“That’s me, I’m the boss,” I said, leaning into the role I was given. Something told me that acting overly friendly and trying to coddle the orcs wasn’t the way to go with this lot.

“What you want us do?” The orc demanded.

“First off, who are you?” I replied shortly.

“I’m da top orc in dis here village. I’s helps you with the others, and carries outs your orders,” the orc explained in his broken English. For some reason, the system either didn’t translate orcish smoothly, or it could be that their language was so crude that this counted as clean and polished speech for an orc.

“You got a name?” I asked.

“Dey calls me Top, because that’s what I is, da top orc,” the orc replied.

“Well, Top, from what I understand, we got a village to whip into shape and a war to win. These three other villages need to be wiped off the map,” I told Top, trying to give him my most bloodthirsty look. While I doubted that I had pulled the look off, Top seemed to appreciate the effort.

“Ya hear dat boys! We’s going to get into a scrap and gets ta stomp some humies, elves, and pipsqueaks. Boss here’s going ta lead us into war,” Top shouted out. The orcs streamed over from the across the village to see what the commotion was about.

“You ready to do this, Top?” I asked him loud enough for the others to hear. They seemed ready to charge out and fight right now even with most of them being unarmed farmers.

“We’s ready, boss, orcs is for fightin, and for winnin!” Top shouted to the cheers of the other orcs. I had a good feeling that I’d picked the correct faction for this stage of the contest. “Now, da lot of ya get back ta work. Boss and I got some building and plannings stuff ta works on,” Top said. He seemed to have pumped up the rest of the orcs rather well, and I could see a bit more pep in their step as they returned to work.

“Where should we start first?” I asked. Instead of Top replying, a system prompt appeared.

You may now access the village interface panel, it’s time to prepare your village for battle. There are 2 structure upgrades remaining. Any further upgrades must be researched using your factions specific resource material.

Each faction has several traits, both positive and detrimental, that differentiate them from their foes. The Orcish Hog Wranglers possess the following.

Faction resource: Hog meat. Each faction has a foodstuff resource that is used as a universal resource for this challenge.

1. Tough and Resilient. Orcs are a strong and hardy species, this allows them to do 10% more damage in melee, and take 10% less damage from all physical attacks.

2. Limited Intellect. Orcs aren’t known for their high intelligence, and their hog wranglers are even on the low end of the orcish average. Orcs Hog Wranglers have a 25% chance to fly into a rage during combat, ignoring all orders and attacking the nearest foe. They also have a 10% greater vulnerability to any magic attacks that affect the mind.

3. Made for War, not Wrangling. Your faction produces 15% fewer resources from their farms than the average humanoid farm produces. Hog farms require 15% more time to construct. Armory, barracks, and defensive structures require 15% less time to construct.

4. Pillage and Plunder. While orcs have a penalty to resource generation through their farms, they have the unique ability to gather resources simply by being engaged in combat. In the mind of an orc, any humanoid flesh is as good as a hog. Unlike the other 3 factions, your workers may leave the village to participate in battle, but their combat prowess is 40% less than that of an orc warrior.

I read through the faction description, and it was about what I’d expect from a village of orcs. My orcs would be physically stronger than the other factions, but we’d fall behind in resource gathering unless we were in battle. I would need to push for an aggressive stance and attack right away if I wanted to have a chance to win this one. Sitting around and building up my village wasn’t going to work. After looking through the faction info, I moved on to read the actual interface options.

Village Interface.

1. Current Status.

2. Construction.

3. Upgrades.

4. Command Options.

I pulled up the interface options in order, the system giving me a helpful rundown of where we stood.

Village Status.

Total Population: 100/100.

Workers: 95.

Stolen novel; please report.

Warriors: 4.

Commanders: 1. Your commander, Top, has the ability to inspire any troops around him. All allied forces within 100-feet of Top get a 10% bonus to all attack and defense stats.

Structures: Structures may only be constructed within the designated section of your village. There is a maximum number you can build of each structure type. You may not exceed the limit, but you may replace any that are destroyed.

1. Farms: 4/8. Each farm produces 10 hog meat per minute. Each farm can support 25 population and requires 10 workers. If an insufficient number of workers are assigned to a farm, production will be slowed. Farms generate 1 worker per minute if you are below your population cap. For your farms to generate workers, the Command Post must be active.

