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The two issues that I have with the Greasus model itself is that he uses the drumstick as a weapon which looks silly, and that his jewellery has some weird lighting which makes it look like some kind of plastic costume prop jewellery rather than actual rubies and sapphires etc. I'm not sure how CA can fix him, but I think we all agree that he is nothing like what he should be (and can be).
"Back in the sweatshop in Ulthuan, we found an Elf, we tossed it right in the soup. Those hungry bastards ate Elf soup every day. What's the worst thing that could happen? Some little snotling chokes on a hairball and dies? So then you toss him in the soup. I was making money hand over foot, literally. Some gobbo lost a hand or a foot, I'd toss it in the soup" - Grom
Honestly Ogre being a race pack was such a bad choice, they so many minor race who could have been pre order and Ogre be a campaign pack just fine
Yes they get a LP but honestly never could really fix what could have been
Long talk short sense
Greasus is a desaster and i bet he not getting fixed any time soon if ever!
They should have been a major core of TWW3.
I disagree. I feel like we really needed a proper take on the four colors, red, blue, green, and purple. Particularly if they have mostly the same troops with different colors and a few specialty units. There's something about that formula that's feels extremely appealing and epic.
I do agree about the ogres, though. They need fixing.
Teeheehee.
Agree with last sentence.
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Can we all agree that Ogre campaign mechanics are in a terrible state and we may have to wait for years for these issues to be addressed?
I'll start this long-winded whinge off by saying that Ogres on the campaign aren't "unplayable". I enjoy their units in battle and they aren't in as sorry a state as Beastmen or WoC were Pre-Taurox and Pre-CoC. Additionally, some of their issues are less to do with the Ogres themselves and more issues with the general campaign and battle mechanics. However, this does little in the face of the mountain of issues the chungus boys face on the campaign (and to a lesser extent in battle), so we'll go through this point by excruciating point as I dissect each one of them. In no means is this list exhaustive though and I'm not claiming to the be final arbiter of what makes the Ogres enjoyable or not.
Legendary Lords
Given that the Ogre Kingdoms were a preorder bonus for TW:WH3 they ended up in a similar state to Norsca where they got only two Legendary Lords; Greasus Goldtooth and Skrag the Slaughterer, leaving Golgfag Maneater and Bragg the Gutsman out in the rain (for now.) There was some controversy with Greasus showing up on a wheelbarrow rather than his carpet of Gnoblars, and given the circumstances of Nurgle's most recent visitation upon this mortal plane I at least was fine with this. Until, that is, that it turned out that Greasus' attack animations are terrible and he's considered one of if not the worst LL on the battlefield, and his campaign skills simply don't make up the difference. Skrag is a passable LL, being a wizard with decent MA and weapon strength, but the fact that he has a single unique ability, no actual unique skill line and is unable to gain Terror or Regeneration via his skills when compared to a generic Slaughtermaster lord. Yes, he has unique Big Names, but..
EDIT: People have pointed out that Bragg the Gutsman by the lore is much better suited for being a Legendary Hero rather than a Legendary Lord, and I agree with this. If we get an Ogres DLC lord, it'll probably be Golgfag, but Ghark Ironskin could make a unique FLC LL with his Iron Rhinox.
Big Names
Why in the name of the Great Maw are Big Names mutually exclusive? Is Greasus Goldtooth's full name not Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese? Why is he only allowed to use one? Why are all Ogre characters only allowed to use one of their Big Names at a time? This feels like a huge oversight when compared to the Path to Glory Boons of Chaos, which are not mutually exclusive. These would be so much better if they were permanently active once you achieve them and you didn't have to choose only one at a time.
Meat
Now into the meat and potatoes of the Ogre's issues on the campaign map. Meat. The resource every Ogre army needs to keep moving, and it can be spent on Offerings to the Great Maw which give some pretty decent buffs. Every unit in an Ogre army consumes one meat a turn, but is reduced when in a settlement and counteracted completely when in range of a camp. This is fine if not for a few caveats.
While Gnoblars are cheap in terms of money and make useful tarpits, the fact that they consume the same amount of meat as all other units makes them cost-inefficient and in terms of lore, Gnoblars get the Ogre's scraps, not the same amount of meat they get. Gnoblars ideally shouldn't cost meat, or should have a researchable feature that stops their meat consumption.
