Creon Creon Creon

Many people insist there isnt much to say about Creon... But there is.

Creon is that one race that is at a disadvantage. If you ever played TA, you think TAK sucks because there are a lack of units per race. Well when you look at Creon, they have even less than Aramon/Veruna/Taros/Zhon. They struggle in the early stages of a game. They also have limited use on many different maps. You also have to be very quick to use Creon. I would say they are the hardest race to master, followed by Zhon.

So what are some good Creon strategies? Well that really depends on the map. So let me just explain what their units do... or don't do.

Sage is the creon races monarch. He is slow moving, doesn't have any road multipliers, has the slowest turning rate. Sage has slightly more health than Thirsha, which isn't much. His wave is just like any other monarchs, which is only good vs tier 1 units, or to weaken large groups. There isn't much to say about the Sage. His first attack is a blue flame. Which I guess is pretty cool, because if you're a pyro like me, then you know blue flames are hotter than red/orange. So you would think it does alot more damage, but it really doesn't, plus it is a Line of Sight attack, with a slow velocity so sometimes it doesn't hit its target or his attack is blocked. Still Sage isn't completely useless. His fire attack does do more damage than a fire wagon, so its not that bad. I'll get back to this in a little bit. His 2nd attack, unlike most of the other monarchs, is a mortar. So its not guided, but it does have decent range and you can stay out of sight, do some damage, and retreat. Also you have like 5 or 6 shots before you run out of mana and have to switch back to your flame.

The Creon gate is pretty unique. You can use it for any direction. It almost completely disappears when it is open. And some opponents will walk over it without notice. Theres one thing about the Creon gate that is debatable tho. The Creon gate has a line of code in it that makes enemy units not shoot or attack it. So enemy units on patrol will just walk around it. This can be bad because you might want the enemy is stop and attack the gate. They'll just go around it and it will be kinda a waste. But you can also take advantage of this, by creating a wall of Creon Gates. Forcing the units to walk all the way around your gates, and getting attack in the meantime. They can also be used as beacons. Just create on in the middle of the map so you can see when a unit passes by. Unlike the other gates, trebs dont hit gates. Trebs will fire over top of them, most of the time.

Automations; I dont say this often, but these things are pretty useless. Still don't really have a use for them, except that they are Creons only melee unit. Well, only primary melee unit. They could be used as meat shields, but they lack the health.

Barnstormers will be your best friends. They are the helicopter like units, they're scouts. With a little more health than a bird, and a pretty good turning radius, they aren't that bad! They are your best friends because you will rely predominantly on ranged units. And with Creon, you need to use each of your units max range to your advantage!

Fire Wagons, probably the best tier 1 ranged unit in the game. This may be more of an opinion. If you ever attempt to play Creon on Sewers of Elam(which I have to say, they aren't bad for a 1v1), you will use fire wagons only. They can hit air, and they murder melee units. Hands down. Theyre range isnt that far, but they work. Fire Wagons also have a decent speed, but theyre turn rates are pretty bad. Avoid making sharp turns. To make up for their bad turns, their weapon does rotate. They also do not have a minimum range like the Tortoise.

Tortoises are pretty badass units! They cost just less than a grand. Their range is farther than a fire wagons. When they kill an enemy, the enemy will explode, so your opponent can not send in any units to resurrect the bodies. They also cannot be frozen or stoned, like their Fire Wagon counterparts. To balance them tho, they cannot hit air, so they are very vulnerable to air units. And their attack is weaker, and has a slower reload time than the Fire Wagons. Tortoises can be good and bad against Zhon. You are taking a risk with them because zhon has some good air units, but at the same time, they wont be able to resurrect wolves. Personally I would build Tortoises on higher mana maps. Create a small group of them, and wait until their group doubles before I use them offensively. Keep them guarded, and behind a wall of gates, forcing enemy units to walk around the gates.

