Elf Economics, Industry, and Warfare
A.K.A. Why the Elf Empire is still considered one of the strongest factions in the LDC.
The Elvin Empire, more commonly known simply as The Empire, is the largest polity in the entire Local Dimensional Cluster by the number of dimensions they 'claimed'. This means they own what amounts to dozens of worlds within their territory as well as having a population count that can otherwise be considered ludicrous for their 'technological' level. One thing to keep in mind is that Magic is a big determining factor in how different the rest of the LDC is from Humanity, something that was the backbone to the Empire's expansion and the central source of most of their power.
Economy
The Empire's economy resembles ancient Rome. Just instead of using gold coins as currency, they instead use a rarer titanium-based mixture for their coinage called Dex. A single Dex when traded with Humanity being more or less the equivalent to $0.54 U.S. dollars or so. Or, roughly, 1/3 an Akashic Credit. Goods and services are usually measured based on which 'Colony' you're on at the time, and the local resources with their ability to trade with other nearby colonies. Shit tends to be cheapest near the colonies with Super Gates due to how easy it is to get stuff from one world to another with them.
Recently though, they've been investigating the Akashic Pillar's "Bounty System" as another way to get extra resources along the front line to reduce the strain their armies tend to place on their outer most colonies. It's a bit touch and go, but results are promising.
Industry
On the outside, Elf Industry and Manufacturing looking downright medieval. With smiths waving hammers pounding away at shields and armor, and Elf wizards chanting over chunks of metal. What an outsider wouldn't know though, is that custom work for weapons and armor like that is actually for the high ranking officers and nobles that can afford very high quality work out of pocket. In order to supply their armies with arms and armor, and their civilians with required goods such as nails and processed wood, the Empire came up with a rather novel way to automate a lot of their industry.
How you might ask? Well, they use Necromancy.
Utilizing necromantic spells to animate particularly simple golems and liches, Elves have functionally bastardized automated assembly lines and mass-smelters. They use enchanted molds to shape hundreds of swords and spears at a time while strip-mining uninhabitable locations with armies of skeletons and treants in such a way they also slowly terraform the world they're mining. Most of the Elf Core Colonies were actually claimed this way, being beautiful icons of nature and livelihood, while having more or less no natural resources left. They even strip battlefields of fallen weapons and armor as well to feed the endless hunger of their enchanted industrial juggernaut.
In sheer output, they actually outstrip Earth itself, though they have nowhere near the same accuracy, or quality, that humans are capable of.
Warfare
Quite possibly the biggest question regarding Elves is how they manage to field what amounts to the largest armies in the LDC, and that is actually answered in the fact that, like Rome, they have a mandatory military service in order to gain citizenship. They don't do slaves -liches and golems are both cheaper and more efficient anyway- but in order to have any kind of say in government, one has to spend at least three years in the military. So virtually every elf -in some way- has combat experience and has armor and weapons left over from their time in the army. Meaning that invading an elf world is effectively assaulting a world-sized militia garrison.
On the defense, the Empire likes to raise thick walls and maze-like fortresses that allow them to use and abuse their usually greater numbers while limiting their enemy's champion-level combatants. Though, it's not always successful. On the offence, they prefer to go with slow and steady advances backed up by mobile war machines and siege engines that are in turn supported by mages. Usually in an effort to simply overwhelm their enemy in a crushing tide of flesh and steel.
Recently though, the Empire has also started collaborated with humans and testing out Akashic Pillar tactics that they can adopt easier without a need for high-level technology. This has manifested in "Elf Commandos" such as Aquila Riven, the Elf of Team GEAR. They've been trained to range far ahead of the main Elf Host as both scouts and saboteurs against enemy forces, using spells such as blast runes or exploding arrows to assassinate high-ranking Unified Darkness commanders, or damaging UD staging grounds. Some times even disrupting Demonic portals to cut off reinforcements from Hell.
There's been rumors that the Empire has also been trading for some old schematics and ideas from the Akashic Pillar as well, such as Tanks, but so far those are just that: rumors.
