Outpost balance and upgrades' viability discussion

[ARCAGNELL0]

Hello, this is hopefully going to be shorter than most of the other discussions I've started previously, since it more or less discusses quite an easy subject: Outposts, namely how currently underperfoming they are defensively for both how many resources they require to be built and the time it takes for their upgrades to kick in.

Outposts Through the ages

Please let me know if I'm missing any civ specific Outpost tech or upgrade, as I've only played Abbassid and Chinese for the moment, I'll make sure to add them.

The Dark Age Outpost
Let's begin with the basics to try and and put things into perspective.

The Outpost has 1000 health, 50 ranged armor and does not come with ANY firepower of his own until garrisoned across all current AOE4 civilizations. It's worth 100 wood and requires a worker to hammer at it for 45 seconds (-25% less if you're playing china for what I can only assume are masochistic tendencies right now).

The only use I could ever think of for a dark age outpost would be to combat Mongol pressure, but I would not go for that really. Mongol Scout spam is so good because it can also torches buildings really well, and the dark age outpost has no fire resistance to speak of, making it just another pebble in the way of your opponent.

The Feudal Age Outposts
I've come to appreciate the usefulness of Outposts in feudal most when I started playing the Chinese, since that's the moment when early to moderate to all-in levels of pressure will start mounting on you trying to get your eco above your enemy and successfully win in castle or imperial age. They also do bonus damage against ships, making them a choice defence tool for your dock, since even a fully garrisoned, stock keep probably wins against the current french Hulk.

They're also very, very useful at seeing eco raids coming and making sure there is no sneaking in stealth forests around your base.

All civilizations get two upgrades for them in feudal. The first one is the Arrowslits upgrade with has the Outpost become able to fire on its own without garrisoned units in it. The DPS for the amount of resources spent on it (25 gold, 50 stone with a 30 second build time) is...acceptable, as long as you're only fighting enemy archers, spearmen and horsemen.

The Chinese get a Handcannon Slits instead, which costs the same but provides a lot more per-shot punch than arrows, allowing Outposts to be an actual threat even against French Knights and Rus Early knights in feudal.

There's also another upgrade in feudal, and that's the "Fortify Outpost". I don't think anyone should seriously consider taking this. 100 stone and 30 seconds of upgrade time when it only doubles the pitiful 1000 health to 2000 and adds an almost meaningless +5 fire armor? Remember that even simple Scouts do 13 torch damage, as any other melee unit (apart from the Fire Lancer) does, meaning it does not even half the incoming damage.

The English get a 25% attack speed bonus to all units within the aura of an Outpost, which is an amazing force multiplier and can be used in both a defensive and offensive fashion should you see fit.

The Castle Age Outpost
Castle age allows what probably is the most useful (and cost effective) upgrade for the Outpost in the whole game, the Springald emplacement.

Installing a whole springald into a keep for a meager 50 gold and 125 is a big deal, especially considering the unit we're putting into the keep costs 200 wood and 200 gold by itself. This actually allows a player to opt for springald spam instead of keep spam if only sheer firepower is taken into consideration.

A keep with a Springald Emplacement is 925 Stone and 50 Gold, while 4 keeps surrounded on all sides by a stone wall with a gate is 400 wood, 200 gold and (I think) 730 stone, which allows your units to stay on them and fire with extended range, instead of the keep that will magically turn your hand cannoneer shots into arrow fire when they're garrisoned in it.

Castle age is also the time in which it can be a good idea to spam keeps around the map to both defend your workers against raids and deny resources. Placing a cordon of keeps near your farms or even just along the coast of your islands is both relatively cost effective and can go a long way to preventing the enemy from eco-murdering you when you're not looking.
Placing keeps with Springald emplancements on resource nodes you yet have to take is an extremely annoying thing to do to your enemy but it can and will generate value, even just to know if the enemy is intending to take that node for himself and is gonna have to invest in some melee units to torch it down.

The Chinese even have an upgrade on their keeps which makes it so that their Outposts and Stone Wall Towers heal nearby stone walls. Too bad said technology can only be reseached if you have a keep up, which sadly defeats the whole purpose of Chinese outpost spam.

Abbasids also get the option of having Outposts, Keeps and Stone Towers heal nearby units for 2 health per second if you went with the Culture Wing. It can be useful but it's also not that great.

The english can upgrade their Network of Castles fire rate bonus to an even bigger Network of Citadels that increased attack speed by 50% through a White Tower tech, which is bonkers

The Imperial Age Outpost
Again, there's only one upgrade in imperial but I would not recommend it as much as the Springald emplacement.

All civilizations can get a cannon emplacement to the keep, which sounds great until you realize it's 75 gold and 300 stone on an immobile emplacement coming with 1000 health and no fire resistance. It more or less REQUIRES you to also fortify the outposts, which brings the total cost of such an investment at 400 stone, 100 wood and 75 gold. You could legimimately get a whole keep with a springald emplacement instead of two of these.