Mechanics. Your tier 1 builder. Mechanics are great because they have 2 attacks. Many people think they are near worthless, but those many people would be wrong. Their 2nd attack, while kinda slow at reloading, and only useable on some units, is an insta-kill. It will freeze them. Mechanics are great at freezing zhon drops. They can freeze units such as Goblins, Hunters, and Swamp Beasts. They can also freeze Orcs, spirit wolves and Giant Orms! Keep a few mechanics scattered around your base while playing Zhon players who like to drop. They cannot freeze swordsman/warriors/ or Trolls. So if you see any of these, switch to ur Lightning attack or run... Running would be more wise, because Mechanics like any other builders, do give you mana. In early games, aramon players will horse rush Creon. If a horse is attacking your mechanics, switch to lightning and focus all fire power onto the horse. You cannot outrun a horse! Be prepared that if one horse can get in, your enemy will send in more. They will also plan on sending in Knights. And possibly their monarch... Good thing being, Mechanics can freeze Knights! Insta-Kill! Same with blade demons and berzerkers! If you encounter flying units, use the lightning attack as well. It may not do much damage, but every little bit counts!

Walls.... dont make these unless your enemy is famous for making Cannons. You can use the mana on better things. End of story.

Gatling Crossbow- I seldomly make gatling xbows. Unless, in an early game I am predicting my opponent is going to send horses and I have extra mana to spare while pushing out Fire Wagons. They really do help. They are also great at taking out Ghostships and Rocs. When building defensive units behind gates, make sure they are significantly behind the gate, because monarchs can walk up to the gate, and wave. A wave can kill a gatling xbow or damage it a realllll lot. Its just a warning. Had it happen many many times.

Bomb Sprinklers- Pretty useless, unless you need to take out a building or gate fast.... and have a ton of mana to waste and nothing is near it. They can fire over berms if not positioned right next to them. Keep them back a little bit. When they die, they do blow up and damage units adjacent.

Prismatic Mirrors- Awesome units. Very Long Range.... Guard them very well and try to keep out of reach of trebs.... I've seen Prismatic Mirrors be the reason games have been won.

Shock Troopers- I'd say they are the automations of Tier 2. I dont build them... Don't know a use yet to be honest. Fire Wagons are pretty much equal if not better.

Beast Riders- Get enough Beast Riders and you can own the game. They can shoot air and land. Longer Range and more health than Cannoneers. They become Veteran fairly quickly, and gain significant health when they become veteran. They also have a melee attack. Combined with their good health, they are pretty good secondary melee units. Beat the shit out of Automations. But why use melee when you can kick "***" from far away right? Also the cannon does more damage, and the melee (claws) have negative modifiers vs buildings.

Neo Dragon- One of Creons only flying units. This is another game turning unit. They can freeze zhon builders, or enemy builders who are trying to upgrade. If you are playing Aramon, and the enemy still has their mon, and you freeze the unit, you can use the neo dragons first attack(blue flame) to attack the frozen unit so it will disappear and cannot be resurrected. Good way to put a stop to enemy upgrading. If you have the chance to freeze a unit right after it is built from a factory, it will stop all production until it is cleared. Pretty cool tactic! Neo Dragons can also freeze groups of units with the area freeze, and freeze Knights! I've used Neo Dragons to beat aramon and taros players! They are also great for sight. But because they cost so much, I'd recommend baby sitting them. And if they get veteran, they are pretty kickass! A gold Neo Dragon can wave twice, or almost wave twice. A big rain on your opponents Parade. A gold Neo Dragon also does more damage with its blue flame. I've seen one take out 3 veruna guard towers! Hell yeah!

Chief Engineers- Similar to Mechanics. Lightning/Freeze. They also have a paralyze attack. I'm not entirely sure if it works... It might... But only good to stop a unit for a few seconds so that u can get other units to kill it, otherwise if you can, Freeze it! Chief Engineers, can resurrect Automations. Better than leaving a body rot away I guess.... think of it as a free meat shield!

