i must say it's not bad at all. Let me explain... When , played with this faction for the first time i was really unsure about what to do and how to keep up with constant demand of sacrifice you have to do in order to keep your clan happy and have bonuses depending on your "sacrifice meter". After few games I got the hang of it and now i can use it to my advantage unlike before when i tought it's nothing other than hindering your eco. Also I must say that the dragonkin (only type of soldier you can train using some of your sacrifice points) is pretty damn awesome especially early game + with your civillians being able to go in a neutral territory and have no drawbacks from getting hurt helps you a lot in early game (no happiness or production loss from being wounded).

Locklave
Locklave

Balance a clan around tedium and boom, Dragon clan. The idea is great but their military is too weak and you constantly need to sacrifice people (tedium).

1 military unit per build, stronger then a normal military unit but not stronger then the 2 the other would have have. People will scream "But they have cleave!" they don't start with cleave. Neutral enemies are more dangerous because you can't switch out who's taking hits because you got 1 guy early in. That's 1 build slot per military unit. Axe throwers counter them easily.

BTW you are limited to ONLY THIS 1 MILITARY UNIT TYPE aside from the Chief you can't afford early game. No two handed axe users, no fast/stealthly skirmishers, No shield troops, No axe throwers. Hope you like this 1 unit a lot...

You think Thralls, you think cheap free labour. You'd be wrong here. You need to spend all your cash to buy thralls to sacrifice to fight the Tedium Meter which will hound you the entire game. Thralls while mechanically great in terms of production to cost to maintain are infact nearly useless early game because you need to sacrifice them constantly.

Then of course there is losing a major battle which will happen because your military has the problems outlined and you get the fun chance of a Thrall rebellion.

If it was just the Sacrifice thing or just the Military thing they'd be good but it's both.

If I had to suggest fixes I'd say any of the following, but not all the following

1. Nerf Dragonkin and allow 2 to be built (if this MUST be the only unit make sure 2 of them are stronger the 2 of everything else people can build.
2. Start Dragonkin with cleave and make them walk faster so Axe throwers don't hard counter your only unit type.
3. Make sacrifices last WAY LONGER.

The Dragon clan is a wonderful concept but the micro required to play them well is terrible. They might be balanced overall but the level of work required to make them play to that level is not balanced at all. They feel like a chore to play when other clans are fun.

St. Haborym
St. Haborym

I just want to add that the thralls limit is way too low. Also the clan just needs some serious rebalancing in general.

joshballz
joshballz

Who doesn't like a little human sacrifice now and then?

islesofurth
islesofurth

Unable to compete with non DLC clans on a competitive level

bloodgast1
bloodgast1

difficult to master yet rewarding clan

Svirt
Svirt

Weakest of the clans

Nidhogg DLC is not worth buying in my opinion. The reason for this is very simple. In my experience, Clan of the Dragon is by far the weakest of the clans due to a constant need of sacrificing either thralls or villagers.

There is not a problem in sacrificing itself, it even gives you some minor bonuses, but getting thralls is very expensive and getting an option to enslave enemies is mostly possible in mid or even late part of the game. You could try to maintain high happiness and sacrifice villagers instead of thralls, but I have to stop you right here. Efficiency of this option is very low and you would quickly lose your population. So to sum this up, Clan of the Dragon has to maintain high income in order to buy thralls and it weakens and sets back the whole clan.

Another aspect of the clan of the dragon are the Dragonkin, clan's warriors. This clan cannot recruit other types of military and warband of the clan increases very slowly. Dragonkin are somewhat stronger than other types of military, but not that much to call this clan military strong.

Overall playing as the Clan of the dragon is just pain for the player and if you are against them I call it an easy victory.

EliasH
EliasH

This clan needs to be rebalanced. Funny that the dragon clan has the weakest military.

One, Two
One, Two

I wanted to like this clan, but it seems very weak, both in terms of Military and Economy. Despite pushing for early economy growth the required Sacrifices seem like a huge drawback early on without providing much of a bonus. Ignoring most issues with sacrifices. Gameplay wise the clan seems very boring overall. You get one military unit per building and it's just the dragonkin. You've literally seen everything this clan has to offer in 2 minutes in. Thralls and the Dragonkins.

