Ever since my Landscaper build experience, I've been looking for a good dark elves build. Somewhere I saw someone mention dark elves with all life books, so this is my new experiment. I won my first game, so I know it can work despite how counter-intuitive it may be.

Dark elves have two major drawbacks: the have the slowest growth rate, and all other races hate them. Both these weaknesses are countered by the spell Stream of Life. It boosts the growth rate, and just as significantly it eliminates all unrest. Normally dwarves hate, hate, hate dark elves...but with Stream of Life they love dark elves, and they multiply quickly too. High Elves? Draconians? No problem.

The only drawback to Stream of Life is its expense -- 8 points per turn. But dark elves have the highest mana generation per population figure of any race, at +1 per turn, so their strength also works well for an all-life books build.

It does sound like a good combo except for the important factor that you cannot start with Stream and Dark Elves together as you need 3 picks for Myrran which only leaves 8 books instead of 11.

Also most Dark Elf units cost 2.5 times normal, including damn settlers which cost 150 production instead of only 60 like most.

So no matter what you do you will have a slow start due to having to research SoL to get going.

In spite of their fairly good technology, Dark Elves aren't really a late game race - their big thing is everybody getting ranged magic attacks, which are feeble by late game, but really nice early on. They don't really get any hard hitting late game units to smash things with.

I thus like to play Dark Elves as walking mana batteries. Play something that makes really good use of *TONS* of mana production, but does not rely on an 11 book strategy. I like Sorcery, but Nature and Chaos are also good. With Dark Elves, you can generate the mana to summon and maintain some fairly showy units, and afford to spend lots of mana per battle to turn the tide.

I agree with most of this statement except for their WarLocks which have Doom Bolt. A group of 4-9 of these can take down most single units. The problem that makes them non late game units though is that they suck HP wise and have not that much defense when you compare the fact that you need to build a Wizards Guild for them, a structure that takes 1000 Production.

However having 2 of these guys as defenders in any city you have is a good idea as then they can use their Doom Bolts right off the bat and can probably take down a Hero or two before they get todo anything.

DE's also lack the Engineer and have terrible relations with all but Barbarians. Even Halflings don't like to be ruled by these guys. 2 of the other 4 Myrran races, Dwarfs and Trolls, despise these guys only slightly less then High Elves do. As for Beastmen and Draco's they have the standard -20% relation that all but those 3 just mentioned have.

Also keep in mind that one of the major benefits of Myrror, namely Adamantium, will not add it's bonus's to magic ranged attacks only the melee atk & Def and physical ranged attacks like bow and stone. This along with Trolls really peeves me off as neither really get full use of Adamantium which is why I start on Myrror with a Arcane race the majority of the time.

Props to you for once again thinking out of the box. I don't know how much I'd enjoy playing this, because of some of the drawbacks EvilLoynis pointed out (such as not being able to start with 11 LIfe books) but this has given me a few ideas of my own. As UniversalWolf mentions in his OP, one of the benefits of Stream of Life is that it overcomes this issue.

The problem is how long it's going to take you to get Stream while not really being able to expand much because of the reductions that will later not be a problem.

Steam of Life needs 1,500 points of Research so in the remote possibility you start with it in spell book it's still going to take over 100 turns really to get. Well maybe 80 if your super lucky.

By the time you get it it will most likely be to late to be of much use.

I'd say this statement emphasizes the differences in our playing styles. You apparently like to go fast and furious right from the start, while I prefer the slow and steady approach. I'm fine with digging in and holding on until I'm finally ready to conquer everything in sight — by which point the researching and casting of Stream of Life isn't going to be an issue.

Actually it's quite funny but my personal play style happens to be the same. In fact I do not build troops normally 99% of the time until I have a Alchemists Guild up to crank out Adamantium boosted troops. Only then do I even think about building settlers to start new towns.

However I know this is NOT the way most people play and also that it's really only a good strat when starting on Myrror mostly so I try to provide advice that can be used by more than just ppl that play like me.

It's odd but I have never really been a player that expands quickly in really any game.

The exception to this is when I play all 11 Death books and just crank out a Wraith and start kicking but.

Remember, I'm not saying this is the greatest build in the world. I was looking for a viable way to play dark elves, and Life seems like the best option. They're an expert level race to use, I would say.

