Outposts and Resource Villages

Once your home castle is no longer sufficient, the map around you transforms from a backdrop into a real economy and battlefield. Outposts and resource villages are precisely the tools that turn a static castle into a network that holds your territory, provides resources, and most importantly, gets you to places you otherwise couldn't reach. It's not about how to build the first barracks. It's about how to approach expansion with a plan: where to settle, what to realistically extract from it, how to defend it, and when to pull back. If your alliance has pushed you to "get the economy going" and start participating in wars, this is the direction.

What is the purpose of an outpost (and what not to expect from it)

Let's be clear right away, so you don't get confused: an outpost is not a second castle that pumps resources for you. The main resource machine is the resource villages, not production at the outpost. Anyone expecting to build a forward base and have wood and stone flow from it like from a castle will be disappointed.

What an outpost actually gives you is reach and position. From home, you can only attack and support up to a certain distance. An outpost 'switches' you to a new point on the map, and the area around it opens up for you. You can send attacks and defenses from there much further than you could reach from the castle. Another thing is that it provides a place where you can build and where it holds its own garrison. Think of the outpost as a base from which you operate, not as a warehouse that fills a box by itself.

Therefore, it makes sense to give each base one clear task. Either it is an economic nest, situated in the middle of resource villages, from which you gather resources in the short term, or a forward base on the edge of your territory, from which you can reach enemies and especially attacked allies. An outpost that tries to be both in an exposed location usually fails to properly fulfill either role: economically, it is too far from safety, and on the front, it is too weak.

Resource villages and how to occupy and fully exploit them

Resource villages are points on the map tied to specific resources, typically wood, stone, and food, with luxury goods and other special materials added in higher kingdoms. You occupy them by sending soldiers there and holding them. It's important not to get burned: occupying a resource village has a time limit. You don't hold it forever like a castle. You gather from it during the occupation, and after the time expires, you lose it and must occupy it again (or resend the gathering). Therefore, don't plan anything around the village that assumes your garrison will sit there forever.

How to fully exploit them:
- Take villages that will plug your bottleneck. If you're constantly short on stone due to wall upgrades, don't occupy three lumber villages just because they are closer. Find the resource that is actually holding you back and go for it.
- Occupy within the range of one outpost, not scattered across the entire kingdom. A shorter distance means faster movement of gathering units and, most importantly, that you can send defense in time.
- Keep in mind that an occupied village is visible and is a target. The fatter the village, the more likely someone will come for it and take your gathering unit. It's better to hold a few villages close where you can reach with defense than a bunch of scattered ones that you can't guard.
- Villages with luxury goods and special resources in higher kingdoms are disproportionately more valuable than the basic trio. It's worth having a forward outpost for them, even if it has a weaker surrounding area, because you can't gather this goods elsewhere.

Why my first outpost kept getting torched

This is where you can tell who plays the game and who just clicked 'occupy'. In GGE, an attack always targets one of the three sides of your walls: the front, left, or right. This corresponds to the defense: you divide it into the front and two wings. And that's the whole trick. The attacker chooses one side, and the garrison on the other two won't be seen in that battle at all. So if you spread your defense evenly across all three, you won't have enough on any of them, and the attacker will break through exactly where they strike because only a third of your soldiers stand against them.

Therefore, defense concentrates:
- Place a solid defense commander inside who fits the type of base, and deploy their defensive bonuses where you need them (on the front or on the wings). The commander shifts the balance of power much more than a few extra units; this is the first thing, not the last.
- Concentrate your army where attacks actually come. On the front base, this is usually the side facing the enemy. The inner wings, which no one is attacking, can be left weaker, and you can shift soldiers there where you are taking hits.
- Keep in mind that a clever attacker will deploy tools: battering rams and ladders to breach gates and walls, mantlets and fireballs against your defense. Static defense that you never change can be scouted by spies and broken in the same way. Change your layout so that your opponent doesn't have you figured out.

For resource villages, defense is mainly about the garrison you leave there. Don't overdo it; every soldier in the village is a soldier you are missing elsewhere. Layering works: leave a weaker quick defense in the village as insurance and keep the main defensive force ready in a nearby outpost, from which you can pour it into the attacked village before the attack arrives. This all works only if the village is really close. Another reason to keep your nest compact.

Reach, support, and role in alliance wars

The economy is only half the story. The other, more important in war, is reach. A forward outpost allows you to attack enemies and, most importantly, pour defense into allies who would otherwise be out of your reach. In alliance wars, the one who can quickly pour defense into an attacked member and just as quickly concentrate an attack on one target wins. Without forward bases, you only participate in what is right in front of you, and the rest of the alliance cannot rely on you.

Specifically:
- Place at least one outpost so that it covers the area where your alliance is actually fighting, not just where the surroundings are best for gathering. In war season, reach to the front has a higher value than a few extra resources.
- Coordinate the placement of bases with your alliance. When you have outposts spread out so that your reach circles overlap, you cover the entire battlefield with support, and no member will be left isolated where no one can send them defense.
- A forward outpost is also an offensive tool. It shortens the travel time of attacks and gives you a place from which you can repeatedly push on enemy targets without having to send troops across half the map each time.
- Watch the might and activity of players around you. An outpost placed in the middle of strong and active enemies will always be burning, and you will be reinforcing it more than you get benefit from it. Sometimes, it is strategically better to have a base a bit further away that you can hold than an aggressive position that you cannot defend.

When is it worth expanding (and when to wait)

Expansion is not free. Every outpost and every held village is another thing you need to supply, guard, and reinforce. Expand when you have the capacity for it, not just the desire to have more dots on the map.

When is it time to expand:
- Your production and storage are consistently falling short of what you are building and recruiting. When you are constantly missing one specific resource, it is a clear reason to reach for villages and an outpost closer to its source.
- The alliance is opening a front where you cannot reach from home. Then a forward outpost is an investment in reach and support, not in the economy, and it can have a weaker surrounding area.
- You have a stable defensive force that you can move in time. Without the ability to quickly defend newly occupied ones, expansion is just giving away resources and points to opponents.

When to wait instead:
- You don't have your home castle economically or defensively upgraded yet. A second base won't save a weak foundation; it will only spread your forces across more locations.
- You don't have time to play actively. A passively held outpost and village are essentially a warehouse of resources ready for attackers because you won't be able to shift defense.
- You would expand into isolation without alliance support. An isolated forward base in the middle of enemies is a commitment, not an advantage. You will just be feeding it defense.

Stick to one rule: better to have fewer bases that form a compact, defensible, and mutually supporting network than a scattered empire that you cannot guard or supply.

Back to Pokrocile.