Help, how to survive with Greasus ?

[Srime]

Hi,
I've try 4 campagnes with Greasus, at turn 60-80 Nurgle are immortale and I can't 1vs1 any army, 3 sames campagnes loose, and 4th campagnes i loose turn 15 when Grimgor come with 6 armys.
I doubt Nurgle's balance... and Ogre camps cost so much to build, it's so stupid when you lost one of them...
I am alone ? Any tips (I've already play more 1000 hours always in legendary difficulty).

[pascal.difolco]

Hello
Je vais essayer une campagne Greasus, je te dis si je m'en sors ^^

[Srime]

Yes je suis curieux, et actuellement rageux d'avoir passé autant de temps sur ses campagnes sans y arrivé ^^

[AkumulatoR]

Use ogrehaul mod or wait for next dlc and coming rework. Vanilla ogres campaign sucks super hard since release.

[pascal.difolco]

Well played a new Greasus campaign for 17 turns and man it s*cks, I'm already worn out...
Ogres are relly a crap race, they got nothing nice, development is super limited with only Camps getting high tier buildings, then the Food is only a annoying "debuff"... Contracts are hard to fullfill and don't really gives you much
Atm Grimgor is coming under Waagh and indeed no way to stop him with 1 army and an half, with no really powerful unit...

[Ruffian]

Ogres are one of my favourite races, so here's some tricks I can offer to help you with Greasus early game.

1) General Ogre trick, but using Ogre Bulls as monstrous creatures is actually a weakness. Make sure you use them like shock cavalry and cycle charge as much as possible. Gnoblars to hold, Bulls to cycle. This will change at camp tier 3 when you get your Ironguts, Maneaters, and Mournfang.

2) Turn 1 diplomacy. You can get a Trade Agreement with Zhao Ming very quickly, which will help your early game eco. This will hurt relations with Grimgor initially, but point 3 will make up for that.

3) Pay off Grimgor to stop him coming at you. Trading territory can be rough/frustrating for most factions, but Ogres can't get above level 3 in any standard settlement. Whilst this will drop a little income, push north fast to get Karak Azorn, then start moving troops back south to fight Ghorst/Kugath. The turn you get Karak Azorn, make sure to go into diplomacy and keep an eye out for Grimgor - As soon as he appears, trade away Karak Azorn for a non-aggression pact (and any bonus money you can). This will keep him off your back long enough for you to develop higher level camps and improve your armies so you can kill him easier later.

4) Kill Ghorst and Kugath ASAP. Early on, Ogres have advantage vs both the Undead and Nurgle, as Nurgle will be missing most of it's annoying spells and harder hitting units, and the undead won't have many large creatures to block your charges. The longer you leave them, the worse they become. They are more important to kill than Grimgor, as early game Ork units will easily trade into and overrun yours, but they will struggle with the more elite Ironguts/Maneaters/Mournfang and beyond that you will field with the time you bought yourself.

5) Don't over-invest in regular towns. A big mistake I see a lot of newer players make when playing Ogres is treating their towns like normal. This ultimately is a money sink that will struggle to pay for itself. Ogre Camps are everything, and regular cities should only be used to help pay for army upkeep in the early game.
A city should only be upgraded if:
-It has a bonus trade-able resource, allowing you to build the money building and the resource.
-It has a port, allowing you to build the port and the money building.
-You are in desperate need of an anti-corruption building in the province because there are no friendly armies nearby (Rebellions and Demon Incursions are great extra income, after all.)

Outside of these circumstances, any money invested in a city is usually wasted and better spent saved towards upgrading or adding something important to a camp.

6) Your early game lords should be Slaughtermasters. Ogres want to get through the tech tree as quickly as possible (Who doesn't?) and Slaughtermaster lords have a blue tree skill that improves Research rate by 10%. Getting a bunch of these done so you have a lot of bonus tech level will get you the good techs a lot faster.

You should have been able to do all of this by about turn 50ish. Being an ally with Grimgor will make Zhao Ming annoyed but he shouldn't fight you. Having a Trade Agreement with Zhao Ming should prevent him from making friends with Ghorst, but keep an eye on them just in case. Choosing to fight Grimgor will keep the Chaos Dwarves off your back for a while but they will need to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Alternatively, choosing to fight Drazhoath will please both Grimgor and Zhao Ming, prolonging the period of stability so you can level camps further. (CDawi are also quite rich, making them great for sacking.)

Hope this helps, go get you some meat.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by The Janitor:

Ogres are one of my favourite races, so here's some tricks I can offer to help you with Greasus early game.

1) General Ogre trick, but using Ogre Bulls as monstrous creatures is actually a weakness. Make sure you use them like shock cavalry and cycle charge as much as possible. Gnoblars to hold, Bulls to cycle. This will change at camp tier 3 when you get your Ironguts, Maneaters, and Mournfang.