Next time I try the build I'll see how long it takes me to get Stream of Life. I don't remember exactly when I got it the first time, but I know it didn't take me very long to research it, because I was using it most of the game. Of course, there's always the chance you won't get it at all, but with 8 Life books, that's unlikely I think. Besides, you won't have enough mana to use Stream of Life early on anyway.

Nightmares, Priests, and Warlocks are all decent units. The ranged attacks for Nightmares are more annoying than anything, because you have to use them up before you can melee attack. Nightmares are not as strong as Paladins or Elven Lords, but they're good enough.

The Engineer problem (along with a lot of others) is solvable with Stream of Life. Conquer some dwarves (or beastmen in a pinch), and you're all set. Stream of Life means you don't have to restrict yourself to dark elven units at all, which is nice. War Trolls or Hammerhands or Minotaurs or even Paladins or Elven Lords...you can use whatever you find. Without Stream of Life, that's a lot tougher. Dwarves and high elves in particular really don't like dark elves.

I tried out the build, Dark Elf + 8 Life books. It didn't work well. I blame a starting position that could have been awesome, if only. . .

Started out with Mithril and Wild Game, which is nifty. Started basic development and summoned a Magic Spirit to explore. Found 4 other city sites on my mini-continent with Mithril or Adamantium, one with Silver which would be nice if I got some nature books from a node and learned Transmute, and a fifth with Gold and Iron. All good enough to support Capital sized cities, with minimal overlap.

Only problem, the fifth site was filled with a Draconian city. With Stables.

After being attacked by Doom Drakes repeatedly in the early game, I managed to conquer it. Cities with 9 Doom Drakes aren't easy to capture when you're Dark Elves and haven't had time to fully develop. Still, I managed it. Only to have Tauron come knocking at my door. And Sss'ra. And Horus. After I got massacred, I reloaded the start point and did Alt-RVL to see the starting position. Tauron, Sss'ra, and Horus all started on Myrror, and Ariel was all alone on Arcanus.

Also, I'm fairly sure I did not actually have Stream of Life in my list of potential spells, browsing through my still encrypted spellbook. So the game was a wash. Still, might be worth trying again.

Yeah, sounds like you had some bad luck, and some good luck you couldn't capitalize on. Elves always need a bit of time to get the ball rolling before being thrown into the fire because of the pathetic growth rate. I'd encourage you to try it again.

As I said earlier, I consider Dark Elves an expert-level race to play with. It's very easy for things to go wrong and very difficult to recover if they do.

While I'm sure it qualifies as cheating, I reverted to a save before the first big attack from Tauron started my game on the quick road to oblivion. A massive zerg of Mithril Halberdiers managed to reduce the Draconian city from 9 Doom Drakes to 3. By then I had built a Parthenon and could dispatch priests (and one Halberdier) for another go-round. This time, it worked much better - after using all the much more powerful Priest magical attacks, I was able to kill the last of the Doom Drakes (5 by the time I could launch the second wave of attack, 2 after ranged) by parking my unit of Halberdiers at the city gate and using Priests to keep him alive as the Doom Drakes suicided.

That got me the Draconian city much earlier, and I had settlers planted at the Adamantium sites when Tauron came along. I also was much more aggressive with garrisons, and was able to beat off his first big attack and steal one of his nodes, which did nice things for my power base. I think this game is now winnable, although I am not almost positive I don't have Stream of Life.

The moral of the story is that if you know in advance what's going to happen, you can make better decisions. Delaying my assault on my Draconian neighbors was a mistake, as was focusing on infrastructure instead of military power as much as I did. Being unwilling to waste resources on a military build-up of units that would soon be obsolete got me wiped out in my first try.

Your previous post convinced me to try again too! The game's far from over, but it's been one of the most interesting MoM plays I've had so far. I always play with small landmasses and 2.5x magic, FWIW. And I also do not have Stream of Life.

I got a decent but not great starting site: only one wild game square for specials, but luckily right on a river mouth.

As it turned out, though, my starting position was really good. I was on a fairly small continent...just enough space for 4 cities with minimal overlap. Another positive was one of those cities was already present, and was filled with dwarves. I also lucked out with heroes, because I got The Orc Warlord straight off, and with Heroism and a couple swordsmen (who died in the process) he manged to "convince" the dwarves to join me. Not long after I got The Barbarian, so I was in good shape.

Life has a lot of very useful early game spells. So many, in fact, I had a hard time choosing which ones not to take at game start. A magic spirit with endurance became my scout, and I quickly realized I was alone on Myrror. Another helpful spell is Just Cause. I scraped my mana together ASAP and got that one up because it eliminates 1 rebel in every city, which made the dwarves manageable for the time being.

I've had games with zero adamantium deposits on Myrror, but in this game Myrror is absolutely loaded with adamantium. There are seven or eight landmasses, and most of them have adamantium, often in doubles with one square right next to another. Mithril everywhere too...although none of either on my continent.

Anyway, I had just built a couple ships and started a couple outposts near some adamantium on the neighboring landmass when Tlaloc plopped a colony right next to the wizard tower there. Shortly afterward I noticed Freya dropping multiple outposts on a landmass quite a distance from my cities. She was clearly drooling over the purple deposits she found. I investigated her first colony with my magic spirit in hopes I could destroy it before it got going, but it was defended by a spelled-up basilisk. Not good.

What happened next is what has made this game so interesting: I got Planar Seal from a ruin. I had never found a good reason to use that spell before, but this one was perfect. It took me several turns, but I got it up, and then took my time obliterating Tlaloc and Freya's invasions of my plane. The game's much further along now, but so far no one's managed to bring down my planar seal, so I'm happily gobbling up all of Myrror while Freya, Tlaloc, Oberic, and Jafar (who's empire is getting quite annoyingly large) fight over Arcanus.

If you can get it up early enough and don't have a lot of company on Myrror, Planar Seal is amazing. It's especially nice if you can establish a foothold on each world before you cast it, but also before your opponents get established in their trans-planar colonies.

In general, the AI is too dumb to do what a human player will do with Planar Seal in place and exterminate any small colonies cut off from their home by Planar Seal. So you can often go from a single village on the opposite plane to a truly powerful city capable of producing a dangerous military, and able to be supported by the safe food, money, and mana producing cities on your home plane.

Planar Seal is usually one of my favorite world enchantments if I play Life. Crusade and Charm of Life may win me battles - Planar Seal prevents them entirely.

I've abandoned that game...not that it wasn't fun, but I was going to win without question and it was just a long slog to the end. It ended up being all of Arcanus versus all of Myrror, which was interesting. Arcanus was populated by nothing but gnolls and klackons, oddly. Jafar would attack my cities with huge stacks of beetles and wolf riders. In competent hands his potential power would have been quite intimidating, but there are several simple strategies the AI simply can't handle, no matter what bonus you give it. For one thing, it has no concept of how to create artifacts to maximize the power of heroes. Meanwhile my stack of 5 decked-out heroes can raze all it's cities without breaking a sweat. It also doesn't really grasp the concept of going for the kill shot of attacking the enemy wizard tower. It makes futile attempts sometimes, but the planning required to pull it off successfully is too complex for a game AI.

I eventually got Stream of Life from a node, which was useful.

I must say, I was pretty unimpressed with the dwarven Steam Cannon and Golem units. Steam Cannons seem to have a really short effective range, although they're decent enough within a couple of squares. Definitely not worth the cost, though. Golems...they probably have their uses here and there, but they also don't strike me as worth the cost. Neither one is as good as Nightmares. I think the best Dwarf units are Engineers and Hammerhands. The Engineers are particularly impressive for the cost. Not only are they great at building roads, but with adamantium gear they're quite respectable in combat.

The hidden gem of the Dark Elves is definitely the Priest unit. Everyone lauds the Warlocks, but those require a lot more investment and they're physically feeble. Priests can be produced sooner, have a really good ranged attack, and have healing both for units in the stack and as a combat spell. With adamantium, mine were usually tough enough to resist a few hits, too. My standard garrison for a walled city was one Nightmare and one Priest, and that was plenty. I'd add more units for front-line cities, of course, but for "safe" cities that was enough. I never even bothered building Wizard Towers.

I had a couple Troll cities, and in retrospect I would go with War Trolls over Steam Cannons or Golems. They're unquestionably one of the best units in the game, even without adamantium.