No need to change the tech cost. Even town watch removing the cost would be not that impactful in feudal meta.
maybe a tech in an outpost? so you need to still build at least one with a stone cost
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Not a bad idea. If the tech is researched in outpost, it should be a Castle age tech. If the tech is researched in TC, it can be a feudal tech.
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Balance considerations and reasons, too
I think it’s underused even with Ethiopians.
They already do have usage in late game though: outposts are a quick and cheap way to keep an eye on large portions of the map, making it easy to know where your opponent is (and keeping enemies from casually building a second base away from the battlefield or mining resources in your fog of war). And units can’t really fill that role when you’re at max pop. Outposts are the easiest way to gain vision control.
Maybe we should wait for the DLC first, maybe it will come with some changes to the outpost. If they are adding a new unit that can build them it’s not unlikely they will change them in other ways too.
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I suppose, just a guess, that the original reason of Outpost stone cost would be that the devs didn’t want you filling the map with outposts everywhere, if they only cost wood everyone would do it for map control.
In comparison:
In AoE4, outposts only cost wood (+1), hehe, you can garrison units in them (+1), and you can upgrade them to stone towers (“Fortified Outpost”) paying a stone cost for outpost (+1). However, their construction time is incredibly slow (60 seconds), that’s how they balance it.
For AoE2, I think so, they could cost only wood, but to balance them and prevent overuse, they could also increase their construction time (15 seconds → 45 seconds).
That’s a long construction time for a building that’s pretty easy to destroy. I don’t think outposts need a change. They’re cheap and easy enough to make to be usable in early game (though you may want to long-distance mine a little stone at some point). The stone cost limits spammability in ultra late game, but it’s low enough that it’s still affordable and can still be spammed to gain effective full map vision. Villager time doesn’t mean much in late game, but the walk time combined with build time is a notable cost early on.
Champis supposedly are going to be able to build outposts, and for them a longer creation time is reasonable.
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This tech rarely gets researched since its gold cost I think. Even it could also remove the stone cost for Outposts, that stil might not be enough to encourage people to try it more than usual.
I think they should add the stone cost removal first and then see if the tech will be picked up more before changing the cost.