What exactly is the purpose of Orcs, anyway?

**Blatta Optima Maxima** · August 11, 2012, 11:15 AM

They seem pretty damn useless to me. Do any of you have any suggestions as to how I am supposed to make any use of them?

**Thangaror** · August 11, 2012, 11:40 AM

I have an orc stack or two that I send rampaging enemy territory and distract the AI.They do surprisingly well, though after four or five battles they are usually more or less annihiliated.

**Wambat** · August 11, 2012, 02:35 PM

The weakest units can be used to to move populations around quickly to max your city levels early in the game. The stronger units can be used to hold a line just long enough to bring your archers to the enemies rear. They are the cheapest garrison in the game. The effectiveness of the Uruk Berserkers and Trolls should not be underestimated.

**Blatta Optima Maxima** · August 12, 2012, 07:21 AM

Originally Posted by Wambat

The weakest units can be used to to move populations around quickly to max your city levels early in the game. The stronger units can be used to hold a line just long enough to bring your archers to the enemies rear. They are the cheapest garrison in the game. The effectiveness of the Uruk Berserkers and Trolls should not be underestimated.

Moving orcs into a city, disbanding and then recruiting human soldiers with the acquired population strikes me as a bit... Un-lorealistic.

**Ryoga84** · August 12, 2012, 09:10 AM

Orcs utility...
well... they're cheap and you don't give a damn if they die... probably...

I normally use them as a "side army", near my main army, but I let the AI control the Orcs. It's more fun.

**Nehcrum** · August 12, 2012, 11:00 AM

Originally Posted by Blatta Optima Maxima

They seem pretty damn useless to me. Do any of you have any suggestions as to how I am supposed to make any use of them?

Orcs are awesome.
The orc building themselves give huge bonuses (at least for Adunabar) which makes your population grow much faster, which gives a higher tax base (but makes it look like the city earns less, since it has to pay a portion of the total unit upkeep based on it's portion of the total faction population) and higher trade income, which is also affected by population size.
And of course, faster population growth means you can upgrade your cities quicker, which is aided by the orc buildings giving bonuses to build time and build cost, making it faster and cheaper to upgrade the city and add buildings.

For that alone, the orc buildings rock.

And the snaga archers are the cheapest garrison unit in the game, which the lowest cost/soldier in upkeep.
And still somewhat useful in a siege, since they are ranged units.

And orc raiders and snaga archers can be recruited en masse to either move population easier (and cheaper than settlers) than other units, to fill out other cities when your orc buildings are full.
And you can recruit almost a full bar of orc raiders, with the last slot saved for a stronger unit, and you will get them as a bonus while still recruiting better units, and essentially creating an entire army in a single turn.

Orc raiders works nice as cheap cannon fodder, that you can send in against the enemy just to make them tired, or to lug siege equipment against the walls and gate, since it doesn't matter if they die, before you send in more valuable units that can actually beat the enemy.

And the higher orc units are decent. Orc champions are a unit that can face most infantry units and give a good account of themselves, only the adunabar and RK elite units can take them on without getting very high casualties of their own.
They are at least equal to basic RK and Adunabar swordsmen.

Uruk swords and spears doesn't impress me though, they come in a big unit but the swords are inferior to the orc champions IMO and for the spears you got other units that are better.
Uruk halberds are very good against cavalry though, and uruk berserkers got that berserking ability, which should never be underestimated, and can cause huge losses for the enemy if used correctly.

And Olog-hai are in a class all by themselves of course, but it's a long and expensive road to get to them, no other faction has such a long route to get to their unique faction buildings as Adunabar.

**Thangaror** · August 12, 2012, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Nehcrum

And Olog-hai are in a class all by themselves of course, but it's a long and expensive road to get to them, no other faction has such a long route to get to their unique faction buildings as Adunabar.

The building trees have been improved for DoM though.

**The Mouth** · August 12, 2012, 02:08 PM

Like the others have said orcs are good for raiding, garrisoning, and distracting the enemy. However they are also quite useful in other roles as well such as acting as a meat shield against cavalry charges and archers and performing jobs (Such as pushing rams) that would often result in unnecessary casualties for your better troops. They are also somewhat useful for weakening enemy armies if you have a general that can heavily boost their morale but then again couldn't that general be better used elsewhere?

**Cap'n Ahb Veeus** · August 12, 2012, 02:56 PM

They're definitely good meat shields, especially for Dunland. All you need are enough orcs to act as a barrier between your vulnerable pikes and the enemy's arrows and you can wipe out Rohan without serious losses. Same goes for those wolf guys, they're great at attack but get annihilated by cavalry/archers, so keep a unit of orcs with them at all times to intervene. That said, levy spearmen are more useful and give better bang for the buck.
~Edited since I wrote Dunbar instead.

**Ulrich Liechtenstein** · August 13, 2012, 03:50 PM

I use orcs as raid parties against Harad, one or 2 stacks, auto-resolve and done. Thye dont do that much dmg but they can stop most enemies stacks from advancing

**Jagmodo** · August 14, 2012, 07:56 PM

Orcish jobs for orcish units... Sometimes I use them for flanking the enemy and attacking their back. Otherwise for chasing the routing units if I don’t have cavalry, or I need it for more important jobs. And all Wargs are really great units.

Just an idea... Maybe Orcs would be more usefull if most of them would have frightening ability. People generally feel uneasy in presence of ugly, wicked, purely evil creatures that show no mercy, and can’t wait to feast on human flesh.

**Thangaror** · August 14, 2012, 09:45 PM

Originally Posted by Jagmodo

Orcish jobs for orcish units... Sometimes I use them for flanking the enemy and attacking their back. Otherwise for chasing the routing units if I don’t have cavalry, or I need it for more important jobs. And all Wargs are really great units.

Just an idea... Maybe Orcs would be more usefull if most of them would have frightening ability. People generally feel uneasy in presence of ugly, wicked, purely evil creatures that show no mercy, and can’t wait to feast on human flesh.

I really doubt that RK's Men at Arms would be frightened by Orcs, not even by Uruk-hai. Berserkers ok, maybe Champions, but the rest is just rabble.
They just need a stat boost, which i actually did for my copy (all non-RK factions are slightly tougher).

Oh, and Wargs should be easier to get for Adûnabâr. Not that much easier though. I know the building tree has been revamped completely (no stupid foundry before building the High Temple before building the CD-Building), but Rhovanion is just soooo underdeveloped.