CA, we need to talk about the Ogres

Sagez#6761

There have been many threads about the state of Ogre Kingdoms; camps, animations, Skrag&Greasus, overall balance etc.
There is some fixing to be done and I don't want to wait a long time.

At least 2 last dev blogs (or even 3) said nothing about Ogres or that the devs are happy with them. But there are problems and I'm really surprised that CA said nothing about all this feedback, like there were at least several posts on subreddit with hundreds upvotes, so I doubt CA didnt see that.

Well, we can write feedback again or just copy-paste it unitil we will get some answers.

I don't want to make a compilation of players feedback. We did a lot of talking about Ogres already and only gorgers got a little buff.

Maybe I'll make a compilation - probably that doesn't matter much, but topics about Ogres will return like boomerang until they will receive much needed changes.

Sagez#6761

Oh look at that, over 800 upvotes, post by Processing_Info

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/x5lass/ogres_play_horribly_in_ie/

For example, @theoldpharaon wrote:

100% agree with you on camps. Let me compare them to a similar mechanic from another race - Black Arks:

-Black Arks can move while camps cannot.

-Black Arks can launch attacks against settlements and the lords gain levels that reduce upkeep, increase research rate, and give powerful buffs to the army.

-Black arks grow fairly quickly and grant early access to end-game units, while also not being the only source of end-game units.

-Black Arks provide massive buffs to post-battle loot, loot and sack income, post-battle captives in a massive area while also giving powerful army abilities to local armies.

-Black Arks can be re-recruited with the same buildings and lords if they are defeated or disbanded.

-Black Arks are effectively unlimited and are limited only by the amount of time to do the sacrifice to Mathlann.

It's kind of an embarrassment that Ogre camps are so much worse than Black Arks when they are much more essential to the race's mechanics.

afverrall#1754

Ogres defintly need some going over, I love them on the battlefield but limited immobile camps doesn't mesh well eith the massive IE map

Processing#6286

Sagez said:

Oh look at that, over 800 upvotes, post by Processing_Info

https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/comments/x5lass/ogres_play_horribly_in_ie/

For example, @theoldpharaon wrote:

100% agree with you on camps. Let me compare them to a similar mechanic from another race - Black Arks:

-Black Arks can move while camps cannot.

-Black Arks can launch attacks against settlements and the lords gain levels that reduce upkeep, increase research rate, and give powerful buffs to the army.

-Black arks grow fairly quickly and grant early access to end-game units, while also not being the only source of end-game units.

-Black Arks provide massive buffs to post-battle loot, loot and sack income, post-battle captives in a massive area while also giving powerful army abilities to local armies.

-Black Arks can be re-recruited with the same buildings and lords if they are defeated or disbanded.

-Black Arks are effectively unlimited and are limited only by the amount of time to do the sacrifice to Mathlann.

It's kind of an embarrassment that Ogre camps are so much worse than Black Arks when they are much more essential to the race's mechanics.

Yea that guy has the right idea. We should all praise reddit user u/Processing_Info

Sagez#6761

Ok, here comes another one from ColdBrewedPanacea

Things I Want from Ogres:

More camps, movable camps (even if they have ass speed)

VCoast style camps-bound-to-legendary-lords.

Greasus actually having economy buffs. Like my god man he is one of the richest people on the planet and by far the richest ogre.

Buff Big Names or allow someone to have all their unlocked big names at once. I'd rather the former but the latter is likely simpler to implement as it requires literally no design thoughts.

Winds cost reduction on the entire lore of the great maw OR massive buffs to its effectiveness.

Units:

Gorgers get their old model count back. They didn't need both the stat and model count nerf.

Leadbelchers actually uh... compete with **** pistols held by the maneater boys? Im not saying they should each be holding a great cannon but it shouldn't be insanely far off like it is right now. Give them more range or give them more damage because currently they feel worse than maneater pistols which doesn't make any sense to me.

Ironguts actually have a niche outside of "**** maneater but their armour is a fun number". I get on the TT they were shittier but it was crap design then and its crap design now. Make Ironguts good at something. Their worse stats make them a bad frontline even when their armour should put them high up - give em a missle block chance or something.

