Is there a Reason to be anything but Elves?

[ArkhanTheBlack]

I think their world spell is a bit too much. Especially in small size maps, the spell can just be renamed to 'Win Game'. I had a Sheaim AI neighbour which was pretty much twice as powerfull as myself (4 : 2 cities), and went to war with a friend of me in multiplayer. I was doing pretty bad because I underestimated an aggressive AI dwarve. Then I got the treant world spell and killed the whole Sheaim in 4 rounds although he had a whole army of pyro zombies while I had just a few warriors in my 2 cities for defense.
I love the world spell but either the amount of treants or their strength is simply too high.

 

[Worm4life]

Major Calabim abuse aside, I think elves are by far the best, even most broken race in the game.

-20% worker rate? In exchange for an extra hammer per tile, an extra food later on, and finally an extra happiness and health? Yes, please!

Longer to improve a forest tile? It's the same case with every other race, only the elves get to keep the forest instead of chopping it down, and they don't have to wait till mining to do so.

How is it considered a disadvantage that their rapid growth means you need to work more tiles that will be available to you? Would NOT getting the opportunity to grow and work more tiles be considered an advantage?

Really their only disadvantage is having to wait that little bit of extra time to get sorcery to be able to crack an archer defended city.

I always thought that while not chopping forests fit elves thematically, the end result does not. Hippies that live at harmony with nature end up with more crowded cities and stronger industries than races who say screw the environment?

 

[Breunor]

I suspect the question is really ‘are the Ljosalfar the most powerful’, not ‘why would you play anyone else’? As _Scutarii said, we play people who aren’t necessarily the most powerful because of the fun and variety.

But then the central question remains – are they by far the most powerful? My feeling is that they are one of the stronger Civ’s, but not the runaway strongest. I think their strength is greater on larger maps.

Clearly, with the ability to build improvements in forests, and with FoL, the ability to create forests, they are probably the ultimate builder Civ. Eventually, with FoL, they have the largest cities and also the most productive cities. Moreover, they have excellent defensive resources, usually an issue for builder civ’s – they have a very powerful world spell for the early to mid game, they have extra strong longbowmen (archery units in general), and they also get the ‘random’ treant when enemies stomp into their territory.

But we do have those weaknesses. With slow workers, and without chopping forests, we start slow. At some point, we have to expand. Starting slow and a defensive Civ can be trouble.

Not having catapults can be a blessing – the haste spell makes your army much faster. But it will make early conquest harder. Archers/longbowmen give the extra +1 but aren’t as suitable for offense as melee troops (although they aren’t bad either). But with no catapults and potentially few offensive troops, getting over those mid-game culture defenses is hard. Also, Gilden isn’t strong enough to be a monster here.

So I find two ways to attack. With Arendel, it is tigers galore. Since she is spiritual, the priests are fast and advance quickly, so you can have a slew of amazingly powered tigers. This tactic is especially useful for larger maps, where you can pack some of your priests on defensive duties in secondary theaters – but this existence of the priest allows more tigers for the main strike force.

Clearly, you need maelstorm, so with Arendal, I attack mid-game with slew of tigers and 2 mages. The biggest problem is fighting against an enemy that builds a lot of rangers, including your traditional enemy, the Svaltalfar. The rangers can just eat up the tigers and even take them over. But those priests are real nice, with tigers and innate combat ability, they are flexible, fast, and powerful in bunches.

I think I have a slight preference for Thessa. Since she is arcane, you get the fast powerful magic. Again, I think it helps to have a large map so you can be sure to have enough mana sources. With Thessa, the catapults are hardly missed, you can get a mass of fireball wielding magic users pretty quickly who can be hasted., and some mages casting maelstorm. Given the versatility of magic, Thessa can be tough if you have enough mana.

I admit I haven’t played Amelenchior so I’m not sure how I would go ahead with conquest here.

But I do think that the good defense leads to good offense, again with larger maps. I find on small or even medium maps the key is the strike force, the big SoD – on larger maps, you have to spend more time defending your other areas also. So, again, the Ljosalfar elves with their great defense can hold areas down allowing them to concentrate on attack.

In the mid game, once they can roll some conquest off, their production/happiness/ health advantage of the forests can be overwhelming.

The elves are fun – to me as someone to play often. Indeed, their three leaders will play differently. I’m a builder and they are fun. I think they are strong, but not broken strong.

On large maps, I usually go for a Tower victory, there is usually a lot of mana around and people to vassalize for their mana (offset somewhat by the greater difficulty in getting wonder producing mana sources.) and their builder advantage will be maximized. One offset to the advantages form large maps is that their huge happiness bonus from Guardian of Nature is less significant there more luxury resources are available. (That is, the advantage of a size 20 city over a size 10 city is less than a size 25 city over a size 15 city).

