[PhilD]

I tried it again, building only Gardeners and Legendmakers. 3 Gardeners first, let me grab 4 cities (3 Gnome cities, plus the Elf city to the NE). Then I had several turn where I simply defended, killing lots of units and building one Legendmaker a turn, basically.

After that, it's pretty easy. You can let the Elves occupy your cities, as long as you don't let them take them (beware the Sentinels); and they tend not to concentrate on killing the Legendmakers, so you can build a critical mass of them.