The only time in which I would even consider this route for outposts is if you're on an island map and you got to defend your ports and coastline against enemy ships, which then again are able to fire their own cannon volleys and win a trade against you almost all the time, as they can just limp back to their port and heal, while you're immobile there on the coastline and can only get health back via villagers hammering away at you.

Outpost Rebalance

Alright, now that all the boring part is out of the way, let's talk about Outpost balancing and possible new/unique upgrades for each civ.
I am going to try and take the fact battering ram health is getting nerfed in a patch coming next week into consideration, since that's going to make Outpost defense in feudal a lot more viable through the nerf of one of its counters.

The base Outpost stats
I'm going to start with discussing the base stats and what I would personally do to the outpost
-base health increased from 1000 to 1250
-base fire armor increased from 0 to 3
The outpost would this way be that tiny bit more durable enough to both be a good defensive option after feudal age AND indirectly make the "Fortify Outpost" upgrade more desiderable, as it would double a higher base health and bring the total fire armor resistance to 8, which would reduce fire damage from melee units from 13 to 5.

Before discussing keep upgrades, I would like to express my disappointment in Relic not giving each civ their very own personalized outpost stats and not having enough unique keep upgrades, which would combine with the general civ bonuses for some interesting meta choices. Some (probably very imbalanced) examples I quickly cooked up:

-HRE outposts have 1500 base health and 5 base fire resistance. They could also get a burning oil upgrade in castle age, albeit obviously weaker than a Keep's and a Culverin emplacement upgrade in imperial

-Chinese Outposts only have 1000 health and 2 fire resistance, but they only cost 50 wood to build. They would also get a Nest of Bees emplacement option at Castle Age and a bombard emplacement instead of a cannon in Imperial, since I think it's might fair only the Chinese are INSANE ENOUGH to try and fit a bombard and its recoil on an outpost.

-English keeps get a Longbow upgrade instead of the stock arrowslits, all garrisoned units will also fire longbow arrows instead of the stock ones. They would also get Ribauldequin emplacements instead of the cannon, with improved range over the actual, moving unit.

-French keeps would be the only ones capable of installing a cannon emplacement on ther outposts, since they're the only civ that can actually build a cannon by itself in the siege workshop. It would have a longer range than the current cannon emplacements all civs get.

-Mongols already get the Yam Network thing going for them, but I would still apply another unique thing to their outposts and have them get a bigger view range than other civs. I also don't think they should get the ability to install cannon emplacements on their outposts.

-Rus already get monster outposts, I would honestly go balls to the wall and allow an imperial age emplacement fitting two springalds instead of one in the keep. For the memes.

-Delhi gets no Outpost bonus to speak of as far as I'm aware. I was thinking with my meme brain for a second and though of outposts buffing Elephants in some way. Maybe have outposts buff nearby units' armor by 1, tower war elephants by 2 and war elephants by 3?

-Abbasid gets to potentially have keeps healing allies, even in combat. I would honestly have them to provide some sort of buff that synergizes with that, maybe reduced damage taken while in the vicinity of a keep or something? They would also have a Culverin emplacement instead of the cannon.

Upgrade rebalancing

I would not change what the basic outpost upgrades do in any way, but I would change the amount and the types of resources required for them to be installed.

-The arrowslits upgrade is basically slapping pop-free archers into your keeps. I would therefore have it cost the same but only require food and wood

-the handcannoneer upgrade would cost the same as before, but it would require food, and gold instead, to mirror the actual hand cannoneer resource requirements

-the "Fortify outpost" upgrade is simply too expensive for what it does. I would either have it cost 100 wood (especially Rus, mongols and possibly chinese) or still have it take stone but only 75 of it.

-The Springald Emplacement is both compettively cheap and again does not reflect the actualy resource types required to build an actual springald. I would have it cost 125 wood and 75 gold instead

-The cannon emplacement is stupidly stone expensive. I'd increase the resource cost of the emplacement from 375 to 400 but have it cost 200 wood and 200 gold instead


Oh hey, look at that, the discussion is a good two and a half times longer than what I imagined when I first started writing it. This never happened before.

*slaps himself and goes to sleep*

[Harris]

Oh boy, that's quite a thesis! From this point forward, you shall be known as Dr. of Outpostology!

Generally speaking though, I am getting more and more Company of Heroes 2 vibes with this one. Back in that game my constant concern was what I'm gonna do when German heavy tanks come by - here I'm thinking how to counter French royal knights for the whole game. There I considered bunkers a pointless resource sink - here it's the same for walls and outhouses.. I mean outposts xD

Yeah, they're okay as a get out of jail card when the enemy is about to snipe some of your vills and they're also neat in case of some civs such as English as you're well aware. And they also have a tertiary role of providing map sight, which is useful in knowing what your enemy is up to.

Other than that? Vills time would be better spent towards making an actual army. Whoever is on attack is automatically in more favorable position than one on defense - you can force engagements on your terms, you can disrupt eco, all the while your own is booming safely behind the lines.

[Heimdall313]

Originally posted by Harris:

Oh boy, that's quite a thesis! From this point forward, you shall be known as Dr. of Outpostology!

