Dwarfs at a glance Thread - Conquest of Elysium 3

Rather then a full guide, I'll just do an introductory summary split into 3 sections: The bad, The good, Tips.

Dwarfs at a glance

The bad
- You can't actually recruit troops. Barring the rare overpriced human mercs. Your troop generation is less flexible then other classes.

- Your unit generator, Dvala, is limited to 1 per mine (coal mine doesn't count, gold stream counts as a mine).

- Your start can be slow, as you first need 50 diamonds to summon a rune smith (Dvala ability), then 250 gold to create a dvala with a rune smith at a new mine. You often will need to wait til late 2nd - 3rd year before you can set up a 2nd colony. You first 4 years or so will be your most vulnerable period.

- You get -1 gold income from all population centers.

- You are predictable and one-dimensional: tough dwarven muscle! Mines!

- Your archers (arbalest) are in general weaker then average (crossbowman) barring rare circumstances. They fire once every 3 turns, but capable of doing double digit damage. In most case though it's overkill, however, arbalest is what you got and it's opening barrage damage potential is a bonus in its favor. An example where they perform better then crossbowman: When attacking locations with fortification class 2-3 with armored defenders, where even crossbowman have a tough time dealing good damage. Or when fighting battles that last 1-2 rounds.

- God the micro, with a few colonies under your belt upgrading dwarfs routinely becomes a real chore. And if you are impulsive about keeping up good logistics this is even more hellish.

- All the dwarven sprites are small, similar looking and arranged in a random order. When you have a decent sized army, trying to see what you actually have and assigning them will make your eyes water when all the dwarfs melt into one wriggling blob. Protip: Stay off acid, shrooms and other psychedelic substances when playing dwarfs.

The good
- You get double income (gold and iron) from mines (including gold stream).

- Your colonies generate decent troops that can easily be upgraded to something excellent using mostly iron, which you get 2x bonus income on. All your mines and fort can perform this upgrade.

- Dwarven troops have mountain walk, and are some of the best basic melee troopset among all the classes. Their heavy infantry (guards) in particular is monstrously tough.

- Your gem summons are cheap and spectacular. I'd rate dwarfs as having the best value for gems spent.

- You have little gold expenditure and gold shortage is rarely a problem. The only major expenditure is dvala at 250 gold per.

- You are one of those rare class that can team up well with class that need population centers (which is most classes: gold/hands/sacrifice).

*- You are less spread out then other classes due to your focus on mines. They are your main resource node, troop generator and fortification all rolled in one, thus making your defensive logistic far superior to other class. Whereas other classes can be raided easily as their forts are seperate from their multitude of resource nodes and their forces are more spread out, yours is all rolled into 1 location, raiding dwarfs is far less fruitful relatively. Also Dvala are stationary and are pretty decent caster, making assault into established dwarven colonies tough. I'd rate this as their most powerful advantage, they are the only class I play that I never feel thinly spread, with little to no logistic bottleneck, and having focused, rock solid defense without sacrificing any expansion potential.

- Cheap leaders on demand, no events needed like the other classes in order to recruit them, rare cases like burgmeister can compete with you on cost (but not availability). This gives you some of the best logistics while your logistical needs are already among the lowest. Combined with their advantage listed in previous entry, their excellent basic troopset, and their amazing gem summon value, you have one of the best class in the game.

Tips
- Do not scry for mines in the start which cost 5 diamonds, your priority is to save up for 50 diamonds to summon a rune smith and set up a 2nd colony asap.

- Your first runesmith is very precious, losing him can mean defeat. Likewise with your first new colony. The first 4 years or so is your most vulnerable.

- Scrying reveals a random mine that could be located on the far side of the moon. That said it's pretty useful, just keep in mind its quirks and when to use it (after you have your 1st rune smith at the very least).

- Dvala are immobile and can only be summoned at a mine (not coal mine) by a rune smith at 250 gold, limited to 1 per mine. A Dvala can in return summon a rune smith for 50 diamonds and give birth to 1 dwarf per turn. Rune smith can summon elites using rubies / emeralds / sapphire in the presence of dvala.

- Elites come in 2 flavor: warriors and guards. Warriors move faster and hits harder, while guards move slower but is monstrously tough. Sapphire elites are cold immune, ruby elites are fire immune, emerald elites are generally tougher. Diamonds are for summoning rune smith and scrying mines. Diamonds can also be used to upgrade rune smiths and dvala, upgrading their spell level, dvala can spawn 2 dwarfs/turn after upgrade.

- Assign a lower priority to population center, ignore farms, and take hamlet / village only at little to no loss. It really isn't like gold is a problem for you.

