A refreshing strategy experience of tower defense + city construction management! "Dragonstone War" gives 2025 a little shock!

Jan 03 2025

If I make an analogy, I would liken the current game production to a "service" industry.

Who is the target of the service? Of course it is players, and it is the "civilian players" with the widest coverage. In the past perception of games, MMOs and SLG were generally dominated by kryptonians. Taking care of kryptonians has become the primary goal of manufacturers, and ordinary players who are in an embarrassing situation have lost part of their gaming experience.

However, after some manufacturers awakened to the concept of "service", the current gaming environment has become more "people-friendly". Mushroom Warrior and Xundao Daqian made the early stage of MMO very light (opening treasure chests, hanging up and pushing to close), and used fragmented time to please players; Endless Winter and Fingertip Wushuang made the early stage of SLG a simulated management, and through casual The gameplay pleases players. These changes in gameplay have allowed Xiao R and even civilian players to find their own comfort zone and meet their gaming needs. At the same time, it also contributed to the popularity of these games.

Therefore, whether a game can satisfy small players and ordinary players is an important criterion for measuring its success. Among the many new games, "Dragonstone War" has attracted a large number of fans with its casual gameplay of free city construction and free exploration of large maps in the early stage, as well as light content such as tower defense and hero advancement. Currently, the number of reservations through all channels has exceeded 800,000, it has the momentum to create the "Dragonstone-like" category, setting an example for SLG's leisure and content innovation, and allowing people to see the unlimited potential of this game.

To add fuel to your strategy, how fun is the tower defense PVP under your own main city!

If you want to summarize one of the biggest features of "Dragonstone War", it is that it has found the lifeblood of innovation!

For innovation, everyone often has a misunderstanding, that is, it must be drastic and subvert all existing content. However, this may be a "stereotype" of innovation. In fact, things that truly contain huge innovation potential are often things that have existed for a long time and are often around players, but are easily overlooked. It just so happens that the main city of the strategy game fits such a positioning.

In almost all strategy games, the main city is where the player's dream begins. However, this city with unlimited development potential gradually becomes a tool after the player embarks on the journey, losing the strategic depth it should have. This kind of content is obviously something that "Dragon Stone War" does not want to reflect.

Therefore, "Dragonstone War" will focus its innovation around the player's main city. Here, the main city is no longer a "decorative main city", but a truly strategic city that can display strategies. The game has developed a rich gameplay around the function of the main city, allowing it to be both a harbor and the "home field" for each player's battle!

First of all, "Dragonstone War" gives players the right to build cities and gives "personality" to the main city. Players can place bricks and tiles in the main city by themselves, whether to confuse their opponents by arranging formations, or to use their imagination to create "good things", it all depends on the player's own wishes.

And city building is only a small step in innovation, and "map-city construction integration" is the theme of the entire innovation of "Dragonstone War". The integration of city construction turns the player's main city into a battlefield in siege warfare. Due to the differences in the construction of each player's main city, a new siege thinking was born, subverting the siege gameplay of traditional COC games.

In traditional COC games. Both the offensive and defensive sides are indescribable "grievances". The limitations of the soldiers' movement logic prevent the attackers from adapting to changes. Once they encounter an ambush, they can only watch the team "give gifts"; while the defenders are too passive and once seen through by the opponent The main city's intelligence can easily be broken through. The source of this frustration is the lack of strategy.

Therefore, "Dragonstone War" makes the main city attack and defense into a tower defense PVP gameplay, focusing on the strategic attributes. Offensive players must use RTS gameplay to find opportunities in the opponent's tight defense. As the city planner, the defender can maximize the advantages of the main city, use the terrain of the main city to continuously set up ambushes and guerrillas, and neutralize the opponent's offensives one by one through the geographical advantage.

By the way, compared to other RTS games, all combat units in "Dragonstone War" have independent AI pathfinding logic and health bars. Such details not only allow for a more intuitive understanding of the status of the troops during the battle, but also It can make the combat experience smoother, which is also in line with the game's innovative style in subtle aspects.

The combination of tower defense PVP and RTS gameplay extends a deep level of strategy, which allows players to unconsciously think about the subsequent main city battle when building the main city, making every brick and tile possible. Strategy. Emphasizes the most important strategic aspect of strategy games.

From a macro perspective, main city battles enrich players' combat thinking and give players more choices at the tactical level. Based on the player's personal combat experience, the units give players more room to operate in terms of troop formation, allowing the battlefield to flourish.

There are more than 20 types of arms available in "Dragon Stone War". They have different shapes and different functions. In line with the game's front, middle and back row mechanics, the use and positioning of each unit is a particular matter.

