Outpost needs fixing?

[Hannibal]

I've never seen the value of the Outpost when building a Kingdom tree.  It's not that 2 Gold isn't the right price for a point of Intelligence or that Intelligence isn't a useful ability.  Its that Intelligence doesn't strike me as terribly useful unless you take a lot of it.

With a few exceptions, deployment will usually telegraph what a unit's Order is going to be.  Only on the flank are you most likely to issue Orders that different than your main line.  (Of course, you could give your main line all unexpected orders, but they'll probably have the same one so you'll telegraph that pretty early.)

So in order to get any real use out of Intelligence, you need like 4-5 points of it.  And this is when the value of an Outpost goes away.  For the gp cost of 5 Outposts, you could get 3 Watchtowers or 2 Training Grounds, both of which I think are far more useful value.  3 pts of Foresight alone probably gets you roughly the same value:  you force him to put down a unit (and telegraph what he's going to do) and get the match-up you want against that unit.

I'd suggest tweaking Intelligence to make it worthwhile.  Here's a couple ideas I came up with:

1)  After all Standing Orders have been issued, the player with the most Intelligence may erase X Standing Orders and replace them with new ones.  (X is the difference in the players' Intelligence levels).  Units that have pre-printed Standing Orders (i.e. "always on Close) cannot be affected.

2)  After all Standing Orders have been issued, the player with the most Intelligence may add or remove modifiers to X Standing Orders.  (X is the difference in the players' Intelligence levels). Units that have pre-printed Standing Orders (i.e. "always on Close) cannot be affected.


Option #1 would probably require the Outpost to go up in cost.  Option #2 probably wouldn't.  But these'd have to be tested.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[Chad_YMG]

Interesting.  I've never been tempted by Outpost (which could support the view that it's underpowered or could just be it's a question of style) but both of your suggestions sound interesting.  I agree that #1 is probably too powerful (without a cost increase) but #2 doesn't sound excessive.

[ajax98]

I'm inclined to go with suggestion #1.

Outpost IS underutilized for the reasons stated. Therefore, to entice players to purchase, it should have a bit of better 'power to cost' potential usefulness.

[Hannibal]

Well, the more I think about it, I think #1 is fine for the listed cost.  I mean, if the Watchtower is only 3 Gold then the Outpost (even with revision #1) should be cheaper.

Or perhaps the Watchtower is too cheap.

[andrewgr]

One of the reasons the Outpost exists is so that you have something to do with leftover gold other than save it, so whatever solution you come up with, I recommend not raising the cost.

In fact, you might think about lowering the cost.  As it's currently written, would 1 point be too cheap?

[Hannibal]

The problem you run into with making it cheaper is that you can only buy 1 per turn, so you'd have to spend 1 gp over like five turns to see some effectiveness.  At which point, just save up for a Training Ground.

I think the solution is to make it a more worthwhile upgrade.

[andrewgr]

You know what might be more fun?  Now that a bunch of people have quite a bit of experience with Kingdoms, maybe we should have a group variant, where we design all the upgrades and costs from scratch on the forum.  It wouldn't need to bear any resemblance to the one published in the game.

[gull2112]

I think that would be great in the sense it would generate a lot of ideas and get folks thinking. Now the only problem with this would be all those awesome cards...

[Curufea]

I do think buildings should be modified to reflect the factions at least.  How do the undead use a Mess Hall for example? 

[Hannibal]

Too...many....zombie...jokes....

 

[ajax98]

 

[RushAss]

How do the undead use a Mess Hall for example? 

For the Undead, the entire world is a mess hall Curufea.

[Curufea]

How do the undead use a Mess Hall for example? 

For the Undead, the entire world is a mess hall Curufea.

Cute, but not the point.  What does a Mess Hall building or a Palace Expansion, or for that matter a Farm mean to an undead army?  What should their equivalents be for those abilities.

[ajax98]

Strictly speaking, the Masters of the Undead are not undead and need the "abilities" of the various "builds"; I think the 'Ghoul Packs' & 'Death Knights' are not exactly undead, as they have Courage nrs.

As such, the need in some form or another for the levels of Supply and Administration for the Field Army is the basic concept behind the need for 'builds'.

Feel free to give it a special name if you choose, the abilities would generically be pretty much the same, IMO. The 'actual' mechanics of keeping something like the Undead animated would logically require some form of energy and direction/manipulation. It should have to come from somewhere.

[RushAss]

Palace Expansion can remain the same I think.  I could totally see a necromancer living in a palace guarded by various undead.

Farm = Crypt
simple

Mess Hall would be a toughie.  Perhaps cemetery?