Wood Elves
Description
Wood elves are the rustic cousins of high elves. They prefer to make their homes deep in the forests where they can seek sanctuary and stay hidden from those that wish to harm them. To a wood elf the forest is a spiritual place, and they go to great lengths to preserve the balance of nature. Wood elves make excellent rangers, but they lack the resilience to fight effectively, and generally prefer to disappear into the forest, striking their enemy with guerrilla tactics. Wood elves are more tolerant than their high-elven cousins, and will often befriend members of other races. Wood elves are pragmatic folk, and can learn new things moderately quickly.
Strengths
Excellent Rangers, good Archers, great food production and increased food exploration. Wood Elves are not terrible at anything.
Weaknesses
Below average Assassins, slightly below average building and high Mutiny.
Special Ability
Tree Maze - Attackers often get lost in the woods looking for the wood elves. Roughly equivelant to the Confusion Barrier spell.
Food Search - Rangers can find a maximum of 125 food per land instead of the usual 100.
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The Numbers
Troop Percentages
| Troop | Quality |
|---|---|
| Archers | 300% |
| Assassins | 80% |
| Clerics | 200% |
| Fighters | 105% |
| Mages | 200% |
| Rangers | 400% |
| Thieves | 75% |
Food Modifiers
| Type | Modifier | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Food Consumed | 1 | For every 1 unit of population or military, 1 food is consumed. |
| Food Produced | 2 | For every 5 farm parts, 2000 food is produced |
| Population | 0.3 | Population will grow by 30% per turn if housing is available. |
| Cannibalism | 0 | More information on Cannibalism |
Equipment/Construction
| Type | Modifier | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Build Rate | 75% | Laborers are 75% as effective as normal laborers when constructing Buildings |
| Build Equipment Rate | 130% | Laborers are 130% as effective as normal laborers when constructing Weapons, Armor, and War Machines. |
| Armor Production Quality | 75% | Armor is produced at 75% of the studied quality. (i.e. 100% study means 75% armor.) |
| Armor Usage | 100% | Armor usage is normal. |
| Weapons Production Quality | 110% | Weapons are produced at 110% of the studied quality. (i.e. 100% study means 110% weapons.) |
| Weapon Usage | 100% | Weapon usage is normal. |
| War Machines Production Quality | 85% | War Machines are produced at 70% of the studied quality. (i.e. 100% study means 70% war machines.) |
| Laborers per War Machine | 120% | Number of Laborers required to handle a War Machine is 120% of normal. |
Misc.
| Type | Modifier | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Assassinate | 75% | Assassins are 75% as effective as normal assassins when trying to assassinate others. |
| Loot | 100% | Thieves are normal when trying to steal from others. |
| Mana | 150% | Population will produce mana at the same rate as a normal population 150% of its size. |
| Morale | 100% | Morale changes at the normal rate. |
| Mutiny | 1.2 | Read more about Mutiny. |
| Search | 300% | Rangers are 300% as effective as normal rangers when exploring for land or food. |
| Spy | 90% | Spies are 90% as effective as normal spies. |
| General Study | 100% | Study of non-magic areas and general magic skill proceeds at the normal study rate. |
| Spell Study | 100% | Study in realms of magic proceeds at the normal spell study rate. |
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Strategies
Farming
If you're not Ranger Farming, or constantly Fasting, then you want a ratio of 16 Farms to 4 Villages for maximum food production. (That's 80 Farm Parts for 60 Village Parts.) This will give you 32,000 Food per Turn. Minus your population (10,400), you will have enough food left for 21,600 Troops.
At higher land sizes, a more exact ratio is possible. This is 300 Farms to 77 Villages. (1500 Farm Parts to 1155 Village Parts. 2655 Land total.) This will give you 600,000 Food per Turn. You will have exactly 200,000 population, and thus enough food left for 400,000 troops.
Ranger Farming
Exploring for food gets wood elves a decent boost to the amount of troops they can feed.
General Strategies
With any race, the key to success, especially in an alliance situation, is playing to the strengths of your race. With woodelves, that means doing alot of searching and not being too aggressive.
The advantages of woodelves are many - they're very well balanced. They can produce decent mana, they produce GREAT food, their base troops are pretty good, they can build & study decently, and they are some of the best searchers in the game. All this taken together means you should play it peacefully, especially in the beginning. While other races will find themselves struggling to search for land after they've hit 1000 or so, as long as you hire plenty of rangers, you'll be able to find yourself searching at 10+ land per turn all the way up into the multiple thousands.
This means you can acquire a big land mass without giving out any retals, which is a big, big advantage. In Shadowmere, land is power - as long as you cover it in buildings. If you search for a ton of land and don't do anything with it, you're just a target. The general idea here is that you acquire a bunch of land and use it to build alot of villages, market places, colliseums, and troop training buildings. You can very quickly become an economic and troop trading powerhouse, and when someone finally hits you to try and steal some of that sweet woodie land, you can use your economic power to build a huge army and REALLY punish them for it.
One other reason not to be too aggressive - woodelf mutiny mod is pretty poor. This means, as with other races with poor mutiny, you have to wait for someone to hit you first, so you can retaliate without risk of mutiny.