How do you play the elves?

[Athenaa]

They seem impossible. I understand lorically there were not many of them, I get that, that's why I figured their units were so insanely OP, and their archers can cut through the USS Enterprise shielding because of that reason.

I only expanded enough to connect my cities together, taking the land along the river, and Mirkwood. That's it, the land of the elves as they were lorically, but that's already too much.

I'm bleeding gold, I've built every building I can, I'm getting .5% culture conversion rate, which is a joke. I can't upgrade my units in over half of my towns, I'm gaining 100 gold a turn, and just barely due to trade routes along the river, and I'm constantly being harrassed by orcs from 3 different directions. Even though I'm killing them by the thousands, and losing only 100 at most, I can't keep my towns forever. I've already lost 2 due to never being able to upgrade, or retrain my units.

To top that off, the great forest towns of teh elves seem to be so distraught and edgy, the moment my army so much as considers moving out of it to defend the borders, they instantly grab their pitchforks and are ready to burn the entire forest, village and their livelyhoods to teh ground.

Wtf gives? Why so much unrest in towns, and pissed off elves if you don't keep damn near a full garrison? Why are elves in such a massive disadvantage, that even having cities, towns, or provinces actually hurts you more than helps you? Why the cultlure conversion rate of .5% max?

Again, even after building everything, I'm sitting there doing nothing but watching waves of goblins and orcs batter themselves against my cities as I very slowly, but surely am going to lose everything, just a matter of time.

I keep hearing how amazing this mod is.. I'm wondering what drugs I have to be on to see this..

[ElvenKind]

There are couple of guides here: First, Second

There might be others in the Guide section.

[Ngugi]

And about this...?
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...ame-unplayable

[Macilrille]

Welcome to TATW, we all had a similar experience. We came full of self-confidence, got PWNed and humbly had to learn the game. If you want an even worse challenge, try turtling Gondor in MOS on VH/VH with all Lore-correct options on. Or OoTMM in any incarnation. I also hear Dale is bad, but I never played them.

Set difficulty down. Read the guides, try their advice, and feel free to ask specific questions if you still encounter problems.

And welcome, may you find fun in the game and sage advice and wisdom here.

[Macilrille]

Oh and one thing; ware of building too many units- use your generals, they replenish themselves and might as well be doing something useful instead of getting drunk and idling in cities. Set to growth rate and send your generals out to fight.

[Maenor]

For starters the Elven culture is completely different to the standard Total War Faction/Experience, even in this submod it has a learning curve.


If you want to understand the Elven-style i suggest you go with the High-Elves, which are even more OP and slightly slower(If i remember correctly that is... haven't played with the Silvan Elves for a long time) but much easier to play(Although maybe somewhat boring if you are a blood-thirsty player haha).

The only foes you'll face if you play your cards right will be the Orcs of the Misty Mountains and maybe early-Mid-Game Isengard.

Isengard starts with little territory and has both Rohan and Eriador to worry about, if you are diplomatic with them you won't have to worry about those Wargs and Uruks until you capture Ost-in-Edhil and maybe even then they'll have Peace priority since they normally get crushed by Rohan.

Gundabad is a direct foe of Eriador and the Dwarves in the north so again, just send a diplomat and get those trade rights with them and you'll be safe.

What i normally do with the High Elves is:

Set Mithlond to be the capital -> send spies to Thorin's Hall's -> Rebel it out and capture it for the sweet mining outcome -> reinforce Imladris(Don't ever fight in that map/city, it is completely and unnecessarily broken and a general pain in the ass when playing against AI[Specially in lower difficulties], just go for the bridges and rivers) and then go for Ost-in-Edhil as soon as you can, you'll want to upgrade that city ASAP.

Just make sure Eriador has the northern side of the river under control and that you capture the Forest regions near the western coasts, stay out of grasslands.

As for cities goes, just get Farms, Roads and Markets going as soon as you can, spend as little as you can in Military Units (Both Elven factions are entirely Quality >> Quantity) and just upgrade the unit's armor

If you get an alliance going with the Silvan Elves you might want to anticipate and make preparations for Elven-Dwarves wars, pretty much in every campaign i've played they get in conflicts and due to the Silvan Elves' many enemies they get completely crushed by everyone, including Rhun, since the Dwarves tend to travel West and when in wars against the Silvan Elves they leave the Eastern front abandoned and Dale gets usually overrun by them.

In any way, i tend to go with war against the Dwarves pretty much every time... the Blue Mountains give a huge boost to the economy if Mithlond is your capital and also the dwarves anyway.

[Gallus]

I suggest you play a submod that spits the Silvan faction in two, such as DAC or MOS. The distance between Thranduil's Halls and Lorien is what destroys your early game economy.