Outpost advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages
1. Can garrison vills.
2. Can act as shipment arrival point.
3. Good hp.
4. Decent attack vs. units; amazing attack and range vs. ships.
5. Detects stealth.
Disadvantages
1. Exclusively costs wood, which is not easy to gather in the early game.
2. By the time you get a steady wood supply, outposts are too weak to stop even small armies.
3. Stationary, static defense.
4. Fires slowly. This, I believe, is the outposts' greatest weakness. The reason why outposts just don't stop attacks is that they don't deal damage quickly enough. 5 musketeers provide almost three times as much firepower for just 25% more villager seconds. Although an outpost can defeat 5 musketeers because it has so many hit points, the hp ceases to be an advantage once the enemy has over 15 heavy infantry or even a single falconet.
The verdict: Outposts cannot be used to stop rushes. They only buy you a small amount of time, and are destroyed easily by small armies. However, they are great for protecting villagers. A single outpost can protect villies gathering at a far-off herd or gold mine. If players do not build outposts to defend against determined raids, they will surely be defeated.
ESO Nickname: Eisenhower
Favorite Age 3 character: Sahin the Falcon
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