Outposts

[CYZ]

Whichever tile the Fort is built on should have your culture, and Forts should be changed to harvest strategic resources. I think having the Fort claim all tiles in a 1-tile radius would be overpowered.

Having to build a road to every fort you have would get expensive quick, especially if the fort itself costs money, too.

So basicly your second argument counters your second. Having forts harvest resources in a 1-tile is powerfull but balanced by the cost and buildtime of linking it up to your tradenetwork.

1 tile radius is not so much anyway. If it's worth building a fort but not worth building a city it's probably not that many resources in such a small radius.

 

[CYZ]

Also, I don't think that air strips should be included from the get go. i know, alot of people want them, but I think a new improvement should be created that you have to build specifically to let airplanes base there. A military base/fort does not equal an airbase in my opinion. This would make a fort without an air strip vulnurable to attack and make things interesting.

I don't think i brought anything new to the discussion, although, I think that it would be cool that if you connect a fort/outpost to civ that you are friends with or an ally city state, that you get the resources. This would drastically change thigns because you could have a little mining outpost in some continent a friendly civ is in and be able to get the benefit of the resources without damaging dimplomatic relations with the civilization who has claimed that area.

I agree with airstrips being seperate. That would mean you would first have to build an airport to be able to hit your enemy and then want to back up with a fort and traderoute to create an easy to reach defensive hub on a strategical location. This doesn't seem hard for the AI to learn.

Isn't automaticly recieving resources from a friendly civ a bit overpowered? I can imagine something for the CS. You can build a fort within a CS border and link it up to their tradenetwork to make them recieve the resource (and thus you if you're allied with them). They might also do this themselves ofcourse.

 

[Camikaze]

I'm not generally a fan of allowing for resource claims without building cities, but it doesn't sound too bad with the idea of dotted borders (rather than permanent), or with the slowly expanding borders around the outpost (to a max. of one ring). Costs are definitely required for this idea, and roads are probably a good way to represent that.

The 'dotted borders' could make for some interesting diplomacy, too.

 

[CYZ]

The 'dotted borders' could make for some interesting diplomacy, too.

Exactly, not to mention that it creates millitary hubs since:
* there's a easily defendable fort
* units recieve healing as in own territory
* reinforcements are easily brought in via the traderoute;s roads

I think this would make it easier for tha AI to defend on said locations, or bring in reinforcements via the road.

 

[Lexicus]

So basicly your second argument counters your second. Having forts harvest resources in a 1-tile is powerfull but balanced by the cost and buildtime of linking it up to your tradenetwork.

True, you could either have it be only 1 tile claimed and no road requirement or you could have the 7-tile claim plus the road requirement.

The idea of dotted (I assume that means "semi-permanent" in some way) borders could also be good.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

True, you could either have it be only 1 tile claimed and no road requirement or you could have the 7-tile claim plus the road requirement.

The idea of dotted (I assume that means "semi-permanent" in some way) borders could also be good.

1 tile claimed+no road would be simpler.

 

[Kurtbob]

Let me just say that I am answering these questions assuming they are based upon my own ideas for outposts as opposed to Chadwiick's. Sorry if this is confusing.

The outpost or fort makes all surrounding tiles become your culturally, what if some of these tiles are further than 3 tiles away from your city. Surely you don't suggest your city could work those tiles?

You are correct. If the fort's claimed tiles are outside of a city's radius, they cannot be worked. The purpose of the outpost is to grab resources/terrain.

Still, there are complications. What if you use a fort to bring tiles close to a city under your control. Your city keeps expanding culturally overtime. Do the tiles converted by the fort still need to be expanded to the normal way?

The answer has to be yes or the idea would not work, but as you stated this does complicate things. The purpose of the fort/outpost is not to spam territory but to open up resources/strategic tiles more quickly when a city isn't viable. A city must buy/claim tiles on its own accord if it wishes to work tiles.

Your ideas for the dotted line set up match the ideas I had initially for outposts (save the dotted line).

