After a close poll last week, the Dryad just managed to creep up to the top spot, making it the subject of this week's guide. Having to cast a God Power to get these units makes them quite unique, and I'm sure we've all seen them walking and screaming around the battlefield. But can these tree-nymphs (or drag queens as some call them) actually cause an opponent some real harm?

Let's look at their stats:

Cost: 150 Gold, 0 Favour, 0 Pop Spaces
HP: 275
Speed: 4.50
Crush armour: 99%
Hack armour: 40%
Pierce armour: 50%
Hack damage: 15

Special attack: None
Special ability: None
Only 5 may be owned by one player at a time

Weak, light, moderate speed with no real special attacks or ability. But just look at how cheap these things are! The only heroic MU that can match how cheap it is in terms of resources is the Scorpion Man (150 Wood), but in terms of favour and pop, it cannot be beaten.

Sure it's mega cheap, but just how strong is it? Let's see how it does against a Greek Hoplite

NOTE: All units have been upgraded with Medium and Heavy line upgrades and Copper and Bronze armoury upgrades. All buildings have been upgraded with the Masons and Architects upgrades. Any other upgrades will be stated

All attack rates are tested per hit, not second. The Dryad attacks every 1.5 seconds, so it's base hack attack each hit is 21.5, which has been rounded up to 22.

Test 1: 1 Dryad vs 1 Hoplite (Zeus)

Dryad does approximately 12 damage to Hoplite per hit.
Hoplite does approximately 8 damage to Dryad per hit

Dryad kills Hoplite in 18 seconds with 146 HP left

Interestingly, the Dryad only just managed to do worse than the Satyr. No real shocks or surprises here, although it did manage to lose quite a large proportion of its HP.

Now, I had quite a problem with running some of these tests, in terms of making them as fair as possible; because the Dryad costs no pop, how can I make each side balanced? I've decided (for the purpose of these tests alone) to make the Dryads equivalent to 3 pop spaces. This doesn't affect in game battles and games in any way, it is just a way of working out how many units to use vs so many Dryads

Test 2: 3 Dryads vs 3 Chariot Archers (Set)

CA stats:
HP: 108
Speed: 5.00
Range: 20
Hack armour: 43%
Pierce armour: 35%
Pierce damage: 11

Dryads win with 2 still alive

Not really a surprise here. When there's a battle between myth units and human soldiers, then myth units should win.
Luckily for Oranos and Gaia players, we don't have another Satyr on our hands, and the Dryad at least seems to do as expected for a cheap, Heroic myth unit. But also, we don't have another Heka-Gigantes which out-performed even itself.

Because these units are so versatile, just how do they do against buildings?

Test 3: 1 Dryad vs 1 House (Thor)

House stats:
HP: 495
Crush armour: 14%
Hack armour: 30%
Pierce armour: 95%

Dryad does 16 damange to house per hit

Dryad takes 47 seconds to destroy house.

Maybe not the fastest building killer in the game; certainly by the Scarab, Behemoth and Heka-Gigantes standard. Still, it's better than the ranged units, and sending 1 Dryad to attack a building isn't really going to help you very much. But what about more than one of them?

Test 4: 5 Dryads vs 1 Palace (Kronos)

Dryads take 50 seconds to destroy the Palace

You see, when massed, they can take down a building with as many HP as a Palace in approximately the same time it takes for one to destroy a house.

From my experience of using Dryads in games, They're useful to aid in an attack on an enemy base. Once their army is out of the way, send Fire Siphons with the 5 Dryads to pick off any lurking villagers or milita while the rest of your army heals or moves on to another base. They may not be the game's most powerful unit, but any unit that costs 0 favour and no pop spaces must be good for something.

Just don't forget how easily they die to heroes, particularly with that low HP. Also remember that if your opponent takes the Hesperides Tree, they can also create Dryads, so have some heroes ready

Further Notes:

The Dryad defeats all human units with Heroic upgrades one on one except:
Jarls
War Elephants

The Dryad is defeated by all heroes in the Heroic Age except for the priest; although it was very close

The Dryad is defeated against all Heroic MUs. They also lose to all Classical MUs (excluding the Caladria}. This is due to its weak HP and lack of a bonus against other Myth Units.

Dryads can be affected by Mythic Rejuvination (they will regenerate HP) and Celerity (they are quicker to train from the Hespiredes Tree.)

If Dryads are owned by other civs they can be affected by: