The Silvan Elves Thread

[Cay93]

My first two attempts with Silvan ended in defeat within 35 turns, my third ended in 74. My 4th is in turn 129 and still barely hanging on. The OotMM are relentless from the start!

The biggest problem is the economy. With all cities at very high tax rate, I can barely support a field army and build anything at the same time, if that. It is absolutly essential to have as many units in a city you can support because at any time a full stack of Mordor or OotMM will come and take it. The cities are too far apart to shift forces in time. When I played Mordor, I had tons of gold and stacks of armies. Not a single problem there.

I have gone far into late game, and I will admit I couldn't of gotten that far without a LOT of cheating. I am a 8 year veteran of TW games on VH/VH, and I LOVE a challenge, cheating isn't typical at all with me. Silvan are definately tough. IMO, silvan are unbalanced faction. I am not sure if it is intentional, for the shear difficulty level, and I do not know how the rest of you fair playing them. Here is my breakdown:

Strengths:
Archers - Can mow down tons of orcs.
Generals - Very balanced ability with Melee and ranged.
Infantry - Moves fast...I think.

Weakness:
Economy - Very poor.
Archers - Useless vs. Trolls. They will also absorb all fire from the rest of the orc army. Ballista is too inaccurate and slow to stop them. Trolls will kill at about 3 units before they go down.
Infantry - Dies really fast in melee if my archers can't soften up orc numbers a good deal.
Cavalry - Horse archers are really weak. I don't even bother making them.
Lack of elite unit.
Lack of assassins - Only defense from enemy assassins if they get detected. Right now there is at least 5 foreign assassins roaming my lands. I have lost 12 generals from assassins so far. I have no defense against them besides random detection.

So, what's your thoughts and experience from Silvan? Good? Bad? Advice? etc.

[Hieronymus]

I think you mean Silvan buddy.

But a good little review nonetheless, things like these are needed for the Team to balance ofcourse, I haven't played the Silvan yet, playing High Elves atm, they are lovely but hard as well, hopefully people who have faired better will share their stories

[Nazgûl Killer]

If by Sindar you mean High Elves, I think they are pretty strong, and very much capable, however, the OotMM are VERY imbalanced and overpowered, so it's hard to trifle with them.
If you mean Silvan Elves, same deal, only you have to contend with Sauron AND OotMM.

[Cay93]

If by Sindar you mean High Elves, I think they are pretty strong, and very much capable, however, the OotMM are VERY imbalanced and overpowered, so it's hard to trifle with them.
If you mean Silvan Elves, same deal, only you have to contend with Sauron AND OotMM.

No, I did mean Silvans...It's late and too much Tolkien on the mind. I must agree the High Elves have much stronger units, though fall into the same weaknesses.

Yes, being between OotMM and Mordor is just crazy, and the Silvan elves aren't strong enough to withstand much being so damn poor.

[Belphegor]

At the moment I'm playing my first campaign with the Silvans, at the moment around turn 50. They are really really challenging, i totaly agree.

It's not that they are weak, as sentinels of the woodland realm can mow down pretty much anything in early game, forrest wardens rape goblin infantry, spearmen can hold the line against infantry decently and light archers are good support.

I haven't gotten into the late game stage yet, but from custom battles the spearmen and swordsmen, plus heavy archers own big time.

The problem is, the lack of variability. For the first 50 turn, most towns - outside of starting positions are going to be left with spearmen to recruit, at best. Which is not enough for any decent defence. Plus so far Sentinels are only recruitable in one region, so most of the army is confined to light archers, spearmen plus the occasional wardens. This is all fine for a sound defence, you can fight the stupid orcess back to the mountains. But that's where you will stop.

To be honest, my only defeat came when I tried to assualt Moria. No. 1 the garrison script which spawned trolls at about turn 10, without them I would have taken the mines, but whatever. At least it's a challange. But it taught me that I cannot afford to wage war and sieges with light units, as that is the only thing available in the first 50 turns.

By the time you get to turn 50 Gondor and Rohan are more or less out, the Eldar are fight with Eriador (WTF?) and it's more or less you against the forces of darkness. Sooner or later I expect a defeat - onless I just fight through one heroic victory to another to overthrow Barad Dur...

One point is the absolute reliance on 3 or 4 units and still afterwards, only a couple more become available. I think more variations, new units, would really help balance the game out, for most factions. I mean compare the roster of Silvans or Eldar with Mordor or Rhun. Silvans get 8 units plus General and seige, when other factions have more combinations avialable (Minus OotMM). I'd recoment atleast one more infantry unit, perhaps more archers, or even light cavalry. I guess that's one issue for future releases.


