Elf Strategies

[Guan-Yu234]

Looking for some thoughts on how to best use the elves, So far I have paired them with the harvester to boost shadow and get them more inclined to increase arrogance but its never quite enough without also really focusing on xenophobia (Which tends to make them reject the dark empire due to a hatred of humans). The best i've managed (Mind you it worked great) was kicking that hornets nest until the REALLY hate humans and start picking fights. Thoughts on how to best sway them to the dark or general thoughts/advice for them would be appreciated as they are a great addition.

[The Grand Mugwump]

I've yet to get elves to join my dark empire or start their own. The value of arrogance seems to depend on the size of the elf kingdom. If there are 5 or more settlements, a hero trying to lower their arrogance is just wasting their time since it has so little impact due to the elf deciding based on their average arrogance. It might be more meaningful if the king/queen's arrogance had a bigger impact on their decision making.

[Guan-Yu234]

Following up on this, has anyone found a way to get them to join the dark empire? I have been able to make use of them via Ophanhim's perfected cities directly or making them hate humans too much to resist a full scale war but even with 100 plus motivation to join the dark empire they still are just not having it. So I guess my questions are is it a bug? Or are there hidden factors that I am just missing here? Either way if someone knows how this function works then a bit of insight would definitely be appreciated.

[The Grand Mugwump]

I'm almost 100% convinced it's bugged unless there's something we are missing. I've gotten dark empire to #1 on their national action list with nothing queued, but then they'll do the #2 action instead.

The easiest way to get them to positive on join dark empire is to shadow the sovereign (+100), infiltrate the sovereign's settlement and then use a heirophant to preach violence and envy (+20x3), and ironically enough, the sovereign needs to be aware (+100 for both dark empire and alliance). Awareness can be replaced with a high arrogance.

Xenophobia doesn't help if you already have a human dark empire. They'll get a +60 for hating humans and then a -60 for hating humans because they're joining a human dark empire.

[jasta85]

Haven't been able to control the elves but I have used them to cause general chaos:
Since most elf towns have only 1 district, they are easy to infiltrate (Especially with gods that have 100% infiltrate ability). I then steal local ruler's crystal thing, corrupt it and then sneak it back to them. They get enshadowed and it spreads from them to their town. can be done pretty quickly as both stealing and corrupting crystal are pretty short duration requirements providing you have the proper stats.

I've also used madness, which tends to spark conflicts in general and elves are naturally prone to picking fights with humans a lot anyway so that's not really a specific strategy, just a part of general madness play.

Other than that, the elven agent (renegade I think) has a unique action to increase elven arrogance, I don't think it even requires infiltration, so you can get the elven king to picks fights with humans pretty easily.

[The Grand Mugwump]

I was able to get an elven dark empire by recruiting the monarch to an elven capital at 100% shadow and then using the "Dark Empire" challenge. This is probably a bug, but it does work for getting a single elven nation to become a dark empire. The other elf nations still won't join it due to their join dark empire national action being buggy or incomprehensible.

I find that elven dark empires are an extremely strong choice with Mammon. They are unaffected by greed/decadence and aren't affected by political instability, which gives them a massive advantage compared to the humans who are constantly tearing themselves apart due to Mammon's influence.

I rather enjoyed that game. I had ravenous undead, dark elves and orcs all attacking the human alliance.

[Bohandas]

the elves have slow succession, so if you can get the alliance to start in an elf kingdom you can then murder the king and he won't be replaced until the hero with the ability to appoint new elf kings gets around to the task and the alliance won't be able to do national actions until then

[forrestomintero]

if you're using the snake god, you have that power that lets you instantly infiltrate 1 location. Elven cities only have 1 location (unless a religion built a temple there) so you can easily infiltrate an entire elven nation with fairly minimal effort. Then, enshadow the closest human city. The shadow will tear through the elves like butter, giving you an easy starting point to spread it from. (best to do this early on before wards become common)

[Guan-Yu234]

Solid stuff! I don't know why it didn't click to make the elves the center of the dark empire like I did for Orphanhim but that totally makes sense, I was honestly absorbed in the idea (and still am) as to why the challenge "Join the dark empire" exists and hopefully at some point either Bobby can fill us in on the secret or someone can decode what makes that option finally tip for them and get them to break down and join the good fight.