The name and looks are a bit misleading, here. The elves in EL are actually the race most akin to the sowers or the empire of ES. Theirs is the (wooden) industry and the (green) empire points. They benefit best from early exploration followed by heavy industrial buildup combined with fast expansion.



Where do I found my empire as a wildeyed homeless Walker?

For the walkers, use forested areas, best those with rivers. You get an industry bonus for each wooded field and the rivers will provide additional food to raise population. Also, forests and rivers get further extras once you develop the appropriate techs and build the appropriate buildings (+dust and +science for rivers in age I, +industry for forests in age II). This preference doesn't change and you should stick to the forests.



Okay, I founded my tiny empire, what now?

Unlike the broken Lords, the walkers should explore as fast as possible and get their three ruins for their main quest explored the very moment they research search parties (otherwise don't ever expect to find anything...). Step 2 of the quest should be assimilation of some adjacent race, so settling in that region is second only to researching negotiation and getting that minor civ on your side.

This should be your top priority, in order to get a special tech yielding lots of prestige/empire points for you each time you build a building anywhere in your civilization. That mechanic is your main prestige-pump and will allow you fast expansion and cheap city building due to empire-plans with many cities, early on!



To play into this, I recommend putting all pop on the fields and let them produce food, save for the memorial that you should build quite fast. It gives you the necessary prestige to assimilate the faction for step 2 of the main quest, faster. Once you have the tech to get prestige for each building, switch all to industry and start producing all the nice buildings giving you a major empire points-injection. (+5 per building!)



In terms of science, search parties, then negotiation with minor factions and afterwards the little buildings that may improve your cities should be a start. Industry before food before dust before science should be your priority to keep your empire building.



Generally, the major industry bonus you get by forests is very much needed to also give you a large prestige bonus by building rapidly, so you can hold up empire plans that either increase science and approval (age II strategy) or unit cost in age I if you're lagging behind in expansion. The three dust/pop and then building cost reduction is a valid option, if you already plan to redelegate people to harvesting dust due to a major shortage or for getting an additional hero. Otherwise I'd keep my fingers off and try to keep my people happy, despite the sheer number of them you're gonna misuse for growing buildings, everywhere.



To me, the wild walkers gameplay seems to be rather straightforward and I didn't encounter a major gamechanger, yet. Your people might get rebellious, but new buildings and especially age III techs can reduce the impact of that, severely.



Best minor faction to get

Either centaurs for +food or urces for -building cost. Soon enough you'll find yourself swapping pop back and forth to keep up your population growth, so you always have some new district to construct.



Promoting a city center and a district to lvl 2

Normally, promoting a city center or a district to lvl 2 by surrounding them with at least 4 more districts is not the most effective, unless you're enclosed by borders, villages, ruins or a desolate desert with your city. For the main quest to proceed, you'll need to have one of either kind, though. Keep that in mind when distributing your districts. You will have enough cities to be able to afford one or two prestige-monsters instead of getting more resources for those cities. You can easily place three districts around a city center such, that each of them yields good new revenue. Nr. 4 will basically be used, only, to promote the district/city center in the middle.



Warfare in early game

As you have only two ranged units that can't take a beating at all, you should always keep heights to your back and use your range. Forests in between your position and the enemies slow them down and give you valuable time that can be used to shoot them down before they reach you. As the main quest and therefore one of the most powerful early game abilities you can get absolutely depend on you surviving with those first two units for long enough, use them with caution.

Alright, as you compare these to the sowers I will compare the necrophage to the cravers. The Wild Walkers as you say rely on heavy industrial buildup, a strategy that always left the sowers open to early game rushes. The cravers were always the best at early game rushes and could easily overwhelm the developing sower industry. So will the Wild Walkers be able to survive an early game rush from a faction such as the necrophage?

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
Alright, as you compare these to the sowers I will compare the necrophage to the cravers. The Wild Walkers as you say rely on heavy industrial buildup, a strategy that always left the sowers open to early game rushes. The cravers were always the best at early game rushes and could easily overwhelm the developing sower industry. So will the Wild Walkers be able to survive an early game rush from a faction such as the necrophage?

How could we answer such a question so early ? Balance is pre-alpha.

But we can give "hints" : a rush need to be "fast" (thanks mister Obvious ), as the regions can be wide and there won't be a lot of cities. But the Necrophages don't have a speed boost (unless they aim for the +4move empire plan). And rushing enemies will let your borders open to the roaming units from minor villages. And those can be quite painful if you don't pay attention.

The necrophages are very fragile (and are meant to be, so I can estimate that they will stay "fragile") and wild walkers are "archers". Moreover the minor factions can help you defend yourself : their units can really help "weak" factions to defend themselves at start.

But at the moment Wild Walkers aren't weak at all.



As a general statement, I find that our "starts" are more or less "strong". But as I said, it's only a matter of balancing (empire plan, equipment that could enhance speed, heroes that gives more speed to units, etc.)

How to use your empire points? Get more dust! Getting more dust per pop allows you the fast expansion that you sorely lacked in the first 20 turns before winter. Put everything to generate dust, buy out settlers for new cities (one after a time, buying out some pop there as well and getting maybe a hero for the more lucrative spots), then expand with the power of the immeasurable wealth that is yours to take.