The second thing is the economy. Lore-wise, I just cant imagine the Elves struggling to pay for soldiers, or even paying soldiers, yet I find my self bankrupt most of the time and new constructions - markets, studious etc are huge luxury. The towns income is ridicolously small - so far the only one earning above 1000 is the capital and Lotholorien is at some silly 600 gold. In the long term, sustainability for a large army is not visible. Sometimes I'm glad that I get sustain more casualties so my upkeep lowers.

I know this was kept as for the AI not to spawn huge elven armies, but the AI itself gets a gold bonus, but the human is left with high upkeep, big distances between cities against hordes of orcs. The balance, also the whole balance of Good vs Evil (as the hordes of darkness just rape everything), needs to be redone, to make the campaign last into endgame and actualy give a chance to the "good" side.


I mean the mod is an excelent project, the team has done an incredible job creating something, no comercial company would do (properly that is) but there certainly are bugs and difficulties that need to be picked out and corrected.

[Soul Firez]

an army of urak hai are on patrol near mirkwood forrest and they come across a old ruin . the comander halts the army and as they are setting up camp they here an elven voice yell from the ruin 1 elven warrior is worth 10 orc scum .enraged by such words the commander grunts at his 10 best uraks to enter the ruin .

the orcs roar in weapons ready and from the camp they here sounds a battle then silence. then again the elven voice calls out 1 elf is worth 100 orcs. thundering with rage the orc commander orders his best troops to enter,bring me that maggots head ,scowling at them as they marched into the ruin. again the sounds of battle rang out much louder this time then all fell silent and that same elven voice yelled out 1 elf is worth 1000 orcs .

Driven wild with rage the commander sends the rest of the army into the ruin everyone but him he waits listening and the sounds of battle are immense .silence descends again and a lone orc staggers from the ruin to fall at the commanders feet .well what happened the commander barked looking scared , the dying orc looks up at him and gasps, it was a trap there were 2 of them

[Gampie]

an army of urak hai ...

Haha, nice story. You made me laugh.

More on topic, the economy of the elves is indeed in a very poor state. I build roads immediately, just like in vanilla but the trade income is still minimal. And all the towns have a fairly low population so tax income is weak. In fact, the one thing that allows me to maintain a full stack of forest wardens and sentinels is the king's purse, which is 4600 florins, if I recall correctly.

[SigniferOne]

The towns income is ridicolously small - so far the only one earning above 1000 is the capital and Lotholorien is at some silly 600 gold.

This is important to keep the balance realistic: elves cannot be this steamrolling power, and even you as a player cannot be allowed to be that either. One of the best way to enforce that is through the pocketbook.

You need to be that elven culture which sits and sings songs in the woods, with a small elite army, waiting and hoping that the Men will come out on top and start their march upon enemy strongholds, at which point you can help them with your few elite troops.

I just cant imagine the Elves struggling to pay for soldiers, or even paying soldiers

Think of it as the money that the Elves are willing to pay for military matters, not the money that they have in total.

[Haerski]

My Silvan campaign had been absolutely the best M2TW campaign for a long long time. At first archers, especially sentinels, seemed overpowered to me, but after second tier opening up and some battles against cave trolls they started to feel quite well balanced. Killing trolls is hard job even for those super archers and you just can't do it without heavy losses. But thats the way it should be and it kind of counters the easines of start.

Economy has been the biggest problem which makes it hard to afford bigger armies without reducing defenses of your cities and that creates pretty dangerous situations. I have lost several settlements because of that (but eventually got them back) and even my capital has been threatened numerous times.

[Bulvine]

At the moment I'm playing my first campaign with the Silvans, at the moment around turn 50. They are really really challenging, i totaly agree.

It's not that they are weak, as sentinels of the woodland realm can mow down pretty much anything in early game, forrest wardens rape goblin infantry, spearmen can hold the line against infantry decently and light archers are good support.

I haven't gotten into the late game stage yet, but from custom battles the spearmen and swordsmen, plus heavy archers own big time.

The problem is, the lack of variability. For the first 50 turn, most towns - outside of starting positions are going to be left with spearmen to recruit, at best. Which is not enough for any decent defence. Plus so far Sentinels are only recruitable in one region, so most of the army is confined to light archers, spearmen plus the occasional wardens. This is all fine for a sound defence, you can fight the stupid orcess back to the mountains. But that's where you will stop.