Buff the Ironblaster you cowards. It was never truly busted - it just absolutely whaled on giant SEMS (its literal job) and that was only problematic because four of the factions on release were comically reliant on SEM's. An ironblaster should melt the crap out of a Keeper of Secrets in no time at all. Its a naked wanker vs a cannon made by giants that make modern giants look like orcs in comparison. It was only about as effective VS regular units as a set of empire cannons - which literally cost less than half as much in MP.

Make greasus hit like a brick shithouse. He doesn't have to be accurate - his current animations already see to that no matter how much you buff his stats. But if he does land a hit he should absolutely devestate whatever's on the receiving end because currently there is no universe at all where he ends up in a fight the enemy doesn't choose to fight him in.

Make Skrags buffs stronger. He's also currently arguably worse than a normal butcher which sucks because he looks so damn cool and his buffs simply don't do enough.

MP:

Give them normal infantry capture weight for their lads. Seriously the ogre kingdoms roster currently has no good units for capturing points. Gnoblars are expendable, ogres are monstrous infantry. Everything in the roster sucks ass at it.

Captain_Rex#1635

Yeah Ogres need a lot of work and a LP. It’s Call of the Beastmen 2.0 all over again.

Turned out that making them a cheap low effort Preorder DLC was indeed a mistake.

bli-nk#6314

Ogres are not in a terrible place but of all the WH3 races, they are probably the weakest at this moment with only Kislev in the running mostly due to the harder starting position of Kislev in campaign but Kislev roster is also better than Ogres as the nerfs to both hit Ogres harder.

Cathay roster is probably nearly on part with Ogres but Cathay's LLs are FAR superior, not even close to Ogre's LLs who are plagued with animation problems, speed, and weaker campaign mechanics (though Ogres really only need camps and contracts tweaked- in theory they are good ideas).

Jo_Proulx#5293

For what little I know about them, I agree OP.

I havent played them much to be honest, but I was very disappointed when I realized that deploying a camp in a rich enemy/neutral region wasnt providing any good income, unless I missed something. I was doing a test run in RoC campaign and rushed to Nan Gau to set camp and realized it gave me like 50 gold or something, like wow.

Also, personally their "wallbreaker" instead of making ladders and/or towers in sieges is borderline unacceptable. Its looking ridiculous and cheap. Give them proper animation to climb ladders. They are intelligent enough to use and make them, this would also give them something unique that other monstrous infantry dont have.

Beating big stone walls with clubs...seriously? Nobody cares about that really?

Might as well charge walls with cavalry then, so to not make cavalry so bad in walled settlement assaults.

Itharus#3127

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

Guttrench#8929

I’d compile all the suggestions here and in Reddit and post it under the immortal empires campaign suggestions. My ogre contracts buff one is 14 upvotes and the moveable ogre camps is 23. Lots of good ideas are flowing around and it’s nice to get these posted up. Hopefully they get enough attention to at least hit the idea board for the future.

Currently ogres are good early game, but start to peter out over the long term. The factions contract mechanic isn’t even worth using and I’d like to see that get boosted to make you actually want to interact with it. The two legendary lords are also weak especially for there place in the lore when it comes to their race. Skrag should be the de facto ogre caster and very Killy close up and greasus should definitely hit like a Mac truck and get the basic speed to be able to match his troops. Even if the poor guys need to push themselves to death for it. Big names are also kind of weak, but I’d like to see mechanics like this be more impactful and brought across to other factions. Like a dwarf slayer gets a “Demon Slayer” name or the Vow system. Especially since it’s a campaign feature it should be impactful and something you want to do since it won’t even effect multiplayer balance in the slightest.

Itharus#3127

Oh true, the contracts are pretty... non issue. So trivial in fact that I forgot they were even a thing. Those could use some work.

Nyumus#6699

We need Greasus to be an Absolute beast in combat. He had the highest strengh on TT, and was beating the crap out of Grimgor in the lore. He needs to be great.