2) Turn 1 diplomacy. You can get a Trade Agreement with Zhao Ming very quickly, which will help your early game eco. This will hurt relations with Grimgor initially, but point 3 will make up for that.

3) Pay off Grimgor to stop him coming at you. Trading territory can be rough/frustrating for most factions, but Ogres can't get above level 3 in any standard settlement. Whilst this will drop a little income, push north fast to get Karak Azorn, then start moving troops back south to fight Ghorst/Kugath. The turn you get Karak Azorn, make sure to go into diplomacy and keep an eye out for Grimgor - As soon as he appears, trade away Karak Azorn for a non-aggression pact (and any bonus money you can). This will keep him off your back long enough for you to develop higher level camps and improve your armies so you can kill him easier later.

4) Kill Ghorst and Kugath ASAP. Early on, Ogres have advantage vs both the Undead and Nurgle, as Nurgle will be missing most of it's annoying spells and harder hitting units, and the undead won't have many large creatures to block your charges. The longer you leave them, the worse they become. They are more important to kill than Grimgor, as early game Ork units will easily trade into and overrun yours, but they will struggle with the more elite Ironguts/Maneaters/Mournfang and beyond that you will field with the time you bought yourself.

5) Don't over-invest in regular towns. A big mistake I see a lot of newer players make when playing Ogres is treating their towns like normal. This ultimately is a money sink that will struggle to pay for itself. Ogre Camps are everything, and regular cities should only be used to help pay for army upkeep in the early game.
A city should only be upgraded if:
-It has a bonus trade-able resource, allowing you to build the money building and the resource.
-It has a port, allowing you to build the port and the money building.
-You are in desperate need of an anti-corruption building in the province because there are no friendly armies nearby (Rebellions and Demon Incursions are great extra income, after all.)

Outside of these circumstances, any money invested in a city is usually wasted and better spent saved towards upgrading or adding something important to a camp.

6) Your early game lords should be Slaughtermasters. Ogres want to get through the tech tree as quickly as possible (Who doesn't?) and Slaughtermaster lords have a blue tree skill that improves Research rate by 10%. Getting a bunch of these done so you have a lot of bonus tech level will get you the good techs a lot faster.

You should have been able to do all of this by about turn 50ish. Being an ally with Grimgor will make Zhao Ming annoyed but he shouldn't fight you. Having a Trade Agreement with Zhao Ming should prevent him from making friends with Ghorst, but keep an eye on them just in case. Choosing to fight Grimgor will keep the Chaos Dwarves off your back for a while but they will need to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Alternatively, choosing to fight Drazhoath will please both Grimgor and Zhao Ming, prolonging the period of stability so you can level camps further. (CDawi are also quite rich, making them great for sacking.)

Hope this helps, go get you some meat.

Interesting
Yet I wasn't able to do any diplo with Grimgor up until he appeared, bashed the local Dawi clan and straight declared war to me all on the same turn...
But otoh I've paid Ghorst for a NAP ^^

[Srime]

@The Janitor I gonna try this. Thank you very much for long and complet answer ^^

[Ruffian]

If Grimgor has beaten you to the Dawi clan, then unfortunately it means you are behind the curve. Grimgor is a game ender for Greasus early on as it's hard to beat him, the WAAAGH armies, and still maintain something like good economy.

You might be able to do it with strategic ambushes in the passes but since the AI is cheating, you're stagnating whilst he's still advancing his eco. When he gets to Ork Big 'Un mainline spam it's basically over. This also puts you quite behind Cdawi, Cathay, and the new Nurgle, which is not a place you want to be when all three of these factions have access to units that will shred yours.

Karak Azorn before Grimgor is basically a defining key point. If you don't get it first it might be recoverable but it often devolves into a frustrating slog that feels more like surviving than anything else. Get it first, however, and you can use it to snowball super hard.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by The Janitor:

If Grimgor has beaten you to the Dawi clan, then unfortunately it means you are behind the curve. Grimgor is a game ender for Greasus early on as it's hard to beat him, the WAAAGH armies, and still maintain something like good economy.

You might be able to do it with strategic ambushes in the passes but since the AI is cheating, you're stagnating whilst he's still advancing his eco. When he gets to Ork Big 'Un mainline spam it's basically over. This also puts you quite behind Cdawi, Cathay, and the new Nurgle, which is not a place you want to be when all three of these factions have access to units that will shred yours.

Karak Azorn before Grimgor is basically a defining key point. If you don't get it first it might be recoverable but it often devolves into a frustrating slog that feels more like surviving than anything else. Get it first, however, and you can use it to snowball super hard.

