| Hydra | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Realm |
 Chaos | |
| ||
| Spell Rarity | Very Rare | |
| Casting Cost |
 650 | |
| Upkeep Cost |
14 per turn | |
| Research Cost |
 1,850 | |
| ||
| # of Figures |
 9 * | |
| Moves |
 1 | |
| Melee Attack per figure |
 6 | |
| Defense per figure |
 4 | |
| Resistance |
 11 | |
| Hit Points per figure |
 10 | |
| ||
|
 Fire Breath 5 | ||
|
Buggy Feature |
| As of Master of Magic v1.31, Hydra is known to be malfunctioning in at least one way. Please read the Known Bugs section below. |
The Hydra is a type of Fantastic Unit featured in Master of Magic. Hydras belong to the Chaos Realm, and may be summoned using a Summoning Spell of the same name.
The Hydra's Melee Attack is ferocious, and is also preceded by a powerful Breath Attack that deals Fire Damage. More importantly though, the Hydra is constantly regaining health, and is fully healed after every victorious battle.
The Fantastic Unit[]
Physical Description[]
The Hydra is a massive reptile covered in green scales. It has 9 separate heads, each on its own neck. Each head has a mouth full of sharp teeth, and can breathe fire at its enemies. Wounds and injuries received by the Hydra will quickly congeal and begin regenerating lost bodyparts – even whole heads.
The Hydra appeared in ancient Greek mythology, where it was defeated by the great Heracles (Hercules) who cut off each head one-by-one, burning the stumps with a torch to keep them from growing back.
Multi-Figure Creature[]
The Hydra is the only unit whose "Figure" count is numerically indicated when inspecting it.
The Hydra unit contains only a single visible creature. However, each of the Hydra's heads is actually treated as a separate 
figure by the game. It is unique in this regard. For all other units, their current figure count must be visually assessed by the player, but this is not possible for the Hydra, as it uses the same graphic regardless of how many heads it still has remaining. Because of this, the figure count of the Hydra is instead indicated by a numeric "Head count" in the unit statistics window.
The Hydra can have up to 9 heads, making it the highest figure count unit in Master of Magic.
Attack Properties[]
The Hydra's Melee Strength is deceptively low for its tier, at 6. Even with the creature's innate 
+10% To Hit bonus, this only gives an average "raw" 
damage output of 2.4. However, as it is actually a Multi-Figure Unit, each of the Hydra's remaining heads always attack simultaneously. Therefore, although the individual attacks may not be very strong, the total damage output from all 9 heads can be quite powerful. As the Hydra loses heads of course, its Melee Attack will become proportionally weaker.
In addition, before applying its Melee Damage, each Hydra head also makes a Breath Attack with a strength of 
5, which delivers, on average, another 1.5 points of "raw" damage to the enemy. However, this ability only works when the Hydra is the attacking unit, and will not trigger at all on its Counter Attacks. It also inflicts Fire Damage, which triggers many conditional defensive effects, and will thus do virtually no damage to certain targets, most notably those with 
Fire- or 
Magic Immunity.
Defensive Properties[]
Despite its scaly skin, the Hydra is one of the least defensible Fantastic Units, with a Defense score of only 4. Thus, it will block only about 1.2 points from Conventional Damage attacks. On the other hand, the Hydra is also the toughest unit in the game. Each head possesses 10 Hit Points, allowing the creature to sustain a total of 89 points of damage before being destroyed!
Even if the enemy does manage to bring down the Hydra however, it will still not necessarily be the end of it. This creature possesses one of the most powerful abilities in the game: 
Regeneration. In combat, it heals automatically at a steady rate of 1 per turn until it is reduced to zero figures, or in this case, heads remaining. At that point, while out of the battle, it is not out of the game yet, unless it took more Irreversible- or "Create Undead" type damage than regular. Otherwise, if its side wins the engagement, the Hydra will spring back to life, fully healed, as soon as the battle is over.
In addition, the Hydra is also healed completely between overland turns and, as a result of how the game handles overland Conventional Damage, it will actually never be harmed by such. It will always instantly heal any damage suffered from spells like 
Ice Storm, or even Meteor Storm.
Finally, the Hydra possesses a Resistance score of 11 – one of the highest natural Resistance scores of any unit. Many Unit Curses and other maledictions do not affect the Hydra at all. Only spells and abilities that inflict a penalty of at least 
-2 have any chance of working against this creature.
Other Properties[]
The Hydra is exceptionally slow, moving at a pace of only 1, both on the overland map and during combat. It must struggle to close the distance with the enemy to avoid being weakened by Ranged Attacks in the interim.
Basic Tactics[]
The Hydra is a veritable power-house, delivering a massive Melee Attack and capable of absorbing vast quantities of damage before being destroyed. Even if it is severely wounded, or even killed during battle, the Hydra will regain full health if its side manages to win! This makes an army comprised entirely of Hydras incredibly hard to destroy, and makes this one of the most powerful creatures in the game.
On the other hand, the Hydra is quite inept in terms of blocking damage, which makes it vulnerable to enemy Ranged Attackers and direct damage spells. This makes it a top priority for it to reach the enemy lines as quickly as it can, engaging as many enemies as possible before it is overcome. As the Hydra's Fire Breath attack is only used when it voluntarily attacks an enemy – but not when Counter Attacking –, it may be useful to make single attacks and then retreat, forcing the enemy to waste their turn closing the distance with the Hydra. However, this only works against units that are as slow as the creature itself – in all other scenarios it's better to always attack twice with the Hydra whenever it is adjacent to any enemy units.
