Dark Elf economy

[Kel'Thuzad]

I'm farming achievements and therefore revisiting factions I don't normally play very often.

Revisiting Dark Elves has me scratching my head once again over their slave economy. It's basically a bunch of extra drawbacks and hoops to jump through, for no real upside.

Your basic economy building needs to be upgraded to tier 3 to produce the same income as a Greenskins tier 1 Pile o' Shinies, and then it still has the drawback of consuming quite a lot of slaves every turn (enough that you can't sustain having one in every settlement).
And what's the trade-off? Greenskins have a good economy building because they can't trade. Dark Elves are able to trade, but are widely hated and therefore nobody will trade with you anyway.

Even looking outside of economy, I struggle to see any upside. Militarily, they feel weaker than High Elves in every category. Shorter range missiles, weak melee units, Hero casters can't get a dragon mount, generic Lords can revolt against you, etc.

Am I missing something or do they just kind of suck?

[Ashley]

They got nerfed years ago because people were cheesing them making literal millions of gold a turn

[Kel'Thuzad]

Originally posted by Ashley:

They got nerfed years ago because people were cheesing them making literal millions of gold a turn

How? Just by having an insane amount of slaves boosting your income?
I thought that causes too many issues with public order.

I dunno. I remember them always being kind of sucky. At least without cheese.

[CrUsHeR]

Just go "out there" and fight.

Slaves as a resource should become absolutely abundant; at some point, you can even spam the Diktat to turn slaves directly into gold.


The actual, strategic disadvantages of Dark Elves are that they cannot generate WoM with any form of channeling stance, and they do not have access to Global Recruitment which means they are disadvantaged in regions not accessible by their Ark ships.

[Da_Higg]

You can also use the Diktats option to sell 200 slaves for about 2000 gold per province, per turn so as long as your armies a fighting every turn to grant you slaves, you can make pretty large amounts of cash

Also they do have access to channelling and it also provides replenishment in foreign territory to compensate for the lack of encamp stance.

Another option would be to play as Morathi, her faction gets bonus slaves for high Slanesh corruption in each province which helps in breaking even - plus you are are next to Ulthuan which has a lot of ports which also generate slaves

[CrUsHeR]

Hmm been a while since i played DE. They gain WoM by raiding stance or something? I clearly remember this being super-annoying.

I guess it's the Chaos Dwarfs then having no channeling method at all.

[Ashley]

Originally posted by Kel'Thuzad:

Originally posted by Ashley:

They got nerfed years ago because people were cheesing them making literal millions of gold a turn

How? Just by having an insane amount of slaves boosting your income?
I thought that causes too many issues with public order.

I dunno. I remember them always being kind of sucky. At least without cheese.

Stacking +%slave income
Masters helped by reducing slave decline
At some point with million gold income with armies you could just hire an army there full time to farm rebellions
Malakith increased tax rate and slave income both for the province

[abyssalfury]

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from vs the Greenskins economy. The economy from slave buildings is cumulative; i.e. you get both listed amounts if you control the required number of slaves. The actual amounts (Base/Slave/Build cost):

DE Tier 1: 100/100 (500)
Greenskins Tier 1: 250 (250)

DE Tier 2: 150/350 (1000)
Greenskins Tier 2: 375 (500)

DE Tier 3: 200/500 (1500)
Greenskins Tier 3: 500 (1000)

So DE lose out per turn at tier 1, but are substantially better than Greenskins at Tier 2/3 as long as you have slaves. And if you don't have the slaves, you're playing DE wrong. Greenskins do have cheaper build/upgrade costs, but DE are still pretty cheap.

But it's kind of a silly comparison; Greenskins having amazing front loaded economy buildings, that's their whole shtick. Try comparing them to any of the other factions. Having economic buildings on equal terms to Greenskins doesn't mean they suck, it means their economic buildings are great.

The High Elves comparisons seems very surface level.

Dark Elf ranged units tend to trades range for power. Darkshards and Shades are *armour piercing*. They will murder things that HE ranged will plink off. (And if you're going to say BUT SISTERS! please remember that they are tier 4 unit, and one of the best archer units in the game).

Melee, I don't feel like HE are particularly amazing there. Both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Only Fire heroes for HE get Dragons, the rest get chariots. DE casters get Dark Pegasus. I'd prefer a flyer to a chariot on a caster in the vast majority of cases.

DE Lords can rebel, early game, if you don't keep their loyalty up. Later on your shouldn't have any serious issues with loyalty. But they get Names of Power, some of which are amazing (though admittedly I dislike the RNG involved). HE need to pay a limited resource not to get lords with traits like 'Cripple' or 'Idiot', though yes their high tier traits are amazing. Still, again I think both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses.

