Hey. Stardock. Do this. The main reason I don't use most outpost upgrades is that the chances of me needing to cast a spell or fight a combat in those specific 25 (or 36 for a high tower) squares of the map is tiny. Make the upgrade something that is done at the city rather than the outpost, and have it affect all the outpost ZoCs for outposts connected to that city.

I have to say I'm really liking this idea.

In addition to the points made above, the upgrades should affect the city's ZoC (and the city itself) as well, which makes even more sense.

They are very important to countering high difficulty AI stacks.

Of course if the game is easy you can easily skip stuff like this, but it starts to matter when you need that extra damage or armor. 

It's a bit confusing, so removing it from the city building queue, and just make it a fixed gold upgrade (which is how I use it anyways) would do wonders. Add some more graphical effects for the upgrades and it will be awesome. (making you see that highway you made etc.)

[Suggestions for graphical effects] 

Defensive: Real fortified borders on the map (merge this with caltrops, and outpost upgrades would be sweet)  You already have the graphic stuff in Fortress cities, recycle that ^^

Stables:  Should make the roads look more "modern" or something to show the speed, a border etc. would just look artificial.

Offensive: This is the hard part, make it look "red" maybe? 

Either way, outposts are great stuff on the map, and should stay that way. Removing them from cities completely as suggested and tying them into gold would be awesome. Removing them would remove strategy, and it's pretty easy to make them better IMO. 

Outpost are a great idea that just needs to be overhauled. In otherwords let's re-think Outpost.

Outpost should be viewed as mini-cities. (They cost the same as cities, so why not)

Outpost should have inherent City Defenders just like cities. They not only protect the outpost but also any resources within thier boundaries.

Outpost should be able to function as mini-cities with limits. For one, they should be able to build thier own upgrades. This burden should not placed on a major city, major cities have enough on thier plate already.

Outpost should have slots available to place additional units in them similar to major cities. They simply fight along side with the outpost city defenders if attacked.

Outpost should upgrade over time with benefits similar to major cities.

These are just a few of my ideas. I am sure others have even more cool ideas.

I look at oupost similar to castles or (Mini-Fortress). They deserve the same serious attention as major cities.

i like that idea. if i remember correctly, Kael's Fall from Heaven mod for Civ 4 had a faction that had a very similar mechanic (don't remember the name unfortunately - i think they were some kind of centaur people). They had some real cities (3-5 depending on map size) and everything else was basically outposts that would never grow beyond size 1.

I like the idea mentioned earlier in this thread and also elsewhere of reappropriating scouts to build outposts. Building an outpost would consume the unit, like pioneers settling a new town. But I think it could be taken farther, so that an outpost upgrade was performed by building another scout, sending it to the outpost, and hitting an upgrade button that once again consumed the scout and then allowed you to choose an upgrade.

This makes sense in that an outpost that is providing more bonuses/services to its zone of control would need a larger staff to operate. And, in a game where you have a lot of outposts, building a scout allows you to choose which outpost to upgrade regardless of which city its connected to. You could even stockpile scouts as a strategy and "outpost bomb" an area right before attacking it.

I also like the idea of outposts having a garrison, like a city, either as an upgrade, or perhaps the power of the garrison is determined by the number of upgrades on the outpost ...

I am liking some of the suggestions in this thread.

If I might add to it, I would quite like it if outposts could be built via a spell like that one faction, but could possibly cost gildar for it as well for the faction who don't have an affinity for it.

Maybe restrict it to being cast only 2 tiles away from your own influence as well?

Yep, in addition to it being more intuitive (cities ZoC should get bonuses as well), as I noted in an earlier post, I like this idea because:

1.  It doesn't require a complete overhaul of the outpost system (although the one mentioned on this page looks good); and

2.  The AI should be able to implement upgrades more easily.  I have never seen the AI use any upgrades to outposts in Fallen Enchantress, although I haven't played LH beta enough yet to confirm if that is still the case.

As an additional alternative, one could even make it easier on the AI by simply attaching the bonuses to existing buildings that can already be built by the AI.

See bold in quote.

I eluded to this on the page before and I completely agree with you. Having to send another scout out to the outpost in question to upgrade it makes it more dificult to upgrade, yet changes the queue time at the city (as you are building a scout instead of an upgrade), allows you to CHOOSE which city builds the scout, and allows for the outpost upgrades to become more potent, and thus more worthwhile to build.

The 'outpost bomb' as mentioned would be the only thing I disagree with, but can easily be fixed by only allowing one upgrade per season on a given outpost.

[Sorry for this but I can't read and understand all the posts of this thread, it's a bit complicated for me.]

But it is an important thread, even if we don't really know the reason why we're talking about this. Or do we ? I have the same feeling about the thread on the the strategic spells : what are the goals (meaning ?) of Frogboy's questions ?

Anyway, I just want to say that the outpost system, that I appreciate, is already a big bonus for human players, because the AI don't use these upgrades. This is not, imho, a good reason to nerf it. But take care not to "overpower" it ...

I suspect that there has been a lot of chatter and talk in the changlog thread. Several people mentioned they did not like the outpost problem and suggested changing the system and usage of the outposts. I suggested that one upgrade the outpost to meet the cost of the 30 population instead of switching the unit that does the settling. Later that day this thread came up from the frogboy. My only conclusion for the purpose of this post was to identify what pieces people were using for outposts (so they may rethink how to use them) and secondary purpose as anyone knows when posting on the internet let it morph to identify what people would like to see outposts do instead and other ideas pertaining to outposts, and get rid of most of the talk in the changelog thread about outposts and put it in an appropriate thread.