2. Barracks: 1/2. Each barracks may convert a worker into a warrior at a rate of 2 per minute. A barracks requires 5 workers to operate.

3. Armory 1/1. Each armory requires 10% of your hog meat production and will slowly upgrade the arms, armor, and tools of your village. Multiple armories increase the rate of gear improvement. The Armory requires 5 workers to operate.

4. Command Post: 1/1. The command post is where you will stay to participate in the coming battle. From here, you can issue orders to your commanders and monitor the progress of your troops. If your commander falls, a new one will slowly be regenerated inside the barracks. The Command Post requires 5 workers to operate.

5. Defenses: 1/10. A crude wall surrounds the village, and four watchtowers increase the range of vision for your defenders.

Construction:

All construction projects will be delayed if there are insufficient workers assigned to the task. For each missing worker, construction will be slowed by 10%.

1. Farm: Requires 100 hog meat and 10 workers to construct.

2. Barracks: Requires 250 hog meat and 10 workers to construct.

3. Armory: Requires 250 hog meat and 10 workers to construct. Your faction may only have 1 armory in service at each village.

4. Command Post: Requires 500 resources and 20 workers to construct. A command post may only be produced on a designated spot at each village. For each additional command post you control, farm output and the combat values of your troops are improved by 10%. An additional commander may be trained for each command post you control.

5. Improved Defenses: Requires 250 resources and 20 workers to construct.

Upgrades: Orcish structures are simple affairs and cannot be upgraded. Since orcish structures cannot be upgraded, your 2 free structure upgrades may instead be used to construct a building or improve your defenses.

Command Options. As the leader of the orcish village, you may enact the following commands.

1. To Arms! Rally the workers inside your village to assist in defense. This ability lasts for 5 minutes and has a 10-minute cooldown. When called to arms, the normal combat penalty for workers is halved.

2. Forced March. You may activate Forced March on any forces outside of your village. The command lasts for 5 minutes and there is a 10-minute cooldown between uses. This command increases the movement speed of your troops by 25%. Orcs are hardy creatures and unlike the other factions in this challenge, they are not exhausted at the end of a forced march.

3. Rub some Dirt on it! This unique command for the orcish faction grants your forces a minor heal over time buff for 1 minute. You have 3 charges of this ability and multiple uses on the same forces at the same time will enhance the effect.

It was a lot of information to absorb, but nothing seemed too out there. The thing I needed to do next was use my two upgrades. I already had a battle plan for the coming fight. I was going to charge out of the gate as fast as I could, with as large a force as I could. If I could wipe out one of the other factions in the opening minutes of the challenge, I’d get space at the conquered village to build more structures, not to mention the fact that I’d gather resources just from fighting.

To accomplish my plan, I’d need more warriors and a greater total population. I selected a barracks and another farm to use my upgrades on. Thankfully, the system created the buildings instantly and I didn’t have to wait for them to construct. Even better, the farm came with enough workers to max out my total population without having to wait for the new workers to spawn. As soon as I created the barracks, four of the new workers were instantly changed to warriors.

Village Status.

Population: 125/125.

Workers: 116.

Warriors: 8.

Commanders: 1.

Structures:

Farms: 5/8.

Barracks: 2/2.

Armory: 1/1.

Command Post: 1/1.

I assigned the correct number of workers to each structure. That left me with 46 workers that had nothing to do. All 46 were sent to the barracks to be changed into warriors. With two barracks, I’d convert a pair of workers into warriors every minute.

My workers were unarmored but did have simple spears that they used to slaughter the hogs with. It was way better than something like a shovel, and I felt the spears might give our workers an edge over the enemy workers. In addition to the spears, the workers also had a hand tool, either an axe or hammer that would function as a backup weapon. My warriors wore thick leather armor and had heavy chopping blades or axes for their main weapons. Each of them also had a hog wrangler spear to use as a throwing weapon.

Top was kitted out the best of the bunch. His leather armor had metal plates bolted to it, helping to cover the vital areas on his body. He used twin axes as his melee weapons of choice and had a quartet of smaller throwing axes tucked into his belt. I was hoping that I’d have enough time to get my extra workers turned into warriors before the fight started, but almost immediately after choosing my upgrades and assigning workers, a system prompt appeared.

The battle for control of the valley has begun.