Dark Elf minions

Thy tyrant and ruler of the world Dark Elf has many minions who serve him faithfully. They are his best captains, generals and mages, and are generally known as minions.
Minion is not a human player, but is played by computer. Minions (save for certain exceptions) behave as human players, but of course you can't communicate with them and negotiate peace or cooperation.

Where can I meet a minion?

Some leagues already start with a preset number of minions on the map. In most leagues, if there are some unoccupied lands in a later stage of the game, Dark Elf will send his minion to this land. Objective of the minion is to harass players and make it harder for them to defeat Dark Elf.
Large battles with minions can be seen in Racial leagues (R1, R2, R3, ...), where each age has different conditions (scenarios include only certain races allowed, preset alliances of races etc.) and where sometimes the minions are playing together with human players in one alliance.

How to fight a minion

All minions (except Category 5), if given enough room and time, will conquer many lands and become almost unstoppable. Show your courage when fighting a minion, try to capture lands close to him so that his development is slowed down. Minions mostly have Alliance treaty between their lands, increasing defense, which means you should send powerful attacks against a minion.

Playing it safe (defending borders with Alliance treaties and using Free Pass treaty to attack from your interior lands) brings often best results. If you ignore the minion - don't attack him and don't cast spells on him - he will very probably concentrate on other players (strongest first) and will let you be, at least for some time. Minion can even offer you Peace treaty in some lands, which does not mean he wouldn't attack somewhere else.
If you have a minion in your alliance, he will never take funds from alliance treasury. They also never build special buildings and don't use special spells.

Minion categories - how well they play?

Strength as described here is an estimate, and based on assumption that both sides have the same starting conditions, which is hardly ever true. It should just give you the general picture of how dangerous it can be to meddle with stronger minions.

Flag Category Strength Description
Category 1 = Dark Elf Takes 4 elite players to defeat him Follows the same rules as human players, but has extreme income
Category 2 Takes 2 elite players to defeat him Follows the same rules as human players, but has much higher income
Category 3 Elite player can defeat him alone Follows the same rules as human players, but has slightly higher income
Category 4 Average player can defeat him Follows the same rules as human players
Category 5 Even weak player can defeat him Builds and attacks randomly. Can even build the same building twice in one land