[merlinme]

One of my biggest complaints with Vine Ogres is how slow they are to summon. I think best case (Vine King + Crown of Vine King) is 3 ogres a turn? (I'm open to correction on this.) Early in the game, 2 ogres a turn is more like it. 2 or 3 vine ogres couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

So you can have your mage sit there for 15 turns and have 30 or maybe 45 Vine Ogres for 30 gems. 45 Vine Ogres is a chunky force, sure, but it's a painfully slow way of building an army. With Animal Horde, you can use lions as archer attackers, spiders can work with your poison cloud emitting troops, hawks can attack the enemy rear, and wolves can, erm, tire the enemy out a bit. And I'm not sure the army of vine ogres which took 15 turns to summon (without buffing magic) would survive much longer than the animal horde (without buffing magic).

I'm sure there are usable strategies with Vine Ogres. And yes, if you've got nature mages with nothing better to do, there are worse things to do than summoning a couple of them a turn. As Gandalf said, I guess they bulk out an army a bit, and it's nice that they don't eat. But by the time you had a decent number of Vine Ogres, I think Animal Horde would be a much better use of the gems.