What you gain inside dotted territory

*sight within territory, not outside
* Able to build improvements
* Gain resources if improved
* healing ability as if inside normal border (+1)
* culture cost of these tiles is halved for you, but doubled for opponents (thus easier for you to grow to, harder for them)

What you can't do

* gain any unitbonusses
* guarentee someone else doesn't take over the tiles
* work these tiles by cities

The dotted line would certainly alieviate the problem above.

If not, is it possible that you have a very large cultural radius, someone pillages your fort and all of a sudden there is a gaping hole in your cultural area?

My idea was that a fort's/outpost's claims would disappear when they themselves were destroyed/pillaged. However, if any of those tiles were claimed by a friendly nearby city, they would not disappear.

 

[Kurtbob]

True, you could either have it be only 1 tile claimed and no road requirement or you could have the 7-tile claim plus the road requirement.

I like the idea of not requiring roads. I would therefore have to choose 1 tile claim over the 7-tile claim but only if the one tile can become 7-tiles slowly over time. A lonely tile would be difficult to protect/deny the enemy and I would think not worth the investment.

 

[CYZ]

1 tile wouldn't work. You'd end up spamming forts anywhere on the map since you don't need a traderoute. It would also be impossible for others to take over your fort without pillaging and rebuilding.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

1 tile wouldn't work. You'd end up spamming forts anywhere on the map since you don't need a traderoute. It would also be impossible for others to take over your fort without pillaging and rebuilding.

The fort improvement itself should cost gold (say 1-3 gpt) unless it is in your cultural borders.
And you would only place the forts on resources, that would be the only place they are useful.

And pillaging +rebuilding would be fine.

 

[Chadwiick]

What if a fort has the same distance to two cities, who does it belong to?

How a city determines who gets it is simple, some type of icon will pop up as if you were to manage your citizens screen, claim this outpost or not? Simple as that, population donation is necessary to balance the feature. How does one make a small city-like outpost and not need population when it's purpose is to gather resources and buff the mother city.
Or you could make a screen like how it has for [Wonders][Citizen management], etc. and it would be something like [Outposts]. You would have the ability for that city to take the outpost. If another one of your cities all ready claim it then you can click it and it will convert to the selected city. The population that was previously used for that outpost will head back to their mother city.

If you have a large empire with many cities and many forts micromanagement becomes tedious.

I disagree, you have a challenge to get everything right, the bigger you are the bigger the responsibilities should occur.

What is the difference with just being able to work the tile? In both cases you trade a population for the tile yield.

Ghost citizens don't exist in this game, if you build an improvement it doesn't mean you're working on it.

All in all, too complicated. It could work but I think the micromanagement would be too much, even for civ.

Too much micromanagement? Pretty much what you've said overall is that "I want to be big but I don't want too much to deal with." I'm sorry I don't see how that is fair, big people need to micromanage to compensate their size.

Here's how I would suggest it

Fort, when connected to trade network brings all adjacent tiles under your control (dotted line) unless tiles already are under your or someone elses control.

What I am understanding is that *Build an outpost, get up to 6 resources automatically? Even if it requires an improvement, it needs population donation to balance the feature.

What you gain inside dotted territory

*sight within territory, not outside
* Able to build improvements
* Gain resources if improved
* healing ability as if inside normal border (+1)
* culture cost of these tiles is halved for you, but doubled for opponents (thus easier for you to grow to, harder for them)

I like these, I agree except for the "* Gain resources if improved" I still think donation of population is essential to balance the feature.

What you can't do

* gain any unitbonusses
* guarentee someone else doesn't take over the tiles
* work these tiles by cities

These don't sound bad, unit bonus should only be put in the outpost. (if speaking militarily).

So I would forget the population idea entirely. This way it could actually work and be more fun. It would make empires much more dynamic if it's not just cities and traderoutes, but also these outpostforts in between. In fact, might make the game harder for the warmongerer since there will be more forts and AIs will want to defend them for the resources.

You can, I won't. Population donation is my story and I'm sticking with it.