Enemy Hydras[]
Hydras are exceedingly rare as neutral creatures, and may or may not be encountered at all during an entire campaign. If they appear, they will be found in high-level Chaos Nodes or Towers of Wizardry, and are usually found alone. Otherwise, they may be accompanied by any kind of lower-level Chaos creatures.
Hydras are slow, and therefore can be attacked rather safely with Ranged Attacks to whittle them down. However, because of their Regeneration, it is important to concentrate fire against one creature at a time until it is dead – to prevent it from restoring its health. Once it is missing several of its heads, a Hydra can often be safely engaged with strong melee units, especially if it can be denied the initiative to make voluntary attacks. Again, because of its slow speed, even units with only a single point of Movement Allowance can play hit-and-run with a Hydra.
It's worth remebering though, that any enemy army containing a Hydra must be wholly defeated or forced to flee for the creature to be actually destroyed. Otherwise, the Hydra will come back to life fully healed, unless it is killed by Special Damage types that can prevent this from happening. If an Encounter Zone must be cleared in multiple battles, the Hydra can only truly be slain in the last one, and should be ignored otherwise.
Ability Overview[]
+10% To Hit[]
- This unit has an extra 10% chance to hit its target with every die of its Attack Rolls. This improves its statistical chance to inflict more Damage with each attack it makes.
Regeneration[]
- At the end of its combat round, this unit regains 1 Hit Point, unless it is already at full health, or all of its recorded damage is Irreversible. This effect can also restore lost figures.
- If an army stack containing this unit wins a battle, the unit is restored to full health immediately at the end of the battle. This happens even if it was destroyed, although in this case, the regular damage suffered by the unit must surpass both any Irreversible- and any "Create Undead" damage, otherwise this effect will be disabled.
- If the unit is killed in battle, and its army retreats or is defeated, the unit is destroyed and will not regenerate.
Fire Breath 5[]
- Whenever this unit makes a voluntary Melee Attack against an enemy target, it also delivers a Fire Damage Breath Attack with a strength of 5 per figure.
- As a Breath Attack, this damage is delivered before the enemy gets the chance to retaliate. Any figures in the target unit that are killed by the attack do not get to deliver any Melee Damage.
- This attack does not occur when the unit is Counter Attacking against an enemy assailant. However, it does enable its possessor to initiate Melee Attacks against flying units regardless of its own Movement Type.
- Targets possessing Fire Immunity or Magic Immunity, or enchanted with Righteousness are considered to have a Defense of 50 against this attack. It also triggers conditional protections granted by Bless ( +3), Resist Elements ( +3), or Elemental Armor ( +10).
The Summoning Spell[]
Usage[]
Hydra may only be cast overland, for the base Casting Cost of 650. Upon successfully casting the spell, the new Hydra unit will appear in the Town currently containing the Wizard's Summoning Circle, with full Movement Allowance, and may move and/or attack immediately as necessary.
To keep the Hydra in play, its controller is required to pay an Upkeep Cost of 14 per turn. This is drawn automatically from the caster's Mana pool at the beginning of each turn while the unit exists. Failure to pay this Upkeep due to lack of Mana will lead to the Hydra immediately disappearing, along with any Unit Enchantments currently affecting it. However, this upkeep is for the unit, not for the spell: Summoning Spells can not be dispelled by the enemy once cast.
Naturally though, if the unit is destroyed, then it is gone from the world entirely, and there is no further need to pay its Upkeep Cost. Units summoned on the overland map may also be dismissed manually from their unit statistics window the same way as any other overland unit (during their controller's turn, while not in combat).
Acquisition[]
As a Very Rare Spell of the Chaos Realm, Hydra may become available to any Wizard who acquires at least 3 Spellbooks. With any less, the spell can normally not be learned during the campaign. This is the minimum requirement for it to be traded for, appear in Treasure, or be found in the spoils of victory when conquering the Fortress of a rival Wizard who already knows it.
The base chance for Hydra to be researchable (at some point) in the campaign is roughly 10% (with 3 books), which gradually increases with the amount of Chaos Spellbooks possessed or found during gameplay. With 10 or more, the spell is certain to show up sooner or later, unless acquired from another source. It has a Research Cost of 1,850, although its research is quicker for Wizards possessing the Sage Master, Conjurer, and/or Chaos Mastery Retorts; or a bookshelf containing 8 or more.
Hydra may not be acquired at the start of the game, regardless of the amount of Chaos books selected from the starting picks. It must always be either researched or found. However, a bug exists in the official game, that may occasionally allow Hydra to be researched with only 2 books despite its Rarity. This can happen if, and only if, the second Chaos Spellbook comes from Treasure, as it then allows a random Very Rare Spell to be researched, which has a flat 10% chance of being this spell. This oversight is corrected in the Unofficial Patch 1.50.
Known Bugs[]
There are two different bugs related to the Hydra, although one of them is indirect, and not a problem with the spell or the creature itself. Fortunately though, neither of them is serious and they do not destabilize the game.
Missing Animation Frame[]
The Hydra's attack animation is missing one of its frames. As a result, whenever the Hydra is engaged in Melee Combat with another unit, it will visibly flicker. While this does not have any adverse effect on the game, it can be annoying nonetheless.
Combat Healing Bug[]
Every time the Hydra regenerates a lost head in battle, it will also gain a temporary extra Hit per figure, meaning not only that all of its remaining heads now take one more point of damage to destroy (or fully regrow), but also that every time this happens, the creature is healed an adiditional amount of Hit Points equal to its new head count. This is actually the result of a more generic bug, also known as the Combat Healing Bug, the Hydra just happens to possess natural statistics that are ideal for the observation of this error: it always triggers whenever the creature regrows a head. This bug is fixed in the Unofficial Patch 1.50 (W113FIX.TXT).