Yeah, didn't know that...lost a couple turns finishing the 2nd Ogre faction enemy, and fought the Dawi not knowing Grimgor was just in their back
The starting location in mountains hard to travel through with no fast travel ability doesn't help Greasus start neither, you need to go take some settlement west then need to track back east, hard to optimize

[Avallac]

Played ogres with Radious overhaul, Radious changes some things about camps and regular settlements so you can build stuff more like a normal faction. Regardless, ogre units stomp any infantry into the ground pretty easily as due to superior speed you can encircle anything. Cycle charging is good as well against units that can't keep up with ogres when trying to chase them. You can also use spells that knock stuff around to create a breach and run right into enemy backline through the front, though just running around them works more than well enough. Ogres were one of the easiest factions to play vs AI as AI is incapable of spamming spear/halberd units to counter ogres and ogres always win 1 on 1 vs any other infantry. Ogre anti-large also demolishes cavalry and other monsters. Ranged units are extremely strong too. Literally besides halberd spam there is absolutely nothing that can do anything about ogres.

[Ruffian]

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Yeah, didn't know that...lost a couple turns finishing the 2nd Ogre faction enemy, and fought the Dawi not knowing Grimgor was just in their back
The starting location in mountains hard to travel through with no fast travel ability doesn't help Greasus start neither, you need to go take some settlement west then need to track back east, hard to optimize

Don't forget that Ogres can give themselves 20% additional campaign movement range for 10 turns by sacrificing 10 meat to the maw. This means you can easily outpace everyone else in the mountains, and that's before you unlock Hunter heroes for up to 25% extra. Ogres have some of the most ridiculous map movement in the game that doesn't involve Underway.

[pascal.difolco]

Originally posted by The Janitor:

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Yeah, didn't know that...lost a couple turns finishing the 2nd Ogre faction enemy, and fought the Dawi not knowing Grimgor was just in their back
The starting location in mountains hard to travel through with no fast travel ability doesn't help Greasus start neither, you need to go take some settlement west then need to track back east, hard to optimize

Don't forget that Ogres can give themselves 20% additional campaign movement range for 10 turns by sacrificing 10 meat to the maw. This means you can easily outpace everyone else in the mountains, and that's before you unlock Hunter heroes for up to 25% extra. Ogres have some of the most ridiculous map movement in the game that doesn't involve Underway.

Used the Maw buff indeed, but didn't know about Hunter buff, don't have any anyway...
I think my issue is that I only have access to crap units, and not much money (a shame for Greasus lol)
Should I build a camp on turn 2 or 3 ?

[MadArtillery]

If I may offer a suggestion! Both Ogre Tyrants and Hunters can have a wonderful thing in their big names list that gives unbreakable to gnoblars. Combine that with the ancillary that adds +4 recruit rank to gnoblar (stacks too) and you can simply put so many unbreakable gnoblar trappers out you can use the things like leadbelchers to simply demolish the nurgle boys as your chaff stacks fight to the last man. Gnoblars are pretty cheap too and with them recruiting up to gold chevrons you can just replace them in mass as they get whiped all while benefiting from redlines with easy gold chevrons. Don't fight em one on one, drown them in gnoblars and gunpowder with a bunch of cheap stacks and a bunch of ironguts of course on Greasy because they are cheap.

Try to level up those Hunters too, they are god tier units if you can get them to 15 as they can rack up quite a massive anti large and anti infantry bonus, all with collision attacks, impossible to pin down mass with move and shoot ranged attacks as an icing on the cake. Truly a good at everything all in one unit with a giant health pool and high speed to go with and ogres even have a unique green armour item to give regeneration! Truly the strongest thing you can field in the entire roster is Ogre Hunters. Makes things that give or spread xp really really important to Ogres. Completely overtuned, a must use.

Ogre towns suck, don't bother with them much outside of special buildings. Better to spend gold on camps. Ports can be pretty good too. T3 is when ogres really hit their stride, they suck before that and honestly after that is nothing too special.

[Ruffian]

Originally posted by pascal.difolco:

Used the Maw buff indeed, but didn't know about Hunter buff, don't have any anyway...
I think my issue is that I only have access to crap units, and not much money (a shame for Greasus lol)
Should I build a camp on turn 2 or 3 ?

First camp is available turn 4, and really it should be up asap as it's your primary for unit production and biggest source of income, both from the income building it gets, and the steadily stacking % bonus to faction income from non-horde buildings.

Choosing where to place it gets awkward. I personally prefer north of the Maw Gate, as I will have taken that last turn, and it will act as a choke point for enemy armies attacking that area. Alternatively, if you want it to be 'safe' then south of the Maw Gate will be better as it's harder to attack. Just be aware that if you place it south then you'll find yourself running really low on meat by the time you get to Karak Azorn.

[Adamsevs]

1) Always gives the 3 red line points that buff ogre bulls units for your legendary lord early one, it massively improves ogre bulls.

2) the ironfists variant are imo the best one, emphasize on them

3) the hunter heroes when leveled up get a stonehorn mount, making them one of the best melee hero in the game, and it's damn easy to increase their cap with the building chain in any minor settlement, be shameless and put 3 of these bad boys in your armies !

4) ogre magic heals and does crazy aoe damages, use it !

5) ASAP up your camps and recruit the leadbelchers units, they will simply mow down any greenskins or nurgle units with ease