Meat is generated via being in a settlement, being in the radius of a camp, winning a battle, and with some research unlocks. Raiding neutral or hostile territory does not generate meat, despite the fact that raiding is exactly how Skaven generate food. Ogres wander across the world, yet they're severely hampered if they stray too far from their settlement or camps, giving them no real ability to roam far unless you want to baby sit a camp. Speaking of...
Camps
Ogres aren't builders. They'll set up tents or squat in the ruins of long dead empires. Every settlement of theirs can only be upgraded to tier three with a small handful of buildings; the best unit you can hire from a settlement is Ironguts. Anything bigger, you need a camp.
And camps suck.
Before Warhammer III, if you weren't playing WoC with mods, you generally needed a few hordes to sit somewhere safe and build income buildings in them to fund your other hordes. Camps are like this, but you need them close to your frontlines to feed your armies, and they aren't protected via generating chaos corruption to grind down incoming armies with attrition. Just like old WoC hordes, rather than supplying their own garrison, Camps are stationary armies that have upkeep costs and you have to recruit and pay for units to protect it, and recruiting these units take up valuable recruit slots in your settlements or camp that your actual army may need.. This makes them incredibly vulnerable when starting up, as you can only protect it with cheap gnoblars and ogre bulls. Because it's so weakly defended, AI tends to make a beeline straight for your camps, and if you lose a camp battle, the whole settlement, all the money and time invested into it is gone, 100% of the time.
Camps do provide very strong benefits that nullify the food upkeep and provides replenishment even in hostile territories, but they're inherently extremely vulnerable and require babysitting for quite a while, and even when you think they're safe, the AI has a tendency to sneak around you and crush your camp with a full army. If your capital is attacked and usually either sacked or occupied, only being razed if you're unlucky, it's not that hard to build it back up. If you lose a level 5 camp, it's right back to square one and tens of thousands of gold down the drain in the blink of an eye.
Units
Unlike Norsca which didn't have a concrete army list on tabletop to reference from, the Ogre Kingdoms did, so there's notably a few holes in the Ogres' roster, namely Bruiser heroes, Yhetees, and Thundertusks. You could say there's a lack of Maneater diversity, what them all being pirates when tabletop models existed for Pirate, Paymaster, Empire, Arabyan, Nippon and Female Maneaters. Still, the roster is flexible and doesn't have any serious holes in it in terms of armybuilding.
Contracts
Perhaps the sorriest thing the Ogres have, and it's a core part of their identity as mercenaries. If you're not familiar, every ten turns, three factions will offer you a contract to go destroy or occupy a settlement or defeat a character in battle. Completing these contracts gives you money, diplomatic relations boon with the faction that posted the bounty, and either a magic item or meat for your army. And by "money" It can be as little as 1500 gold, asking you to declare war on a faction that may be far stronger than you.
Sadly, perhaps due to the limitations of the game's systems, this is the way that the ogres' mercenary nature is represented. If you declare war on someone, attack one of their armies or settlements to fulfil a contract, you're now at war with them and it's very unlikely they'll accept peace after you attacked them unprovoked. It would be great if you were able to attack as a third party, do your job and get out, or even be offered a contract by the faction your contract is targeting to betray your current contractors. It lacks flexibility in a big way.
While they have been changed a bit, given the payout is a bit more than it used to be and now that contracts only expire if the target is destroyed or the contractor is destroyed, it's still often just not worth the trouble and it's a painfully shallow experience. What makes it worse is that ogres need the money regardless. They're not a strong economy faction, they make money from battles, raiding, sacking and razing, and from contracts.
My biggest concern with all of this, is that like the Beastmen or the Warriors of Chaos, it may be years before any meaningful changes (or even an overhaul) are made to address the myriad issues Ogres face on and off the battlefield. There have been some steady changes made, but they need more than the occasional tweak to bring them up to par with the rest of the factions.
Of course this is all just my long-winded whinging over a faction that I love on the battlefield but their campaign mechanics and some of the choices made have started to grate on me enough to write this giant text wall.
Ogres haven’t been doing too great in battle as of late, so some work is needed to bring them up to scratch. Greasus has had a few token buffs, although we still recognise that we’ll likely have to go further. Ogre Pistols and Cavalry have received some attention to give them a bit more impact across the board. Artillery have received a manoeuvrability nerf in exchange for a mass buff to emphasise their role a bit better.
