Hello all I would like to know, Is the only way to get an alliance with the Elves, or any race really, to find a Province/Land with them as the race?

This is in regards to SINGLE SCENARIO mostly not the campaign although that answer could be good as well.

Also how can you get the quest for them? How "good" do you have to be to unlock it and What is it?

Thanks in advance.

yes you need a province with the race you want as your ally as inhabitants and then you need to choose negotiate instead of attacking this will open some dialogue options and if you are good enough (or your hero has high enough diplomacy) you will receive the quest
here is a list of some of the quests i have encountered so far:
elves - rescue the elven maidens from the evil mages - you need to find a mage tower location and clear it - it is not always the first mage tower you find so you might need to keep on searching
centaurs - revenge the fallen brethren - you need to kill 5 ogres to complete this quest
dwarves - return the golden axe of the king - you need to find and clear a bandits lair location - like the mage tower the first you find might not be the right one
goblins - bring the goblin king a present - kill 5 elves so the goblins king can make a necklace out of their ears
halfings - i forgot this one maybe someone else can help

Good thing about allying is that it allows you to ally all provinces of that race by completing one quest.

Halflings want you to kill 15 robbers. I am not certain but most likely it means thiefs (or brigands but I think thiefs).
Lizardmen want you to kill 6 giant slugs.

It means Brigands, just finished it.

Orcs, IIRC, want you to pillage two or three human provinces.

elves - rescue the elven maidens from the evil mages - randomly after win in mage tower. Possible to rewind if you don't get it from first try(sometimes worth it)
dwarves - return the golden axe of the king - you need to find and clear a bandits lair location - Lair always can be found in previously neutral bandit province. Possible to rewind if you don't get it from first try(sometimes worth it). Possible to simple buy their alliance.
orcs asks to get 100 gold from pillaging.

I did NOT know that a lair always appears there... that really saves on the searching. I tried to ally dwarves a few times and could never find enough of those even if I spent most of the game exploring provinces.... Edit in a NOT into that sentence.

Hey all thanks for the responses. There is one thing though still unanswered about the Elves quest and that is just how good does your karma need to be, or how high a level of Diplomacy, is needed to get the quest from the Elves?

I have Been I believe upto Good as my Karmic title and I don't believe they would give me the quest at that time.

Good is the 4th title after Honest, Just and Merciful. I have not gotten to Wise I believe in a single scenario yet though.

Someone posted it in another thread here, don't remember which one though.
There are several combinations of karma, hero level, and hero diplomacy skill which would satisfy the elves.

If you look through threads here you will probably find it

Diplomacy shouldn't be important, only karma (kind isn't enough, I think at least merciful), in my last shard I had the quest very early with 0 or 1 diplomacy

Can also confirm that I did the Elves quest without diplomacy, it was with a warrior. I did have the highest karma,The Pure.

Ok well I did find the thread I think you meant.

http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_genesis/foreign_quarters_and_alliances

Ok I can confirm a few things that were in the thread posted above. BOTH Karma and Diplomacy seem to matter here. I recently tried with a Hero with Dip 1 and JUST karma and couldn't get past first part of negotiation. One turn later he had Diplomacy 2 and was able to get the the 2nd screen but NOT able to choose the option How do I gain Your Trust or something like that. Oh an on Hero without Diplomacy I could not even choose "I come in Peace" which is first screen after you choose Negotiate.

Level doesn't matter. In campaign, if you maintain high Karma, you can take their quest with 0 level hero straight away.

Maybe I am mixing them up with centaurs then...
What if you have neutral karma though?