Sultschiem#8734

Nobody cares for reddit, ICQ is where its at!

Sagez#6761

another one from Testabronce

Ogre Kingdoms are by far the most boring faction in the entire game, atleast for me. Theres nothing in OK that makes me want to spend two more minutes playing them.

The camps mechanic is idiotic. Your whole faction revolves around conquering regions and then planting camps made of wood and fur, that can not move once placed, but are far more important that province capitals because reasons. You have to deploy them and then basically abandon them ten turns later when your armies move again. Also, theres a cap for this cities so good luck. I honestly dont know whats the point of conquering an important region, lets say Reikland, and then having to plant a camp besides Altdorf, when the capital of humans is right there waiting to be filled with buildings.

I get the point of OK being nomadic mongolian fat **** of the steppes that move around the countryside trying to eat anything that moves. Why not "assigning" a camp to a certain Lord and allowing him to deploy the camp at certain areas and act as a forward base? Give it some cons, as taking a few turns to fully deploy it, giving him movement penalties for each building in the camp, suffering diplomacy penalties or even becoming enemies of any factions around the camp.

Their economy is also ****. Its pretty hard to have as much armies as needed, specially with the 101% anti-player bias IE seems to have.

OK units roster is also pretty lame. Yes, its the same roster as in the tt game, but i dont know how to feel about it. CA (working with GW) were able to create Cathai almost from zero, so adding a few more units to one of the factions with the smaller unit choice doesnt seem like a huge deal to me.

Captain_Rex#1635

Sagez said:

another one from Testabronce

Ogre Kingdoms are by far the most boring faction in the entire game, atleast for me. Theres nothing in OK that makes me want to spend two more minutes playing them.

The camps mechanic is idiotic. Your whole faction revolves around conquering regions and then planting camps made of wood and fur, that can not move once placed, but are far more important that province capitals because reasons. You have to deploy them and then basically abandon them ten turns later when your armies move again. Also, theres a cap for this cities so good luck. I honestly dont know whats the point of conquering an important region, lets say Reikland, and then having to plant a camp besides Altdorf, when the capital of humans is right there waiting to be filled with buildings.

I get the point of OK being nomadic mongolian fat **** of the steppes that move around the countryside trying to eat anything that moves. Why not "assigning" a camp to a certain Lord and allowing him to deploy the camp at certain areas and act as a forward base? Give it some cons, as taking a few turns to fully deploy it, giving him movement penalties for each building in the camp, suffering diplomacy penalties or even becoming enemies of any factions around the camp.

Their economy is also ****. Its pretty hard to have as much armies as needed, specially with the 101% anti-player bias IE seems to have.

OK units roster is also pretty lame. Yes, its the same roster as in the tt game, but i dont know how to feel about it. CA (working with GW) were able to create Cathai almost from zero, so adding a few more units to one of the factions with the smaller unit choice doesnt seem like a huge deal to me.

I fully agree with this.

Camps should be tied to Lords or at least be movable.

Ogres are just terribly designed. I just can’t for the life of me motivate myself to play more than 10 turns with them.

They are indeed the worst race in the game with so many flawed design decisions, I don’t even know where to start.

Scottishclaymore

Outposts also don't seem to work properly with Ogres...at least so far as I have seen, due to the fact they get their best units at camps not settlements.

Lunaticprince#9972

ArneSo said:

Sagez said:

another one from Testabronce

Ogre Kingdoms are by far the most boring faction in the entire game, atleast for me. Theres nothing in OK that makes me want to spend two more minutes playing them.

The camps mechanic is idiotic. Your whole faction revolves around conquering regions and then planting camps made of wood and fur, that can not move once placed, but are far more important that province capitals because reasons. You have to deploy them and then basically abandon them ten turns later when your armies move again. Also, theres a cap for this cities so good luck. I honestly dont know whats the point of conquering an important region, lets say Reikland, and then having to plant a camp besides Altdorf, when the capital of humans is right there waiting to be filled with buildings.