To be honest, my only defeat came when I tried to assualt Moria. No. 1 the garrison script which spawned trolls at about turn 10, without them I would have taken the mines, but whatever. At least it's a challange. But it taught me that I cannot afford to wage war and sieges with light units, as that is the only thing available in the first 50 turns.

By the time you get to turn 50 Gondor and Rohan are more or less out, the Eldar are fight with Eriador (WTF?) and it's more or less you against the forces of darkness. Sooner or later I expect a defeat - onless I just fight through one heroic victory to another to overthrow Barad Dur...

One point is the absolute reliance on 3 or 4 units and still afterwards, only a couple more become available. I think more variations, new units, would really help balance the game out, for most factions. I mean compare the roster of Silvans or Eldar with Mordor or Rhun. Silvans get 8 units plus General and seige, when other factions have more combinations avialable (Minus OotMM). I'd recoment atleast one more infantry unit, perhaps more archers, or even light cavalry. I guess that's one issue for future releases.


The second thing is the economy. Lore-wise, I just cant imagine the Elves struggling to pay for soldiers, or even paying soldiers, yet I find my self bankrupt most of the time and new constructions - markets, studious etc are huge luxury. The towns income is ridicolously small - so far the only one earning above 1000 is the capital and Lotholorien is at some silly 600 gold. In the long term, sustainability for a large army is not visible. Sometimes I'm glad that I get sustain more casualties so my upkeep lowers.

I know this was kept as for the AI not to spawn huge elven armies, but the AI itself gets a gold bonus, but the human is left with high upkeep, big distances between cities against hordes of orcs. The balance, also the whole balance of Good vs Evil (as the hordes of darkness just rape everything), needs to be redone, to make the campaign last into endgame and actualy give a chance to the "good" side.


I mean the mod is an excelent project, the team has done an incredible job creating something, no comercial company would do (properly that is) but there certainly are bugs and difficulties that need to be picked out and corrected.

I agree 110% with everything here. The, money, the lack of unit versatility, the lack of cavalry and trolls on your borders...this is impossible to win when you can't ally with anyone and no cities make money...I played the High Elves and had money seeping out of my coffers...not so with these elves...need a port!

[Sator Mortis]

Don't complain about the fact that a TW game is finally providing a challenge. Silvan Elves have a great roster, a financial situation that's more than sufficient and a lot of challenging enemies.

Keep your alliances - attacking your friends' enemies always helps, and if you're really desperate you give them a settlement. Help them where you can to keep them in the game. You can't expect to win this on your own.

You don't need large armies as elves. Trust in your archers - aim for the fast units (cavalry, trolls) first and enemy missile troops second. Anything else, just run away, scatter and take out their units one by one. Only engage to tie up enemy units - and then shoot them in the back - or when you're out of arrows.


Seems like a hobby for elves to storm the Black Gate. Here's my attempt, the sentinels of Mirkwood and the garrison of Dol Guldur marching alongside the armies of Man. Rohan couldn't make it.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My second army, my elite Galadhrim led by my completely insane Prince. They cleansed Isengard of the filth of Saruman - I then traded Orthanc to Gondor for the military access I needed to march on the Black Gate, so they should get their share of the glory.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Despite the fact that he only has one command star, he get so many bonus stars that he has a full ten stars when he attacks. That's how crazy he is.

[kai]

I think the way they have done them makes them harder as you have to defend both lorien and mirkwood, but the distance to capital penalties limit a lot of your income and its a long time for an army to get from one to the other.

Also the OoMM are very troublesome. In my game I put more realistic alliances in between the good players. High Elves and Eriador, Dwarves and High Elves, High Elves and Wood Elves, etc...

Also I noticed that if you add 1 unit of elven archers and give 1 experience to the unit that doesn't have any in Rivendale then the AI manages to hold it for quite a long time...

[EdwardL]

Silvan are actually easy early - mid game

Economy

For one thing if you are a vet MTW2 player you know to move your capital in the center of the bulk of your provinces for best economy.

Regarding particulary Silvan, take note here..



"C" is the new capital location, and you can see that it borders 9 of 12 regions. So that takes care of the economy part.

As you expand, only leave behind troops to garrison which will immediately get paid for by first tier garrison buildings, so that means keep the Sentinels moving. Garrison payment is just as much a part of economy as trade buildings and farms.

Strategy

Second thing is not to go pursuing Goblins into their mountain fortresses untill you are sure you can beat a garrison script. This would likely mean multiple stacks, so this will be later in the game. If you feel you have to go after the Goblins, work around their non garrison scripted centers first.

For me I just let Moria spit out troops and ambush them, or kill them on town walls as they try for uh.. Celeborn's town in the SW(cant think of the name atm).

