Outposts

It was a mere example. Nothing more.

Hold up. Are you talking about luxury/strategic resources?

 

Obviously.

Luxury/strategics are gained by building the fort/outpost.
The tiles themselves cannot be worked by a city, unless it's within the 3 tile radius (their regular workable area).

 

Har har, my bad. I'm a very specific person, generalizing with me isn't the best of ideas.
I agree, just like the game when you build improvements you should get them.

I think that an outpost should be able to have citizens donated from a city to the outpost. Thus being able to send back production, excess food, gold, etc. go back to the city responsible for the outpost. It helps when you get the luck of being in an extreme spot like tundra/snow/desert/all food/all production/etc. It will allow you to be more flexible. Thus at the expense of the expenses of the outpost and management.

I also think either
A) 1 citizen is required to be donated to an outpost so it can operate.
B) A special unit is required to build an outpost and works kind of like a settler. (cannot build a city but halts food growth in the city.

 

You are thinking ''what can I add'' whereas you should be thinking ''what can I take away''. Every good idea is always a simple one. I say, keep this as simple as possible and it would be a working, balanced and fun new mechanic. Overcomplicate and it loses it's appeal.

 

Are you an engineer? lol

 

Reading this discussion, I'm reminded of Civ3 where you had to build... outposts (sacrificing a worker) + road to get a resource outside a city's culture borders. I think building a fort counted as an outpost too after some expansion packs; not sure, it was many many years ago

Airfields were in there too, while in Civ4 forts could act as airfields.

 

Not at all

But my previous statement is not only true for engineering projects, it's true for almost any idea or blueprint.

 

True. Though, its been observed that even though its great wisdom, very few engineers follow that, even though we're taught it. We like to go overboard on capability.

 

If i did such a mod, I'd make a fort to require a unit stationed in it to claim a surrounding territory. Thus it would virtually have a maintenance. Moreover, as unit maintenance rises exponentially with number of units, player could not support large number of forts.

 

That's not a bad idea actually. It would make the rules alot simpler. And it's also pretty realistic.

 

I think this is a great idea. I had made the argument that destroying an outpost would result in the loss of the claimed surrounding territory and therefore it would be important to have unit presense to defend the outpost. However this idea is flawed since the outpost would not require units/roads/anything to be active and therefore could easily be spammed (a problem). Your idea does an excellent job of incorporating a maintenance price (the unit maintenance) and preventing spamming (unit production not devoted to conquest or city defense).

Some questions for you, a modder:

What do you think should happen to the outpost's claimed tiles if the defending unit were to move or be destroyed?

Should enemy civs be able to capture and/or destroy outposts?

For instance, if I have an outpost defended by a spearman who is consequently attacked and destroyed by an enemy swordsman, would the swordsman activate the claimed tiles (he is now on the outpost) or would the outpost be destroyed?

Thanks in advance!

 

i think there are 2 most obvious variants:
1. outpost (fort) is destroyed when enemy unit enters it
2. outpost is captured, thus an owner of surrounding territory gets switched

there are also some interesting consequences in case 2. imagine player captures a fort inside his enemy's borders (or builds it with a worker): a 7-tile eclave emerges, which will persist even after peace treaty is signed. it would be useful when you dont want cities but certain tiles in a rival country.

 

I don't think outpost tiles (proposed as a dotted line) should override normal borders. Rather the opposite.

However decreasing culture cost of tiles already under semi-control by a fort would be good. And, at the same time increasing culture costs for enemy civs.

So capturing a fort near an enemy civs true border would make it harder for that civ to buy/grow to those tiles naturally. On the other hand, once it has grown onto the fort tile the fort and it's radius will belong to them again.

 

i like an idea of forts working like a revertible culture bomb more.
making them culture expansion attractors would lead to overuse. player would spam them to help his borders growing / harm rivals.

 

True, but in your case you would spam them just for the free culturetiles. Still, I can see your point.

So your suggestion is that you could potentially use forts as culturebombs and actually steal another civ's territorry?

 

yeah as culture bombs but only at war.
thus not steal but occupy



picture 1 - a blue player has built a fort on the red player's border
picture 2 - war was declared.

red player can capture the fort so he will get his territory back. otherwise it will remain under control of the blue player after a peace treaty is signed. if the fort on the picture 2 will be abandoned or destroyed, two bottom blue hexes will pass to the red player, other hexes will become nobody's.

on the picture 1, the red player cant expand to the blue hexes but the blue player can (if he had a city nearby to the fort).
on the picture 2, the same except the two bottom blue hexes - they are occupied red player's territory and cant be culturally annexed/bought by the blue player.

 

I like your ideas killmenow. They really put focus on military tile claims and occupation. I think revertible tiles would create some very interesting strategic situations.

CYZ: I don't think killmenow's idea for outposts/forts will lead to spamming since outpost claimed tiles would be vunerable to attack.

If you build forts close to your cities to spam tiles you are making the war effort of your enemies somewhat easier since they can occupy these outposts, flip the culture of the tiles, and heal/upgrade their units just before any final push to your now vulnerable cities. Outposts built further away from your empire are begging to be taken by the enemy since they would be easy targets. The outpost can't bombard units, it has no defense value or health (just the unit occupying it), and the conqueror of the outpost receives new tiles without a loss to happiness. It would be like capturing a city, but with a lot less hassle and a nice reward.

I think spamming outposts is a weak strategy against militarily strong opponents. What is more easily defendable, 10 outposts spammed around the map with one unit each or 3 cities? If you spam numerous outposts I would imagine you are just creating a weak line of tiles ready for an enemy to gobble up. Building outposts for the long term will require more thought and preparation than cities, which are capable of defending themselves, creating units, and expanding your borders through culture.

What do you think?

 

Agreed. I think this may be the best version suggested so far. And probably easiest to implement.

So what if you build a fort 2 tiles from a city, so you gain access to those tiles earlier. Then your cityborders expands and expands, beyond the borders of the fort. If you move away your soldier or pillage the fort, will there be a big hole inside your border?

See what I mean? Do you still have to take over those tiles the normal way for them to belong to you permanently? Or is it your own fault for setting up a fort so close to your city? Is that the downside, you can't grow to those tiles normally and will thus have to maintain the fort or abandon it bu suffer a gap in your borders that will take time to fill up.

 

exactly. i think your cities should expand to your fort's surroundings just like to regular hexes like if there was no fort at all. those hexes are not culturally yours but occupied ones. on the city screen they could be indicated by a gray border for example:

 

Well, I'm in total agreement with your suggestion (except I think dotted borders would be better than gray, since they also indicate who is occupying). So, in short:

Forts, when occupied by a millitary unit occupy a 1-tile radius, in which:

* all resources, if improved, become yours
* your units heal as if in friendly territory
* embark promotions can be given
* units can be upgraded
* overrides any normal borders, but only when at war. Border will remain under your control if a peace treaty is signed

What doesn't happen:

* tiles aren't really yours. You can improve and gain resources but cannot work the tiles with a city
* promotions and effects (great wall, himje castle) do not work
* you and other civs can still expand to tiles naturally, if another civs expands to the fort your unit is automaticly removed from there (even with open borders) if the other civ places a unit in the fort they will gain it's effect.


So two more questions. If you occupied a fort during a war and are still occupying tiles that used to belong to another civ. Is there any way for that civ to grow back to those tiles without you leaving the fort?

Also, do you get a discount tile cost if you're occupying tiles? Do other civs pay additional tile cost for tiles occupied by you? Or would this be exploitable?