I won my last game with Arendal. I got lucky. I was attacked on three sides and in trouble – I lost 2 cities but lured the enemies into my territory. Then I cast the worldspell and crushed the enemy armies. I retook my cities and bunch of enemy ones. This gave me a large enough territory that I began to use my overwhelming production. I DID have trouble with the Svarts, for everyone else 40 suicide tigers or so did the trick. But I don’t know if I could have won without the worldspell causing so much damage, and it usually won’t be as much as I pulled off that game.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[JonathanStrange]

I mostly have Amelanchier (Defender/Raider) as leader. His Ljos' civ develops and expands differently. Still, reading your description, the games are not too dissimilar:

The Amelanchier Ljos get a slow start. They're on defense mostly as it takes awhile for the Elves to get rolling. However, his troops get 20% withdrawal chances, along with very cheap and fast palisades, walls, and archery ranges so they do have some cards to play.

My first goal is usually FoL. The research path to FoL picks up techs allowing Archery, Gilden Silveric, various useful civics, and prepares later research into Magic. I like this whole sequence because it quickly leverages all the Ljos strengths like archery, early hero, forest religion, etc. The drawback is it neglects the metal line for quite awhile and the troops the Ljos get along the way (Hunters, Fauns, Archers) aren't aggressive. Amelenchier gets a pillage bonus of 100% which is awesome for generating funds but his early troops (Hunters & Fauns) can't pillage! Ljos Archers are great city defenders with an extra first strike and with raging barbarians for XPs, I often have many at Drill IV fast. [The Archer Gilden Silveric is an awesome early Hero. He's a fierce defender and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he's saved the day in many of my games. If someone asked me for one thing about Ljosalfars, I might say, "Recruit Gilden ASAP"]

Conquest: With Amelanchier, I don't think about conquest until I've gotten FoL, one way or the other.

The second stage for me is variable; sometimes it's preferable to get the other early techs missed first, or even to head down a longer research path like Animal Husbandry ==> Horseback Riding ==> Trade. I like this path, Amelanchier leverages his Raider traits via fast Elven cavalry using enemy roads, gathering double pillage loot, exploiting extra first strikes and withdraw chances into the forests. It's not a conquest strategy, but it does pay for one.

If I'm intending conquest, I definitely need mages and druids along with Fireballs and Maelstrom, at a minimum. Gilden Silveric can be a fantastic attacker if the stage isn't two late (i.e. few T3 or T4 units). I try to have some swordsmen but I rarely wait for champions. The Ljo recon line isn't as impressive as the Svartalfars, but I'll use Assassins from time to time. Mostly 'cause I like 'em. So, I'll have an mixed assault force of swordsmen,archers, mages, druids, Leaf Priests, Gilden with some horsemen and assassins. Individually, they're not especially awe-inspiring but with Fireballs, Maelstrom, Entanglement, Enchanted Blade, Flaming Arrows, it works. Once things get rolling, I go for tougher troops like Flurry Archers or more varied spells.

 

[rmunn]

The Archer Gilden Silveric is an awesome early Hero. He's a fierce defender and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he's saved the day in many of my games. If someone asked me for one thing about Ljosalfars, I might say, "Recruit Gilden ASAP"

...

Gilden Silveric can be a fantastic attacker if the stage isn't two late (i.e. few T3 or T4 units).

Indeed. I just started playing FfH (and am currently taking a self-enforced break from it, because it's sucking up ALL my time and I do have bills to pay...), so I'm still on Noble difficulty. Perhaps things change at higher difficulty settings, but let me tell you about my current game to illustrate how powerful Gilden can be.

I forget which map I started my Ljosalfar game on (I think it was the "Huge pre-settled 21civs map", but I'm not 100% certain), but I ended up starting on the east coast of the world's major continent, in a heavily forested area (with some jungle to the south of me). My neighbors to the north were the Svartalfar, also in a heavily forested area.

I know little yet about how to play each civ, but I do know that the elves don't want to chop down forests. So I beelined for Archery to get lumbermills, and started placing lumbermills near all my cities. Then I noticed that my hero unit was already available to build, so I built Gilden in a northern city, near the Svartalfar border. (That particular city had been placed to create said border, limiting the Svart ability to expand southwards. Open Borders? Why in the world would I want to sign an Open Borders agreement with the civ that most directly competes with me for the type of land I want?).

After building Gilden, I decided to test out his power. So once he'd sat around for a few turns gaining XP, I declared war on the Svartalfar, gave Gilden Shock and Cover, and sent him north along with a couple of archers to test the Svart defenses. To my surprise, the Svartalfar had nothing but warriors in their cities, and most of their culture defenses were only 10% or so. (I think their capital was up to 30%). With Shock, Gilden's attack chance was above 95%, as long as I avoided crossing rivers in the process -- and double-move though forests made that easy. The archers ended up being used only to garrison each city as I took it; Gilden did all the killing.