What can be done to make Greasus better, also when controlled by the AI? Keep in mind he's surrounded by enemies on all sides, Grimgor, Zhao, Drazhoath, Ghorst...
So, what can be easily and quickly done to make Greasus better: - he should start with first camp technology unlocked so he can make camp on turn one* - simple Bribe mechanic that a lot of people want - proper unique skill line with better talents - his landmark (gate) should also provide some garrison units - I would make Greasus Hall settlement unique by giving it 6 slots, why not? - maybe he could start with scraplauncher, it would make him better early on especially and later scraplauncher will be useless anyway
Keep in mind he's surrounded by enemies on all sides, Grimgor, Zhao, Drazhoath, Ghorst...
For me, he allies with Zhao as often as he wars with him. A truly neutral relationship.
doesn't make a big difference. Greasus is sandwiched between enemies. He has a bonus to relations with Ogres, but making alliances with Ogres only makes other neighnours angry... so Greasus will get into trouble because AI Ogres are easy prey.
Keep in mind he's surrounded by enemies on all sides, Grimgor, Zhao, Drazhoath, Ghorst...
For me, he allies with Zhao as often as he wars with him. A truly neutral relationship.
doesn't make a big difference. Greasus is sandwiched between enemies. He has a bonus to relations with Ogres, but making alliances with Ogres only makes other neighnours angry... so Greasus will get into trouble because AI Ogres are easy prey.
Don’t Ogre AI have recruitment issues that are solely responsible for them not lasting into the late game?
Keep in mind he's surrounded by enemies on all sides, Grimgor, Zhao, Drazhoath, Ghorst...
For me, he allies with Zhao as often as he wars with him. A truly neutral relationship.
doesn't make a big difference. Greasus is sandwiched between enemies. He has a bonus to relations with Ogres, but making alliances with Ogres only makes other neighnours angry... so Greasus will get into trouble because AI Ogres are easy prey.
Don’t Ogre AI have recruitment issues that are solely responsible for them not lasting into the late game?
I think so. I was allied with Greasus in my CDwarf campaign, and he never had top tier units despite having a solid territory (gifted...) to work with.
I only played them for like ten turns before giving up their mechanics are just annoying. And idk how good they are under player control, but under the AI they are trash, I mean I have beaten their endgame armies with cathay caravans and various garrisons. My impression of their battlefield performance is that they need a serious buff.
They are literally unplayable without mods to remove meat and give you basically unlimited camps. The Ironskin mod is AMAZING and CA should literally pay the modder to just import that mod into the base game. It is truly sad how badly they borked the Ogres. Myself and others waited years for them just to get a terrible horde army.
Ogre mechanics are unfun, plus they have that something that makes you think "wow, they didn't think this through". The most obvious being camps being unmovable. What is the point? That way they are just worse settlements.
Greasus has a problem hitting enemy hitboxes. Plus his mass is very low for a combat reaction radius of 6 that has to move faster high mass ogres around to reach the enemy. His animations need somw work too.
Ogre mechanics are unfun, plus they have that something that makes you think "wow, they didn't think this through". The most obvious being camps being unmovable. What is the point? That way they are just worse settlements.
Yeah, camps needs an urgent rework for sure! Their main problem in ogre campaign is - they need huge investments to build advanced military infrastructure while being quite fragile for enemy attacks. I see few paths for solving this issue:
1) making buildings there cheaper and adding serious buffs to camp growth. So even if player will lose one of camps, it will be much easier to rebuild.
2) increasing camp defences - here is my proposal: let's keep option to recruit units, but also improve camp defences with garrison and buffs. Each level of camp will provide us a garrison units, same thing with new buildings which will provide additional garrison troops. And even if camp will be immovable, player may increase numbers of units defending it to 40 (just like with WAAGH armies).
3) Adding option to move them - the easiest solution, even if it will cost some gold and provide limited movement range.
Perhaps someone proposed something similar already, but I just wanted to share this with others.
Greasus has a problem hitting enemy hitboxes. Plus his mass is very low for a combat reaction radius of 6 that has to move faster high mass ogres around to reach the enemy. His animations need somw work too.
He needs more mount options! Give him a Rhinox wagon and a Stonehorn!
"Assassination's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it."