I get the point of OK being nomadic mongolian fat **** of the steppes that move around the countryside trying to eat anything that moves. Why not "assigning" a camp to a certain Lord and allowing him to deploy the camp at certain areas and act as a forward base? Give it some cons, as taking a few turns to fully deploy it, giving him movement penalties for each building in the camp, suffering diplomacy penalties or even becoming enemies of any factions around the camp.

Their economy is also ****. Its pretty hard to have as much armies as needed, specially with the 101% anti-player bias IE seems to have.

OK units roster is also pretty lame. Yes, its the same roster as in the tt game, but i dont know how to feel about it. CA (working with GW) were able to create Cathai almost from zero, so adding a few more units to one of the factions with the smaller unit choice doesnt seem like a huge deal to me.

I fully agree with this.

Camps should be tied to Lords or at least be movable.

Ogres are just terribly designed. I just can’t for the life of me motivate myself to play more than 10 turns with them.

They are indeed the worst race in the game with so many flawed design decisions, I don’t even know where to start.

yeah that happen when ca must used them for a pre order!

what a god damm waste

OdTengri#8235

Sagez said:

OK units roster is also pretty lame. Yes, its the same roster as in the tt game, but i dont know how to feel about it. CA (working with GW) were able to create Cathai almost from zero, so adding a few more units to one of the factions with the smaller unit choice doesnt seem like a huge deal to me.

Its not just that they didn't come up with new units its also that several of their units where implemented in the most uninteresting way. Man-Eaters and Rinox stand out as big offenders in this way.

Man-Eaters could come with a wide variety of special rules and none of that was implemented... instead they are all slight upgrades to their Bull/Irongut equivalent with ITP and that's it. Lorefully they could have gone ever farther on the Man-Eaters to Provide a wide array of different units. Also why are they all pirates?

Rinox are also just a slight upgrade to Mournfangs when they could have been implemented as the equivalent of a Chariot Unit.

#568367

One of the only things I want CA to put more work into adding more are increasing the roster size using their old unit champion trick. Where they take simple unit champions and making new more elite units out of them like they did with Bladesingers, Chameleon Stalkers, and Marauder Horse Masters.


In Ogres' case, they don't have any truly elite ogre units besides some very much unarmoured Maneaters. So I wouldn't mind Gutlords (Irongut Champions) as Ogre Elites since for some reason Irongguts are only mid-tier below Maneaters.

Captain_Rex#1635

OdTengri said:

Sagez said:

OK units roster is also pretty lame. Yes, its the same roster as in the tt game, but i dont know how to feel about it. CA (working with GW) were able to create Cathai almost from zero, so adding a few more units to one of the factions with the smaller unit choice doesnt seem like a huge deal to me.

Its not just that they didn't come up with new units its also that several of their units where implemented in the most uninteresting way. Man-Eaters and Rinox stand out as big offenders in this way.

Man-Eaters could come with a wide variety of special rules and none of that was implemented... instead they are all slight upgrades to their Bull/Irongut equivalent with ITP and that's it. Lorefully they could have gone ever farther on the Man-Eaters to Provide a wide array of different units. Also why are they all pirates?

Rinox are also just a slight upgrade to Mournfangs when they could have been implemented as the equivalent of a Chariot Unit.

Yeah they could’ve implemented an upgrade mechanic for Maneaters. Or for all ogres in general.

Now they are all just pirates… it’s such a shame. Making them the preorder was the worst decision ever.

But hey, they will get fixed and become somewhat enjoyable in about 5 years…. Yay!

Ben1990#8909

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

Depends on how you look at it.
If you want conquest then it's actually difficult. And the fact that Ogre Camps need to be razed if you want to put them somewhere else. This kinda hurts when you are forced to raze a maxed out camp.

Thus a simple solution would be tying the amount of camps to the amount of provinces. One dude on the forum suggested to have Ogres increase the camp hardcap every 2-3 provinces. Thus the research tree should also have camp hardcap increases removed from some researches for balance.

