How to Fix a Conquest of Dragons Server That Keeps Crashing
Conquest of Dragons is a Forge 1.20.1 adventure pack built around dragon boss fights and a structured quest book — each dragon guards a territory, and clearing it unlocks the next region along the conquest route. That structure is exactly why its crashes tend to follow predictable patterns: boot failures from a Java mismatch, tick spikes during the dragon encounters themselves, and quest-progress saves that get corrupted after a rough shutdown mid-fight.
See the Conquest of Dragons pack page for the full RAM and setup breakdown before you chase anything else.
1. Check your Java version before anything else
Forge 1.20.1 requires Java 17. If your server won't boot at all — not a slow start, a flat refusal to launch — this is the first thing to rule out, especially if you're reusing a host or setup that was configured for an older modpack on Minecraft 1.12.2 or 1.16, which typically ran Java 8 or Java 11.
- Run java -version on the machine or container running the server
- Confirm the startup script or panel is pointing at a Java 17 runtime, not an older one left over from a different pack
2. Dragon boss fights causing tick spikes
This is a boss-focused combat pack, and packs in that category commonly see real tick-cost spikes during boss encounters — the custom AI driving attack patterns, movement, and ability cooldowns all has to resolve within the same 50ms tick budget as everything else happening on the server.
If your crashes or freezes line up with a dragon fight rather than happening at random moments during normal exploration, this is the most likely explanation. Watch whether it's tied to a specific territory's dragon, or to fights with multiple players present at once — both point the same direction.
3. Quest-progress save corruption after an unclean shutdown
Heavily quest-gated packs like Conquest of Dragons carry a known risk: if the server is killed uncleanly — a crash, a forced stop, a power loss — while quest progress is being written, that save data can come back corrupted on the next boot. This is a pattern seen across other quest-book-driven packs, not unique to this one.
If a player reports their quest progress reset or a dragon territory re-locking after a crash, suspect this before assuming it's a new bug. Always take a backup before attempting any manual fix to quest or player data files.
4. Territory and gear-progression mod interactions
The conquest route structure — unlocking new regions and gear tiers as dragons fall — means a fair number of mods are coordinating world state, loot tables, and region gating at once. If a crash log points at a specific mod rather than a generic tick timeout, check whether it's tied to a territory-unlock event or a gear-tier reward being granted, since that's where the most cross-mod interaction happens in a pack built this way.
5. RAM under the pack's realistic floor
6 GB is the real floor for Conquest of Dragons, based on how it actually performs rather than a generic Forge-pack estimate. Under-provisioning rarely looks like an instant, clean crash — it starts as rising garbage-collection pause times and creeping lag as dragon encounters, loaded territories, and quest tracking all compete for headroom, and only turns into an outright tick timeout and crash once the server has been straining for a while. If crashes seem to appear after the server's been up for hours rather than right at boot, check memory headroom before anything else.
FAQ
My Conquest of Dragons server won't boot at all — where do I start?+
Check your Java version first. Conquest of Dragons runs on Forge 1.20.1, which requires Java 17 — running it on Java 8 or Java 11 (common if you're reusing an old server setup) will fail immediately at launch, usually with an unsupported class file version error buried in the startup log.
The server crashes specifically during dragon boss fights — why?+
Boss encounters with custom AI pathing and attack patterns are a well-known tick-cost spike risk across boss-focused combat packs, not just this one. Multiple players engaging a dragon at once, or a dragon spawning near complex terrain or other entities, can push a single tick well past budget. If crashes cluster around specific territory bosses rather than happening randomly, that's a strong signal this is the cause.
How much RAM does a Conquest of Dragons server actually need?+
6 GB is the real floor for stable play, not a generic guess. Running below that doesn't usually produce a clean crash — it shows up first as rising GC pause times and creeping lag, which then turns into a tick timeout and a server stall once enough players are exploring territories or fighting bosses at the same time.
Host Conquest of Dragons on hardware sized for its real floor
Conquest of Dragons needs 6 GB of RAM as a real floor, not a rough guess, and a backup taken before every risky change (plugin update, quest-data edit, world transition) keeps a bad boss fight or shutdown from costing you progress.
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