Keep in mind that problem with AI Ogres is not only about their recruitment, but it's also economical. Greenskins have powerful economy, their basic building gives them 200 gold pern turn while Ogre building gives 50.
Greenskins have WAAAGHs too.
Poor Ogres get bullied because: 1. Greenskins have money 2. Greenskins pump out armies 3. Greenskins have better armies - and yeah, Ogres will recruit only Gnoblars and Bulls, voila
Keep in mind he's surrounded by enemies on all sides, Grimgor, Zhao, Drazhoath, Ghorst...
For me, he allies with Zhao as often as he wars with him. A truly neutral relationship.
doesn't make a big difference. Greasus is sandwiched between enemies. He has a bonus to relations with Ogres, but making alliances with Ogres only makes other neighnours angry... so Greasus will get into trouble because AI Ogres are easy prey.
Don’t Ogre AI have recruitment issues that are solely responsible for them not lasting into the late game?
I think so. I was allied with Greasus in my CDwarf campaign, and he never had top tier units despite having a solid territory (gifted...) to work with.
Hell, in my RoC Chorf campaign Greasus got killed and won’t spawn back in as a LL. His faction is alive. But the fat bastard won’t come out of whatever hut he is gorging himself in.
The problem as AI Ogres is that Ogres need a high level camp to recruit better units.
Thing that the AI never does. She creates camp which are useless and/or destroyed soon after.
OK really need an overhaul. Their camps need to be able to move (just like a black ark...), get a garrison somehow, and act as an anchor in the territory it is. The player should be incited to put them more in neutral or foe territories while atm, you have to babysit them too much.
Then, they need more "great names" and a total rework of the contracts which are totally useless.
Food could also get some more uses : use a lot of food to get a huge replenishment rate for an army for instance ...
Finally, each LL should get more love. They are not worth it compared to a Tyran ...
Can't wait for the future Ogre DLC. Hopefully Golfag will be a truly mercenary, while Ghark could get bonuses with Chorfs and bé able to upgrade some of his units with Chorfs arsenal.
And Yétis. Because Yétis.
Team Dawis
Dawis shall purge all their fallen Karaks, with the blood of the Greeskins and the skavens !
If they buff camps they can maybe mess with the AI spamming lords so we don't have high tier camps all over the place but atm they're terrible.
If camps could move and retain their buildings then it would be sensible to put a limit back on them and you would have something interesting to think about planning to move them as you moved your armies.
So we've seen the roadmap and there are no Ogres on it. My prediction is simple, CA will try buffing Ogres/making small changes while players will continue being rather disappointed with them. Having only two - very mediocre - LLs will hurt more over time.
Hopefully CA will at least make Greasus and Skrag better (unique skill lines and making them better than generic Tyrant/Butcher)
I don't want to sound ungrateful about the roadmap but it's pretty demoralizing. Ogres were fun at launch and the flaws of their mechanics were inadvertently beneficial in the RoC campaign, but they're supremely awkward and unintuitive for Immortal Empires. Between the release of Immortal Empires and the official insistence that Ogres are core, I was expecting at least something by this point, even if just an acknowledgement that it's something that needs to happen.
I guess it's also possible that fixing the issues could happen in any of the vague "Race" or "Gameplay Updates" sections of the roadmap. We still don't even know if they agree that the mechanics need help though.
Well, with the new dlc format, when they do finally get a dlc, you also only get a single lord because they removed the FLC lords, and crammed 3 races into it. So you'll probably still be a bit bummed that either Ghark or Golgfag will still not be in it.
CA needs to add both Ironskin and Maneater as LL. There is a great mod that puts Ironskin in the game and that faction is very fun to play.
Base ogres are not playable without mods though. You need the unlimited camps and meat free ogres and the ogre economy building boost mods just to be DECENT in IE. Without them? Forget about it.
CA needs to add both Ironskin and Maneater as LL. There is a great mod that puts Ironskin in the game and that faction is very fun to play.
Base ogres are not playable without mods though. You need the unlimited camps and meat free ogres and the ogre economy building boost mods just to be DECENT in IE. Without them? Forget about it.
Well, we won't get any FLC Lords in the next 12 months, so... Chaos Dwarfs were a missed opportunity for Ghark.
Give ogres multiple names and they have them all at the same time, no reason to have to swap between just one. Greasus’ full name is Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese, so it makes sense. Also please make names a lot more meaningful with really good buffs that make the Lord feel special. I want good stuff like upkeep reduction for the Lords army, army wide bonuses, local region benefits like growth, etc.