Still, even if a camp has a good army in it and is now mobile so to move them somewhere else or away from danger, it's still not enough if you have to deal with enemy forces led by high-level lords with army-buffing skills when such an army does catch up. Thus the Camp Tyrant should be a character like any orher lord. Could have his own skill-tree, could earn traits, level up and so. This way a camp would have a better chance in dealing against such armies. Bonus if the Camp Tyrant has a modified skill-tree to improve camp growth and efficiency.

On the other I will agree that this could warrant it being broken, but it could still be balanced. Have them move 1/3rd slower than normal armies due to all the stuff they have to carry and would be incapable of directly attacking settlements yet still be capable of reinforcing allied armies (maybe, I still have mixed thoughts over the not being capable of besieging settlements).

Bayes#3307

It might have changed since I played ogres many months ago, but they do not play as they are supposed to, but they are also very powerful. Contracts are useless, and camps are not something you should bring along with you on your journey, they are economic powerhouses you should keep deep inside you territory. Ogres have a incredible economy and very powerful units.

kyle_usmc#4407

Their camp system, and settlement buildings are pure wrong, but I don't hate their roster. Give me the land black ark or put camps on lords like they do with vampire coast

steam_164510764370bhwUOfW

Yeah the only reason i have stopped playing the ogres after 20 turns was the camp system.

Pocman#6295

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

The ogrs are terrible. Contracts are terrible, names are terrible, camps are terrible.

Neodeinos#5871

Pocman said:

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

The ogrs are terrible. Contracts are terrible, names are terrible, camps are terrible.

Skill trees for the LLs are also terrible, especially Skrag. Generic lords and heroes skill trees are surprisingly good though compared to the other WH3 races.

Sagez#6761

Neodeinos said:

Pocman said:

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

The ogrs are terrible. Contracts are terrible, names are terrible, camps are terrible.

Skill trees for the LLs are also terrible, especially Skrag. Generic lords and heroes skill trees are surprisingly good though compared to the other WH3 races.

Oh no, as much as I like you and your posts, I slightly disagree. Greasus is also in a terrible spot (worse imho) and has weak and laughable only four unique skills. Look at other lords, even FLC-ones - Imrik has a perfect skill tree with 7 (as I remeber) unique skills and is also very strong. Greasus should have at least 2 more unique skills and be a melee powerhouse. Talent that would give him 20% resistance (layers of fat as natural armor) to missiles would be also neat.

Captain_Rex#1635

Sagez said:

Neodeinos said:

Pocman said:

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

The ogrs are terrible. Contracts are terrible, names are terrible, camps are terrible.

Skill trees for the LLs are also terrible, especially Skrag. Generic lords and heroes skill trees are surprisingly good though compared to the other WH3 races.

Oh no, as much as I like you and your posts, I slightly disagree. Greasus is also in a terrible spot (worse imho) and has weak and laughable only four unique skills. Look at other lords, even FLC-ones - Imrik has a perfect skill tree with 7 (as I remeber) unique skills and is also very strong. Greasus should have at least 2 more unique skills and be a melee powerhouse. Talent that would give him 20% resistance (layers of fat as natural armor) to missiles would be also neat.

Greasus is the worst LL in the game.

Change my mind.

Neodeinos#5871

Sagez said:

Neodeinos said:

Pocman said:

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

The ogrs are terrible. Contracts are terrible, names are terrible, camps are terrible.

Skill trees for the LLs are also terrible, especially Skrag. Generic lords and heroes skill trees are surprisingly good though compared to the other WH3 races.

Oh no, as much as I like you and your posts, I slightly disagree. Greasus is also in a terrible spot (worse imho) and has weak and laughable only four unique skills. Look at other lords, even FLC-ones - Imrik has a perfect skill tree with 7 (as I remeber) unique skills and is also very strong. Greasus should have at least 2 more unique skills and be a melee powerhouse. Talent that would give him 20% resistance (layers of fat as natural armor) to missiles would be also neat.

Aren't we in agreement then ? LLs skill trees are bad, that's what I said.

Sagez#6761

Neodeinos said:

Sagez said:

Neodeinos said:

Pocman said:

Itharus said:

Ogre camps would be broken entirely if they were like Black Arks.