The Thrall mechanic seemed somewhat cool, but they end up being expensive since the only other way to get thralls (other than buying them) is to attack other clans and enslave their workers.. and you have pretty weak military force. Being able to capture slaves from your enemies is locked midway into the Lore Tree, so often times you either go after that and have weak economy, or you pursue the economy boost from Hard Labor and struggle slave wise.
The early game is a struggle at best and even tho the Dragons can transition into a late game force other the default clans can do what you do, but better.

Overall, I would not recommend buying this clan. It's somewhat unique but very weak and poorly designed. Even with Hard Labor your economy is pretty mediocre, your military is weak and the special unit from the Dragon's unique relic is a slow and expensive unit who's not worth building a lot of times.

I should've bought the Horse DLC.

Kael
Kael

Hardest one to get your head around, but good when you do.

Stinky
Stinky

Completely outmoded by clan ox, their whole thing was struggling but having the strongest warchief and ultimately army but ox has a stronger warchief and army, and never struggles. Dragon is slow to build up too, maybe they should consider giving them all the sacrifice bonuses back.

Slidius
Slidius

So here's my long review of the dragon clan but i will at the bottom much TLDR and Pro and Con list for y'all who can't be f'ed to read.

also link to full review below.

so let me state what dragon clan has briefly *ahem*

-Favour/essence : this is a mechanic unique to them only and must be watched almost all the time! otherwise you gonna have a bad time. your favour is represented at the top middle of the screen with a bar that shows circles on top that represents random perks you can activate to get a long last perk that will eventually disappear over time or deactivate
when you fill up the meter too much. it also upgrades with the more fame you get and the last fame unlock increases the bonuses by 10% which is nice. if you want to see the bonuses here the are https://northgard.gamepedia.com/Nidhogg

-Thralls: basically worse villagers with the benefits of giving more favour when sacrificed and consumes 33% of what a regular villager does and only produces 50% of what a villager does, they can fight but and don't suffer a production bonus when hurt. (we will talk more about these guys later)

Dragonkin: cool AF looking unit awesome concept but in game disappointing and better suited as defenders of individual zones you control and easy to counter more on this later.

Jotunn undead: cool idea but really weak and better suited as defenders more about this later.

unique perk: all their units including villagers and thralls (but not militia from what i could tell so they kinda messed up there the devs if unintentional of course) can invade other lands not just military units now this is interesting but ultimately in most cases useless as you need resources and if your guys(& gals) aren't working you aren't getting resources and the less clan members you have means the smaller your thrall cap is which is bad and also losing your main source of resource production is terrible.

BUT They are FUN because they are very different from how they play when compared to the other clans as you have to be more involved and constantly juggling the favour meter to get buffs ,maintain happiness and micro manage your units more.

Now are they good? short answer is NO especially in the team modes where you are more of a burden on your teammates rather than a reliable ally or even support clan. this is because of the play style of the dragon clan is forced to play, which is to turtle and try to aim for a trade win as it is the most viable and easiest way for them to win but even then the ravens can easily beat them there in that category which is why people say the base clans are better than most of the dlc clans except the newest one the ox which can keep up and compete and stay relevant the entire match.

The TLDR
Undead jottuns are underwhelming and need tweaking or rework as they are a worse dragonkin unit
Dragonkin are misleading and are more of a defensive unit with early area clear of wolves, bears and draugr
Thralls interactions are limited and rebellion will rarely ever happen since you aren’t allowed to buy excessive amounts
Warchief is bad and just a reskin and needs to be reworked into an actual hero instead that allows for an easier time invading other clans or defending at the very least.
The favour system is fun and interesting but RNG and can easily screw you over
IS “In my opinion” a bad clan to have in your team as dragons are more about self preservation as helping to defend leaves them very vulnerable.

SO I went over the word limit here's a google doc to my full review where i talk about it in more detail about each special units pro and cons and how to remedy some of their glaring weakness with interesting fun mechanics rather than says "lol just increase their damage/defence by 10% lol durr hurr"

also i want to state dragon clan this patch the march 2020 balance patch got a -5% attack power to balance them when they are said the be by some of the community "a shitter wolf clan and raven clan combined that can only win in a trade victory" and they need a rework not a nerf.

so positive for fun but for being serious and winning no

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ARW4U75bCVgABJJ485pAjELeWL9-cDQ4zyL…

neuRam
neuRam

I don't like to use this clan.

Dalkavuk
Dalkavuk

DLC presents some new mechanics for this clan. Plus, it has a great price at sales but without sales, it isn't worth for singleplayer only playthroughs.