This might be a personal preference but either make camps have built-in garrisons or get rid of the upkeep cost for a garrison, I despise building a camp and then with my already garbage economy, spend money to build it up and then also be forced to spend money on units that cost UPKEEP to have any of them in the garrison, (yes it’s reduced and you can get a building to reduce it more but it still feels terrible to use). I get Ogres are supposed to have bad garrisons as one of their weaknesses but come on. Having to spend gold on an army’s worth of units and being forced to choose between having a good garrison for the chance you get taken by surprise but risk them doing nothing for like 20 turns but drain your money or putting them all into an army and have them used proactively but having no garrison is lame.
Let us move the camps at least, we get some tech that gives benefits for building a camp in enemy territory but if you are in a position to build a camp in enemy territory, you will probably conquer it in a turn or two, so what’s the point if they can’t move.
Make Minor Settlements give more econ, no reason for so little. Yes, thematically you are a faction that can’t build cities and mostly just pillages from other factions but Greenskins get absurd amounts of money from raiding and sacking yet their settlements also give good money.
Traversing mountains without Underway stance is bad, maybe give us extra movement in mountain areas, or maybe just extra movement in general, it would be thematic with Ogres being very fast and constantly on the move
Have a reputation mechanic for completing contracts for certain factions that give buffs depending on who you help so they feel worth doing. For example buffs to gunpowder units for helping Empire or Dwarfs a lot, Armor for helping Chaos Dwarfs, Weapon Strength for WoC, stuff like that and make it thematic
When hiring Mercenary Ogres, let us recruit more than one unit of Ogre Bulls and let us recruit units different than the standard Ogre Bulls like Ogre Bull variations or Rhinox Cavalry or something if the camp is high level enough( this applies to factions that aren’t Ogres but this is this an issue, why the hell does Zhao Ming have 25% upkeep reduction for Ogre mercenaries if you get like one to two units of Ogre Bulls)
Make Greasus not a fat, useless ****. If he’s gonna be slow as hell and still not that great in melee either, then at least make him give better aoe buffs to allies or debuffs to enemies. Skrag is ok but I’d still like to see him buffed. Greasus needs it more though.
P.S - I should have included this sooner but I really like the roster of the Ogre Kingdoms. Yeah it sucks we only have two LL’s and don’t have yetis or Bruisers but the units feel really good( I still want more Lords and the missing units one day)They’re fine I don’t think they need to be touched. Maybe a slight revert of the Gorgers nerf though.
So we've seen the roadmap and there are no Ogres on it. My prediction is simple, CA will try buffing Ogres/making small changes while players will continue being rather disappointed with them. Having only two - very mediocre - LLs will hurt more over time.
Hopefully CA will at least make Greasus and Skrag better (unique skill lines and making them better than generic Tyrant/Butcher)
Anyone would like to comment?
Chances are good that Ogres are part of the Khorne DLC. Thematically it would make a lot of sense.
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.
Didn't even get past turn 1 with ogres. They have like nothing cool that would make me want to play them. People like to complain Norsca is outdated, but Norsca is miles better than the ogres.
Comments
The two issues that I have with the Greasus model itself is that he uses the drumstick as a weapon which looks silly, and that his jewellery has some weird lighting which makes it look like some kind of plastic costume prop jewellery rather than actual rubies and sapphires etc. I'm not sure how CA can fix him, but I think we all agree that he is nothing like what he should be (and can be).
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1 · Disagree 1AgreeAgree with last sentence.
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0 · 2Disagree AgreeCan we all agree that Ogre campaign mechanics are in a terrible state and we may have to wait for years for these issues to be addressed?
I'll start this long-winded whinge off by saying that Ogres on the campaign aren't "unplayable". I enjoy their units in battle and they aren't in as sorry a state as Beastmen or WoC were Pre-Taurox and Pre-CoC. Additionally, some of their issues are less to do with the Ogres themselves and more issues with the general campaign and battle mechanics. However, this does little in the face of the mountain of issues the chungus boys face on the campaign (and to a lesser extent in battle), so we'll go through this point by excruciating point as I dissect each one of them. In no means is this list exhaustive though and I'm not claiming to the be final arbiter of what makes the Ogres enjoyable or not.
