1. Invest in fire mana. With no siege engines, you need all the fireballing mages you can get.

2. Get Fellowship of Leaves as quickly as you can. It is possible to play Ljosalfar under a different religion, but FoL fits the Ljosalfar like a glove.

3. Thessa may be even better than Amelanchier if you're going to be aggressive and conquer your neighbors. Her Arcane trait gets you to Fire II that much quicker, and the synergy between Expansionist and Guardian of Nature, especially if you can grab a few floodplains cities, can really drive your economy forward.

4. YMMV, but when I pl.ay Ljosalfar, I often hold off on building improvements on non-forest tiles until after I get Fellowship and Priesthood, and I can send out my Priests of Leaves to plant forests. The advantage you gain down the line from forested improvements, in my experience, is worth the early penalty. The exception here is improvements that give access to resources, those should be grabbed quickly.

I disagree about holding off on getting tile improvements done on unforested terrain. Anything that helps your early growth is of immense help and if you have to improve bare terrain, so be it. You can always pillage it later, bloom, and then immediately rebuild the improvement when your workers have nothing better to do.

Creative is a really strong trait in this mod in my opinion (more so than in the base game) and I like the Spi/Cre leader for the Ljosalfar. I like the Rai/Def guy as well. The reason I'm not a huge fan of the Arc/Exp leader is that the expansive trait for the most part is wasted (because of guardian of nature and the large number of forests in your empire, health and happiness are not a problem for the vast majority of cities so the bonus there and the no-upkeep on the basic care line of civics is not that amazing).

Aristocracy is an amazing civic for them since their cities are naturally commerce handicapped by the lack of riverside commerce bonuses but it still allows you to take advantage of the health and happiness bonuses as well by giving +1F, +2C with sanitation to boost growth. The Royal Guards are also important, especially for the non creative leaders.

1. Invest in fire mana. With no siege engines, you need all the fireballing mages you can get.
I never do, mainly because it feels wrong if I do it - yes, I like to play the role when I play the game. I've never had trouble conquering cities, though my invasions in general must be much more calculated (regardless of city attacks).
2. Get Fellowship of Leaves as quickly as you can. It is possible to play Ljosalfar under a different religion, but FoL fits the Ljosalfar like a glove.
Agreed, though I should really try them with a different religion some time.
3. Thessa may be even better than Amelanchier if you're going to be aggressive and conquer your neighbors. Her Arcane trait gets you to Fire II that much quicker, and the synergy between Expansionist and Guardian of Nature, especially if you can grab a few floodplains cities, can really drive your economy forward.
Thessa is my least favourite of the three. I love Amelanchier's raider trait for the extra XP and promotion. And I'm a big fan of Creative - though not so much the Good alignment - for whats-her-face.
4. YMMV, but when I pl.ay Ljosalfar, I often hold off on building improvements on non-forest tiles until after I get Fellowship and Priesthood, and I can send out my Priests of Leaves to plant forests. The advantage you gain down the line from forested improvements, in my experience, is worth the early penalty. The exception here is improvements that give access to resources, those should be grabbed quickly.
Agreed, totally. For me, nothing is built on non-forest tiles unless it is floodplains (they get farms) or a single non-animal resource that I need. Plant resources have the forest-farms. Most of the rest of the resources I bloom on top of and build a cottage (cottages on every forest except farms or plantations).

Note, I don't play multi-player (well, I tried PBEM, but that didn't work out too well).

1. Invest in fire mana. With no siege engines, you need all the fireballing mages you can get.

This is their most effective method of siege warfare, indeed.

When I play as the Ljolsalfar I always found the Fellowship of Leaves. I also prefer Amelanchier, as being neutral allows Druids, which are fun to have around and have a Nature affinity. The main divergence in my elf strategy is that I spread the Ashen Veil as a secondary religion. I build up my military forces, and time my war to coincide with when I push the Armageddon Counter to 40 and trigger Blight. As my lands are Grassland Forests with Cottages, I suffer minimal effects from blight. Most everyone else suffers greatly, especially farm-specialist strategies. With Amelanchier, my horsemen are raiders, and are able to quickly travel into my enemies' midst, pillaging the non-farm/pasture tiles that are left, exacerbating the starvation they suffer. I pull back after an initial pillage and let my defensive trait and forest bonuses hold off any counter attack. Then once the initial pillage assault and counter-attack are finished, the scales are heavily tilted in my favor, seeing as I have all of my improvements, and they have barren tiles.

I never do, mainly because it feels wrong if I do it - yes, I like to play the role when I play the game. I've never had trouble conquering cities, though my invasions in general must be much more calculated (regardless of city attacks).



i think it fits their flavor - try reading the meteor storm pedia entry sometime

Arendel Phaedra is by far my pick of the Ljosalfar leaders. Creative is fantastic for elves, since you won't be doing much conquering in the early game, so you can aggressively stake out some big borders for your foresty kingdom (and get the full benefits of the fat cross asap). And Spiritual is great too, since those turns saved on civic changes really add up, and you can be far more flexible for shifting between powerful peacetime and wartime economies. Plus your temples make for cheap early happiness and you've got speedy disciples (and you can quickly generate a great prophet to lightbulb priesthood early and get those forests up quick). Nice!