RaginCajun
RaginCajun

You're given a choice. You can play as the weak, beta-male "Goat clan" with some old grandpa that escaped from his rest home as their "warchief". Or you can play as the alpha-male, high testosterone, balls-to-the-wall action packed Dragon clan with an ABSOLUTE CHAD warchief and an army of unstoppable Dragonkin marching it's way through the map as you crush everyone in your wake.

The choice is yours.

P.S.
If you still picked Goat clan, go play Animal Crossing or Fortnite and come back when you get some hair on your chest.

ByCeset
ByCeset

Stop making all clans for money. Do for community. otherwise this game is so good after aoe2.

Паинтер
Паинтер

Twice started to play them conquest.
Problems with economics on start.
Always spent gold on slaves just for not going to the bottom with -10 happiness, sometimes burns normal vikings. Аnd this instead of developing and storing resources. Maybe i doing something wrong, this my first try after story campaign.

^7ja^1co
^7ja^1co

Base game:

Surprisingly fun, unique, nothing like that on the market which makes it great. Some elements could have been done better like greater diversity in units and clans, currently differences are marginal and cosmetic. I wish this leaned more towards starcraft model.

Lots of issues early on but since 2018 I suspect most have been resolved.

DLC: Too expensive for 1 new hero and 4 clan specific skills...

BUSHBOY
BUSHBOY

5/5 Strong clan, challenging for beginners.
One of my favourite clans as the boons you get from sacrificing can be very strong. The early game they are op, and if you want to win domination, i recommend dragon, but do it fast! :)

MilkSteak With Raw Jellybeans
MilkSteak With…

I regretted buying this DLC, such cool concept with poor execution and balancing

Things I find lacking :
- The sacrifice system only add more annoying micromanagement with huge penalty for such small randomized reward
- You only get one slightly stronger unit for each military camp
- Thrall is expensive and they get more pricey the more often you buy, you can get some for free by defeating enemy but you need the upgrade with lore and the chance is abysmal

My suggestion to balance it :
- Change the sacrifice system to something that require less micromanagement
- Increase warband size for dragonkin altar
- Either make thrall cheaper and increase the chance to enthrall enemies or add bonus method on gaining wealth of the clan

Bean Salad
Bean Salad

This clan is very cool and can be fun but the design is bafflingly bad, to a point where I would like a refund and would not recommend this to anyone

Revnantfang
Revnantfang

Here's a TLDR version that I'm gonna break down into a reference from The Street Fighter Movie. This is basically nothing more than the DLC version of Bison Dollars.

I have never felt such hatred for a single clan before, I played through the story before finally trying out this DLC. I hated every second of attempting a single player match with this faction, most worthless clan in the game. Literally only takes the snake clan sending ONE SKIRMISHER to kill off one dragonkin, I had buildings constantly on fire, a Pair of Jotun's attacking one of my bits of land that was helping to produce the majority of my gold, lost that land cause a single dragonkin is just a completely worthless unit, couldn't get out of the gate as this clan and it feels like this was intentionally made to be useless. The thralls were an interesting idea by the sacrifice altar was just stupid, not too mention that one new resource bar moving across the screen that literally takes away ALL happiness if you let it fall.
DON'T BUY THIS. It is an EA level cash grab dlc and that's it. The dev's should be fucking ashamed.

Squall Leonhart
Squall Leonhart

This DLC is a crap, very weak and disbalanced clan

Dranima
Dranima

Worth DLC! It's a strong clan, the units looks badass and it changes your playstyle completely.

Unlock "Hard Labor" and set Thralls to work in your buildings; don't sacrifice Thralls -- unlock "Recruitment" and sacrifice Villagers instead (sacrifices then proc a 5% population growth for 4 months, up to 75%).

If you find yourself lacking resources, try using your Dragon Essence gauge to boost whatever you need at the moment (food, lore, fame, wood, coin, happiness, healing or even damage%). You can also plan your next move accordingly.

To the devs tho: please change how the Warchief looks. Dragonkin are way more stylish.

Harrington smythe
Harrington smythe

love this game, but this clan is useless.

ןǝɐʞǝʞɐℲןɐǝᴚ
ןǝɐʞǝʞɐℲןɐǝᴚ

Love the clan. Please give it a named warchief. Something dark and evil sinister warchief.

