Dark Elf

Dark Elf
Aliases:	DE, DElf
Introduced:	Round 13
Round Wins:	1
Attacker:	Beginner
Explorer:	Beginner
Converter:	Advanced
Alignment:	Evil
Land type:	Cavern
Scribes:	[1]

Dark Elf is an evil race of Dominion. They are one of the three wizard-races (the other two being Sylvan and Icekin). Most players consider Dark Elves as one of the more challenging races because it requires you to run high Wizard Guilds, which is known to be one of the most useless buildings in the game. They also lack the turtle-ability which makes it very demanding in both strategic knowledge and activity. They make decent explorers, especially if you are aiming high in the blackop rankings and also make good attackers, assuming that you know how to play them.

They are rather efficient, yet not as efficient as other 6 OP and 6 DP races as these numbers require you to waste 20% of your land. The flying ability of the Spirit Warrior allows you to run next to no docks at all so that compensates the need for Wizard Guilds a little and their 4 OP specialist gives you some speed early on and late round. Due to the undying feature of the Spirit Warrior this unit should form the main part of your OP troops while Adepts should represent your main DP troop. Most veterans agree on the fact that you need to use a certain amount of Adepts to be sent on attack as they compensate for the Wizard Guild drop and lack of Spirit Warrior-turtle once your land comes in. Usually 20% Wizard Guilds is a good amount to play them, but you can add a little more in case you are using larger amounts of Adepts to attack.

Dark Elves can be played as a very fast attacker, with low Wizard Guilds early on and a large amount of Gargoyles at the start, or slower with mainly Adepts since the start and relatively high Diamond Mines (300-500).

Furthermore, Dark Elves are picked to explore mainly because of their wizard abilities in case you are leaning towards spending your round blackopping others. Other races make better explorers when your goal is final landsize.

Apart from a quick-conversion on 1000 acres Dark Elves should never be used to do a mid-round convert, since their lack of turtle and need for high Wizard guilds (that are not beneficial during conversion) makes conversion rather pointless.

Unholy Ghost is most powerful early round, but drops in efficiency hard as draftees shift away from being a substantial part of one's defence. In classic Dominion, it was both a blessing and a curse OOP. It allowed you to neglect the draftee-DP of your targets, but since a script kicked in when you tried to hit people on too low DP, you could not attack them, while other dominions could.

Racial Bonuses

• Mana Production: +5%
• Gem Production: +5%
• Wizard Power: +10%

Military Units

Unit	OP	DP	Platinum	Ore	Special
Swordsman	4	0	325	25
Gargoyle	0	3	300	15
Adept	2*	4*	1000	55	Increases power by 1 for every 8% Wizard Guilds for defense, 8% Wizard Guilds for offense to a maximum of 7/9. Also counts as 1/3 a Wizard on defense, 1/5 Wizard on offense.
Spirit Warrior	5.5*	0	1050	55	No need for boats. Against Dominions less than 75% of your size, it has 5.5 offense and dies normally. 75% - 95% of your size, it has 6 offense and Almost Never Dies. 95% of your size or greater, it has 6.5 offense and Almost Never Dies.

General information

Racial Spell

Unholy Ghost: Enemy Draftees do not participate in battle due to extreme fear

Very powerful early-game spell when draftees make up a disproportionate amount of defense.

Pros

• Efficient OP
• Quite efficient DP
• Undying OP elite
• Flying OP elite
• 4 OP spec OP
• Good spell for the first 2 weeks
• High wizard power
• Raze ability, bounces don't hurt

Cons

• High demand for Wizard Guilds, hence low strategy variety
• No OP-troop turtle
• Hard to play unless on top
• Unforgiving when making mistakes