The MOST important thing for elves is INCENSE. No incense, no trees. No other race is anywhere near as reliant on a single resource as elves are on incense. NOTHING is a higher priority than securing incense. I would wander my starting settler for quite a few turns if I couldn't find any incense nearby my starting spot.

Before bloom, I only build non-cottage improvements on flatland (so mostly farms) and just cottage up most of the rest. Grassland farms are better than grassland/forest farms early on because of the river bonus anyway. Later on, I pillage, bloom and rebuild.

Elves are one of the few races where I would space cities to have minimal overlap, because they're all about actually working tiles rather than relying on specialists, and you're very quickly able to actually work every tile.

I also like a switch to the Veil once my foresty kingdom is all nice and ancient, so I can start sacrificing me some weak.

And yeah, fire mana.

I'll also agree on the pre-bloom non-forest farms. If nothing else, they pillage faster.

I've never tried Arendel because I feel like I would miss druids. I suppose you could take a trip into OO land at some point, but I do love Yvain.

Ljosalfar is a race powerful late, after forests are everywhere and turned into ancient. Therefore traits that give early strength are more important.
Arcane/expansive is therefore bad, because arcane gets useful, when there are mages, which is(should be) well after bloom. Expansive gets useful when health is a problem, which is very very late, because of many forests.

Spiritual/creative OTOH is very powerful early, spiritual saves time, when gov and rel is changed and creative increases peacefully the territory early on.

Rai/Def is also very strong early, because less warriors are needed for city defense and the raider allows to level faster on barbs.

In my opinion rai/def is on higher difficultiy levels better, because of higher barb and more aggressive neighbours.

But why is the druid important with fellowship and nature mana from pallace?

All what the druid can do can be done by priest/mages as well.

IIRC , the druids get buffed by nature mana, so after securing your fire mana if you keep grabbing nature sources in addition to your 2 base ones, they can get really big.

Its been a while since I've been the elves though so that may have just been Yvain.

Agreed, totally. For me, nothing is built on non-forest tiles unless it is floodplains (they get farms) or a single non-animal resource that I need...Note, I don't play multi-player (well, I tried PBEM, but that didn't work out too well).It's bad advice to just leave a space undeveloped simply because you plan to change it at a later date. In MP mode, that kind of turtling will cost you the game more often than not.

It's bad advice to just leave a space undeveloped simply because you plan to change it at a later date. In competitive MP mode, that kind of turtling will cost you the game more often than not.

Just made a small adjustment to your statement ;)

It's bad advice to just leave a space undeveloped simply because you plan to change it at a later date. In MP mode, that kind of turtling will cost you the game more often than not.

Heh. I should have added a caveat about the tips being single-player, I never play MP.

But why is the druid important with fellowship and nature mana from pallace?

All what the druid can do can be done by priest/mages as well.

Druids are important because they can get Nature III and Vitalize in two promotions, while even with three Nature mana from whatever source, it'll take longer to get an Archmage who can cast the same spell. Druids have access to *all* Nature Spells (Summoning, Sorcery, Divine) as well.

Also, Druids, unlike Archmages, aren't national units, so you aren't limited to three; and Druids gain XP as disciples, not arcane, IIRC, so they level faster. I've had Druids running around with Combat V.

Andrew

Also, Druids, unlike Archmages, aren't national units, so you aren't limited to three; and Druids gain XP as disciples, not arcane, IIRC, so they level faster. I've had Druids running around with Combat V.
Are you sure about these statements? Have druids been changed so that they are no longer national units? And don't disciples / arcane gain XP at the same rate (ignoring the Arcane trait and unit tier)?

Druids are important because they can get Nature III and Vitalize in two promotions, while even with three Nature mana from whatever source, it'll take longer to get an Archmage who can cast the same spell. Druids have access to *all* Nature Spells (Summoning, Sorcery, Divine) as well.

Also, Druids, unlike Archmages, aren't national units, so you aren't limited to three; and Druids gain XP as disciples, not arcane, IIRC, so they level faster. I've had Druids running around with Combat V.

Andrew
Actually, Druids are national units, but they do gain XP faster than arcane units. The formula is the same for other channeling 3 units, but XP gain decreases the more XP you have, so Druids (with fewer promotions) level up faster (to a point). Druids can also be good fighters with 7 str + 1 per nature mana + 1 poison (if upgraded from a ranger) + 1 holy (if you can get a divine enchanter from Runes) and auto XP gain.

Actually, Druids are national units, but they do gain XP faster than arcane units. The formula is the same for other channeling 3 units
I'm sorry, I need clarification on this - I feel you're saying two different things. Do Druids gain XP faster than Archmages?

I'm sorry, I need clarification on this - I feel you're saying two different things. Do Druids gain XP faster than Archmages?
Based on what I read in the wiki:
The formula for channeling 3 (without Arcane) is 40 - XP/3 (min 3%). So, with 30XP, a Druid has 30% chance to gain XP. With 30XP, an Archmage would have 30% chance to gain XP. BUT, mages must be level 6 to upgrade, so an Archmage already has at least 26XP. That means Archmages have, at best, 31.3% to gain XP, whereas Druids can have 40% (at 0XP).