Generally speaking though, I am getting more and more Company of Heroes 2 vibes with this one. Back in that game my constant concern was what I'm gonna do when German heavy tanks come by - here I'm thinking how to counter French royal knights for the whole game. There I considered bunkers a pointless resource sink - here it's the same for walls and outhouses.. I mean outposts xD

Yeah, they're okay as a get out of jail card when the enemy is about to snipe some of your vills and they're also neat in case of some civs such as English as you're well aware. And they also have a tertiary role of providing map sight, which is useful in knowing what your enemy is up to.

Other than that? Vills time would be better spent towards making an actual army. Whoever is on attack is automatically in more favorable position than one on defense - you can force engagements on your terms, you can disrupt eco, all the while your own is booming safely behind the lines.

I play CoH2 as well lol.
Bunkers are moot because they just give free XP to mortars and AT guns; indirect fire isn't really a factor in AoE, nor is long range siege at 6 mins in.

I play Rus, so I enjoy wooden forts, but for outposts honestly what's needed is Arrowslits for free at feudal age, and perhaps the same whistle-alarm mechanic as Scouts on sight of enemies.

Dark age it's just for LoS, really. Feudal it should be a rush defense.

[Sir Moisty Capybara]

Company of Heroes 2 bunkers are mostly a area denial tool that exists only for your enemy being blocked from easily accesing certain points. Yes, they are countered by indirect and anti tank fire, as they should, but considering that you have to create those counters and use them for dealing with 150mp at first gives a little additional help in both early and late, considering how each bunker is just static investment [that does not affect mp pool].

Saying that, bunkers in CoH2 mostly are seeing minor play (I personally use them for support play as med station). Compared to Outpost, Bunkers in CoH2 doesn't matter that much. Outpost in the another hand, are important tool to boost up certain unit attributes for certain units. Mongols - speed, English - fire rate. And compared to bunkers, Outposts does not have any cost-effective alternatives (when bunkers have alternatives with moveable half tracks, mgs). And losing bunker in any point of time in CoH2 ranked is much more painful than losing single or even multiple outposts - because they cost much more less compared to CoH2 man power gain.

Comparing AoE4 outposts that can be created by 1/200 population to structure being created by 6/100 population is utter silly as well in that aspect. Outposts cost almost nothing in late and not that much in early compared to CoH2. Also how much vills do you need to sustain constant outpost production? Less than 6 prolly.

As for OP - stone cost prolly will stay. It has clear "defense" resource role for most civs. And if wood only repair cost stays, then with abundance of resource on AoE4 map, I'm not seeing any reason to change type of cost but rather distribution of it to 75% wood 25% stone.

[Subtle Butt ( >ω<)っ ♡]

Outposts are fine. They're a cheap way to get weapon emplacements and the line of sight it provides is important for siege wars. Of course Mongols and English get notable buffs from being under their influence. If outpost upgrades didnt cost stone, the game will drag out into WW1 where people build cheap outposts, put cannons on them while fighting a siege war with artillery. I mean this already happens in drawn out games, most notably with Mongols.

[ARCAGNELL0]

Originally posted by Subtle Butt:

Outposts are fine. They're a cheap way to get weapon emplacements and the line of sight it provides is important for siege wars. Of course Mongols and English get notable buffs from being under their influence. If outpost upgrades didnt cost stone, the game will drag out into WW1 where people build cheap outposts, put cannons on them while fighting a siege war with artillery. I mean this already happens in drawn out games, most notably with Mongols.

Does it really? Even a trebuchet two-shots a base outpost, springald spam also works on them due to their low health and a bombard straight up one-shots it. I never had a game devolve into that and I LOVE spamming outposts myself.

Remember it's an immobile emplacement that can't really push the enemy once you have the advantage, making it effectively dead weight until you're pressured, and even then it will not amount to much after feudal from my experience.

Hence why base outposts should be a bit more durable and their upgrades not so stone intensive.

The only thing I've personally ever seen mongols spam is scouts, springalds and lancers, never keeps.

[PeteSkTemplar]

I would also prefer outpost and keeps being more defensive buildings for "tanking" while not dealing that much dmg though enough of dmg to not being ignored. With walls players should get some window to get army back if not having army then ofc those buildings would not help much only if production and eco allows building new army.

Right now I find rams as beeing too efective against walls while it should be good against gates though perhaps less costly. I am mentioning rams for to prolong outposts life I usually try to wall them but it is pointless if two, three rams just smash all. Trebuchets are at least bit missing them but rams and end of buildings are bombards.

I wish I had settings to dissalow gunpowder units or at least bombards for with their crazy rof and siege bonus any buildings are just ruins in a blink. While I hated artillery in AOE III for not having min range and having crazy aoe dmg I prefer artillery of AOE IV in sense vs units but not against buildings.

So outposts, keeps, all buildings problem IMO is not about themselves only but also how siege, especially rams and even more bombards work right now.

[ARCAGNELL0]

This video pleases me greatly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm0Sk8kexAE

I might just do it against the french and the mongols, they deserve it :P