Help the orcs...

[Nom]

Another thing that is unfair about the orcs is they start with 2 units that cannot be replenished in the Shelter (veteran and hyenas). The units you find in shelter in the beginning are goblins, furious and orcs. Not really good ones. Two are too weak and the other is slow. the demoness gets two lvl 3s (blood priestess, cerberus), two very good lvl 2s (imps) and the elementals. AND you start with a hypnosys scroll, so you can get demons and demonesses as soon as you get it learned. Vampires dont get much but they can easily get necromancers, vampires of all types in Monteville (the troop that guards the Monteville map is not very strong and even if you lose some, going to Monteville early more than compensates for them).
So, you can get good orc units only in Tristen which is way ahead in the game.
Making catapults or spirit walkers available in the Shelter after you visit Whitehill would balance things a little...

[Hugo]

I think the devs know (they must know by now) that the orc provides a greates challenge than the Vampire or the Demoness. Dunno, maybe this is a deliberate choice? (like in the crossworld the mage was underpowered) Dunno if that is a deliberate choise or bad game design.

But I agree that the orc has strange strating units.

[V³.Madêlinê]

To go to Tristrem, go via Portland and immediately retreat back into the cave then go to Tristem via Blackie. I wish Goblin Shaman is still inside this Installment, its Astral ability is nice

[21mirek12]

nerbu - yes, but you can avoid them very easy, like other powerful army. And, it is important, when you been in any palces you can teleport there:)

[21mirek12]

madeline - last time i have no luck, no shamans, but orc veterans and catapults were. I stronglu recomended demonologists from demons world, just avoid strong army near entrance, then go left, next go on high level by platform. Is a castle there. In castle - demonologists and few powerful spells like vulcano.

[V³.Madêlinê]

^ Are you talking about Helvadia? Troop with Magic Attack has a huge downside though, many units seems to be resistant towards magic (dragon, priest, gremlin tower etc.).

Orcs lack aoe damage, their archers are...not good at all (excluding Orc Scout) and they lacks special skill (Furious, cant be countered, fast movement speed etc.)

[21mirek12]

demonologist are not for attack, but for summon demons and heal, the are very strong in begining an middle game. Orcs have one of the best aoe attacks unit - catapult and one of the best unit ever - chieftians, who can steal AP from many enemy units, their raneg magical attack is very good too. Of course i told this for normal level. If you cast orcs shield on orc veterans, they are serial murders:)

[V³.Madêlinê]

In Impossible, there are more than 10 stack of troop in a single battle, stealing AP is hardly noticeable. Catapult is good, yep.

Orc army is a far cry if compared to Demon army.

In general, Demon have 3 troop that can inflict aoe (Archdemon, Imp and Scoffer Imp), 2 troop that can summon (Archdemon and Demon), 5 troop with good movement (Imp, Scoffer Imp, Demon, Executioner and Archdemon), 3 troop with uncounterable attack (Archdemon, Imp and Scoffer Imp), 5 troop with very useful skill (Demon, Executioner, Archdemon, Succubus, Scoffer Imp). Frenzy, Demon racial skill works wonders for your troops that are placed in the middle of the enemy (Archdemon, Demon and Executioner), making their ability to always refresh and provide them with higher Attack and Defense.

Orc? They have 3 next to useless troop (Goblin, Furious Goblin, Orcs), only 1 troop that gives good aoe (Catapult; unreliable on first round due to Adrenalin being generated randomly), 1 troop that heavily depended on magic (Orc Shaman; single target and not so good magic but their totem are almost always the highest priority of target for the enemy), only 3 good unit (my opinion; Orc Veteran, Goblin Catapult and Chieftain). I am not entirely sure about Orc Scout, their Support skill has short duration, and all their ability forces you to not being able to inflict damage on that turn (despite Orc Scout being the only decent range attacker of the entire Orc troop). For Goblin Rider, their hex is...not that good (20% miss chance for a single target is not really good when you are faced with an army of 10 or more stack of unit), their Avenging Angel..that I'm not really sure

[dw0rd]

A few more positives, but not enough of them:
Adrenalin is easier to handle than in CW with values instead of levels.
There is the new Creation spell to increase adrenaline.
Goblins have the new Distance Throw for when their isn't enough adrenaline for Goblin Fury.