The free combination of troops in the game provides the soil for players to be unconstrained. You can choose a "soldier-protection" formation with all human shield troops and the hero outputting behind; you can also choose an output flow lineup that is all output and focuses on instant kills; You can also choose a balanced lineup with meat, milk and output. The main theme is "routines are dead, people are alive", and it has very high playability.

At the same time, the restraint relationship between the arms makes the game "the strong always strong". Even if your opponent is ahead of you in certain conditions, as long as you deploy your formation in a targeted manner, you can still "defeat the strong with the weak." For example, individual units will be beaten when facing group units, and group units are afraid of them. Enemy AOE damage. At the same time, no matter how strong the ground troops are, as long as they do not have air strike capabilities, they have nothing to do against air units and can only be passively beaten.

The depth of the three-dimensional formation strategy of unit restraint narrows the gap between players with different payment levels, and there will be no big R1V10 situation. The characteristics of each military unit also allow "Dragon Stone War" to have a broader battlefield dimension, which can realize "ground to ground", "ground to air", "air to air", all-round and multi-angle "ground to ground", "land to air" and "air to air". Total War" further enhances the strategic nature of the game. In "Dragonstone Wars", change is the eternal strategic theme of the game.

Leading the strategy to reduce burden! "Dragonstone War" will continue leisure to the end

Seeing this, some players may have questions. Traditional SLG is already very tiring to play. With the addition of new content in "Dragon Stone War", will it make playing even more tiring?

In fact, there is no need to worry about this. "Dragonstone War", which focuses on simple and leisurely play, not only does not increase the pressure on players, but also improves the ease of play through various load-reducing strategies and meets the game needs of players.

For example, the problem of card locking and high card drawing costs is common in this category. "Dragon Stone War" provides a "no waste card" solution. Heroes can be advanced through tokens, and they will not be useless to anyone drawn. This not only reduces the training pressure for players, but also solves the anxiety of drawing cards, further reducing the cost of playing cards. The threshold of the game.

In response to the problem of tired development, the game adopts the setting of "accumulation of free time". During the time when you don’t have time to play games, idle game time will be accumulated automatically. Players can use it as they go online. They can use the accumulated time to accelerate city construction and upgrades, quickly catch up with the progress, and ensure that no player is left behind, so they can easily Get the complete gaming experience wherever you click.

There are many such lightweight designs, such as uncomplicated land reclamation operations, relatively little development time, quick PVP experience, etc. Moreover, thanks to the main city construction function of the game, players can also get a simulated business game experience in the early stage. From the perspective of land reclamation, the addition of these elements adds more fun to the land reclamation. It is also another form of game innovation.

How rare is it to have a development team that is willing to “get involved” with players

In addition to being willing to make bold innovations in game content,Newly, in terms of the concept of game production, the development team of "Dragonstone War" is also a relatively sober group. They are willing to get involved with players, constantly improve the game by playing the game themselves and listening to the players' voices.

To this end, they specially organized a passionate competition between the development team and players. Judging from the results of the "Player Violence Planning" competition, their enthusiasm for participation seems to be higher than that of the development team. From the players' attitude of actively learning the game and participating enthusiastically, we can see their support and love for the game, which reflects the excellent quality of the game.

The activity of "Dragonstone War" has also attracted the attention of COC champion Feizhu. The producer once again started a discussion with "Flying Pig". Both sides showed their skills in the main city battle, winning and losing each other, and the process was enjoyable. It fully embodies the casual and strategic nature of the game.

Being willing to mingle with players and listen to their voices, a series of behaviors of the development team can bring positive feedback to the game. Small and micro players have their own comfort zone fun guarantee, and big R players also have positive payment feedback experience.

At the same time, through a series of market behaviors behind "Dragonstone War", we can also see the bright future of the game. The game was first introduced to everyone at the Tencent press conference in 2024, and was later taken over by Ruyi Jingxiu, who specializes in the SLG track. The transfer of the distribution of Tencent's key SLG products is based on Ruyi Jingxiu's excellent SLG product distribution strength and its distribution strategy of high-quality strategy games. It is also another manifestation of the friendly cooperative relationship between the two parties. A series of market behaviors have laid a solid foundation for the future development of "Dragonstone War".

"Dragonstone War" has awakened a dormant category, and a series of innovative content extended through the "Dragonstone-like" concept have refreshed everyone's inherent perception of strategy games as being single and conservative. And this is just the first wave of industry shock brought by "Dragonstone War" in its fledgling years. As players, we can see a better and brighter future for strategy games from this ever-changing game! This hope, for long-awaited players, may be more precious than the game itself.

On January 8, "Dragon Stone War" will launch the next round of new testing called "Dragon City Test". If you are fascinated by this continent, don’t miss this opportunity to test it. Scan the QR code below to sign up for the test. The registration deadline is January 5th, qualifications are limited, first come first served! The unique strategy battlefield of "Dragonstone War" is waiting for you.