- Towns, cities and ports are still decent prize, if only for the trade which is basically gem income of any type you want.

- Always trade for gems. You won't have much else to do with your gold besides dvala and the pocket change required in some upgrade. Exception is if by some strange occurrence you don't have the gold to build a dvala (usually early on).

- Naturally, focus purely for mines, which give you gems, direly needed iron and stronghold. Set up colonies in them asap.

- Dwarven guards and elite guards are hugely more resilient then their warrior counterpart, at the cost of being slower. They are perfect for defending mines, and are so much tougher that I'm often tempted to use elite guard over elite warriors for expansion even if they are slow (Though I do stick with warriors mostly). In combat value I'd rate guards as 50%~ better then their warrior counterpart, more when defending a fort. The exception to this is when attacking fortification and especially on top of armored garrison though you do need the warrior's damage to get through the thick armor.

- Once past the early game, Rune smiths lead your main expansion parties, as they can set up colonies (summon dvala), then fortify it with 2-3 casting of elite guards, followed by summoning more elite warriors (or guards if you trade speed for resilience) if needed to top your army back up for continual expansion. Dwarfs generated by the dvala can be upgraded to stiffen up the defense or be transported to your frontline armies by your ever abundant leaders based on how risky an area that colony is in (front line to a powerful enemy? Better stiffen up the defense)

- Overall a top tier class. A likely candidate if I want to challenge a high difficulty AI.

Edited by: finalgenesis

A power the dwarfs have, that I believe is unique, is their ability to instantly garrison any fort at any time. In the late game, if you keep 50 diamonds and 60 other gems (in batches of 20) in reserve you can summon a very tough defense (or nasty anti-raiding force) anywhere. All of your forts have a Dvala, the Dvalas can summon a Rune smith for 50 diamonds and then the Rune smith in turn can use his action points to summon 15 of some of the best line troops in the game. This allows you to defend, and it also makes raiding the Dwarfs extremely dangerous since they are also guaranteed to be able to recruit a leader that can immediately march out with the newly created troops.

One of the best tactics I have with dwarf is to find a prime site right next to a castle. The dwarf colonies are badly defended (just 1 shield same as any mountain). So I will invest a lot into taking such a site. That way if anyone approaches I can just retreat everyone into the castle. Of course the Dvala dies, but if I always make sure to have a rune smith in the group then I can return to re-establish the colony after the war. That one spot becomes my "Helms Deep" (last spot of defense)

Here are the stats for the dwarf summons.

Unit Cost HP STR MORALE MR ARMOR DAMAGE RANK SPECIAL
Rim Warriors 20 Sapphire 9 5 6 6 2 Slash (1-8)+1 front Cold Immune, MM
Furnace Warriors 20 Rubies 9 5 6 6 2 Slash (1-8)+1 front Fire Immune, MM
Dvalin's Best 20 Emeralds 11 5 6 6 2 Slash (1-8)+1 front Pierce Resistant, MM

Rim Guards 20 Sapphire 12 5 6 6 2 Slash (1-5)+1 front Cold Immune, Large Shield, MM, Slow
Furnace Guards 20 Rubies 12 5 6 6 2 Slash (1-5)+1 front Fire Immune, Large Shield, MM, Slow
Queens Guards 20 Emeralds 14 5 6 6 2 Slash (1-5)+1 front Pierce Resistant, Large Shield, MM, Slow

As you can see, all the summons are Morale 6, Armor 2, front rank and Mountain Move.

The key choice is between the Guard units, which have more HP and a Large Shield, but do less damage and are slow OR the warrior units, which do the more damage. The Emerald troops (Dvalin's Best and Queens Guards) are the best all round troops, but the fire and cold immunity could be really important in some circumstances.

Clearly my posting skills are not up to snuff. I spent ages formatting that

...and here are the stats for the mainline dwarf infantry...

Unit Cost HP STR MORALE MR ARMOR DAMAGE RANK SPECIAL
Worker 0 5 4 4 5 0 Pierce 1-7 front MM
Dwarf 25 Iron 5 4 4 5 1 Slash 1-5 front Shield, MM
Dwarf Warrior 40 Iron 6 4 5 5 1 Slash 1-8 front MM
Dwarf Guards 50 Iron 8 4 5 5 1 Slash 1-5 front Large Shield, MM, Slow
Dwarf Arbalests 35 Iron 5 4 4 5 0 Pierce 1-12 R mid MM

The thing that strikes me in reviewing the infantry types in this format is how little one buys with the upgrades from workers. To Dwarf (25 Iron), you get 1 Armor and a small shield (and LESS damage). From worker to Warrior costs 40 Iron, and you get 1 HP, 1 Morale, 1 Armor and 1 Damage. I am about to go and play another game where I spend a lot more of my Iron on Ballista, and just use Workers as my troops, with the summons when I am serious.

