All:

I have recently realized a much better (obvious when mentioned but easy to ignore) way to explore with scouts (such as with Kublai Khan). It is as follows:

* If at all useful, move to a tile that requires only 1 movement point FIRST (ie, NOT jungles, hills, forests)
* If at all useful, move to a hills tile SECOND (for improved line of sight); otherwise move to the best other tile (regardless of required movement points)

There are several times when a direct route was not the best way to explore. This allows you to more rapidly explore, revealing more terrain per move. I find that now my maps become explored a lot faster, and I get more goody huts.

Sam

i can never be bothered after my 2nd unit comes out so just press explore.

I have explored this way since civ3

I do that for the first several turns, but as soon as the real barbs appear I just hit explore. But they always die to animals before that happens anyway.

It's also usually better to move diagonally instead of straight north/south or east/west. That can vary with terrain, of course, but in general you reveal more tiles by moving diagonally. In practice you couple that with all the other rules of thumb to work out which is best for the situation.

In the simple flatlands case, if you can see one tile in each direction, you have a 3x3 square of visibility. Move in any straight horizontal or vertical direction and you reveal 3 new tiles. Move diagonally and you reveal 5.

___[X][X][X]
[ ][ ][ ][X]
[ ][ ][ ][X]
[ ][ ][ ]

The X'ed tiles are new tiles revealed by moving northeast.

If you are on mostly flat terrain and want to go straight east/west/north/south, go diagonally instead.
Say you want to go E. Go NE first, SE then. Or even NE, SE, SE, NE, NE, etc. That way you are making the exact same progress towards E, but you explore more tiles in the process.

EDIT: ... guess Elmer was faster :p

i can never be bothered after my 2nd unit comes out so just press explore.

This is definitely the "fastest" way to explore :-)

I have explored this way since civ3
Me too.

I wasn't even aware of it, it's such an ingrained way to play. The only change I've made for Civ4 is to end units in a forest or forested hill as much as possible, since it's such a huge loss for a warrior or scout to die early.

Speaking of which, I stopped setting my units to heal after they're attacked, because too often they'd be attacked while healing. I set them to sentry now so that I am notified when animals or barbarians near. That way I can run away or choose to fight.

My question is, when a unit is set as a sentry, the fortify animation plays. However, they don't actually fortify and gain the bonuses does it?

I thought a unit would heal before the next turn if it's:

1. wounded
2. doesn't move/ pillage/ attack on a turn.

Regardless of if you're fortified or sentried, or picking your nose.

I thought a unit would heal before the next turn if it's:

1. wounded
2. doesn't move/ pillage/ attack on a turn.

Regardless of if you're fortified or sentried, or picking your nose.
Yeah, they will. The only problem is that they won't become active after they finish healing. You have to remember if you forified or sentried to heal somewhere.

Yeah, they will. The only problem is that they won't become active after they finish healing. You have to remember if you forified or sentried to heal somewhere.

That brings me to a question: If my unit is fortifed for 3 turns while it heals, it becomes available to me, but I say, "Nah, just fortify there." Does it still keep the 15% fortify bonus it's built up over those 3 turns, or do they get erased? The same question could be asked if I accidentally touch an archer in one of my cities, and set him back to fortify, does he keep his fortification level, or does it go back to 0?

They keep the fortify bonus, as long as you don't move them.