Last thing to resolve. Can forts link up to the trade network over water (if a city has a harbour ofcourse). Could make water maps more dynamic for sure, on the other hand it is a bit too easy and cheap if you don't have to build roads.

How else are you going to connect and outpost with your city if a harbor is the only option? You can make the maintenance cost higher than a cities cost for a harbor.

One other thing to resolve actually. This situation will almost never occur but still. What if a fort is connected to your traderoute, but also to those of other civs. Someone pillages the road leading to your fort. Does the fort go to other civs?

If the fort is still intact and under control of your civ, then it's yours whether or not someone pillages a road.

 

[Chadwiick]

I really like this idea, it is very interesting and would be super cool.

First off, i don't think that culture generation should be given. I think it should just give you each surrounding the fort, and if the fort is sacked then you loose all worked tiles within.

The way I currently have it thought out is with the dotted line idea. It is not permanently yours. Once a city or something expands to the outpost it has to culture research those tiles to make them yours, so if your outpost gets destroyed and it only had dotted line borders, then you lose those borders. If a city has researched those borders they become solid line border and if the outpost is pillaged then the tiles with solid lines stay with your empire.

Also, I don't think that air strips should be included from the get go. i know, alot of people want them, but I think a new improvement should be created that you have to build specifically to let airplanes base there. A military base/fort does not equal an airbase in my opinion. This would make a fort without an air strip vulnurable to attack and make things interesting.

Ability to construct a hangar/airstrip would help balance that easily.

I agree that the fort needs to be connected to a city in order to get the resources, and that the fort should cost a little more than what it costs now.

I don't think i brought anything new to the discussion, although,

You did bring something new to the table.

I think that it would be cool that if you connect a fort/outpost to civ that you are friends with or an ally city state, that you get the resources. This would drastically change thigns because you could have a little mining outpost in some continent a friendly civ is in and be able to get the benefit of the resources without damaging dimplomatic relations with the civilization who has claimed that area.

Ok, excuse me if I am not understanding 100%. To me it sounds like you are saying two civilizations work on the same tile and both get equal amount of resources?

 

[Chadwiick]

I think having the Fort claim all tiles in a 1-tile radius would be overpowered.

That is why you can make limitations, 2 per city can be built or something of the like.

Having to build a road to every fort you have would get expensive quick, especially if the fort itself costs money, too.

Road is there for balancing and making you decide- do I really need this or do I really want this?

 

[Chadwiick]

Thank you everyone for your feed back so far. I appreciate it, it's been fun with what little debate has been involved.
I apologize if my post above this sound ignorant, I forgot to check this for around three days and was just doing things step by step to reply to many things.

I am looking forward into more ideas and conversation that will be brought up in this thread.

I have also just thought of an idea, outposts can be built and adding a fort would be an upgrade to it not 100% if that's what conversations above were implying but I shall make it official on the thread. >: D

Thanks again!

 

[CYZ]

The fort improvement itself should cost gold (say 1-3 gpt) unless it is in your cultural borders.
And you would only place the forts on resources, that would be the only place they are useful.

And pillaging +rebuilding would be fine.

I don't see the fun in building forts on every resource you want outside your border. Doesn't look nice, doesn't feel nice and it's hard to defend.

Which is why I like the 1-tile radius, it creates a hub. With the road requirement it is a bit of work and also gold to set one up. So you likely wouldn't spam them.

Also, with your suggestion it doesn't matter wheter a resource is just outside of your borders or on the other side of the planet, the cost stays the same. The tradenetwork idea is much more realistic in that sense.

 

[CYZ]

You can, I won't. Population donation is my story and I'm sticking with it.

I understand it's your idea and that you want to stick with it. But to me it seems like nothing else but being able to work tiles outside of your workable radius (that's what using a population to gain a tile's yield is you know).

It isn't a bad idea, it just creates unbalance. You can build forts to all the good tiles and work only the best tiles with your city (the best tiles within a radius of 3 or the best tiles near your outposts). So if you really want that, you'll need to balance it somehow. And then it becomes more and more complicated. You can increase cost or set a max per city. Those are all arbitrary rules and decrease the value of your idea.