Finally, a look at the Commanders. The Dwarves are in the fortunate position of having unlimited numbers of commanders. This is much better than say, Burgmeister, where they have limited commanders who all die easily. Most of them do sit in the FRONT rank, which means they die quite easily in any heavy fighting.

Unit Cost HP STR MORALE MR ARMOR DAMAGE RANK SPECIAL
Dwarf Commander 20 Gold, 10 Iron 13 5 6 5 1 Slash (1-5)+2 front Shield, MM
Queens Councilor 10 Emeralds 15 5 6 5 2 Slash (1-5)+2 front Shield, MM
Runesmith 50 Diamonds 8 4 4 8 0 Blunt (1-8)+1 back Level 1 Spells, MM
Elder Runesmith +75 Diamonds 9 4 5 9 0 Blunt (1-8)+1 back Level 2 Spells, MM

The thing to notice is that the Queens Councilor has an extra 2 HP and 1 Armor on the cheap Commander. Rarely would it be worth it, unless you are rolling in Emeralds. The Runesmith is important because it is a caster and because it sits in the back rank.

I almost always upgrade my Runesmiths to Elder Runesmiths before buying more of them, because I like the L2 spell casting (and have few other options with Dwarves).

Edited by: TBShunter

spathi4tw wrote: A power the dwarfs have, that I believe is unique, is their ability to instantly garrison any fort at any time. In the late game, if you keep 50 diamonds and 60 other gems (in batches of 20) in reserve you can summon a very tough defense (or nasty anti-raiding force) anywhere. All of your forts have a Dvala, the Dvalas can summon a Rune smith for 50 diamonds and then the Rune smith in turn can use his action points to summon 15 of some of the best line troops in the game. This allows you to defend, and it also makes raiding the Dwarfs extremely dangerous since they are also guaranteed to be able to recruit a leader that can immediately march out with the newly created troops.

You won't be able to do this after the next patch, they're going to remove the need for a dvala to be present but you need dwarf units there to convert instead.

Well that is a significant change. At the moment, the summons are free. As conversions of workers, they are significantly less powerful (but still make sense, as it is all you can do with the gems). Also good to see they are fixing the income penalty (which is not working at all).

Excellent planned change I will say. Changing the mechanic to converting existing workers would go some ways to putting dwarfs closer in line with the average class.

I'm not sure if it means workers or dwarf warriors, it just says this:

devlog wrote: Rune Smith now requires dwarves of appropriate type to create elite
dwarves. No more force growing from the Dvala, so she no longer needs to
be present.

Means you need to have dwarf warriors to upgrade to Rim Warrior/Furnace Warrior/Dvalin's Best and Dwarf Guards to upgrade to Rim/Furnace/Queen's Guard.

Wow, that is a serious downgrade. OTOH, the upgraded Queen will now produce 3 workers per turn, which might make that a more appealing option for sure.

The one thing it might encourage however is the use of the Arbalests, which need none of this double conversion (Iron to Warriors, Gems to Elite).

indeed that sounds like the dwarves will be going from overpowered to (for me) unplayable. I have played dwarves in a number of games and as others have said, they really only get going when you get the first rune warrior to start using gems for elite units - if you have been able to capture enough mines. this change will force you to amass huge quantities of iron to make the warriors and guards, while also depleting your worker supply further. Barring incredibly lucky starts, how is the dwarf supposed to expand? one or even two dvalas will be hard pressed to make enough workers to keep the dwarf competitive with other players.

I think that the Dwarves and Burgmeister tend to plat better in a more defensive mode. People who try to go army-to-army dont seem to do as well.
They also make GREAT allies, even in solo games. They play very well.

I'll reserve judgement til I play the updated dwarfs and amend post then =3

It's a big nerf to be sure, but then the dwarfs kinda need it. Whether it's overdone or just right remains to be seen.

Edited by: finalgenesis

I'm happy to hear about the change. The gem costs of the upgrades may need to be tweaked down a bit from where they are now, but I think it fits much better with the theme of man-power (dwarf-power?) being your primary resource.

The New Model (Dwarven) Army

Since the patch has landed (3.03), the dwarves have undergone a facelift.

The main change is that you now need to have upgraded warriors or guards before giving them the elite armor that the Runesmiths produce with gems. This is a considerable nerf, and does affect the balance considerably. In compensation, upgrading to warriors and guards is a little bit cheaper in terms of Iron, an upgraded Dvala produces 3 dwarves per turn, and there is another surprise.

