I've been playing a simplified variant of [The Great Elf Game](https://www.teachmathematics.net/page/11174/the-great-elf-game) for a few days now and I'm struggling to identify an *optimal* strategy.

Rules:

* You start with 12 elves. Each elf is sent to gather a tree each day.
* You can choose to send one (or more) elves to each of the Woods, the Deep Forest or the Mountains.
* Elves will collect one tree per turn. Trees from the Woods are worth £10, trees from the Deep Forest are worth £20 and trees from the Mountains are worth £50.
* A new elf can be bought at the start of a turn for £75.
* Each turn a random number is generated and there's a 1/3 chance of a blizzard. If a blizzard occurs, elves in the Woods will collect trees as normal, elves in the Deep Forest will return empty-handed and elves in the Mountain will die.
* The Winner is the team with the most money at the end of 24 days.

Obviously the highest risk/reward strategy is to simply send all my elves to the Mountain (and hope like hell that the weather stays good) but is there an optimal strategy I can use to maximise my chances of winning over a thousand games?