Dragon Commander Previews

The fine folks at RPGWatch serve us one of the first English previews for Larian Studios’ recently announced Dragon Commander, which should shed more light on how the game works. Here’s a couple of short snippets:

Swen gave one example to show how this works. One of the people living on your ship is making lame bone jokes about your princess. You tell him that she is the queen and should be treated with respect, after which he says to rest assured and make no bones about it. Once you visit your bedroom it becomes clear why he makes these jokes: your princess appears to be an undead princess. A small oversight you forgot to check when you bought her.

Still she comes with many advantages; she brought an army, technology, magic and other things that can be at your disposal – or not – depending on what you decide. There are multiple princesses in the game that you can marry to get the bonuses they are offering. Sometimes you might even decide you don’t want a princess anymore and throw her off the ship – or maybe you decide to start a harem.

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In the strategy mode you have a turn based map in which you can move your enemy troops. You can also buy units, invest in different types of technology or magic trees and you can play your cards.

Once you made all your decisions you can end your turn, after which you will have to decide which combat to participate in and under which general you want to deploy your troops. There are multiple generals to choose from, each with their own story arc, strengths and weaknesses. Once you’ve made your choices the fight can begin.

While in combat you will play as a dragon. A dragon equipped with a jetpack and armaments allowing you to toughen the dragon. It is also possible to give him the fantasy equivalent of sidewinders to increase his power even further.

Bit-tech also has a short piece for the title:

Dragon Commander is a game made of three parts, it turns out. The first part sees you directly in the role of your principal Dragon Commander, on board his flying fortress, talking to your advisors and playing politics with your minions and dependants. In this demo the skeleton princess is your new bride one desperate for biologically infeasible attentions and your support in founding her own undead nation. Will you support her, she asks? You’ll have to turn against your dwarven smiths to do so, but while you’ll lose the valuable weapon upgrades of those beardy smiths, you’ll get a powerful necromatic army to command.

Which leads to Dragon Commander’s second stage the tactical map. Here you look down on the world and plot which territory to invade next, moving your flying base around and playing your units as cards in your hand.

When you’ve finalised your plans here, Dragon Commander brings out the ace in its sleeve letting you fly freely as a dragon in 20 x 20km maps. AI allies fill the skies around you, obeying your orders and trying their best to keep foes off your back as you lay fiery siege to your enemy. Somehow, Dragon Commander manages to be a beast of an arcade flight-sim, as well as an RPG and a tactical game; the card collecting and map-based planning culminating in fire-breathing action.