Legendary Lords
Given that the Ogre Kingdoms were a preorder bonus for TW:WH3 they ended up in a similar state to Norsca where they got only two Legendary Lords; Greasus Goldtooth and Skrag the Slaughterer, leaving Golgfag Maneater and Bragg the Gutsman out in the rain (for now.) There was some controversy with Greasus showing up on a wheelbarrow rather than his carpet of Gnoblars, and given the circumstances of Nurgle's most recent visitation upon this mortal plane I at least was fine with this. Until, that is, that it turned out that Greasus' attack animations are terrible and he's considered one of if not the worst LL on the battlefield, and his campaign skills simply don't make up the difference. Skrag is a passable LL, being a wizard with decent MA and weapon strength, but the fact that he has a single unique ability, no actual unique skill line and is unable to gain Terror or Regeneration via his skills when compared to a generic Slaughtermaster lord. Yes, he has unique Big Names, but..
EDIT: People have pointed out that Bragg the Gutsman by the lore is much better suited for being a Legendary Hero rather than a Legendary Lord, and I agree with this. If we get an Ogres DLC lord, it'll probably be Golgfag, but Ghark Ironskin could make a unique FLC LL with his Iron Rhinox.
Big Names
Why in the name of the Great Maw are Big Names mutually exclusive? Is Greasus Goldtooth's full name not Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese? Why is he only allowed to use one? Why are all Ogre characters only allowed to use one of their Big Names at a time? This feels like a huge oversight when compared to the Path to Glory Boons of Chaos, which are not mutually exclusive. These would be so much better if they were permanently active once you achieve them and you didn't have to choose only one at a time.
Meat
Now into the meat and potatoes of the Ogre's issues on the campaign map. Meat. The resource every Ogre army needs to keep moving, and it can be spent on Offerings to the Great Maw which give some pretty decent buffs. Every unit in an Ogre army consumes one meat a turn, but is reduced when in a settlement and counteracted completely when in range of a camp. This is fine if not for a few caveats.
While Gnoblars are cheap in terms of money and make useful tarpits, the fact that they consume the same amount of meat as all other units makes them cost-inefficient and in terms of lore, Gnoblars get the Ogre's scraps, not the same amount of meat they get. Gnoblars ideally shouldn't cost meat, or should have a researchable feature that stops their meat consumption.
Meat is generated via being in a settlement, being in the radius of a camp, winning a battle, and with some research unlocks. Raiding neutral or hostile territory does not generate meat, despite the fact that raiding is exactly how Skaven generate food. Ogres wander across the world, yet they're severely hampered if they stray too far from their settlement or camps, giving them no real ability to roam far unless you want to baby sit a camp. Speaking of...
Camps
Ogres aren't builders. They'll set up tents or squat in the ruins of long dead empires. Every settlement of theirs can only be upgraded to tier three with a small handful of buildings; the best unit you can hire from a settlement is Ironguts. Anything bigger, you need a camp.
And camps suck.
Before Warhammer III, if you weren't playing WoC with mods, you generally needed a few hordes to sit somewhere safe and build income buildings in them to fund your other hordes. Camps are like this, but you need them close to your frontlines to feed your armies, and they aren't protected via generating chaos corruption to grind down incoming armies with attrition. Just like old WoC hordes, rather than supplying their own garrison, Camps are stationary armies that have upkeep costs and you have to recruit and pay for units to protect it, and recruiting these units take up valuable recruit slots in your settlements or camp that your actual army may need.. This makes them incredibly vulnerable when starting up, as you can only protect it with cheap gnoblars and ogre bulls. Because it's so weakly defended, AI tends to make a beeline straight for your camps, and if you lose a camp battle, the whole settlement, all the money and time invested into it is gone, 100% of the time.
Camps do provide very strong benefits that nullify the food upkeep and provides replenishment even in hostile territories, but they're inherently extremely vulnerable and require babysitting for quite a while, and even when you think they're safe, the AI has a tendency to sneak around you and crush your camp with a full army. If your capital is attacked and usually either sacked or occupied, only being razed if you're unlucky, it's not that hard to build it back up. If you lose a level 5 camp, it's right back to square one and tens of thousands of gold down the drain in the blink of an eye.