I felt like Ogres seemed pretty solid. They just aren't crazy OP or have mechanics that are I-WIN! buttons.

The sneaky ogres kind of sucked though.

But other than that my only real complaints are that Greasus does feel and look a bit lame; and butcheryboy's start position is crap.

The faction performs pretty solid though, I thought (Greasus does suck tho). I don't find anything wrong with how the camps work, either.

The ogrs are terrible. Contracts are terrible, names are terrible, camps are terrible.

Skill trees for the LLs are also terrible, especially Skrag. Generic lords and heroes skill trees are surprisingly good though compared to the other WH3 races.

Oh no, as much as I like you and your posts, I slightly disagree. Greasus is also in a terrible spot (worse imho) and has weak and laughable only four unique skills. Look at other lords, even FLC-ones - Imrik has a perfect skill tree with 7 (as I remeber) unique skills and is also very strong. Greasus should have at least 2 more unique skills and be a melee powerhouse. Talent that would give him 20% resistance (layers of fat as natural armor) to missiles would be also neat.

Aren't we in agreement then ? LLs skill trees are bad, that's what I said.

Right, another one from Julio4kd:

-Quantity of Camps. IE map is massive and Ogres need to be able to build more camps. The campaign is way different that in RoC and playing Tall is not viable. It could be fixed adding techs that give extra camps or unique landmarks in different places that add camps or something line Norsca, if they capture x mayor capital settlement they can research a tech to add 2 extra camps to their pool.

-AI Recruitment and camps: being allied with Ogres is a waste of time. They have low tier trash units all the game. AI do not develop their Camps, never, AI never build garrisons in the camps and because of this, they never use late game units. It is sad to be on turn 185 and watch the ogre being so weak and bad.

-Greasus combat animations: Lets be real, he is slow and very weak. He should be able to attack while moving like Grom and he needs some buffs in his speed (like an item that gives him some speed for some seconds). I do not mind if he is slow and hits like a Truck destroying everything he touches. But now he fails doing both.

-Big names and contracts: man, Big names suck, they aren’t relevant at all. Many basic traits are just way better, Ogres should be able to get more than one great name (accumulate them) or get real buffs like Paladins and Lord of Bretonnia. And of corse, contracts could not only give money and diplomatic points but could also give units to a recruit pool (like blessed spawns but these units are from the faction you helped) or items, really interesting items, like Cathay with the caravans, so the player is incentivized a lot to do a contract.

Sagez#6761

Another update from CA and nothing about Ogres.

Here, another take - this time @szymborawislawska on reddit, 510 upvotes

I challenge you: find me something worse. If you are not familiar: contracts appear every 10 turns and you basically have to wander to far away lands (and **** off everyone in your way) to destroy some random settlement (which means going at war with another faction) for... relatively small amount of gold. I completed two Ogre's campaigns (RoC and IE) and never did any contract. Its **** incarnate. You could straight up remove them from the game and I wouldn't notice it.

Geomantic web? Not even close. I recently done Kroq Gar campaign, and it gives you really amazing buffs to commandments if you actually care about your web. Yeah, its a bit passive, but unlike contracts, you actually benefit from it without having much downsides.

Norsca's mechanics? ****, they have amazing set of mechanics, I really dont know why people dont like them.

Great Book of Grudges? Have you played stunties after Thorek's rework? When you are in negative state it gives you recharging pool of instant slayers. Its a better and more reliable version of blessed spawns :P

reworked slaves? Nah. Its a passive mechanic that plays itself but it has enormous impact on your economy. Its boring, but powerful.

Kislev's power struggle? I recently did IE Katarin campaign and I liked it. It gives you fun buffs, introduces a bit of a rivalry and lets you confederate other LL which in WH3 is difficult.

HE Influence? Nope. My roommate basically forced Zhao and Ghorst to end their military alliance by the sheer power of influence. Its meh, but at least it has some uses.

Even Tzarkan's whispers, which is a previous version of contracts, are better since they give you unique followers and often require some chill things like "get more slaves". And now both sides of Malus' meters are amazing, so Malus is actually fun.