Since you know where their troops are going to come from, send a general over there to set up a tower on the edge of your border to give you advance notice. Towers are always your friend. This means you can keep your defense relatively light over there for the small party actions, and if you get notices of a full stack you get a few turns to pump out extra troops for a siege defense.

You should resolve to take a southern force to knock out Dol Gulder immediately. This will greatly diminish Mordor incursions. You'll have to expect a few incursion attempts through the south woods entrance, so keep a light to moderate size squad depending on your performance with them.

With your northern troops, use them to expand south, racing against Dale to take rebel centers and trying to establish a contiguous kingdom.

You might have to leave a little garrison north depending on how the dwarves play their cards. Sometimes they soak up the northern Goblin action, other times they might not. I've only seen them try for Thranduil's Halls just once.

Once you cap Dol Gulder, move your southern force on the move to cap any rebel centers north which still may be untaken.

You can always decide to take Dol Gulder or one of the bordering non garrison script OOMM centers, and give it to the dwarves or dale, not only to be used as buffer regions, but also for a bartering chip to secure alliance or cash.

Units

For early game, Sentinels are great with their range and damage, but even the first elf archers have pretty good range and damage. So if you can afford Sentinels get them, otherwise you can use the first archers fine.

For offense don't even bother going heavy on melee units early game. For one thing your immediate opponents won't field cavalry, so there really won't be a need for melee unless you want/need to play siege defense as a part of your attrition plan. 1-2 spearmen or swordsmen is good enough for sieges or battlefields. I tend to just hide them away in battles, letting just the archers run amok with skirmish on. Having melee troops also means unaffordable casualties. You are just throwing away paid for units which you will need to beat back the waves. No need to melee with orc zerg if you can nullify their numbers by hit and run with few casualties.

When using the archer skirmish army tactic, theres a few things to consider.

1. flat or height advantage terrain obviously. I prefer flat terrain over height terrain because the nature of the skirmish mod means that your position will change, and that height advantage may turn against you.

2. Don't place your units close to edges. Make sure you leave enough space to move around.

3. Don't throw away your elve's long range advantage by spawning them close to enemy in battle scenes such as ambushes. You need to make sure that they go through the whole gauntlet cycle of that range advantage.


- The process of your archer volleys when your enemy is encroaching should be to hit the closest units first at max range, which are often snaga hunters or archers. This is to work down any potential counter fire.

- At mid range their numbers should be thinned considerable so switch over to those thick pack melee units. Get the most out of those arrows. Dont waste them on 50-40 size troops.

- At short range it should become a Louisiana duck shoot, hitting whatever is available, and running the hell away. The skirmish and shoot mode should work fine automatically, but occasionally you might have to move a unit or two manually which got locked up in melee. Sometimes there may be a few sizeable skirmisher units left. You should prioritize focus fire on those asap.



When it comes to sieges, particularly against rebels or early walls, your arrow spam should be enough to the effect of whenever they run out of arrows, you should be able to send in the general or 1 unit to mop up. The Sentinels can hit the town square from outside the walls on most siege scenes, and the first level archer units on many as well. You just need to park them in the areas where the wall perimiter intrudes, and preferrable when they are not getting shot at by towers.


And for late game, concering trolls, the best defense is a good offense. once you stabilize your borders, you need to work on knocking out, or severely dimishing OOMM in EARLY GAME before they have troll access.

This should leave Morder and for tactic I suggest heavy spearmen spam, with a few units of horse archers, not to kill the trolls, but to get their attention and fatigue them, which will reduce their defense. Make sure you have 1 or more escort stacks with you as you venture into Mordor, just incase the trollshit hits the fan.


Hmm I had only intended to write 1 or 2 paragraphs on this.

If you like or find useful +rep is always nice

[Aradiel]

Very decent strategy Edward, exactly how i would do it Indeed taking dolguldur must always have top priority, taking it out before it can produce a reasonable force is the key to consolidate the position in the south. The settlement north of it is never ever reached by dale before you make it to the core of the wood, they sometimes reach the eastern one first but usually fail the siege and u can attack in the next turn against a weakened garrison. The only strange thing i have discovered is that it seems almost impossible for silvan elves to make alliances. I tryd dwarves, dale, highelves, gondor, rohan and even saruman, noone wants to ally with the silvan even with outstanding relationships

[Cay93]

Of course I set my capital to the center of my settlements.
And I must say, this is an excellent little guide. +1 rep
Problem exists that i MUST have all cities at very high taxes and either build or field an army. Early to mid, it's just not practical to do both at the same time. Even so, you have to keep very good garrisons because full stacks come from any direction and be on your cities before you can react (even putting towers around your borders, they still seem to sneak up on you). Other factions I have played, this was not such a serious problem..Very High taxes at build phase, and low to grow pop and be able to have at least 1 or 2 armies. Also the problem dealing with assassins.

