Good enough for me.

The Dwarves so far seem to be "well fortified but slow growing"

Yeah, the idea is that the two underground factions have more room to grow, and take longer. Slightly similar to the dark elves' weird start while orcs and humans are more normal

We keep swimming slowly in these dark muds, their only advantage being the fat blind larvae that I and my few faithful keep eating. But without sun my troops will soon waste away and perish! After yet another blind turn, a small bunch of dwarves tries to block our way and show a façade of utter silence, we're forced to make our way through them.

[If I had any digger I'd be seriously happy, there are diggable curves that'd make me gain 3-4 turns]

Orcs, Day 9

We claim a mine from a random Yeti.

TS

OOC: I don't know what your planned growth curve for the orcs was, but my expansion has been pretty close to zero after the first few turns. My wizard and acolytes are taking what they can, but the acolytes move slow and the forests slow them further. Building up enough fodder to execute the assassin and his buddy is taking time (after I lose 3-4 turns of production to them), but even when that is done I don't anticipate very rapid growth because of how slow rams are going to be traveling through all the dense vegetation. I may end up switching to the overused archers and spiders to keep them in the fight, instead of trying to use a larger mix of units (swords and cavalry).

As of this point, I've added a few mines, but I'm still sitting on only those first two towns.

updated my map edit .txt

We keep slowly trudging through the muddy waters, suriving only by eating larvae... And the dwarves who joined us given that they can't cross these waters. How did they even get here, and much less build a city?

I'm also having trouble due to slow expansion, but it's already both the lizardmen and orcs - if everybody's in the same situation it's cool.

Dark Elves

Indeed slow expansion.. but we are moving around the hills and mountains.

TS :)

Orcs, Day 10

We slaughter that assassin and his hapless body guard. We're the ones who had no losses this time.

TS

Dwarves, Day 11

We succeeded in acquiring our third city. Slow days.

TS

The monotony of this tunnel is draining all of our energy. We end up without even realising in the depths of a dungeon, the entrance was probably covered in mud. After a harsh battle with some undead, we're saddened to see that they were keeping prisoner a bunch of dwarves. We end up having to disband them, they wouldn't be able to swim in the tunnels like us. The few remaining troops advance hoping for some twist of the fate...

Dark Elves

We take a town so at least our gold coffers are no longer draining fast ..

TS :)

Orcs, Day 11

Our armies begin the long trek to...anywhere, really.

TS

After days of obscurity, we spot a dancing light filtering in the shadows, which grows less dim as we walk curve after curve struggling against the drying mud. Why has it become so hard? We follow this change because any change is better than the permanent darkness, and out of a sudden, we're blind!