[Nom]

Lots of comments. Some of mine:
To 21mirek, madeline: yes, I had forgotten the blackie teleport exploit (and I use it every time in Baraz Gund - how stupid). But then again it depends on luck (if you get shamans and catapults free you can beef up your orc vets with hypno + b priesstess). The demologist's ress is good but the summoned demons are out of control which I don't like very much (sometimes it gets on the way of your battle plan).
The catapults have a passive that gets some adrenaline from other goblins so they work better when you have another goblin stack in your army. As the goblins and furious are just too weak, the spirit walkers are the alternative. I particularly don't mind them. They are cheap and have unlimited range. If you get the iron karaklum at some point ( and it is usually available somewhere) they become pretty good shooters. And they act before the catapults, therefore gaining adrenaline and transferring some to the cataps - you almost always get at least the fire ball ability.
An orc army consisting of shamans, s walkers, cataps, orc vets and chiefs is pretty good.
You should have onslaught 3 and tactics 3. Cast battlecry (also gives adren) and use orc shield on either orc vets or chiefs. Use other rage skills tactically. It works.
All that said, I was chatting with Tan Tun and he told me he was playing an all renegade army with the orc - with the renegade title and that incredibly OP artifact you get in Inselburg (the star) their morale maxes out. They become cheap (leadership) and have 2 ress units, excellent abilities and are good either at melee or shooting. I realized an all human army is simply better all around.
As in all previous KBs by the way.

[dw0rd]

Good Orcish ideas I hadn't thought of or heard about, Nerbu.
I've only used Human Traitors early in Portland and wasn't impressed. Obviously, I need to revisit them. That Star artifact, the Twilight Order Star(?), I've always just bought it and destroyed it for Magic Crystals.

I'd planned on trying the Traitors after I'd tried the Clowns, uhm...the Metamorphs, but now I've decided it's Traitors next.


/* Ramblin starts here

Let's see now. That's basically two new Races, if you want to look at them that way, the Clown/Metamorph Race and the Traitor Race. Along with the existing 3 Heros that gives six possible new Hero/Race combinations to play.

Meta-Clowns are really just a partial Race with too few Units unless you add in Dragon Riders, Female Vampires, and those wolf-riding-bowshooting Orcs since they can be cloned. Plus, You can't just start using them, you have to begin with one of the 3 Hero's Races first.

Traitors, on the the other hand, are an amalgamated Race containing Dark Units of the other Races making them either a Super-race or a Sub-race depending on your POV. Again, you have to start with one of the 3 Hero's Races first but with Traitors you can change over quicker.

Will this lead to 2 whole new Races for future KBs? How about mods to existing KBs? Can you imagine being able to play DS with a Meta-Clown Hero? I didn't think so. How about a WotN DLC called Dark and Darker with Traitors and Undead? What about everybody's favorite the Lizardmen? I'd like a Lizard Hero. They should be naturally of the dark, right? They're not as wimpy as Orcs either.

Rambling ends here */

[V³.Madêlinê]

Lizardmen might be added when the full version is release, it is one of the coolest race in King's Bounty series.

Demon and Demonic race could potentially have the highest -% leadership that I encounter. Demetrios level 3 gives -20% leadership, full investment of Mind Tree gives -12% leadership, Burning Cloak gives -20% leadership, Heirloom Sword gives -10% leadership, Neoline Potrait gives -10% leadership. All those item gives 72% leadership reduction, and if you are really lucky, you can obtain Demonic Set that gives 20% leadership reduction, but the % of getting all is not really high.

Aside from full Demonic set, getting the others in 1 playthrough is not really hard (since racial item have higher % of appearing in their respective hometown)

[DG Dobrev]

Orcs are nowhere near close to being underdogs. While I agree than in the early game you are forced to accept losses, in the late game these buggers will shine, cause of adrenaline. Even the stupidest goblin can reach insane attack values, and if you have means to resurrect them, you are golden.

[VladK02]

dont diss furious goblins. At the end of first island by level 10 or so I had 500k gold because of their ability to pillage corpses for gold coins. Every fight - +20k gold easy.

[Nom]

I think the dissing was more about the lvl 1 goblins. But even furious are hard to keep alive if you are playing hard / impossible no losses

[V³.Madêlinê]

Adrenalin is nice, but other unit are simply better