[0.95] Micromanagement & Outposts

from Elemental Forums

I love the new outpost concept, but I strongly dislike the amount of micromanagement that it requires.  When I get the ability to construct stables or high towers, I have to go manually through my dozen or more towers (more in large maps) and manually add it in to every one.  Side note - when trying to do so rapidly, it's very easy to accidentally click "Raze" instead of "Upgrade" - please add a confirm dialog to that?  Could there be an option to add them to all towers connected to a city or something like that?

Along the same lines - the minimum construction duration of 3 is really messing things up.  I can have a high production city that should be able to do half a dozen upgrades in one turn but it can only do one every 3 turns without intervention.  I can manually rush them (for an income, which is cool, but probably not intended) after one turn, but that's still a large number of turns my city isn't doing something more useful.  And, if I have 5-10 cities all upgrading their 2-3 towers, I have to manually rush production dozens of times so I don't a ton of time.  Allowing things to be done in sub-1 turn would be nice (aka multiple things per turn if they're low-cost)

Thanks, overall great work with Beta 4!

3,703 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


Actually I never upgrade outposts.  I plop them down for resources or terrritory and then forget about them.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

the minimum construction duration of 3 is really messing things up.
End of quote
    agree 

I can manually rush them (for an income, which is cool, but probably not intended) after one turn,
End of quote
 agree     exploit/enjoy it while you can.

Quoting Bill, reply 1
I plop them down for resources or terrritory and then forget about them
End of Bill's quote
  So did I at first.  That's the problem.

CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Fully agree on this. Consulates are the most rediculous, but some of the others are powerful too. The whole 3 turn limit was back in a time when there was very little to build and was meant to prevent cities from being instantly finished doing everything they could.

There are now enough buildings that I often cannot complete them all before the end of the game and this 3 turn limit is no longer necessary. Not to mention it functions poorly with the idle bonus that is rarely utilized.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CdrRogdan, reply 3
There are now enough buildings that I often cannot complete them all before the end of the game and this 3 turn limit is no longer necessary. Not to mention it functions poorly with the idle bonus that is rarely utilized.
End of CdrRogdan's quote

+2

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

The Outpost idea seems to clearly be a copy of their Mechanic from GalCiv2. Even Frogboy did a supposed slip reference as a joke in the original post about the outpost upgrade system.

 

I say if you are going to take an idea that worked previously then take the whole idea not just part of it. That being said I don't think there is anything wrong with it but I think they should actually fully copy it's mechanics. Use Pioneers to upgrade the outpost and resources instead of making the cities do it.

 

Newly built cities are often closest to new resources. As such their production queue gets filled up building resource buildings and outpost upgrades. When instead the city should have more important things to do, like building up it's own infrastructure. Not to mention the whole system is very confusing since it does not tell you which city's production queue is going to get used up whenever you upgrade something.

 

If outpost and resource buildings worked like starbases in GC2 then you could just use your inner cities with higher production to pump out pioneers and build up those front line resources, the same way you build up front line starbases in GC2. 

 

Also have an upgrade so the outpost can actually defend themselves. It's kind of annoying that they are defenseless against even an enemy pioneer.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Play on epic and all those worries about endless production queues are over. Instead one is faced with endless periods of nothing to do. Pick your poison.

 

But then, I actually like the outpost system and have played on epic, so my perspective is undoubtedly not the norm.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I wish I could upgrade outposts.

 

But with the 3 turn production minimum, the new never ending production queue from having to queue every single thing on a map, including having to upgrade wild improvements through cities that aren't designed for production, there's simply no time. I don't even get halfway through my critical improvements by the end of game.  The game would be several times over before I began to think about upgrading an outpost.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Add a UI screen to the Govern section that lists your outposts, their attached city, their existing upgrades, the resources under their influence, and has a mechanic to allow you to build other upgrade, all without leaving the screen.  Maybe a small world map with a highlighted box so you know where the outpost is.  It would look a lot like the city screen.  

Problem solved.  

Edit:  Oh, and I agree with the 3-turn minimum discussion.  The number of buildings is high enough now that it should go, or be modified in some way.