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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chrisling" data-source="post: 398020" data-attributes="member: 6816">Actually, given that elves are no more prone to cooperating with each other than orcs are -- both are chaotic -- the superior intelligence, willpower and personality aren't precisely marks in their favor.  They're more willful and self-important than orcs.  Orcs are easier to dominate than elves.And I'm not ignoring the magic.  Like I said earlier, elvish magic supremacy isn't really supported in the rules.  They don't have Int, Wis or Cha bonuses.  Yes, in all these areas they're modestly better than orcs, but orcs are quite a bit better in fighting.  Given that the orcs have huge numbers on their side . . . .The picture becomes even more orc slanted if you include psionics in your game (as something like 2/3rd of people seem to).  Since psions choose the ability that their PPs come from, orcs -- with their exceptional Strengths -- make extremely good egoist psions, and those are the sort of psions that heal people.I also challenge that elves don't go around conquering orcs.  In my reasonably broad gaming experience, the elves have attacked the orcs -- usually muttering something about pre-emptive strikes or preventitive war -- just about as often as the orcs have attacked other people.  Indeed, as a gamer, I've attacked orcs way more often than orcs have attacked me.Furthermore, if you're fighting on your home territory, you've already lost.  It will be your fields, forests, towns and cities that will be burned.  It is bad, bad, bad to fight a war in your own country.And to address your particular point of using a rainstorm to kill the fire, well, uh, that will also work in orcish favor, you realize.  Given the general physical power of the orcs, taking away longbows as their weapon forces things to go hand-to-hand where the orcs really shine.Byzantine history is definitely interesting, because the Empire pretty continually shrank.  I mean, y'know, that country doesn't exist, anymore.  That's a pretty curious example if you're saying the elves are the Byzantines and the orcs are the barbarians.Another interesting example of what happens when you put barbarians against an "enlightened" civilization is China.  Repeatedly, China fell to the barbarians, be they Mongols or Manchurians.  The only thing that saved Chinese civilization is the fact that the Chinese and the invaders were of the same species, really.  When orcish civilization sweeps through elvish civilization, I wouldn't expect for that to be the case.(Tho' you could have some real fascinating games with the long-lived orcs "civilizing" their orcish conquerers.  I'm gonna do that one, some day.)We must also remember that those elves don't get along with each other, either.  They do not cooperate well with each other!  They are also chaotic!Furthermore, as I've consistently said, the constant warfare of the orcs probably works in their advantage.  It's all they do.  They fight, and the winners fight, and the winners of those fights fight, until the orc tribe with the most efficient military engine unifies the clans and they re-enact the Mongol Hordes sweeping from China to Egypt.  The fact that orcish culture is constantly under intense strain strengthens it, not weakens it.Just some thoughts, and often my tongue is in my cheek, here.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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