Taking those things in order:

1. Less iron to upgrade - This is important, because Iron will be the main limitation of your army. In fact, I found myself (in the one game I have played so far with 3.03) always running out of Iron, while having plenty of Gold and Gems. There is simply no 'sink' for your money or gems, so if you get into a winning position, you will probably find yourself rolling in both, with not a thing to do with them. You will need to save your Iron so that you can produce warriors or guards and Arbalests. The upgrade to 'dwarf' is a deadend and seems to be not worth it except in very unusual circumstances.

2. Upgraded Dvala produces 3 dwarves per turn - This is of very little strategic significance, under most circumstances. It would be unusual to have 150 Diamonds available to upgrade a Dvala, when they are also needed for creating and upgrading Runesmiths.

3. The other thing that happens is interesting and very in character for dwarves (spoiler omitted for the moment). It is, however, of no real strategic significance.

I intend to play some games on different types of maps, to see if the balance is altered. My fear at the moment is that the Dwarves are a very difficult choice, but this may change in some eras, with perhaps greater magical support. Dwarves with heavy magic (an odd combo, but possible if you hold lots of cities/libraries) should be quite formidable.

TBShunter wrote: There is simply no 'sink' for your money or gems, so if you get into a winning position, you will probably find yourself rolling in both, with not a thing to do with them.

For emeralds, this is not true. You can cost effectively use emeralds to create Queen's Councilors. They seem to be about the same value as Armors of Dvalin. For 20 emeralds you can create 2 Councilors, vs upgrading 5 Dwarven Warriors to 5 Chosen of Dvalin. For 20 emeralds, you end up with two Councilors (15 hp each) and keep your 5 Dwarf Warriors (6 hp each) vs upgrading which leaves you with 5 Chosen (12 hp each).

So if you have more gems than iron to upgrade dwarves (or no Dwarf Workers to be upgraded), convert the emeralds directly to Councilors and use the Ruby's and Sapphires for upgrades.

Good point. I now do exactly that, using all my Emeralds to create Councillors. In a pinch, you can even create a whole lot as an instant defensive force (OK, not SO impressive, but enough to defend against some snakes).

Diamonds you always have a use for, and can not get enough of. I generally use Trade to buy them.

Rubys and Sapphires I often have too many of.

I must say that there are times when saving 150 diamonds for Dvala upgrades is actually a better way to go than using them for rune smiths or rune smith upgrades. It generally depends on just how hard up for troops you are, but upgrading even a couple of Dvala will have a rather dramatic increase in worker production and workers can be used as infantry in and of themselves. In terms of damage output they are nearly as good as dwarf warriors and only marginally more fragile.

Can we talk about the Chosen of Dvalin?

I have played quite a few games with the NEW dwarves, and it is always nice to get CODs free at some point. However, they are not very useful, being neither fish nor foul? That is, their role in the army is unclear, and I respectfully request that they be changed to be useful in one of two roles.

Either:

- Move them to the Front Rank and make it clear that they can use their awesome armor and weapons in battle; OR

- Give them Leadership (1) or similar, and make them a clearly better army leader than any other dwarven option.

The second option would be my first preference. It would give these guys a clear role and value to the dwarves that they don't now have. But the other option is also viable. Give them your best armor, weapons and so on, get them into the front line.

What do others do with them?

In one game where I had lots of magic items I used CoDs for exploration and patrolling. The best of them had 24 HP, 4 AP, armor class 4, ethereality, floating, water breathing and was armed with a venom sword. Even without regeneration he had little to fear from neutrals. But I agree that currently they are pretty useless as part of an army... and you usually do not have enough equipment to make thugs of them. Of course, a free commander is still a free commander...

Team play is fantastic. Even if you are teaming yourself with the AI I find that it plays well. Or about as well as a non-expert player human does.
But of course, the team selection makes a big difference.

Dwarf Queen teaming up with the Troll King is almost a storybook writing itself.
But it also plays well. The Troll King is not real interested in mines and such. But it will stomp them. This gives the dwarfs a chance to setup multiple colonies early in the game. And since dwarves tend to leave units on mines, there is no chance of the trolls accidentally taking them. If you are playing Troll you might want to make extra effort to help the Dwarves defend early colonies. They tend to march everyone out leaving very few to guard. Even assigning goblins to stay and help guard would help. Later on the trolls carrion units can control a large area so that wandering independents are not a problem.

But Dwarves can team nicely with any race that has low iron and no gem needs. Any of the tree or city resource nations tend to team well with dwarves.

I think Dwarves need some way to make random magic items (either at a high gold / gem / iron cost, or just having them randomly get created by dwarf leaders at rare intervals); this would fit them thematically and would let them use CoDs more effectively.