Units
Unlike Norsca which didn't have a concrete army list on tabletop to reference from, the Ogre Kingdoms did, so there's notably a few holes in the Ogres' roster, namely Bruiser heroes, Yhetees, and Thundertusks. You could say there's a lack of Maneater diversity, what them all being pirates when tabletop models existed for Pirate, Paymaster, Empire, Arabyan, Nippon and Female Maneaters. Still, the roster is flexible and doesn't have any serious holes in it in terms of armybuilding.
Contracts
Perhaps the sorriest thing the Ogres have, and it's a core part of their identity as mercenaries. If you're not familiar, every ten turns, three factions will offer you a contract to go destroy or occupy a settlement or defeat a character in battle. Completing these contracts gives you money, diplomatic relations boon with the faction that posted the bounty, and either a magic item or meat for your army. And by "money" It can be as little as 1500 gold, asking you to declare war on a faction that may be far stronger than you.
Sadly, perhaps due to the limitations of the game's systems, this is the way that the ogres' mercenary nature is represented. If you declare war on someone, attack one of their armies or settlements to fulfil a contract, you're now at war with them and it's very unlikely they'll accept peace after you attacked them unprovoked. It would be great if you were able to attack as a third party, do your job and get out, or even be offered a contract by the faction your contract is targeting to betray your current contractors. It lacks flexibility in a big way.
While they have been changed a bit, given the payout is a bit more than it used to be and now that contracts only expire if the target is destroyed or the contractor is destroyed, it's still often just not worth the trouble and it's a painfully shallow experience. What makes it worse is that ogres need the money regardless. They're not a strong economy faction, they make money from battles, raiding, sacking and razing, and from contracts.
My biggest concern with all of this, is that like the Beastmen or the Warriors of Chaos, it may be years before any meaningful changes (or even an overhaul) are made to address the myriad issues Ogres face on and off the battlefield. There have been some steady changes made, but they need more than the occasional tweak to bring them up to par with the rest of the factions.
Of course this is all just my long-winded whinging over a faction that I love on the battlefield but their campaign mechanics and some of the choices made have started to grate on me enough to write this giant text wall.
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11 · Disagree 11AgreeOgres haven’t been doing too great in battle as of late, so some work is needed to bring them up to scratch. Greasus has had a few token buffs, although we still recognise that we’ll likely have to go further. Ogre Pistols and Cavalry have received some attention to give them a bit more impact across the board. Artillery have received a manoeuvrability nerf in exchange for a mass buff to emphasise their role a bit better.
What do you think?
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1 · Disagree 1AgreeSo, what can be easily and quickly done to make Greasus better:
- he should start with first camp technology unlocked so he can make camp on turn one*
- simple Bribe mechanic that a lot of people want
- proper unique skill line with better talents
- his landmark (gate) should also provide some garrison units
- I would make Greasus Hall settlement unique by giving it 6 slots, why not?
- maybe he could start with scraplauncher, it would make him better early on especially and later scraplauncher will be useless anyway
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0 · Disagree AgreeGreasus has a problem hitting enemy hitboxes. Plus his mass is very low for a combat reaction radius of 6 that has to move faster high mass ogres around to reach the enemy. His animations need somw work too.
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6 · 1Disagree 6Agree1) making buildings there cheaper and adding serious buffs to camp growth. So even if player will lose one of camps, it will be much easier to rebuild.
2) increasing camp defences - here is my proposal: let's keep option to recruit units, but also improve camp defences with garrison and buffs. Each level of camp will provide us a garrison units, same thing with new buildings which will provide additional garrison troops. And even if camp will be immovable, player may increase numbers of units defending it to 40 (just like with WAAGH armies).
3) Adding option to move them - the easiest solution, even if it will cost some gold and provide limited movement range.
Perhaps someone proposed something similar already, but I just wanted to share this with others.
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0 · 3Disagree AgreeGreenskins have WAAAGHs too.
Poor Ogres get bullied because: 1. Greenskins have money 2. Greenskins pump out armies 3. Greenskins have better armies - and yeah, Ogres will recruit only Gnoblars and Bulls, voila
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0 · Disagree AgreeThing that the AI never does. She creates camp which are useless and/or destroyed soon after.
OK really need an overhaul. Their camps need to be able to move (just like a black ark...), get a garrison somehow, and act as an anchor in the territory it is. The player should be incited to put them more in neutral or foe territories while atm, you have to babysit them too much.