Aerial Juggernuaght- Creons "Sacred Dragon." It does not have a build up attack like the Wave on the dragons. Instead you have anti air arrows. (Great for killing birds and other air units, but not just limited to air.) You also get cannonballs. Which are shot out the bottom of the Juggernaught. They are powerful. And they are not limited to just the ground. I've seen them own Thirsha! To control the Juggernaught, just move it around instead of attacking. It will attack by itself. Try to move it near the unit you wish to attack. A veteran Juggernaught has amazing damage. But goodluck getting that far! Juggernaughts can also transport units. Last time I checked, they can transport at least 8 Beast Riders. Or 24 automations. Some players like to put Sage in the Juggernaught, all ready to wave. Drop him in the enemy base, wave. Then put Sage back into the Juggernaugt, and retreat. Just be careful not to wave your Juggernaught. It will hurt it a good amount.
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Personally on a grouped mana as Creon I start off by making 1 mana stone, followed by a smithy. My mana will then increase slowly as I build the smithy and I won't lose any mana. ;] By the time the smithy is done I will use my mon to guard the smithy and pump out 2 mechanics. I will use both of them to make my mana. Starting on seperate ends and meeting in the middle. If there is more than 5 mana, I will make 3 or 4 mechanics. In the mean time I will pump out a barnstormer to see what my opponent is doing. Followed by Fire Wagons. I will patrol the fire wagons to my opponents base. But I will wait until I have 2 or 3 of them before I send them. On smaller maps you will likely see a melee rush from your opponent very soon. On larger maps you will have more time. If my opponent is doing a full out rush I will make 2-3 smithy's total. All producing Fire wagons. I will use a barnstormer to scout my opponent to keep tabs on what they are doing. And if I need be I will keep Sage in the front lines in front of my fire wagons to use his flame attack or wave large groups of units. I will use him occasionally to build, but not finish structures, so units will be forced to walk around the structure, thus blocking them. If I see a monarch coming my direction I will assume he or she is attempting to wave my fire wagons, and I will focus everything I have onto that monarch. Using my own monarch to block my opponents attacks with shadow buildings or the sage himself. If the monarch gets too close, I will just start attacking with the blue flame. But I wont use my wave unless they send a large group of units at my mon, or I see horses!

In the back of my base, If I have the mana I would have used a 3rd or 4th smithy to produce tortoises. They help out alot against monarchs because the monarch will wave ur fire wagons but not realize u also have tortoises farther back with longer range. Or I would have build an academy and started on a neo if I had the mana, or a chief engineer to upgrade my mana. A fully upgraded Creon is a hard force to stop if you are not upgraded first. If I manage to get a neo dragon up I would fly into my enemies base to freeze anything possible, builders and higher tier units first. Followed by any ranged units that could attack me. I would fly back to heal if possible.... Also I would use sage to mortar enemy defenses or archers!

If I managed to fully upgrade, I would switch to a semi defensive state, and pump out Beast Riders, and Barnstormers. And try another full out attack, with my monarch in the front lines.

With Creon I would recommend using Sage more so offensively than in your base. He will eat up your mana by guarding buildings to produce things quicker. If you do attempt to build an Aerial Juggernaught, you could use Sage to help build that.

By the way, Sage is not meant for mon battling because even the best players have a very hard time defending with him.

Creon is better at larger maps.... avoid using them on "Mon Rush" maps...

Aren't the shock troopers good against enemy neo's? i thought they had a mechanical modifier

Creon Shock Troopers do something like 452 damage with a 1.25% damage modifier against mechanical units. So whats that, like 565?

Problem is, the Creon Neo Dragon's damagecategory = airship. Not mechanical. =/
So... no. If you can find something that is mechanical you could use it against them. But why not use a fire wagon, whose range is almost identical, and weapon does 610 damage? Fire wagon almost has the same health. They're almost identical, almost the same reload time as well. Except shock troopers cost slightly more and they can turn faster.

Looking at the files, Shock troopers do have a larger sight distance, so they can see farther.
Maybe they aren't completely useless... just another thing to try instead of Fire Wagons.
Honestly, I'd rather use my Academy to build beast riders :p

chief engineers can make awesome offensive weapons - i've won games on cave maps before just with a bunch of 15 chief engineers, blocking off whole tunnels with frozen enemy units and using resurrected automatons to scout out line of sight. Creon's construction units double up as offensives so in a way they have more units than it seems at first...

ah, also, whenever you build bomb sprinklers, surround them with a box of wall, so no melée unit can harm them. that way they're much more resilient. you can also kill aerial units with them if you manually target the ground below the aerial attacker.

stats wrote:

chief engineers can make awesome offensive weapons - i've won games on cave maps before just with a bunch of 15 chief engineers, blocking off whole tunnels with frozen enemy units and using resurrected automatons to scout out line of sight. Creon's construction units double up as offensives so in a way they have more units than it seems at first...