Based on what I read in the wiki:
The formula for channeling 3 (without Arcane) is 40 - XP/3 (min 3%). So, with 30XP, a Druid has 30% chance to gain XP. With 30XP, an Archmage would have 30% chance to gain XP. BUT, mages must be level 6 to upgrade, so an Archmage already has at least 26XP. That means Archmages have, at best, 31.3% to gain XP, whereas Druids can have 40% (at 0XP).
I don't think it is proper logic to compare them at different XP levels, but that is not important. Thanks for the clarification :)

In my original post, I meant to point out the technicality. They have the same rates technically, but Druids in practice will probably gain XP faster because they'll probably have less XP (no level restriction).

Regardless, I think that mages and priests will work just as well for vitalize because they can gain enough XP before they upgrade, and they come with other benefits which, IMO, outweigh the Druids'. Capture enemy units? Declare holy war? Maelstorm, Meteors, Crush, Unyielding Order, etc.?

kakita - I look at your argument and say "that's why I like Druids." Archmages are spoiled for choice, while Druids are limited to a single school of magic. There is some argument to be made about the cost of the promotions for Archmages, but as elves you'd best have at least 2 nature mana, so you're not giving up a huge amount to grab 2 more nature promotions.

No, it's really the cost of time for Archmages with Nature which makes them suboptimal - terraforming is a time intensive activity which requires a lot of travel around your continent, and every round that you're Vitalizing you're not moving into position to Crush, Meteor Swarm, etc, nor maintaining Unyielding Order in a city. It's a shame when your borders crumble because your battlemage was off greening deserts.

That and three more Treants never hurts when you've Ancient Forested your Kingdom from stem to stern.

That's assuming you can get both Archmages and Druids, or both/all Inquisitors/High Priests and Druids. I was refuting the statement that Druids are better terraformers because Archmages take too long to get (XP). I haven't looked at the tech costs, so Druids still could come out sooner that way, but an elven leader should have no problem getting vitalizing Archmages shortly after the necessary tech.

Still, I think that the elves should probably go for Inquisitors/High Priests (and Paladins if they're good) first. That gives them two/three T4 units with the fewest techs, especially considering they'll want bloom sooner rather than later, and this will also open up more levels of the Altar so you can build your Druids with Nature III in a single turn. Once Inquisitors and High Priests are done terraforming, they have more utility than Druids unless you build many extra nature nodes, which probably is a viable strategy.

while playin my lauaun game i canme up with a interesting counter strtegy for the ljosalfar - the rage spell, with a possible of 4 range an combined with reconing hawks, you can turn those forest stealth wodsman 2 rangers against them, the elves will never suspect it!1

IIRC , the druids get buffed by nature mana, so after securing your fire mana if you keep grabbing nature sources in addition to your 2 base ones, they can get really big.

Its been a while since I've been the elves though so that may have just been Yvain.

Druids do as well, however they only get +1 per nature node, whereas Yvain gets +2.

So now we're talking about running the AV civic and burning enemies with fire, playing as the wood elves. Sweet.

I would invent a wheel saying that sometimes in the very beginning of the game you could build improvement on the title that doesn't fits it. For example farm on cattle , if you are planing animal husbandry for later game but STILL using this square and so on. Why Elf's should be different?

I normally play Emperor/Huge/Epic/Raging Barb games with Amelanchier as my favourite Ljosalfar leader.

A good early tactic I've found is to push AH and use captured animals... specifically bears for :-) and Culture and Spiders (with hidden nationality) for suppressing your neighbours. (you empty their cities of defenders and let the barbs do the capturing!). 1 or 2 giant spiders is generally enough to weaken or even destroy an early neighbour, they can be captured by scouts if you use lions or wolves to weaken them first. By the time FoL comes along (around year 250-300) you can be sitting pretty on 3 cities surrounded by the uncontested land left by the remnants of 3 or 4 dead civs which can be a wonderful barbarian training ground to get Gilden going and or an Expansionist's Paradise.

A good start is great.... a bad one for your neighbours is better!

I had a question in regards to playing the Ljosalfar. In previous strategys before FfH2 0.30 ive read that they can build on forests right out of the gate. But now it requires you to have iron working to build on forests. Ive searched through the release notes but i havent seen any change to this. Can someone tell me if that is how it is in the new version?

I would invent a wheel saying that sometimes in the very beginning of the game you could build improvement on the title that doesn't fits it. For example farm on cattle , if you are planing animal husbandry for later game but STILL using this square and so on. Why Elf's should be different?This has already been hashed through, but I can't resist offering my agreement.

Workers are an expensive item to build in the very early game, and it is imperative to use them to their full immediate potential, even if that means building farms on cattle. You pay a lot for a worker, so make the purchase worthwhile.

More to the point. Growing your civilization as quickly as possible is, in general terms, usually the best strategy for most civ leaders. Worker efficency (from turn one until aquisition of Bloom) should be far down the list of priorities for Elves.