Then, they need more "great names" and a total rework of the contracts which are totally useless.
Food could also get some more uses : use a lot of food to get a huge replenishment rate for an army for instance ...
Finally, each LL should get more love. They are not worth it compared to a Tyran ...
Can't wait for the future Ogre DLC. Hopefully Golfag will be a truly mercenary, while Ghark could get bonuses with Chorfs and bé able to upgrade some of his units with Chorfs arsenal.
And Yétis. Because Yétis.
Dawis shall purge all their fallen Karaks, with the blood of the Greeskins and the skavens !
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0 · Disagree AgreeWhy are the Ogres solely dependent on camps they cannot move?
If they buff camps they can maybe mess with the AI spamming lords so we don't have high tier camps all over the place but atm they're terrible.
The Three main races of WHIII got screwed, especially Ogres.
Greasus needs a new model too.
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2 · Disagree 2AgreeMy prediction is simple, CA will try buffing Ogres/making small changes while players will continue being rather disappointed with them. Having only two - very mediocre - LLs will hurt more over time.
Hopefully CA will at least make Greasus and Skrag better (unique skill lines and making them better than generic Tyrant/Butcher)
Anyone would like to comment?
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1 · Disagree 1AgreeBase ogres are not playable without mods though. You need the unlimited camps and meat free ogres and the ogre economy building boost mods just to be DECENT in IE. Without them? Forget about it.
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2 · 1Disagree 2AgreeFor me, I want:
Give ogres multiple names and they have them all at the same time, no reason to have to swap between just one. Greasus’ full name is Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese, so it makes sense. Also please make names a lot more meaningful with really good buffs that make the Lord feel special. I want good stuff like upkeep reduction for the Lords army, army wide bonuses, local region benefits like growth, etc.
This might be a personal preference but either make camps have built-in garrisons or get rid of the upkeep cost for a garrison, I despise building a camp and then with my already garbage economy, spend money to build it up and then also be forced to spend money on units that cost UPKEEP to have any of them in the garrison, (yes it’s reduced and you can get a building to reduce it more but it still feels terrible to use). I get Ogres are supposed to have bad garrisons as one of their weaknesses but come on. Having to spend gold on an army’s worth of units and being forced to choose between having a good garrison for the chance you get taken by surprise but risk them doing nothing for like 20 turns but drain your money or putting them all into an army and have them used proactively but having no garrison is lame.
Let us move the camps at least, we get some tech that gives benefits for building a camp in enemy territory but if you are in a position to build a camp in enemy territory, you will probably conquer it in a turn or two, so what’s the point if they can’t move.
Make Minor Settlements give more econ, no reason for so little. Yes, thematically you are a faction that can’t build cities and mostly just pillages from other factions but Greenskins get absurd amounts of money from raiding and sacking yet their settlements also give good money.
Traversing mountains without Underway stance is bad, maybe give us extra movement in mountain areas, or maybe just extra movement in general, it would be thematic with Ogres being very fast and constantly on the move
Have a reputation mechanic for completing contracts for certain factions that give buffs depending on who you help so they feel worth doing. For example buffs to gunpowder units for helping Empire or Dwarfs a lot, Armor for helping Chaos Dwarfs, Weapon Strength for WoC, stuff like that and make it thematic
When hiring Mercenary Ogres, let us recruit more than one unit of Ogre Bulls and let us recruit units different than the standard Ogre Bulls like Ogre Bull variations or Rhinox Cavalry or something if the camp is high level enough( this applies to factions that aren’t Ogres but this is this an issue, why the hell does Zhao Ming have 25% upkeep reduction for Ogre mercenaries if you get like one to two units of Ogre Bulls)
Make Greasus not a fat, useless ****. If he’s gonna be slow as hell and still not that great in melee either, then at least make him give better aoe buffs to allies or debuffs to enemies. Skrag is ok but I’d still like to see him buffed. Greasus needs it more though.
P.S - I should have included this sooner but I really like the roster of the Ogre Kingdoms. Yeah it sucks we only have two LL’s and don’t have yetis or Bruisers but the units feel really good( I still want more Lords and the missing units one day)They’re fine I don’t think they need to be touched. Maybe a slight revert of the Gorgers nerf though.
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1 · Disagree 1AgreePeople like to complain Norsca is outdated, but Norsca is miles better than the ogres.
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