Satrhan

Join Date 11/2008

+24

[Suggestion] Specialize outposts the same way as cities

I like how outposts can be upgraded in this beta, it makes them a bit more valuable than just a device for claiming territory. However they are still pretty generic, and some of the improvements don't make a lot of sense. I mean, I can imagine how having access to fresh horses would improve movement speed, but how do you provide a blanket 25% bonus to defense or offense to all units in the area, through magic? Actually, it would make more sense if it were done through magic, rather than conventional means. But it is very clearly implied it is not magical. Regardless, such straightforward bonuses are boring, and a bit unimaginative.

Another thing I like are the city specializations. They need a bit of balancing, but other than that it's a nice feature. So why not combine the two ideas, and have outposts upgrade into three different categories? So when you build an outpost it functions as it does now; it claims an area and allows you to place resource improvements in the connected city's building queue. If you want to upgrade it, there are three options; village, castle, and wizards tower. I'll make some suggestions on what each type's benefits would be.

Village
Costs: 50 population from parent city, no maintenance
Benefits: has it's own production queue for nearby improvements (so the parent city doesn't have to build them, saving time)
Possible improvements:

Farmlands: Adds +1 grain to parent city (requires fertile lands)
Logging camp: Adds +1 materials to parent city (requires forest)
Town: Adds gildar income to parent city, maybe small growth bonus, costs additional 100 population from parent city
Militia: Adds small defense force to the village
Palisade: Adds a palisade around the village, gives a defensive bonus on the village's tile
Local roads; increases the village's area by 1

Castle
Costs; 1 gildar per turn maintenance
Benefits: has a small defence force that defends the castle, improvements in it's influence area, and friendly armies fighting in it's influence area
Possible improvements:

Fortifications: Gives a defensive bonus to the castle
Barracks: makes the defending force larger, +1 maintenance
Supporting community: -50 population in parent city, -1 maintenance
Stables: increases area of influence, +1 movement to friendly units, costs 10 horses

Wizards tower
Costs: 1 mana per turn maintenance
Benefits: increases mana production from shards in it's area of influence by +1, if build on tile with essence adds +1 essence to parent city
Possible improvements:

Warden: Adds a powerful wizard that defends the tower, improvements in it's influence area, and friendly armies fighting in it's influence area
High tower: increases area of influence by 1
Apprentice: adds +1 research to parent city
Summoning altar: summons a random elemental that defends the tower, improvements in it's influence area, and friendly armies fighting in it's influence area
Obscuring aura: area of influence will seem unexplored to enemies when not in visual range, visual range in area reduced to 1
Inhibiting aura: reduces enemy movement by 1 (minimum of 1)
Various other aura's

I think this would give a lot more flavour to outposts and developing your kingdom.

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Gorshmak
Madcatter

You have my undivided attention. Looks like a very interesting idea.

I would think that outposts should have fewer level ups....maybe only 3 instead of 5.

I would also change your naming convension: 'Hamlets', 'Keeps', and 'Wizard Towers'

May I recommend that level 1 outposts all share some basic upgrade options. Maybe 3...

Then when you level up into your specialization, you get acces to 5 more of that area.

The third level up then provides additonal bonus, aside from the upgrades, and specific to the type of outpost it is.

Really like that the 'upgrades' from the original outpost concept are spread around through the level 2 upgrades.

Don't know how the outposts would level up though, as they do not have a growth. Perhaps, it can be based off the number of upgrades it has.

2 upgrades, and the outpost goes to level 2.

5 upgrades, and the outpost reaches level 3.

You may still of course build more upgrades for their bonuses.

Another thing to consider is that if these bonuses are too powerful, then outpost spamming will result. There must be deterent, such that the user only wants to build outposts where he'll gain resource, magical, or military benefit.

This is an idea that I hope Stardock really strongly considers.

Great idea Satrhan!!

As a side note, I really think your capital should be able to reach a level 6 with additional bonuses and perhaps a building that starts some end game quest or spells to help win the game.

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I don't like the outpost giving benefit to anything outside its area of control, if outposts would suddenly grant +1 grain, +1 material, research, Gildar and whatnot Ill almost surely find an outpost on every single tile of the map at some point, due to the massive benefits these things would give to parent cities, especially when spammed thoroughly for each city.

I do enjoy the 25% bonus to attack and defence, in earlier beta's players had this bonus (or was it 50% bonus) in they're own area anyhow, now its limited to around special outposts. It might not make too much sense if you have to come up with excuses about how it would work in real-life, except for a place to sleep, sharpen your weapons and clean your armour, But it makes for interesting gameplay choices, where you want to take the time out of your build queue to have a defensive benefit.

