I don't understand this illogical action. To upgrade Orcs, you need to build a Forge.
Apparently, you've never played against the AI.
At 200% difficulty and in such an offline game, in the early days, you build the buildings you can afford, including the Forge, which is needed for the popular Town Hall and Capitol, which are essential in this type of game. And, in fact, upgrading Orcs is one of the cheapest upgrades, at least among their rank – 1000 gold and 2 wood and 2 stone... of course, there is a direct dependence between the unit's upgrade and the cost of that upgrade – from this, it is clear that Orcs don't become much stronger, although +5 health and +1 speed are always nice... and probably a little attack/defense and arrow capacity as well.