You also seem to be glossing over some of the advantages that DE have, like the fact that Black Arks are ****ing amazing.

[Tsu]

Why would greenskins even need economy buildings to generate income? Aren't they supposed to generate income by raiding and sacking and looting?

Also, why is raiding so utterly worthless, doesn't even come close to offsetting the army upkeep, and only does -5 growth and -5 order like some sort of stupid joke?

[Kel'Thuzad]

Originally posted by abyssalfury:

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from vs the Greenskins economy. The economy from slave buildings is cumulative; i.e. you get both listed amounts if you control the required number of slaves. The actual amounts (Base/Slave/Build cost):

DE Tier 1: 100/100 (500)
Greenskins Tier 1: 250 (250)

DE Tier 2: 150/350 (1000)
Greenskins Tier 2: 375 (500)

DE Tier 3: 200/500 (1500)
Greenskins Tier 3: 500 (1000)

So DE lose out per turn at tier 1, but are substantially better than Greenskins at Tier 2/3 as long as you have slaves. And if you don't have the slaves, you're playing DE wrong. Greenskins do have cheaper build/upgrade costs, but DE are still pretty cheap.

But it's kind of a silly comparison; Greenskins having amazing front loaded economy buildings, that's their whole shtick. Try comparing them to any of the other factions. Having economic buildings on equal terms to Greenskins doesn't mean they suck, it means their economic buildings are great.

The High Elves comparisons seems very surface level.

Dark Elf ranged units tend to trades range for power. Darkshards and Shades are *armour piercing*. They will murder things that HE ranged will plink off. (And if you're going to say BUT SISTERS! please remember that they are tier 4 unit, and one of the best archer units in the game).

Melee, I don't feel like HE are particularly amazing there. Both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Only Fire heroes for HE get Dragons, the rest get chariots. DE casters get Dark Pegasus. I'd prefer a flyer to a chariot on a caster in the vast majority of cases.

DE Lords can rebel, early game, if you don't keep their loyalty up. Later on your shouldn't have any serious issues with loyalty. But they get Names of Power, some of which are amazing (though admittedly I dislike the RNG involved). HE need to pay a limited resource not to get lords with traits like 'Cripple' or 'Idiot', though yes their high tier traits are amazing. Still, again I think both sides have their own strengths and weaknesses.

You also seem to be glossing over some of the advantages that DE have, like the fact that Black Arks are ****ing amazing.

I picked Greenskins at random as a placeholder for most factions that generally just build "the income building" in every region (like the Empire industry building).
But fair point if DE get both of the listed income values, I did not realise that.

Whenever I play High Elves, I'm not worried at all about Darkshards, as your extra range gives you a few free volleys on them before they even start to shoot back (and they've already lost quite a few models when they do).
True HE aren't amazing in melee either, but at least their basic frontline spearmen etc do feel more sturdy (maybe it's the 'martial mastery'?).
Or maybe the real difference might be having access to healing magic.

I never really see it as viable to use endless battles to fuel an economy. In the early game, you can really only afford 1 army for a little while, and if you're too aggressive and far from home, you'll lose your starting province (playing Rakarth on very hard, surrounded by hostile factions).

Not sure how to feel about Black Arks. They do have some strong benefits, but you're also paying extra upkeep for a force that can never land, which ties negatively into economy.

[Da_Higg]

If you are surrounded by foes then you don't need to be aggressive to get slaves, the slaves will come to you.

Black Arks don't need an army to be useful, keep one with just a lord near you main army to provide support via the army abilities. Or give them an army and sack port settlements in territory you don't intend to claim - in my last Morati campaign I had my black arks repeatedly sack the Bretonian ports while my land armies were focused on turning the lizardmen into a new pair of boots

[path2power]

Originally posted by Kel'Thuzad:

I'm farming achievements and therefore revisiting factions I don't normally play very often.

Revisiting Dark Elves has me scratching my head once again over their slave economy. It's basically a bunch of extra drawbacks and hoops to jump through, for no real upside.

Your basic economy building needs to be upgraded to tier 3 to produce the same income as a Greenskins tier 1 Pile o' Shinies, and then it still has the drawback of consuming quite a lot of slaves every turn (enough that you can't sustain having one in every settlement).
And what's the trade-off? Greenskins have a good economy building because they can't trade. Dark Elves are able to trade, but are widely hated and therefore nobody will trade with you anyway.

Even looking outside of economy, I struggle to see any upside. Militarily, they feel weaker than High Elves in every category. Shorter range missiles, weak melee units, Hero casters can't get a dragon mount, generic Lords can revolt against you, etc.

Am I missing something or do they just kind of suck?

Their economy buildings produce more gold than most other factions as long as you have slaves, you're earning both ammounts listed on the normal and minimum slave requirement.

