The Elves?

I've been looking for a civ to settle on, and I noticed the Elven civs seemed very interesting. But I wanted to ask people's opinions on them to see if I'm missing something.

I'm thinking of trying them out, since the elven race can build on forests and keep forest bonuses, forests slow enemies in your lands, but not yourself, they give extra defensive bonuses, production, health, and I'm thinking if I get Fellowship of the leaves I can spread more forests with the Priest of the Leaves' Bloom spell. As well as getting good bonuses for forests all around from Fellowship of the Leaves. It seems like a really awesome ability, not to mention while the workers build a little slower, they never have to chop down forests, so that might be faster in those ways. It seems like a good way to be defensive and productive, are there really any downsides to the elves?

Also, it doesn't say it in the Civilopedia, but do New Forests mature into Forests into Ancient Forests? How long does it take or is it random or what? I always surround myself with forts quick so they can become citadels early, even more bonuses with ancient forests under all those citadels seems amazing...

Elves are a great civ for builder types and for people new(ish) to FfH looking to explore some of the mod's unique mechanics. As you say the strategy is to exploit forest improvements. You'll need to build more workers than usual, as their build speed is reduced to compensate. But once you have Fellowship of Leaves, elvish cities are unmatched by any civ save Kuriotates due to the extra food provided by ancient forests, which also provide health and happieness (from the Guardian of Nature civic). This gets ridiculous once you have Priests of Leaves around to cast bloom--cottage spam in vanilla civ is nothing compared to forest spam in FfH!

The big drawback to the elves is that they can't build siege weapons (catapults, cannons), so taking cities with them can be difficult in the early game. Their 'natural' units (archery and recon lines, as well as religious units) also don't really excel at attacking cities. Gilden can be a powerful offensive unit if you get him out early, and Kithra and Yvain can help out late, but the elves aren't an offensive powerhouse. What's nice is that, so long as you prioritize archery, you'll usually have the defense to survive early rush Civs.

However, if you do manage to grab enough cities, it's relatively easy to exploit their builder advantages and get out to a tech lead, and none of the aforementioned disadvantages are really an issue once you have higher tier units than your opponents. Just remember, if you do plan to go on offense eventually, you'll want some source of city bombardment, collateral damage, and/or magic to weaken defenders, so consider building some fire or air nodes and teching at least to sorcery for fireball or maelstrom.

Forest maturation, as far as I can tell, IS random, though new forests have to turn into forests before becoming ancient.

Play Svartalfar instead. Arcane gives you the magic muscle necessary to smash core cities, Raiders lets your recon units run past frontlines to places of poor defense.

personally, I think Guardian of Nature is the best benefit FoL gives. you can really get some epic huge cities that way.

Wolfswift said:

It seems like a good way to be defensive and productive, are there really any downsides to the elves?

Also, it doesn't say it in the Civilopedia, but do New Forests mature into Forests into Ancient Forests? How long does it take or is it random or what? I always surround myself with forts quick so they can become citadels early, even more bonuses with ancient forests under all those citadels seems amazing...

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I play the Ljosalfar on the Deity/Immortal level. They're pretty much all I play right now - although I do play the Svartalfar more and more.

They can be powerful if you play them thematically: going for the FoL religion, blooming forests as needed, cultivating large cities, etc.

I'd emphasize the Ljos' archer is a great early, inexpensive city defender. The archer has a +1 strength bonus and a 10% forest attack bonus. Making early archers more attractive: double production speed for archery ranges (Amelanchier leader) and double production speed for palisades/walls.

I agree wholeheartedly with bluedevil99: use the Elves natural units like Ljos' archers and Svartalfar's recon troops. Gilden Silveric, the early Ljosalfar hero, is awesome in the early game; he practically spearheads every offensive we make against cities. Other religious heros like Yvain and Kythiel are very strong midgame and later. His advice to eventually get Fire or Air mana for fireballs and lightning is exactly what I do; you will need some stack or city attack spells.