That's basicly why I'm for staying in line with current game mechanics as much as possible. So that means, any resources within your borders belong to you. That makes outposts usefull without overpowering them (allowing you to work tiles).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't see the fun in building forts on every resource you want outside your border. Doesn't look nice, doesn't feel nice and it's hard to defend.

Which is why I like the 1-tile radius, it creates a hub. With the road requirement it is a bit of work and also gold to set one up. So you likely wouldn't spam them.

Also, with your suggestion it doesn't matter wheter a resource is just outside of your borders or on the other side of the planet, the cost stays the same. The tradenetwork idea is much more realistic in that sense.

The farther away it is the harder it costs to defend.

However, I could see having a Trade Network cost.. have the Fort cost 1 gpt and require a Trade Network connection (allow Fort to act as a Harbor if it is coastal)

 

[Chadwiick]

Population donation is key for the simple fact that who else is going to work on an outposts tiles, if outposts goals are to acquire resources and send them to a city (which the tiles that an outpost works on are tiles outside a cities radius of standard workable tiles) then donating population is fair.

Ok, I have a city and 4 people, they are all working on production, not much food available. I want some food. There is some wheat 4 grids outside my city, I cannot move my city so I need to build and outpost to gain that wheat so my city can grow in population. Ok, outpost is build, trade route established responsibility of the outpost claimed. I have 4 citizens and my city is stagnant. I need to send 1 from production to the outpost to start working on the wheat. Now my city is growing.

That is a main scenario I see for outposts. I used small numbers just to show as an example. I don't see the logic in building an outpost establishing a trade route then I can get all of those resources for free with the exception of building tile improvements balanced. If your city is getting outside help with nothing to counter-balance it, then it's a gift. In my opinion.

 

[CYZ]

The farther away it is the harder it costs to defend.

However, I could see having a Trade Network cost.. have the Fort cost 1 gpt and require a Trade Network connection (allow Fort to act as a Harbor if it is coastal)

Isn't the idea of a few hubs, connected to your cities by road more attractive than just a bunch of forts?

 

[CYZ]

Population donation is key for the simple fact that who else is going to work on an outposts tiles, if outposts goals are to acquire resources and send them to a city (which the tiles that an outpost works on are tiles outside a cities radius of standard workable tiles) then donating population is fair.

No it isn't. Every tile within your borders that provides resources does this even if you're not working it with citizens. Making an exception for tiles owned by outposts seems really weird and unnatural, to me at least.

Ok, I have a city and 4 people, they are all working on production, not much food available. I want some food. There is some wheat 4 grids outside my city, I cannot move my city so I need to build and outpost to gain that wheat so my city can grow in population. Ok, outpost is build, trade route established responsibility of the outpost claimed. I have 4 citizens and my city is stagnant. I need to send 1 from production to the outpost to start working on the wheat. Now my city is growing.

I'd say you chose a poor city site, if there's no food you can't grow. With your suggesstion I could build a city with several outposts and only work the best tiles. It would unbalance the game too much.

That is a main scenario I see for outposts. I used small numbers just to show as an example. I don't see the logic in building an outpost establishing a trade route then I can get all of those resources for free with the exception of building tile improvements balanced. If your city is getting outside help with nothing to counter-balance it, then it's a gift. In my opinion.

Like I said, you get all resources for free anyway. That's how this game works, resource inside your border=you get it if improved. Straying a way for that is making a good idea complicated and unnatural. So yes, you get the resources for free, and yes that's a big boost sometimes. But remember, building a fort, a road and improving tiles is alot of work for a worker and you're also paying for the traderoute. Plus these hubs will be away from your cities and will probably need at least one millitary unit to fight off barbarians so that's some more maintenance. Besides, if it wouldn't be strong it wouldn't be worth all the effort. Also, if a hub really has that many good resources in that small radius you should probably build a city instead.