Dark Elves > High Elves ?

[Alejandro]

I have a few IE campaigns and in pretty much every single one the AI takes advantage of the hard position of the High Elves and invades them, Cult of Pleasure for example ends up being a top 5 nation very often due to High Elves failing to defend.

But I played Teclis and Imrik and both have a strong roster if they survive early on, so I don't understand how do Dark Elves manage to have an upper hand as AI.

[Triple G]

When Morathi is finished with her opponents she - and a few lords - are around lvl 20. When the high elves are finished, they´re around lvl 6. Also when she attacks, she sails over with three stacks, and takes a settlement - and the high elves send their stacks one by one, while she takes out every garrison anyway, which makes her stronger in every battle, and the high elves weaker, as their lords will die, while hers are immortal.

Eventually she will get stopped, but only if her armies move in some stupid way. She has like 20+ settlements when she starts, and the high elf factions like 6 or 8. And then it depends if the high elves have cleared their island or not - or if they´re involved in other wars, like Noctilus, or shadow legion, or Grom, or Ikit - while Morathi doesn´t need to worry so much about other enemies. The tomb kings will usually be neutral, same as the wood elves. The Lizardmen have their own problem, and the rest on the side are only the dwarfs, which is also a bit RNG how fast they finish what they do, or if Malekith, Crone and Malus win, while either Crone or Malus, or both, or even the vampire coast - will beat Alith Anar.

And then the high elves face Morathi, from the east, and some faction(s) from the north, while her first enemy is a minor faction, probably also the second and the third. Aladriel sits in the north, Tyrion in the south - and The Grim on the other side, with the lowest lvl of all the lords. While i also guess that dark elves make the better armies. The high elf ones are oftentimes only spearmen and archers. Dark elves bring the good stuff - except they form a new army on a newly conquered settlement, which would be lord + 19 spearmen. But the high elves don´t need to replace their army very often, so when she attacks, they have their early game armies, when Morathi has the better stuff - and after it she has momentum.

But i´ve also seen Ulthuan in high elf hands in endgame. I´ve never seen that in WH2. I also don´t see them using black arcs very often, even if they show the event notification...

[Whatever100500]

HE need to confederate to become strong, and wh3 made AI confederations almost non-existent. I don't think I've seen any non-special (greenskin/norsca) confederations in my recent campaigns.

DE don't care much about confederation. They start far from each other, so they don't compete for territory early and eventually meeting to form a safe expansion flank with an ally works fine for them.

Well, that is if DE factions do succeed locally. In my games Valkia usually kills Hellebron and significantly limits Malekith's expansion by taking Ghrond. Morathi is far from guaranteed to come out on top from her fight with Ostankya. Malus gets stuck on Sigvald (often even without a fight, just sitting on bordering cities mutually afraid to declare war).

[Stepfan]

also HE factions get seduced by slanesh. There should be a faction like Alariele who is anti chaos. If she beats a seduced HE faction she will force confederate them. Factions like Saphery and Alinth Anar fall to seduction. Against Morathi, well once she captures a gate the dark elf defences beat all HE armys. HE suicide against the wall garrisons. Either remove the walled garrisons between inner and outer Ulthuan or remove the DE defence bonus. Confederation between Ai factions can also be opened again.HE now are one of weakest Ai factions.