Battle Tactics:I love the havok archers do, but if you are fighting multiple armies (without trolls) when you run out of arrows, you are screwed. Especially if against a lot of enemy missle troops. Lack of effective cavalry is just salt on the wound. I think the best success with archer armies is a lot of micro managing to not waste arrows. One thing I have noticed (as with vanilla MTW2) for you to switch targets with your archers, it's best to stop, turn fire at will off and on, then target enemy unit..A pain for sure.
And I too perfer the flat ground. Seems when I try to be on a hill above them, on the battle map i'm standing in a big ditch, lol.
What I have been forced to do is modify my export_unit, _building, etc. to find a balance. (also fix a lot of things like that town that won't grow)

[Krechet(SiCh)]

Fuh. My favoritte faction. Now I have problems wuith connection but than it woulв у repeared I'll post my strategy like EdwardL do it )

[Krechet(SiCh)]

My strategy is more extremal but don't need such economy balancing. Wait till tomorrow and you'll see

[Gopblin]

I'm playing Silvan on H/H and I have to say I haven't had a real problem yet.

I guess it's because I took the fight to the bad guys as opposed to turtling. I took Dol Guldur by turn 10 or so, and went straight for OotMM before going for the rebels. I left Moria alone due to stupid garrison script, but the other towns didn't have it and quickly fell, by turn 35 I have 3 taken of their settlements, 4 rebel ones (usually on the way to attacking OotMM) and Dol Guldur.

I beat Orc armies on their home ground before they could combine into a really large force, and wrecked their economy while strengthening mine. At the time I have Tranduil's half-stack (all very experienced archers) killing off last OotMM settlements, Haldir's half-stack (less experienced) camping outside Moria hoping to take it in a field battle*, a force under Legolas going after the last rebels, and about a half-stack of reinforcements walking to Tranduil to help him out. Note that once I finish off OotMM I'll have no enemies bordering directly on me.

*I had a field battle outside Moria... twice... crushed the orcs both times, but then I click Exit and there's one retreating orc somewhere who's not routing and I lose the battle. AARGHH!!

----------------

As for economy and tactics:

Dont bother with melee units.
Only hire them if you don't have any archers available, and even then their only use is to pin enemy units so archers can shoot at them (flank charge - enemy stops close to an archer unit - gets decimated).

Consider this: a unit of Forest Wardens will kill maybe a hundred goblins before being overrun. A basic archer unit usually kills about 400-450 before running out of arrows, and since they're too slow to catch it it will fight another day... And basic archers are cheaper. And if you _have_ to melee your 2nd tier archers are actually better than your spearmen (but running away is a better option).

Don't bother with garrisons. All archers you can recuit should be out there shooting orcs, and your melee units will not hold a city against a sizeable force. Only garrizon as many soldiers as you can have free upkeep on, and only garrizon archers if you're expecting an attack.

Archers are most effective en masse, so don't use armies smaller than a half stack. Since you can't have many of those early on, defense is hard. Just go to the mountains and kill goblins. Oh and sieges are easy when you outrange the enemy, just shoot everyone not on walls, shoot people on walls from the side so they're not protected by the battlements, then climb ladders onto a wall and keep shootin...

Oh and put money into the army before you put it into economy, you won't get much more money from city upgrades so just get as many archers as you can upkeep and go steamroll the OotMM, their settlements will be your economic growth. Oh and money/units from Council missions help a lot too.

OK thats it have fun

Best wishes,
Daniel.

[wupwup]

im lovin them. i havnt taken dolguldur yet (probably wont or a while, havnt had any orcish trouble) i have fought the OOMM back to just moria in teh mountains (but somhow they hav anther 6 settlemenss!!)

[Nazgûl Killer]

I believe the Silvan economy is just fine.
Same about High Elven economy, just ceasefire with Mordor and set trade rights with them (Trade rights with Dale + Dwarves as well), build a lot of trading buildings and you got yourself a good economy.
Same deal with High Elves, trade rights with Eriador/Isengard/Dwarves/Rohan, ceasefire + trade rights with OotMM, and you have yourself time to prepare for war, once your economy is strong enough and you have a huge army, attack OotMM, and you'll get even more money! (Trade rights with Silvan Elves)