Faeryl was building new warriors as fast as she could to replace the ones I was killing -- I'd see a new warrior show up every few turns, and while I attacked the Svart capital I intercepted the occasional warrior moving to reinforce it from another town. But Gilden was killing one unit per turn, and Faeryl couldn't build new warriors fast enough. He did take damage every once in a while, but I simply used Combat promotions to heal him most of the way to full (which simultaneously made it much less likely that he'd get damaged in the next fight). Once the capital fell, it was pretty much all mop-up from there, since at that point Gilden had two or three Combat promotions and a >99.9% attack chance. In the end, Gilden Silveric single-handedly wiped out the entire Svartalfar civilization, and was still at 95 HP when the fighting was over.

If you get Gilden early enough before your neighbor has started building archers, he can be devastatingly powerful.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I know little yet about how to play each civ, but I do know that the elves don't want to chop down forests. So I beelined for Archery to get lumbermills, and started placing lumbermills near all my cities.

You should build Mines, not Lumbermills. Since Elves don't clear forests when building mines, an Elf mine is always better then a lumbermill.

 

[rmunn]

You should build Mines, not Lumbermills. Since Elves don't clear forests when building mines, an Elf mine is always better then a lumbermill.

Ooh, that's even more powerful since Mining is cheaper to research than Archery (Crafting + Mining cost 325 beakers, about as much as Hunting costs all on its own, let alone Archery) so you can get it earlier. Massive Elf production cities for the early rush. OTOH, spending those extra 325 beakers before building Gilden means the neighbor you wanted to rush might have gotten his Archers out by the time Gilden reaches him, so it's a bit of a tradeoff. It would depend on the difficulty level you're playing at, I suppose.

I may try this next time I play FfH as the elves. (Which won't be for a while: given how addictive it is, I'm making myself take a break from playing. Nice job, FfH team -- you've made a very successful mod ).

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

you can build any improvement as the elves in forests. I usually build mines on all hills and cottages on all flatlands. alternatively you can build famrs on all flatlands and go aristocracy, but I don't like that much since aristocracy+farmspam is at its best when coupled with agrarianism, and you don't want to use that as it would take away the +1hammer from forests.

 

[JonathanStrange]

If you get Gilden early enough before your neighbor has started building archers, he can be devastatingly powerful.

Amen to that. An Ljosalfar civ without an early Gilden is missing its best single unit. Level him up, you Elves, level him up and he'll save your people or destroy theirs.

 

[Breez]

Is there a Reason to be anything but Elves?

Yes, to enjoy yourself. Having fun. Believe it or not, there is more to games than power gaming.

Try playing the Calabim as a good race sometime. That means NO feasting...

 

[popejubal]

Yes, to enjoy yourself. Having fun. Believe it or not, there is more to games than power gaming.

Indeed. I am 20 turns (minus engineer hammers, minus cash hammers) from building the Altar of the Lunnotar (final) as the Grigori.

There's lots of great people, but it's very annoying to have to put that much effort into generating the priests. I got my seven Great Priests (one for Nox Noctis)through the world spell and Theology.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The Svartalfar is my favourite nation in the game. All the elven benefits, the delicious feeling of being evil not with all these one-dimensional ugly demonic thingies, but with elegant dark glamour, and Arcane to compensate you for lack of cats somewhat, plus Raiders to make conquests faster.

 

[Humakty]

Yeah, I do think too svarts are stronger than ljos, just for the +1 att on recon line (ubber assassin ? Yes man !), much more fruitfull than +1 att on archery. And arcane/raiders gives you the best of Amelanchier and Thessa, what's not to love ?
The only pbm may come from the Ljos beelining FoL before you do.

 

[Lone Wolf]

The only pbm may come from the Ljos beelining FoL before you do.

Well, you can still adopt FoL after it was founded by Ljos.

 

[Humakty]

Your statement is fully valid but I'm always pissed off when I beeline a religion, just to see the holy city bringing cash to someone else.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I'm always pissed off when I beeline a religion, just to see the holy city bringing cash to someone else.

Conquer it, then. In that situation it makes perfect thematic sense.

 

[Humakty]

I do play on huge maps, so of course I do invade people, just the Ljos rarely happen to be in reach early on. But it was rather a side consideration from my part, Svarts do pwn the petty Ljos anyway !

 

[xalien]

Svart arcane units are among the best, raider trait is the only way for arcane to get commando. With haste you can really sprint through enemy lands. Their hunters and fawns have the same attack strength as copper axes giving you the power to secure your land against invasion and they have arguably the best hero which on defensive can wipe out entire SoD in a single turn.

 

[Demus]

the hero isn't the best, the equipment he's carrying is . For a real killer, try the mirror equipped on a unit like magnadine or one of the dragons (shame mirroring is a spell-type move, or auric ascended+mirror would kill dozens of units per turn from snowfall alone).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I'm pretty sure that Mirror won't work on Magic Immune units like dragons.