Frantastic Fran
Frantastic Fran

First and last DLC I see myself buying for this game. Not a functional clan at all

deadlift
deadlift

requires a buff imo, their camp only gives a single warband increase and the dragonkin unit isnt that mighty tbh, especially the fact that they require dragon essence and 50 gold to create. Also the dragon altar juice decays kinda so fast that it forces you to build a strong economy (or kill your civilians) and rush the slave trade tech at the bottom, which ultimately makes your army much more underwhelming and hard to def/atk the other clans. The sacrifice mechanic is cool addition but it does not boosts the clan instead cripples it. The fact that wounded citizens does not cause happiness penalty is pretty good in early game. But in overall it needs some balancing like making the warband size increase by 2 instead of 1 from each dragonkin camp.

Owl
Owl

i started with clan of the dragon. Quick tip for new players dont start with clan of the dragon. it is essentially just making the game more difficult for difficulties sake. The clan needs a change because its the worst by a wide margin. I thought every clan played like this and as a result thought that the game was hot trash. Devs your not doing yourselves any favors with this clan i was going to refund the game till i tryed clan of the wolf.

Hollow
Hollow

NOT RECOMMENDED.
In theory this clan has slaves, dragonkin warriors and dragon essence, which grants that clan a very flexible economy and strong allround warriors that do the fighting while the slaves keep the economy up. In the actual game it all falls apart. With the Dragon Clan nothing really fits together. So you get slaves but initially you can't assign them to any type of structure for work. That first needs a lore tech unlock to be able to assign a single slave to a resource producing structure and a 2nd lore tech unlock to be able to add 2 more, which sums up to a minor bonus only still, as slaves can't be upgraded to become more effective at their task, neither via the usual blacksmith unit upgrade concept (nothing available) nor via another lore tech that makes them as productive as actual villagers. Their only upside is that they don't count towards your regular population but get their own slave population counter that increases as your population increases. What you get for this minor economic bonus with this clan is a huge hassle of buying slaves, enslaving enemy units and having to manage your dragon essence.

The hassle of buying slaves:
Slaves can be bought at a longship dock. This costs 20 kröwns after and 40 before the lore tech to reduce the price, increases by +50 kröwns per buy, grants +2 slaves and the price goes down by -4 kröwns each month until back to normal. This is a global price list, so you can't have multiple longship docks and rotate buy from them to get slaves fast and cheap. Due to this mechanic not stacking in any way it adds yet another extra resource that you have to watch with your clan, because if you forget to buy slaves once the price is back to normal you're missing your window to keep up the pace.

The hassle of enslaving enemy units:
This is nothing you can do when you want to and conditions for it are met or when it's needed but something that happens purely randomly, in a non-balanced way (which means it may never trigger for the entire duration of a map) and only after you unlocked the lore tech for it while that should be something that's available as passive right from the start to make this clan playable !

The hassle of managing your dragon essence:
If you run out of dragon essence you get -10 happiness. Sacrificing a slave grants +1 more happiness than any other of your units. This essence constantly decreases, unrelated to your population size. The dragon essence bar has rotating buffs on it that rotate at the same speed as your dragon essence decays, meaning once your dragon essence fills up a specific buff that's the bonus you'll get until either the effect disappears from the bar, you run out of dragon essence or change the amount of dragon essence to cover another effect. This rotates throughout the year and it's purely random what you start with. The buff increases in effect depending on your rank: no rank / 200 fame / 500 fame. You can get either +[2/4/8] of a single resource production, like food/wood/lore/kröwns, +[3/4/5] fame or +[2/3/4] happiness or +[10/15/20]% attack bonus for military units or [unknown value] of passive selfheal for dragonkin warriors out of combat. The problem with this is that it doesn't scale with population size, that it's not intended to keep the bar well filled but to tightly manage it's value, that any drain or gain may remove a desired buff and replace it with a useless one. Dragon essence can also be managed very poorly only: mechanics that offer minor gains or releases aside from sacrificing an entire unit are missing.

The major combat issues with this clan:
-other clans get a lore tech for +20% damage on military units as first pick, this clan instead receives a +100% damage lore tech that ceaes to function if any other of my or other friendly military units is in the same zone; while this is good for clearing zones of neutrals it's absolutely useless for actual combat later on and there's nothing available to compensate for it, except when the dragon essence bonus is available, I have the highest rank and this it's the best course of action to pick that
-dragonkin warriors are the only military unit this clan can have aside from the warchief, which are basically upgraded versions of warriors that receive a whirlwind attack once upgraded (area effect damage) instead of a charge attack; the whirlwind attack is pretty weak, much the same as a villager punching a military unit, if not even weaker; as all military units are melee units there are always a lot of wounded units and ranged units can toy with the Dragon Clan units if they can abuse that they can't reach them until they retreat due to the lack of a charge attack; due to only having one military unit type the ever increasing price per type of military unit already present hits hard, without any lore to reduce that being available
-their military structure only grants them +1 warband size while all other clans get +2 per military structure, so they not only lack unit variety but also numbers
-their relic unit is a very slow moving undead Jötunn that has a very high cooldown and costs quite a bit; looks impressive but mainly has health and armor, damage is the minor selling point, imo an underpowered / overpriced unit, especially for a relic

