WoodElves: Tall or wide?

[Psychedelic Adventurer]

I'd been hearing a lot about WE, so i'm giving them a try.

How does CA want us to play them? It seems like you can just steam roll through factions, but I seem to remember them being a 'play tall' faction.

Been playing a provisional Sisters of twilight vortex campaign. Been getting into a war with just about every dark elf faction. Been hammering Malakith, slowly pushing him back. But now im at Naggarond, and I suddenly realised I've basically taken most of the centre of the north west part of the map.

Should I just be sitting here in the grove knocking back enemies waiting for my tree to healed? Or is there a tangible advantage to me setting up small settlements?

[Terra]

Going wide gets you minor faction-wide growth buffs.

Tall is more practical. Get your forest, who cares about the wider world.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Every outpost can provide faction-wide buffs, but you really only need the magic forests and surrounding regions.

[Asmodeon Lord of the Moo (Rich)]

Unless you wanna micromanage losing fights every time go Tall, none of the outposts really boast garrisons that can defend themselves and you'll find your finances limited to how many big forests you own.

[Xaphnir]

There's no such thing as playing tall in a Total War game.

The point is defeating your enemies, and to do that you have to conquer their land.

[Edifier]

Go wide because the less enemies you have around you the easier it is to mess around in other parts of the world before you main base gets into trouble.

You'll get a lot of money from taking over them or razing them. You know, instead of just camping in your own home doing nothing.

[Arthur two sheds Jackson]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

There's no such thing as playing tall in a Total War game.

The point is defeating your enemies, and to do that you have to conquer their land.

not for the wood elf, you just have to upgrade the principal tree to level 5 and you win

[JODEGAFUN]

Some faction capitals have very strong garrisons if ou capture them as WE, those bring often a big bonus to like 10% income factionwide. This places are worth to take. Also elven colonies have a good garrison for WE.

[Sn3z]

Doesn't Orion now have incentives to play wide, Tall playstyle is better but if you are always monitoring teh diplomacy and be opportunistic you can take out various minor factions for land.

[Pansa]

Paint the map in the blood of your enemies.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Arthur two sheds Jackson:

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

There's no such thing as playing tall in a Total War game.

The point is defeating your enemies, and to do that you have to conquer their land.

not for the wood elf, you just have to upgrade the principal tree to level 5 and you win

Until the Empire declares war on you and brings the might of 80 settlements down on Athel Loren and your 2-3 armies.

[eternalexhilaration]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

Originally posted by Arthur two sheds Jackson:

not for the wood elf, you just have to upgrade the principal tree to level 5 and you win

Until the Empire declares war on you and brings the might of 80 settlements down on Athel Loren and your 2-3 armies.

OP does say that they're playing Sisters of Twilight Vortex, so at least the Empire does not apply to this situation.

[NixAhmose]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

Originally posted by Arthur two sheds Jackson:

not for the wood elf, you just have to upgrade the principal tree to level 5 and you win

Until the Empire declares war on you and brings the might of 80 settlements down on Athel Loren and your 2-3 armies.

I mean, 2 -3 armies is really all you need as wood elves when you play tall. The empire can send as many armies as they want, but as long as you can ambush them and make them suffer from forest attrition you should be able to prevent any armies from sieging the oak of ages. Even if the situration becomes so bad that you have to do a defensive siege battle at the Oak of Ages, you still get a pretty sizable garrison force alongside your full stack army to defend it.

[Psychedelic Adventurer]

Ok bois, point taken. I'll pull back my armies and let them come to me. I was starting to get bored of just 'pew pew'ing' dark elves.
Playing WE like every other faction in the game gets dull tbh.

[The Hat]

Always wide. But you don't need every single province no. Certainly those around the forests you can defend are useful.

[Stinky Britches]

Play to what is happening around you.

If you can make alliances with your neighbours move on to the next forest. If you don't trust them kill everything until you feel secure.

You really want to avoid great power penalty until you make some allies but that isn't always possible.