Elves are boring. They are the Mary Sue of fantasy creatures. Creating an interesting game about Elves is hard. Merely using an elven protagonist is a lot easier.
And yeah, it would not fit the image of elves to colonize, clear woods, mine resources and all that. They are also not known to multiply easily, so colonization is really not a thing they would be fitting.
elves are actually extremely interesting if you take the time to learn about them, but dwarves are very boring and pretty much the same anywhere, once you see one group of dwarf you know them all already. You could definitely make city builders on elves, after all in most universes they appear in they do have vast cities
You cannot learn about them, because they are made up. In each game you would only learn about the specific made up version of them. Or about the cliches and tropes the developer used. Our elves are different.
after all in most universes they appear in they do have vast cities
What universes would that be? Because the standard fantasy trope of an elf is the Tolkien elf. And those are very few people in numbers compared to humans and they live in the woods. They specifically do not build vast cities. So where do you get that notion of vast elven cities?
Having city builder elves would be a trope subversion. Just like woodland dwarves.
i prefer to have rich and diverse elven cutures rather than the same blank dwarven thing they c/c everywhere, and yes elves in many universes have a vast and rich lore you can spend hours reading about.
Elves in Elder scrolls, warhammer, warcraft, DnD, the dragon prince, Eragon, Shannara Chronicles and even in LOTR during the first and second age live in huge and beautiful cities