So in essence you get a lot of trouble with this clan but not much of value. The entire clan doesn't really work as the dragon essence resource bonus doesn't scale and the thralls basically worse versions of villagers while the military gameplay is considered brute force or brute fail. Imo thralls should be a thing that works and works mediocre right from the start with options to improve upon via lore tech unlocks and the usual blacksmith upgrades, from which they benefit if they work at the right structure, the dragon essence should be a huge bar that needs a lot to be filled, reward more the better filled, let the player pick which bonus to make use of to be truly able to adapt instead of having to deal with randomness, sacrifices should consists of captured enemies, not my own units, the entire thing should be an optional extra that enables my dragonkin warriors to use special abilities that allows them to adapt to combat situations and buffs them overall at certain filling stages. That'd be fun to play, but we don't have that. Also dragonkin warriors' whirlwind should be removed as it's one of those unit designs that's either overpowered or too weak, depending on unit numbers per side, with no healthy way of balancing this. I recommend the game but not this clan and not it's clan DLC as of this balance version (2.4.1.20197).

Kulebyaque
Kulebyaque

Unplayable
I want my money back

Pasheda
Pasheda

Defensive trade victory race, and they arent even that good at that. Feel like this faction was made to play against ai in singleplayer if you want a challenege because they suck at everything.

Scarlet Foxgirl
Scarlet Foxgirl

Under powered and dummy boring combat unit able to be skirted by the EZ axe thrower

Rasberry
Rasberry

This clan looks strong but it's the worst DLC this game has to offer, definetly DON'T BUY this. If you still wanna buy this you are just paying to lose every single game PERIOD.

Basicaly this clan is super useless in any gamemode, everything about this clan is totaly pointless. It has absolutely no direction or synergy ... it's just like black hole, it doesn't make any sense.

Developers are giving big middle finger for this DLC

Absolutely nobody is playing this clan because it's that useless, I tried it so many times but it's just impossible to achieve anything.

Just buy other DLCs but definetly not this one, it's waste of money right now.

Y-909
Y-909

I have been reading the reviews and I feel like I'm the only one fine playing this clan. To be honest, I don't usually have economical problems with this clan or actually have any problem at all. I can even say that it's my main clan. But the thing is: It's aggressive, has only one military unit and that unit is too weak for it's price. On the other hand I believe this clan deserves a special warchief. Atleast a special visual for it...

SoberToaster
SoberToaster

tried conquest as dragon, second major upgrade level (kill 10 jotnar) twice already on EASY mode and failed. I literally only need to do lynx after this clan, I have done ALL other clans, I have a hard time believing I just started sucking at the game now at like 300 hours.... orange wins at like 802. I am barely on my second military unit and stabilizing my econ, finally getting an upgraded healer to heal up these ridiculous dragon units health pools that takes ages and BAM loss. twice this happened. Such a crappy conquest mode downvote just for that.

Skultanix
Skultanix

I usually main this clan, and play on single player. Its a good clan, but it's only strategy for winning massive early expansion, followed by turtling and teching for a massive build up in late game. It's really good at this strategy, but it's very vulnerable to rushing and generally has poor match ups to other late-game armies,

Adding a ranged unit could be a nice touch as would a unique, named champion (or make the dragon from the artwork a ranged "chieftain" to really spice things up). Having combat bonuses that scale better than the double damage for solo fighters would be more fitting for the late game strategy this clan seems built for.

J.D. (newbie)
J.D. (newbie)

Hrash environment, agressive fauna, magic creatures and now your own clan. One extra enemy to fight with.
I'd say it's too difficult for chill gameplay. Can relax much, always under pressure. Good in many other situations, but here in Northgard i prefere to lean back and enjoy.

One and only type of military units, beside militia ofcourse and warchief.
Direct tactical warfare approach.

Diabolic rituals with green fire from very depth of Waha.