This wouldnt hold up in online gameplay

ah darn you're right. i played much more skirmish TAK than multiplayer, my strategies are proof of that :P

i think the hole point of the blue flame is that creon is also an ice race so it not hotter but colder. (just dont ask how this works)

I've always seen it the same way Wqaopl. Cold fire, and freeze attacks = ice race! Whats more ice than a giant dinosaur? =]

All units are meant for something. Everymap has its own strategy. Shock troopers are very useful for spread mana maps where you need to make units that won't bring your mana down like a beast rider, and faster to build. Just a thought.

I wouldn't say creon are hard to master at all, especially not harder than zohn, they have so few units that there are only a few tactic you can use with them and its mostly a defensive thing with beast riders and neos freezing stuff. The only hard part is defending early and getting enough mana.

Some of the best games I've ever played was with Creon, honestly. Monster learned the hard way that my Creon can rival his Aramon treb strat.

the Juggernaut is the best "dragon" unit methinks. Ability to fire at stuff without specifically stopping to target a unit is priceless. You can cruise it round the edge of bases whittling away at buildings on the edge. Flies too fast for Strongholds and Bastions to be able to turn and aim at it. Plus its transport function is great, you can dump tonnes of Automatons while attacking, to distract much of the enemy's weaponry. Quite often I've used them as line-of-sight support for defence too, spotting for Beasts and Mirrors while spilling a few bombs on the enemy at the same time.

I've got them to 1000 kills before (against a decent AI...)

the juggernaut is stupid.... hands down worst creon unit by the time you get it built and loaded with acos the enemy has enough anti air units to destroy your jugger b4 it can even unload them all. Not to mention it doesnt attack who you tell it to. Also if im not mistaken blue flame is hotter than red flame therefore sage isnt shooting cold blasts... they are actually extreamly hot.

Black Dragon > all.

Top speed, TURN RADIUS, MANA REGEN.

AuquaNeon - Azurians Dragon is hands down best dragon

Gold dragon is best if you only want to compare cd dragons

Negative.

Capt Savage wrote:

AuquaNeon - Azurians Dragon is hands down best dragon

Gold dragon is best if you only want to compare cd dragons

Nah I'm with hate here, the black dragon is best and it looks totally badass as well.

black dragon>gold dragon>=sea dragon>>>>>ancient dragon

I rate the sea dragon pretty high because of how powerful it is, just wrecks bases once it gets the wave. I hate how crappy the ancient dragon is though

nope. im with capt here.
Aquaeon
black dragon
gold dragon
sea dragon
old dragon

i've never played with the aquaeon dragon so my list is
1)black
2)gold
3)sea=ancient

i wish the ancient dragon was more powerfull it looks so cool aswell as that i always thought zhon deserves the most powerfull dragon

i got illhoirs dragon gold yesterday and that is by far the best (once its gold), man that thing is more powerfull than a GOD!

Aquaeon?

Third party race?

i like to have my dragns with 10x armor and atack so i could kill anything with one hit!!!

Is the Black Dragon that good? I'll have a play with it later... I don't think I've ever given it that much attention. Ancient dragon is lame though.

As for the juggernaut's attacks, it will fire the arrow at its designated target, while the bombs will spill all over the place. It sucks at eliminating individual targets but that's not really what it's for, I'd say.

Guys, Ancient dragon is slow but it has more hitpoints from the rest of the dragons. Gold Dragon is fast and agile but it has the fewer hitpoints of all. In terms of speed/agility here it goes: Gold Dragon > Black Dragon > Sea Dragon > Ancient Dragon, but in terms of hit points/power it goes like this: Ancient Dragon > Sea Dragon > Black Dragon > Gold Dragon. Also, the more fast/agile a dragon is the faster it gains gold status. Personally, I don't believe there is a dragon better than the others, each one has advantages and disadvantages. My personal favourite is the Ancient Dragon, though.

Sorry to disapoint you but... is technicaly comproved Black Dragon is the faster, maybe not more then Aquaeon that i meet in a long time. ^^