Ogre Rules
Ogre Rules
What "Ogre Rules" means is you can't attack until you have at least one ogre built. Someone came up with this because they didn't like being attacked by hordes of grunts by those who could build faster than they. While I think setting "Ogre Rules" in a game is for wussies, actually following the "Ogre Rules" philosophy can often give you an edge over your opponent when he is building grunts. The reason is building 7 or 8 grunts takes almost 5,000 gold, when that gold could be used to build up your economy, and for building ogres, which are much more effective than mere grunts.
Be warned, however, that the "Ogre Rules" strategy is risky. If someone builds lots of grunts fast, finds you, and comes after you, you could have nothing to fight him off with. If it works, you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. Invade someone with a horde of bloodlusted ogres when they only have grunts, and they are toast.
If you're going to try the "Ogre Rules" strategy, you should play orcs. The reason is Bloodlust. It could work for humans, but not as well.
Step one:
At first, build up your town like you would normally: great hall, farm, farm, barracks, blacksmith, farm, tower, etc.. When you get your barracks built, make AT MOST only one grunt. Instead, use the money you save to turn your tower into a Cannon Tower, and farm it in, and upgrade your Great Hall as soon as you get the chance. The Cannon Tower is crucial to your strategy, because it is the only thing that will fight them off if they come after you early with grunts; so upgrade that watch tower as soon as you can. Be sure to keep a steady supply of peons coming out of your great hall. You're going to need the gold and wood.
Step two:
As soon as your Great Hall is upgraded to Stronghold, make an Ogre Mound and crank out the ogres. You might want to build a second barracks at some point. Build a lumber mill when you can; you're going to need it to upgrade to Fortress. As soon as you have 5 or 6 ogres, and you're sure you opponent only has grunts (Even if he has *12* grunts), you could attack and probably slaughter him. OR, you could wait until you have bloodlust. Upgrade your Stronghold to Fortress, build an Altar of Storms, research Ogre Mages and then Bloodlust. This takes a while, so you might want to build a dragon or two while you're waiting; and your opponent might get ogres himself by then. But, bloodlusted ogres can safely take on non-bloodlusted ogres 1 to 2, perhaps even with a 1 to 3 ratio! If you have bloodlust, and your opponent doesn't, you will cream him.
Three:
A horde of bloodlusted ogres is a beautiful sight, and can easily take on this:
Some other things to consider:
Now that the color bug is fixed in version 1.3 (meaning the colors don't always start in the same place), going straight for ogres is a lot safer.
When you're going straight for ogres, if you can, wall your town off from the rest of the map with farms and other buildings. This way, if a horde of grunts does find you, they'll have to destroy the buildings to get at you; and by the time they do, you might have ogres built waiting to kill them.
I recently played a game where I went straight to ogres and bloodlust before I attacked. My opponent built lots of grunts. We were playing 1.3, so he didn't know where I was. He spent a lot of time searching for me with a couple of grunts. By the time he found me, he kept throwing grunts at me, trying to kill me. A couple of times I had to use peons to kill his grunts. But I kept getting the upgrades, and when I finally built an ogre mound, the tide turned. I built an ogre, which killed FOUR grunts that were ransacking my town and lived. He gave up trying to attack me with grunts. I flew a zepplin over his town and found he hadn't even upgraded his great hall yet; he had wasted too much of his resources building grunts and throwing them at me. I built a shitload of ogres and got bloodlust. By the time I ran into his town with 12 bloodlusted ogres, he had only three ogres himself, and wasn't anywhere near getting bloodlust. Needless to say, he got his ass kicked.