The more I think about it, the more I feel like outposts should have splash damage, at least when settlers are garrisoned inside it.
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Should outpost be buffed?
no.
Maybe the settlers can attack (with their normal ranged attack) when garrisoned in the outposts (like the bunkers in Starcraft) (Max 4 or 5 attacks I think)
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I remember that in the first patches after the release of DE, they enabled the card ‘extensive fortificatione’ for all civilizations and available in age 1. Then they disabled it justifying something that I don’t exactly remember well. But certainly defensive play is not encouraged in AOE-3.
Why don’t they return this card to all civilizations, and in addition to their current benefits they give a little more attack to defensive buildings?
Why not have an Imperial era upgrade that increases damage, hit points, and range for defensive buildings?
Even the walls could have a further improvement in the imperial era. (It would be compensated by also costing coins and it would be slower to build)
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no bro, walls are very dificult to destroy sometimes if well protected. You make improved walls you have to give more siege damage to everything
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After reading many similar and good ideas above I think a nice way to slightly buff them without giving them too much power would be to give all outposts the ability to get extra attacks (these extra attacks could/should be weaker than the basic and after the industrial age upgrade these extra attacks should remain “basic” rifle shots opposed to the main cannon shot) as they are getting more garrisoned (up to a maximum lets say two shots with 4 villagers inside), this would give the players the ability to actually use it as a defensive structure against armies mostly containing high number of non-siege units (like skirmishers and foot archers), while still being destroyable quickly enough if there were siege units involved (so they couldn’t do too much harm to other units, as outposts are already deal reduced dmg to siege troopers and the like). This way outposts would still remain unchanged in the early game and it couldn’t be used an early harassment tool as it would need villagers (which would defeat their purpose as those villagers would not gather), nor anywhere outside the main base as there would not be either enough outposts or villagers to garrison and without them they would just be like how they are now.
PS: giving them extra dmg based on garrison would not serve its purpose as players with better micro would just send forward a single unit/units with a high ranged armor and all the changes would be negligable
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No, they can’t have further upgrades. Most civs have an improved buildings card which does exactly that. Walls reach ridiculous hp levels with bastion and that card, no need for even more hp.
It’s true, the walls are fine. But the towers if I think they could improve something.
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Well they do since they can have both improved buildings and extensive fortifications, which also improves HP,
all civs have some weird combination of cards that boost HP, just not that viable most of the time
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…And thus we come full circle to the original reason why I said outposts should be buffed. Even with some Home City shipments to reinforce them, outposts by design aren’t attractive enough to be worth any real commitment to them.
I do like however, that a general consensus seems to be forming around the idea that garrisoned units should have an attack from within outposts. It seems to me a good compromise solution worth exploring and which I believe would hardly break the meta…
Asians have a shipment that in addition to giving a tower cart, gives you + 10% attack and resistance to them. This and in addition to increasing their attack when being garrisoned could make them more useful in the early game.
For the late game they could make them have more range, attack and resistance with an improvement in the imperial age.
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Why not buffing them by, making them able to attack multiple targets and if garrison, to increase their attack or rate of fire. Most outpost, castles and defensive buildings (walls) should have somekind of defense vs non artillery (and special units like grenadiers).
Even with multiple cards like the one above (that boosts attack and health) they are easy to take down without artillery, plus some civs ex Japanese gets buffs to their siege attack.
Pd: Also we have to take into account that some players abuse of the walls by creating tons and tons of them in order to slow down armies, maybe making walls thicker like in AoeIV or the ones used in the campaigns could help.
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Aside from the extra shots made by garrisoned troops I also think that the home city benefits outposts receive are too spread out among too many cards. Extensive fortifications, advanced fortifications and any others relating to outposts should all be grouped into a single card. I find no reason not to.
The only change for outposts I’d like to see is their 0.25x negative multiplier against villies removed. At the very least reduce it to .5x… Towers built around the map should deny resources, and act as a deterrent for enemy vills not gathering underneath them.
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just want to add here that outposts are very strong in DM and treaty, so lategame they are a very viable option (mainly because of the siege damage). Early game they are kinda situational and often only viable as shipping point or with wagon. With that in mind, buffing lategame towers would be nonsense, since they are really strong already anyway.
Also when talking about outposts i think the warhut and “arrow” attack buildings suck in comparison in lategame and should work similarly to towers (siege + area damage).
I only have a problem with the Frontier outpost, it’s extremely weak for what you pay for the upgrade, and by that point of the game, one building dealing 45 dmg every 3 seconds can just be ignored. I’ve always felt outposts should be an equalizer for fights, you should be able to use them when you feel you are about to lose an upcoming push, so outposts in fortress basically do nothing when people have armies in the 40-50 unit size, and have a few pieces of artillery. Maybe give frontiers a small ‘grenadier’ like cannon that does small area damage? idk but I think particularly that upgrade can use some help.
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I consider that against ships they do their job well, although not quite well because ships can be improved much more than buildings with cards and improvements by default. The buildings usually only improve the points of resistance with cards; some cards improve its range and attack, but only for some civilizations.
Against ground units that are upgraded to imperial are not a threat, you can loot entire bases losing only a few units. I understand that the defensive buildings are a complement to the troops, but giving them a better attack at the end of the game seems just right for their evolution to match the rest of the units.
I suggested that they also have an extra upgrade in imperial, but that in addition to wood will cost gold. But being much slower to build. The reason maps are filled with walls is because they are cheap and quick to build. But if we make them expensive and slow to build, I don’t see the problem of making them stronger too.
Although industrial game towers can more or less hold their own, the investment to get there is not worth it as is in a regular 1v1 game. Early game towers can easily be ignored or bulldozed by even mid-sized armies. That is where a real need to buff outposts lies. Imperial age outposts can also easily ignored by upgraded armies, so the niche for fully upgraded towers is really quite narrow.
Buffing towers in ages 2, 3, and 5 really won’t break the game because siege outranges them and could still counter them with relative ease even if buffed, however it might deter smaller infantry or cavalry forces from committing to a push in an area guarded by outposts, which makes sense historically.
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They are defensive buildings not offensive buildings. They are good to place among your eco where you dont have a tc to garrison.
Maybe there could be an upgrade or just standard, for the last cannon upgrade, to make it have bonus against infantry, like artillery does.
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you cant ignore towers with goon/skirm type of armies. Sure they dont outright destroy the army, but if you fight in range of 2-3 towers you will trade bad almost all the time. Tower also kill do decent dmg against canons. Saying lategame towers are bad is just wrong and easily disproven.
Towers with advanced fortifications as port for example is a viable strategy, although pretty niche. Also some pro players choose to build towers in their base (spain) to hold of rushes more easily