How do the bonuses for investing in skill points scale?

Question

Does anyone have a break down of what is actually gained per skill point invested in Hoard? I'm particularly interested in return on investment for damage and speed.

Answer

So, I e-mailed Big Sandwich Games and Tyler Sigman replied with a very helpful answer:

Hi (Rapida),

That's a great question. Here are the actual values. Feel free to distribute/post/etc., if you like.

The numbers in the brackets correspond to the level of the upgrade. E.g. m_flySpeed[1] is your starting state...level 1. m_flySpeed[8] is fully upgraded.

Best regards,

--Tyler

           //DRAGON STATS
           //SPEED
                   //meters per second
           m_flySpeed[0] = 0.0; //n/a array offset
           m_flySpeed[1] = 25.00;
           m_flySpeed[2] = 30.00;
           m_flySpeed[3] = 35.00;
           m_flySpeed[4] = 40.00;
           m_flySpeed[5] = 45.00;
           m_flySpeed[6] = 50.00;
           m_flySpeed[7] = 53.00;
           m_flySpeed[8] = 56.00;           //CARRY
                   //units of gold
           m_carry[0] = 0.0; //n/a array offset
           m_carry[1] = 1000;
           m_carry[2] = 1500;
           m_carry[3] = 2000;
           m_carry[4] = 2500;
           m_carry[5] = 3000;
           m_carry[6] = 3500;
           m_carry[7] = 4000;
           m_carry[8] = 4500;                   //units of gold per second
           m_transfRate[0] = 0; //n/a array offset
           m_transfRate[1] = 235;
           m_transfRate[2] = 380;
           m_transfRate[3] = 555;
           m_transfRate[4] = 760;
           m_transfRate[5] = 1015;
           m_transfRate[6] = 1325;
           m_transfRate[7] = 1725;
           m_transfRate[8] = 2250;           //HEALTH
                   //hit points
           m_hp[0] = 1.0; //n/a array offset
           m_hp[1] = 45.0;
           m_hp[2] = 59.0;
           m_hp[3] = 72.0;
           m_hp[4] = 86.0;
           m_hp[5] = 99.0;
           m_hp[6] = 113.0;
           m_hp[7] = 126.0;
           m_hp[8] = 140.0;           //FIRE
           //damage per second
           m_fireDPS[0] = 0.0; //n/a array offset
           m_fireDPS[1] = 45.0;
           m_fireDPS[2] = 51.4;
           m_fireDPS[3] = 57.9;
           m_fireDPS[4] = 64.3;
           m_fireDPS[5] = 70.7;
           m_fireDPS[6] = 77.1;
           m_fireDPS[7] = 83.6;
           m_fireDPS[8] = 90.0;           //max breath duration in seconds
           m_fireMaxDuration[0] = 0.0; //n/a array offset
           m_fireMaxDuration[1] = 1.25; //1.25;
           m_fireMaxDuration[2] = 1.57;
           m_fireMaxDuration[3] = 1.89;
           m_fireMaxDuration[4] = 2.21;
           m_fireMaxDuration[5] = 2.54;
           m_fireMaxDuration[6] = 2.86;
           m_fireMaxDuration[7] = 3.18;
           m_fireMaxDuration[8] = 3.50;

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How to get Fireth of July achievement in Hoard?

Question

In Hoard there is a new achievement:

Fireth of July - Cause 20 groups of fireworks to go off in a Hoard Mode level

but I have no idea how to get it, it seems ridiculously hard. Do you have some suggestions to succeed?

Answer

Fireworks are triggered when a knight returns a princess to a castle. This means you kill a carriage and don't take the princess.

I used the first HOARD level, because it has the longest expected goal times (so they must expect you to survive longer). I started out each round by killing as many towns as possible, and keeping the archer count down afterwards. Towns give you a nice initial gold boost.

Whenever a magic tower springs up early on, killing it will give you lots of gold (and likely upgrade your dragon). They're also the most annoying thing on the map late-game (second being archers).

Make sure to use powerups - they're great for picking off groups of knights and individual magic towers. As for archers, you can run by them and not die as long as you don't stop.

Once you're good at simply surviving, you have two secondary goals:

1. Kill princess carriages, and let knights take the princesses. When a knight returns a princess to a castle, that triggers fireworks. You need to do this twenty times.

2. Don't get hurt. If you get hurt, you need to take a princess yourself, and that's one less firework :)

It took about a six minute round to get the achievement, after about 45 minutes of practice (and the game was fun enough I didn't mind the practice). When it gets that far into the game, you'll start seeing two or three carriages together you can kill for fireworks.

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