The outpost specialization idea would be a fantastic system to avoid all these upgrade spam, getting pretty tired of having to click hundreds of times due to the new outposts all needing stables, high-tower, warden, and whatever.
So this would make a welcome change to be able to pick one out of 3 upgrades, focus around either mana from shards, a big outpost territory with increased move-speed, of a great defensive area.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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It also creates some interesting choices. Say you come across a rather large fertile area, big enough to build a few cities in. Currently you can build those cities, and grow them by building the right buildings. If my suggestion(s) were implemented, you'd have a choice;

Build one city and surround it with several 'village' outposts with farmlands. This city can then grow into a large metropolis.
Build a few cities, which has it's advantages (like several build queues), but they won't grow very large.
Or build a few cities and 'import' food from fertile area's far away, at higher costs and risks. This way you could make a core region with several developed cities, but you'd have a larger territory you'd need to keep safe.

To me, this type of mechanics make a game much more interesting. Together with techs and faction traits that influence cities and outposts, you could create a wide range of play styles; factions that benefit from building few cities and lots of outposts or vice versa, sprawling empires or compact city-states, a balanced mix of all city types and outposts or focusing on one type of city supported by one type of outpost, etc

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Satrhan, that sounds extremely complicated, both UI wise and gamepaly wise...
So not sure I agree.
Seems to me ill have to bring my calculator each time I want to build a city, and figure out if it needs to be 1 tile to the left or right, and figure out all of the surroundings, putting trillions of numbers into my calculations of where to build my city.
I might just be thinking of it in a more complex way though... But I cant picture that idea in a simple way

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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UI should not be a problem at all. The simplest solution would be a pop-up that appears when you hover over the 'Outpost' button. It could show something like 'When build, this outpost will be connected to [City name], and cost [x] gildar per turn in maintenance.' Or if you could choose the city it connects to there could be a screen that comes up when founding the outpost that shows a list of cities it can connect to, their status (tile yields, population, food reserves, production, etc), and the maintenance costs that would be associated with connecting to this city.

It would then be up to you to decide if it's worth it. That might be a little complicated (though not really imho), but this game could use some complication in it's empire building if you ask me...

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Quoting Satrhan,

reply 3

I'll grant that outposts granting something to it's parent city could lead to even more spamming, which I'm sure no-one wants. But there will obviously have to be some balancing when implementing this. I, for one, don't really like the +grain and +food per grain buildings that are available, that mechanic makes little sense to me. I'd much rather have that 1 grain feeds a fixed amount of people, and if you want more grain you'll have to go look for it outside your city. Outpost spamming would be limited by minimum distance, and suitability of the tile it's on (so the Farmlands improvement is only available for outposts on a tile with at least 4 'grain', for instance). If needed you could also give outposts a maintenance costs, which would mean you have to develop a city for a bit before adding a new outpost. You could even make the maintenance dynamic, for instance by increasing the maintenance the further the outpost is from the city.

It also creates some interesting choices. Say you come across a rather large fertile area, big enough to build a few cities in. Currently you can build those cities, and grow them by building the right buildings. If my suggestion(s) were implemented, you'd have a choice;

Build one city and surround it with several 'village' outposts with farmlands. This city can then grow into a large metropolis.
Build a few cities, which has it's advantages (like several build queues), but they won't grow very large.
Or build a few cities and 'import' food from fertile area's far away, at higher costs and risks. This way you could make a core region with several developed cities, but you'd have a larger territory you'd need to keep safe.
To me, this type of mechanics make a game much more interesting. Together with techs and faction traits that influence cities and outposts, you could create a wide range of play styles; factions that benefit from building few cities and lots of outposts or vice versa, sprawling empires or compact city-states, a balanced mix of all city types and outposts or focusing on one type of city supported by one type of outpost, etc

I do like the +grain, +food, +Essence buildings but I would put in a caravan or road system that could become attacked or blocked by Enemies or creatures much like in Shogun 2 (and I believe CIV 5 it has been a while since I played CIV) That way we have the benefits and the risk. Also if another player is blocking the trade route then they get booty each turn from it (like in Shogun 2.)

As far as the combat bonuses this usually reflects help from the "garrison" of the outpost. Much like Starbases in Galciv 2 with fighter assistance and such. However I would simply have the garrison units actually show up in battle after so many turns based on the distance from the Outpost that the battle is taken place. Basically having that "Saved by the Calvary affect.

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Interesting idea, but I too dislike the +food/essence etc. I do not want an outpost spam either. I don't have anything to add just yet though.