Slavery (wonder, why only this clan using slaves in colonies) - just to have bigger blessing with fire ritual.

If you wish to support Shiro games or try something new - feel free to buy.

Fireman
Fireman

Youre forced to do dragonkin you cant recruit any other types and you also lack nubmer since 1 camp = 1 slot
Shiro can only do shitty or very op clan there is no between

Serquez
Serquez

WORST CLAN INCLUDED TO THE GAME. NOT WORTH A FU**ING PENNY.

Canadian
Canadian

This one is interesting. I like how villagers can go into neutral territories to fight enemies so you don't need a training camp immediately. Also you can just sacrifice the injured ones to the alter. Thralls are like lower-class citizens that you can assign to production meanwhile they do not need housing nor eat much food.

Carbo
Carbo

What to say, the thrall system is decent. A cool gimmick that really brings out the evil in the viking era. However their military (Dragon Kin) is quite frankly pretty bad. Good berserkers that can kill a warrior pretty easily. BUT and that is a MASSIVE BUT the dragon kin get an 100% bonus attack if they are the only one in their zone. Which mean to maximize their attack they have to be the only one attacking or defending a zone. Combined that with a frankly garbage unit cap of 1 per training camp the kin melt like butter when fighting anything that isn't one guy. If you like playing hard mode then you have found your clan.

Overpain
Overpain

The one clan to rule them all.

Dragon clan is different to others. It's moderately strong and fun to play if you like its mechanics. Buy if you want to try something different.

Sasquatch300
Sasquatch300

So Nidhogg was one of my favorite God Powers in Age of Mythology, and getting to play as this clan is just as fun if you do it right. It took me a while to get used to the unique system of Dragon Essence, but once you get the hang of it, its a blast. All of the DLC so far has felt worth the price tag.

Meat By The Feet
Meat By The Feet

Down right ass of a clan. Totally trash. Yall should feel bad for this one. This game is 10/10. This clan makes it 7/10. That's how ass this clan is. Fire the dude who thought of it. Cause they're an idiot.

mangolden510
mangolden510

Pretty weak clan one of the worst in the game if not the worst the clan has unique mechanics which are quite cool to explode and learn but in term of effectiveness it's very bad the mechanics are more hindering you than helping you which is a problem. Also has the worst unique lore in the game so if it didn't get massively buffed done bother buying it not worth your money

Bennoni
Bennoni

Dragon Essence resource allows you to adjust your eco.
You have to sacrifice people, so you know where your wounded people go now, and in case you're pop capped, toss one down the pit, or maybe two.
Instead of early upgrading buildings, you use slavepower.
You can kidnap new thralls through raiding, which ensures your offerings while saving money. Therefore aggressive playstyle favored.

When juggling all the numbers in Northgard has become child's play for you, then get the Dragon Clan.
After a couple of (maybe troubling) games, they become pretty fun.

TradingDough
TradingDough

Is clear that they take more times with some clans and the others even as pay DLC are ditched away

This one here has been in life support since release.

Hoping to see it fix, some day. On pair with the horse or snake clan.

Phaeron Seherekh
Phaeron Seherekh

While others have formatted their reviews better this clan is baffingly designed and the devs frankly don't give a damn and are happy to run with your money

Gouf
Gouf

this clan need a named Warchief, seriously.

Chadworthy
Chadworthy

Dragon clan is crazy and a lot of fun. Managing the thrall bonus meter is engaging and the ability to capture neutral faction units can make for some big plays or big mistakes.

calthaer
calthaer

It's an incredibly unique clan, and fun to play against the AI, but it just doesn't hold up against a human opponent. It needs a lot of tech to play well, and a lot of gold. I know some favor this clan for an early rush, and while that might work it's the only strategy available to them. Otherwise it's just too weak...there are other, better clans you can play and this one isn't worth buying.

Snowtuft
Snowtuft

Villagers were mostly depressed and poor Slaves had to be sacrificed to keep the hapiness from dropping into a negative level. It is a pain to watch over this.

Wolfie
Wolfie

This clan def needs some love.

If you like me your probably have toyed with buying this faction, dragon warriors, thralls, sacrificial alters it all sounds wonderful! But heres the thing, its really just filling a meter with population and you only do it for some crappy bonuses, to keep your people happy and buy dragon warriors.

The race progression is slow because to gain the most benefits you need to throw atleast 2 villagers into the pot that decreases at a decent rate over time, its boring just watching a meter bar, thralls ah meh they are intended to make up for the loss of villagers but its only in the late tech tree, your cheiftan is just some generic dude that doesnt fit with the rest of the clan. He should raise drauger or have a fire attack or something!