The Ljos' early and mid-game military is very weak offensively

* their archers are poor attackers and don't get the Woodsman promotion bonus (that's the +30% strength for forest attack/defense)
* no catapults
* mediocre melee troops (the Woodsman promotion is good for forest defense/attack but adds nothing for city attacking/defending)
* average horsemen (speedy forest movement makes 'em great pillagers but they're of little use, for the most part, against reasonably defended cities.
* average recon units - hunters and fauns can't pillage and outside forests lose their forest bonuses, add a negative city attack bonus and you'll find it harder to use them against urban centers.
* average UU - the Fyrdwell deer-archer arrives very late game and, while cute, doesn't inspire fear in anyone by that time.

None of these are fatal, but without Gilden Silveric (our hero), we have a hard time offensively against all but the weakest civs.

Later though, as the Ljos' cities grow and research continues, Elven druids and mages become very powerful. Supported by champions, longbowmen, horsemen, Leaf Priests and rangers, Elven magic users can do quite well in the attack.

(I wouldn't get too enthusiastic about the Ljos' forest defense/attack bonuses; other civ's get forest defense bonuses too which offsets the Ljos' forest attack bonus. I'm also indifferent to the treant forest defenders: I've taken to calling them Trecants as they can't be bothered to repel invaders more than 1 in 20 times (or 1 in 7 times if a Leaf Temple is near).

I'm playing Svartalfar, they are working really well! I really like this set up. I may keep playing with it in the future. But... now I can't seem to upgrade my priests of the leaves into druids...What is required to make druids? I wanted some for healers in some stacks, but... I keep not being able to make them. In previous games I couldn't ever make them. I think I read somewhere I needed to be neutral, so I became neutral, I can make them now, I'm not sure if that's why, since I can't find where I read that anywhere now. But for some reason, my already powered up priests of the leaves can't upgrade to them, why is that? They are supposed to be able to, they are in my borders, I have the grove, I have Commune with Nature, my priests of the leaves are level 7 or so now, but still can't upgrade to them? Some help with this? And on what exactly I need to get them since I somehow couldn't in previous games but now can, is it being neutral? What about upgrading?

Nvm, I'll ask this in a different thread. But the end result of this is... I do like the elves+the FoL

Neutral alignment for Druids, btw.

If recon could pillage I'd be the Svartalfar's No. 1 fan.

JonathanStrange said:

Neutral alignment for Druids, btw.

If recon could pillage I'd be the Svartalfar's No. 1 fan.

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Nyxkins are excellent pillagers

JonathanStrange said:

Neutral alignment for Druids, btw.

If recon could pillage I'd be the Svartalfar's No. 1 fan.

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I'd love it if pillage could somehow be assigned as a trait (Sinister) so that they could. Not being able to take advantage of those recon armies with hidden nationality makes me feeling that it's somehow lacking.

Luckmann said:

I'd love it if pillage could somehow be assigned as a trait (Sinister) so that they could. Not being able to take advantage of those recon armies with hidden nationality makes me feeling that it's somehow lacking.

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awesome idea

Luckmann said:

I'd love it if pillage could somehow be assigned as a trait (Sinister) so that they could. Not being able to take advantage of those recon armies with hidden nationality makes me feeling that it's somehow lacking.

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It would be immensely powerful, though. Being able to mass produce fast, hidden nationality pillagers would allow for some pretty hideous shenanigans.

I agree: too hideous too allow recon with hidden nationality and the capability of pillaging.

I love the Ljosalfar and Svartalfar, and I try to make a case for their not being particularly powerful when others call for Elven bows to be broken, treants weakened to 1 in 100 chances of appearing, FoL's 2000+ research path lengthened to near 3000 so as not to inconvenience anyone from smashing Ljosalfar scouts and warriors as the treehuggers try to get religion.

So I'm not the one who'd ordinarily say something Elven was overpowered unless I truly felt it was. And if recon units with hidden nationality and the ability to pillage were available it would be too strong: a Svartalfar could make tons of cheap recon units and safely grow rich pillaging and destroying other AI economies, any economy for that matter.