Outposts are the player’s way of claiming a Territory. They cost an amount of Influence to be settled and cause the players to be the owners of a piece of land.
Although they have their uses the way they are, Outposts can become a City with the right amount of Influence once players leave the Neolithic Era.
Cities are indeed more useful than Outposts when it comes to production and development, but you don’t always need a City to exploit your Territory.
Outposts can be attached to a City, and therefore work somewhat as an extension of it. They will allow you to build structures, exploit your surroundings, and not commit as much as you would have to in case you turned it into a City.
Whether you want to know how to attach an Outpost in Humankind or what you gain from doing so, this guide is here to help you out!
Attaching an Outpost
Players can only attach an Outpost if the Territory is really close to one of the Cities of your Empire.
Choose the City you want the Outpost to be attached to, click on it, then go to the Outpost. If the conditions to attach a Post are met, all you need is to click on the button that should show up on the Outpost and spend the required amount of Influence.
Attaching an Outpost requires less Influence than what is necessary to turn an Outpost into a City, so you shouldn’t have any problems there. However, make sure to pay attention to the resource cost of having an attached Outpost. They cost you -20 Stability per Territory.
The attached Outposts will become Administrative Centers, which will provide you new options to help you supervise and control the resources to benefit your Empire as a whole.
Administrative Centers work as a Main Plaza, and they can be detached from a City without any cost. They will work similarly to how a City works, allowing you to build districts and harvest nearby resources.
The Advantages of Outposts
Maybe you had to claim a Territory before an enemy Empire would do it, and now the Outpost is located in a very disadvantageous position.
If you had turned that Outpost into a City, you’d have to deal with it, but Outposts can be relocated inside the Territory by spending 11 Influence.
Outposts can also be used just to guarantee that other Empires will not be harvesting resources that are near your Capital, even if you’re not using them currently.
Final Thoughts
Attached Outposts — or Administrative Centers — do play an essential role in the management part of Humankind. They are halfway between Cities and Outposts, providing their own sets of advantages and disadvantages.
Attaching Outposts does have a cost, and detaching an Outpost to turn it into a full-blown City will end up costing even more on top of having it attached, but the game is complex enough to make many options worth trying depending on the context.
It is also important to realize that repositioning an Outpost before turning it into a City is a significant advantage and that some territories are not important enough to have more than an Administrative Center.
More Cities mean more resources to manage. The reward is greater, but so is the risk.