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Quoting Nasarog,

reply 8

Interesting idea, but I too dislike the +food/essence etc. I do not want an outpost spam either. I don't have anything to add just yet though.

Well you could have that trade route work both ways as well. If you block the route from the city to the Outpost then you would have only so many turns that the outpost can last (under Siege) based on grain produced + or Minus what ever other bonuses you want to add befor the Outpost starves and is abandoned. You can represent this in several ways:

1) Outpost is destroyed - I don't like this

2) Outpost no longer gives you any benefits and is not apart of your empire any more. It becomes neutral/abandoned and can be captured by anyone.

I think this would curtail the Outpost spam because it would be a lot more dangerous to maintain one escpecially the farther an outpost is away from your cities. And it would encourage a player to have more troops to patrol the trade routes instead of just having a stack of Doom made up of Champs which cannot be every where at once.

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Quoting Bellack,

reply 9

Quoting Nasarog, reply 8Interesting idea, but I too dislike the +food/essence etc. I do not want an outpost spam either. I don't have anything to add just yet though.

Well you could have that trade route work both ways as well. If you block the route from the city to the Outpost then you would have only so many turns that the outpost can last (under Siege) based on grain produced + or Minus what ever other bonuses you want to add befor the Outpost starves and is abandoned. You can represent this in several ways:

1) Outpost is destroyed - I don't like this

2) Outpost no longer gives you any benefits and is not apart of your empire any more. It becomes neutral/abandoned and can be captured by anyone.

I think this would curtail the Outpost spam because it would be a lot more dangerous to maintain one escpecially the farther an outpost is away from your cities. And it would encourage a player to have more troops to patrol the trade routes instead of just having a stack of Doom made up of Champs which cannot be every where at once.

Hmm, blockading a city by cutting off it's outposts. Interesting, but now you are getting into sieges, and as far as I can tell, E:FE doesn't have any. Still an interesting idea.

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I like the design, even the bonuses in food, materials, and research. It adds flavor. I also like the idea of an outpost being able to exploit the resources as an alternative to a city (when those resources are comparatively poor and you want to claim the spot, but not necessarily build a city).

I do not like outpost or city spam (and beta 4 is much more prone to city and outpost spamming in my opinion). As a solution, I am an advocate of allowing a fixed number of outposts to city (with considerations for larger cities to support more outposts). Cities are controlled by the presence of good building sites (very concentrated in beta 4, to my experience so far).

The village is a good design. I would add the 'Armory' and 'Warden' (as a skilled group of huntsmen or rangers) to the castle. I would lose the powerful 'Warden' (as a powerful wizard) idea from the wizards tower ... sounds too much like a stationary champion to me. I have enough difficulty swallowing the champions with spell casting ... I think it makes the Sovereign just another champion, and not unique. Following that, 'Apprentice' could be renamed to 'Academy' or some such.

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Thanks for the support guys, I do hope the dev's consider this idea.

@Bellack: That's what I figured. They could get away with giving such bonuses in galciv, but in a land based fantasy game, with tactical battles, it just doesn't work. You need to have those reinforcements actually show up in combat.

@loggerhead_shrike: I agree with you on the wizards tower, there are way to many spellcasters as it is, which doesn't fit in the lore of this game. Since the outposts are basically mini versions of the different city types, I suppose you could argue that a mini conclave would be a monastery? That might even fit better. The 'warden' could be replaced with some monks with limited magical powers, a bit like AoW's monks (they had a magical ranged attack, could heal, and turn undead units).

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Like the idea a lot

It will allow for extra decisions: Do I build another basic city for a little cash and research (knowing it will never become big), or do I plant an outpost or two to allow another city to really make it to 5 with all the extra research etc? Good stuff.

The idea of caravans I also like, will require some troops(which will cost also maintenance- good) to keep the roads clear from random mobs, and will also make the connection of far away outposts a risky plan indeed.

Also like the point that outposts cost maintenance, as outposts are continuously doing something, so should also continuously need support, or maintenance.

I would drop the powerful wizard but use something like monks (as stated by Satrhan)

Concerns are:

a)Outpost spam, hate how that is currently dominating the game, love the above mentioned idea of limiting the number of outposts, but limit should be per empire (as most outposts will link to border city), and the empire supports them in any sensible way. So big empire -> many outposts, small empire->few outposts. This might be based on number of cities and their lvls? For each city and level one outpost? So an empire with 2 cities (one lvl 1 the other lvl 2) would be able to support 3 outposts.

b ) Location of outposts would need to be outside of city box (or possible resourcegain would need to be disabled there)

edit: changed to b )

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