I'm just speculating, but I suspect that this is at least 1 of the reasons behind this thread.

Building outpost upgrades by sending a train of scouts is still using the city's production queue and so is essentially what we have now except with the addition of mindless micro. Please, for the love of all that is good, do not bring constructor spam to LH.

I like the thinking behind this... Right now outposts don't really feel like outposts... More like a scout tower off in the distance that doesn't really do much for you but expand your territory...

The issue is that outposts cost a lot to make and they are incredibly easy to lose... Having inherent defenders might be nice, just so that they can't be taken by a simple scout...

As far as upgrade, I only regularly use the high tower, consulate and maybe warden. The rest are too situational, cost too much and are too easy to destroy.

I sometimes use them, if there is nothing else to build. Change them all to use gildar instead of using a city's building resources. Buildings are much better than anything outposts offer.

Also, increase the base radius of them by one! Blargh.

I agree outposts need to be overhauled.

My full suggestion:

I prefer my levelling idea for outposts- that's simpler- can be shown graphically more easily, and is less micro-intensive (so will help AI)

I'd suggest a 5-level system

Lvl 1- outpost that does nothing other than ZOC

Lvl 2- outpost gets a warden effect that works on "Weak" monster or player stacks, +10% att/def,

Lvl 3- outpost gets a warden effect that works on "Medium" monster or player stacks. +20% att/def, special bonus based on town pioners come from

Lvl 4-outpost gets a warden effect that works on "Strong" monster or player stacks +30% att/def, +1 ZOC (high tower)

Lvl 5- +50% att/def,  -10% unrest , upgrade to special bonus 

outpost bonuses do not stack

Special bonus at lvl 3/5

Towns or lvl 1 settlements: +.5/+1 growth

Forts: stables/caltrops

Conclaves: -25%/-50% cost to tactical spells.   Arcane monoliths also provide this.

Upgrading a settlement takes production.  Casting arcane monolith will also increase an outpost by a level.

There are a lot of good ideas in this thread and I think one of the main theme here is that outposts need to be decorrelated from cities.

Having a different unit to create the outpost will allow to balance creation costs separately for outposts and cities (right now I feel the 30 pop cost is ok for cities but harsh for outposts).

Giving them their own build queue will open up some more gameplay diversity but it will need to be balanced.

THe downside to giving them their own queue is that it becomes a no-brainer to build up outposts to the max.

I think output should cost less population to construct, so if you send a pioneer out and they build an outpost instead of a city, you should get half (or more) of your population back.

It would also help if upgrades took less time/resources to build.

that's not necessarily an issue, though. if the production queue is pretty slow (say - 10 or 15 turns for each upgrade) you'd still have to make decisions which upgrades you want first, you can't rush that high tower to connect the cluster of conquered cities so it requires a bit of planning ahead. and last but not least - older outposts you settled in the early stages of the game become fully upgraded over time, which adds a bit to the immersion factor of your realm slowly taking back tand taming the post apocalyptic world

This is a very interesting idea.

To add, I would recommend that the outposts gain experiance based on combats, travels, or resource collections that occur within it's ZofC. I think this approach would give more meaning to the inclusion of outposts even within your empire. 

And on a related topic (not outpost though ;-)) have Commanders in cities get experience for things that occur in the city they're in, but it a non-abusable way.  There needs to be some way for city-focused Commanders to get decent experience.

I've experimented with warren- but it is unreliable I generally only need it in far flung outposts- and it proved unreliable- sometimes a monster would stomp the outpost anyways.

High tower is occupationally useful in the right situation.

Consulate is potentially useful, but like others have said I almost always have something better to build. They also suffer from the fact that outpost benefits are tied to the closest city, which means that the bonus might not stay with the city you want it too. 

I love the idea of outposts, I like the fact that they can be upgraded, I just don't like how it's handled or the fact they are so vulnerable. They were compared to GC2 space stations when they were last updated, but I really don't feel they deserve that comparison. Outposts should be able to defend themselves like GC2 space stations, when freshly built they should be capable of defeating weak monster spawns, and eventually upgraded to be a tough fight for any army. They should be built and upgraded by (expensive) constructor units that aren't consumed in the process but instead have to spend like 10 turns working on it. Resources nearby should be protected by the outpost, can't raze them without razing the outpost. Lastly their influence area should be upgradable further to allow any area effects to be more worthwhile.

Basically, make them into GC2 space stations.

I would use outpost improvements more often, if I could choose which city would build the improvements. In most cases, it is the nearest city, that is the smallest and needs the city improvements greatly. If I could redirect the construction to idle cities, this would be a huge boon. This is also true with resource nodes as well. Many times, I don't harvest resource nodes because they take up precious time and resources of a very small town. If I could redirect the construction to an idle city that would be much better.

If it would be possible, by click on the outpost, then right clicking on a city, you can redirect the construction would be ideal. You can even put a build cost penalty if the city is further away that the default closest one, by 50% or even double the cost. Just having the option to change the city is a significant bonus.

Exactly! I see no need to use those military upgrades. I may use hightower to close a gap, but that's it. The production costs and time are better spend somewhere else.