Dragon warriors are decent with larger health bars and a splash attack upgrade but its only 1 per building, you need alot of healers, and they are the only unit type available. Every race can gain increase damage against you, lynx clans glee with joy hunting you.

Pro: Your relic is a giant undead drauger! yes that is cool, not the best sure but its better than many others.
The dragon warriors do look cool.
To be fair this race isn't weak but its catered to be a war race, Lynx and Kraken just do it better and a hell of alot more funner.

JawsOfTime
JawsOfTime

unhappy?
SACRIFICE

injured?
SACRIFICE

sick?
SACRIFICE

starving?
SACRIFICE

freezing?
SACRIFICE

kobold?
SACRIFICE

Cinders
Cinders

Not interesting at all. Clearly the devs looking for ways to "change it up" for money without a real plan.

ilikebadgers
ilikebadgers

Like others said, this clan is situational. The Dragon clan is a late-scaling attack clan. Instead of normal attack units, you can spawn powerful, limited, and expensive Dragonkin units. You get 1 Dragonkin per military building and have to sacrifice 1 dragon essence to summon a unit. This means you typically have to sacrifice a villager to summon a Dragonkin (2 villagers + 1 essence + 50g = 1 attack unit). The clan relic is an AoE giant you can spawn once per year. After your second giant, you can typically dominate other clans. The Dragon clan is gimmicky, but less challenging than the Rat and Snake clan imo.

Saving thralls and hording them around a silo makes for easy food production. You get 5 thralls at 200 fame, so you can have 11 or 12 thralls, 1 or 2 healers, and 2 food gatherers huddled on a silo and be completely set on food. The biggest issue is economy and population — you need to sacrifice many villagers and accrue a lot of gold in order to dominate. If your opponents go for the wisdom or trade win conditions, they'll be at ~80% completion by the time you can do anything.

That being said, if you are able to get ahead, annihilating everything in your path with 4 giants and a handful of Dragonkin is incredibly satisfying. If you're motivated by being challenged, this DLC is a good pick for you.

Solifar
Solifar

An insult to the word dragon, that are supposed to embody ferocity, power and widsom, the clan however, a joke, if you buy it turn off the combat focused objectives on difficulties higher than game journalist.

Erawolf
Erawolf

No ranged or shield units. Constant need of sacrifice to keep clan stable, happiness not included. The clan warchief is basic. There is no bonus for its own sole military unit, the dragonkin. This need serious overhaul before becoming something to play.

Celemin
Celemin

The Dragon Clan. One of my fav clans to play simply because of thier very unique style of playing compared to other clans. However this "uniqueness" doesn't necessary mean they are fun for other people, and most reviews here reflect on that. The Clan is very hard to play. like VERY HARD. and you will need to "look outside the box" to use them effectively.
But i still would recommend them, just because of thier playstyle.

If you want the exact details of what this clan has and performs. Keep reading this review.

To be honest, pointing at what the dragon is strong with, is even hard for me. This is due to their playstyle and what they offer. To summarize:
- They start with 3 wils and 2 Thralls.
- Thralls is a unique worker unit exclusive to the Dragon clan that gathers resources but lower then regular villigers. They takes no population space, but can only be obtained by purchating them from Docks or captured by killing enemy units with the "Capture" lore.
- Your villagers and Thralls can go into neutral territory.
- Has a Dragon Essence Gauge that grants unique bonuses. Requires units to be sacrificed. If the Gauge runs out, your happiness reaches very low.
- Has the Sarcrifical Pyre which is where you sacrifice your units for Dragon Essence.
- Has no access to Warriors, Axe Throwers or Shield Bearers. Instead your only Millitary unit, is the Dragonkin.
- The dragon Clan suffer no happiness panetly for too many wounded units.

I know i've called other Clans hard to play. but i think it's safe to say, that the Dragon clan is the hardest to play and master. There's so much going on that i'll have to write deeper details for what they have. Starting with how the Dragaon Essence Gauge works.

The Dragon Essence Gauge starts with a random bonus, either being food, wood, Krowns, or lore at the start of the game. This bonus immedially adds to your stockpile (so if it's food the Gauge is on. You gain 5+ food produced with no need for workers) The Gauge slowly drains over time. Each time you sacriface a worker or Dragonkin, you gain more Essence. Thralls give more Essence upon sacrificing, but keep in mind Thralls are more expensive to get.