Its very easy to get slaves, sack or loot every settlement, never just occupy. If they rebel, that just means more slaves.

You can trade easily if you offer to join wars. Dark elves also get an ancilliary that gives + 10 diplomatic relations with all factions if you start a new war and win 4 battles in one turn.

Dark Elves are more melee focused than high elves, get shielded units to soak up arrows and have your good melee infantry flank from the sides. The post battle option that replenishes also gives slaves, so casualties aren't a big deal.

They quickly snowball out of control if you know what you're doing, just keep fighting and summon as many black arks as you can for recruitment.

[Schizoid embolism]

Originally posted by Kel'Thuzad:

Originally posted by Ashley:

making literal millions of gold a turn

How?

Not certain but i think it was by stacking masters (which increase slave income and reduce slave decline rate) in your one province which you used to send ALL your slaves to. Enough masters with points in those skills meant that decline rate was -100% and income was massively boosted ontop whatever having all those slaves in the gave you in the first place. Not sure if they also overrode the public order issue that would cause or if you would need to an army there to quell them every 10 turns or so.

Something like that, but yeah, DE economy could be stupid broken if you cheesed it with that method, I think it's ok now.

[Schizoid embolism]

Try lokir felhart, he's currently my fave DE, becomes a powerhouse real fast and can have about 5 black arks already in the first 10 or so turns, every major port you take is also another ark for you and he has easy access to a lot of major ports in cathay and with the sea lanes. His corsairs get nice bonuses too.

[abyssalfury]

Originally posted by Kel'Thuzad:

I picked Greenskins at random as a placeholder for most factions that generally just build "the income building" in every region (like the Empire industry building).
But fair point if DE get both of the listed income values, I did not realise that.

Whenever I play High Elves, I'm not worried at all about Darkshards, as your extra range gives you a few free volleys on them before they even start to shoot back (and they've already lost quite a few models when they do).
True HE aren't amazing in melee either, but at least their basic frontline spearmen etc do feel more sturdy (maybe it's the 'martial mastery'?).
Or maybe the real difference might be having access to healing magic.

I never really see it as viable to use endless battles to fuel an economy. In the early game, you can really only afford 1 army for a little while, and if you're too aggressive and far from home, you'll lose your starting province (playing Rakarth on very hard, surrounded by hostile factions).

Not sure how to feel about Black Arks. They do have some strong benefits, but you're also paying extra upkeep for a force that can never land, which ties negatively into economy.

Yeah, Greenskins were a bad choice for that comparison. Suffice to say, DE's basic economy buildings are *very* good.

Are you running unshielded Darkshards into HE archers, or shielded ones? Because yeah, unshielded in particular will get mulched. But that just means it's a bad match up; Darkshards will absolutely work better against hard targets.

Yes, HE spears are better than DE spears, but DE have more unit variety compared to HE. HE are somewhat forced into the 'Spear and archers' base for their armies, and honestly often end up just upgrading into a better version of that (Sea Guard, Silverin/Sisters). It sounds like you might just prefer the playstyle of HEs.

Black Arks are fantastic. They give you:
-Significant upkeep reduction for the BA army, which largely solves your 'can't get a second army' issue.
-Can get a building to increase loot income for armies within their area of influence
-Allow mobile recruitment, which means you save money by not needing to build multiple land based recruitment buildings.
-They also get some different recruit buildings compared to land based, e.g. easy access to Corsairs.
-Get around DE's issue of no global recruitment

If you're not making use of BA's, that's probably why you're having a bad time with DE. Though admittedly, Rakarth seems like he's pretty easily the worst DE Lord for them considering his starting position.

[Kel'Thuzad]

Originally posted by Virulant:

Try lokir felhart, he's currently my fave DE, becomes a powerhouse real fast and can have about 5 black arks already in the first 10 or so turns, every major port you take is also another ark for you and he has easy access to a lot of major ports in cathay and with the sea lanes. His corsairs get nice bonuses too.

I dunno, Lokhir is built around Corsairs which are rather 'meh'.

Originally posted by Da_Higg:

Black Arks don't need an army to be useful, keep one with just a lord near you main army to provide support via the army abilities. Or give them an army and sack port settlements in territory you don't intend to claim - in my last Morati campaign I had my black arks repeatedly sack the Bretonian ports while my land armies were focused on turning the lizardmen into a new pair of boots

Seems sketchy to risk losing a developed BA by not having an army to defend itself though.
But I suppose it's fine early on when you haven't invested much into it.

Originally posted by abyssalfury:

If you're not making use of BA's, that's probably why you're having a bad time with DE. Though admittedly, Rakarth seems like he's pretty easily the worst DE Lord for them considering his starting position.

I get that Rakarth has the worst/hardest start position, but why exactly is it considered bad for Black Arks?