Wood Elf campaign is not fun

[Xi the Pooh]

Hard to defend outposts,
bad economy,
shorter range than skaven's

[Lady MacBeth]

I'm having fun. Though everyones opinion of fun isn't the same. I do find the economy much more challenging. I don't remember the last time I needed to go down the blue line for upkeep reduction. But I might be playing them wrong to. Only playing of Very hard though so, probably tougher on legendary.

[Craig_Lennon]

I love playing as Woodelves but I do hate being limited to either a defensive structure or an economic structure.

Like, how are you supposed to defend and build an eco? The balance IS difficult

[NixAhmose]

Honestly don't worry about outposts. While they can get you some nice income or growth, you can do just fine without them and as long as the provinces around your fancy big trees aren't being settled by enemies it won't negatively impact your main goal. Wood elves play very tall so you really just need to focus on protecting a few key areas rather than all of your territory.

As for economy, its not an issue once you stop playing the wood elves as a traditional faction. Sure you're going to have a much harder time maintaining as many armies as other factions, but the thing is you really don't need to maintain that many armies. Because you're such a defensive focused faction, all you really need in terms of military power is one full stack to conquer other forests/deal with the biggest threats and 1 small army per fancy tree that you have in order to defend them. Considering that fancy tree can give you enough money to run a full stack and the big tree can massively decrease upkeep costs on ALL units, the economy really doesn't prove to be that big of an issue once you start playing the wood elves as a more defensive and surgical faction instead of a aggressive paint the map faction.

[Empiro]

I'm having quite a bit of fun with the new Wood Elves. I wouldn't want all factions to play like this, but I'm glad that the WE feel and play really differently.

With the Wood Elves, only the main forest matters. If the outlaying settlements get taken over, just take it back a few turns later. Unlike other factions (where the cost is literally 10s of thousands of gold in rebuilding costs and lost income), the only cost is a few points of forest health. If the settlements get sacked or razed, then just laugh.

Remember that settlements that aren't hearthland or forest are nearly worthless to you. At most they'll earn you a bit of gold if they're a port or resource. The only reason to take them over is to create a path to a port for trade.

[yuzhonglu]

1. Get an army of Hawk Riders.
2. Teleport to Forest of Gloom.
3. Build battle income buildings in all the settlements nearby.
4. Declare war on everyone around you.
5. Never worry about money again.

[jonoliveira12]

My only issue is that both the Coedil (Drycha) and Dragon (SoT) quests seem to bug out sometimes, and you cannot get the next step.

[Darth Wadewilson]

Originally posted by $$$:

Hard to defend outposts,
bad economy,
shorter range than skaven's

You are playing them wrong

[Snowman]

You dont need outposts, only those special forests.

Economy is easy, I got 150k+ (5 armies) and one more forest to go for long campaign victory.
Play your diplomacy well. When done right every campaign is peanuts. Playing Drycha and loving it (legendary diff with legendary invasion that gives 20 doomstacks from the chaos wastes and yet Arhaeon is still a weak little kittycat). Can't wait for SFO.

I don't know if other WE lords have access to animals though.

If they do, get wolves, they are crazy op. Two buffed gold tier packs take down most lords (especially wizards) and ranged units in a matter of seconds. Buff them with your lord's tech tree and get the amber techs for them with stalk and 20% physical resist. 110 speed and 50 charge fully buffed and leveled (dont forget the ap dmg). Also use them to take down routing units fast before they regain morale and return to the battle. Wolves replace ranged units in my army because they are so fast and dangerous. And also cheaper than shock cavalry. Crazy fast stalking units with good charge.

Get two spider packs (poison attacks and 70 armour) for the more armoured units. Later on you can replace these, but keep 2 fully leveled wolf packs with you in every army.

Never let them charge headon, unless the targets are weak. Always flank charge for heavy morale shocks. Busting morale is key to winning.

Your units do not have forest penalties. Forests give you buffs, lure enemies in to slow down cavalry and other big units and flank them.

And always level your units to gold tier for the powerful lord buffs.

Zoats are expensive, but eat giants and monsters for breakfast. I have atleast 2 in every setup.

And very important: try to get your forests before everyone allies with each other. Otherwise you will have to fight everyone because one of them has occupied one. (damn you border princes)

Ambush when possible. Use bait if you can, like a weak army raiding or something. They always fall for it. Then declare war (abuse the bad diplomacy system and ai), the ai blindly rushes in and voila, you just lured away and killed an enemy stack from a settlement. They left the door open for you.

Easy game once you know the mechanics well. Multiplayer is another beast though.

[cary2010haha]

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmoZYPgACyeqnWmPVYakZJLPg2k2

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmoZYPgACyeqnVvsGOkaTwCxRGml

Idk, i love the air strike, and shorter range than skaven?.?

[Budoshi]

you need to teleport to other enclave and take them by force or diplomacy..only way to earn money.

[Guts]

Empty your brain of attachment to outposts.

[Snowman]

And google blitzkrieg. If you play like this, you'll never lose. Works for me everytime.
Be fast, be ruthless.

[fmalfeas]

The animals are Drycha only. In fact, Drycha has some very, very, VERY good stuff.

Like you can have all your Treemen have a constant AoE damage aura to enemies, and have that army led by a Treeman Lord with the same aura, and Lore of Life, in an officer post that reduces treeman upkeep. With just 6 trees (I didn't have time yet to get more) I ended up removing the entire military force of Ulthuan. I tried to play nice with them when Avelorn called for help (because I didn't want to spend time fighting on the donut when I could be after more other forests, and releasing Coeddil) but Eltharion broke the NAP by declaring war on me. And promptly suicided his entire army at my tree, one stack at a time. Then the rest joined in and repeated the process.

So I just went into Ambush in front of the tree, they'd rush up, I'd smash them, heal with magic, then on my turn finish them off and go back to ambush. This went on for /40 turns/ before I could bring over another army to take over garrison and just burn down everything on the island to make them stop. Yes, I wiped out all the HE except for Teclis, because they wouldn't stop attacking me, even when I offered them hundreds of thousands of gold to go away.

[.]

I expected quite a lot more of this, honestly.

The Wood Elves are a faction that builds up, not wide. You are not meant to sprawl out, painting the map like you would as any other faction. Your outposts are just that. There is no defending them nor are you meant to. You get far more income from sacking and razing than you do from taking it over. Each tree settlement can support three armies (maybe less with supply lines) when it is fully built.

In my campaign, I am on turn 161 (Legendary/Very Hard/Legendary Chaos invasion) and I have 450,000 gold.

https://gyazo.com/1d587b6c0585de5060750205d9a50c19

As for their units, if you are losing to Skaven, then something is wrong. I melt anyone who comes near me. The Sisters straight up repelled nine Chaos armies alone.

[Gamefever]

Its the same things in each thread,

"I'm having a hard time keeping these outposts."

Then posters come,
"Dude, quit trying to make the game about keeping outposts."

Main goal is the same goal every faction in the game has, GET PROVINCES.

Wood Elves have extremely restricted options for occupying land, its Hearth Tree's only, there are 4 in Vortex Campaign, and only 4. That represents 4 provinces, most games are actually won by the time you occupy 4 provinces for most factions in Vortex Campaign. More than that is overkill.

All those Outposts you build their whole purpose in life is to power up your Great Tree for special tree super powers.

It really is not hard to understand the Wood Elf game mechanics.