The very complictad part, is that you can't get multiple bonuses from the Essence Gauge if you sacrifice alot of your units. Example, you have a wood bonus currenly on the Gauge, but you see there's also a lore bonus if you sacrifice a thrall for it, you sarcrifice it. But the bonus then goes off from wood, and then to lore instead. so you can't have both bonuses. The Key is to know which bonuses to get for the right time.

As mentioned before, you HAVE to sacrifice something. if the Dragon Essence Gauge runs out. you can't produce more Villigers, because the happiness has reaced like minus 10. This make Dragon Essence the 5th resource you have to keep track of, along with Food, wood, Krowns and Happiness.

Thralls are very important units for the Dragon Clan. They gather much needed resources to make up for your lower population. While you can sacriface them, it's sometimes best to hold onto them and sacriface Villigers instead. this all depends on your current situation. You can get more Thralls into the game, by building a dock and buy them with krowns. you buy 2 Thralls per purchate but each time you do, the price increases, but lowers down again for each month. Getting the "Thrall Trade" lore reduces the price overall. making it easier to buy more Thralls.

Another way to get more Thralls is the "Capture" lore. which lets you to caputure thralls wheen attacking enemy workers or Neutral enemies.

The only thing to note is Thralls will rebel and attack you, if you have more of them, then your current population. what happends is they turn into hostile "grey units," that will attack your base. but this will like never happen to you, cuz your population will always be way higher. but if this occurs, your economy is gonna be hit hard, and often result in a loss due to lack of rescources.

Finally we have the Dragonkins. which is the only millitary unit you can have in this clan. You need to build Dragonkin altars to get them, and they are pretty expensive, costing a little more krowns then a Warrior, and some of the dragon essence from your gauge. Dragon Altars also only provides 1 warband instead of other millitary camps 2 warband. so at the start you can only have one.

Dragonkins are demon hunters that- whoops sorry wrong game. they are a melee unit, with more health, more attack, slighty faster attack speed, and a projectile resistance. Newer players will immediately think they are two warriors in one unit, but this is wrong. Dragonkin are more like a warrior with weaponsmith already unlocked and the shield bearers projectile defense. Thier defence is only increased by 1, so they aren't tanky either.

Speaking of Weaponsmith, the Dragon clan does NOT have Access to that lore, or "millitary strategy" lore. Instead they have "Dragonic Frenzy" lore which doubles a millitary units attack, if it's only unit on a territory. So a dragonkin get + 12 attack and can do 24 damage which is insane, however this only works with one millitary unit, and not 2 unit on the same tile. making it only good for killing wildlife or early defense, but little thing else againts an army of vikings.

The only way you can upgrade thier attack, is to upgrade the Dragonkin Altar. which is gonna cost you alot of stone.

With only one warband, no easy lore attack bonus, and a very expensive price, Dragonkin are very hard to spam with. their price is so high, that fielding alot of them will hurt your wallet alot. Plus you'll have to sacrifice more of your people, to prevent the essence gauge from running out. Don't be surprised if your warchief is your second millitary unit you obtain.

Also Dragonkin are effected by "Dragon Slayer" lore from the enemy clans, taking 10% more damage, if they unlock it at their lore tree.

Listing all this, the Dragon clan Seems very underpowered. Your overall population is always lower compared to other clans in matches, They are a "lore heavy" Clan, has only one type of millitray unit, and you have to sacrifice your own people to gain bonuses, which can seem very overwhelming. however the Dragon clan, does have a few tricks. First they don't really suffer as much from "population happiness". since if your happiness is about to reach minus from a villiger spawning, simply toss a worker to the Sacrifacial pyre, and you delay the panelty.

Also imo, the dragon clan can archive every victory efficently but only if you work towards it. they can be really good for trade victory, because their Thralls help with lacked food income, so you can send workers to gather more krowns, and do bigger trade route. But the Dragon Clan can also make a deadly army, when your economy allows it. Wisdom is also a bit faster to reach, thanks to the Dragon Essense Gauge.

So overall. i really love thier unique playstyle, they really turn how you think you play Northgard, but it's very hard to get used to them. Pick this DLC if you want something different. But be prepared to learn from alot of mistakes.

Keith Stone
Keith Stone

This clan is hyper situational, it's pretty easy to counter, and is only barely good. If everything goes perfect, it's really good and powerful, but if even one thing goes wrong its over.