I was skimming through the "most worthless unit" thread when I stumbled upon a great suggestion for the Explorer, which I felt good enough for its own thread.

We all know the Explorer sucks. Who has ever even built one?

But it has a movement of 2 and comes with Woodsman I, so it can achieve Woodsman III with only 2 promotions. Now Woodsman III comes with a +15% healing rate. Drop Medic I on top and you have a fast moving, +25% healing SoD medic unit. :eek: An excellent and cheap unit to build in the Red Cross city. On top of this it will almost never defend -and risk dying- because it is very weak. You will never risk to attack with it by mistake, too. :mischief:

It never becomes obsolete. If only it had a new rendering for the industrial age, like a war medic... ;)

A related question: suppose you have a Woodsman III, Medic I explorer on a transport, on the same tile of another ship of yours. Will the ship get the combined +25% healing from both promotions, or only the +10% from the Medic I one? :cool: "Yeah, our jungle-hardened exploring doctors are now swimming under our carrier doing repairs. They thrive in extreme conditions."

i'm an explorer irl, and you are right i am the best healer

I thought the woodsman III heal bonus only applied to the unit that had it. I could be wrong though since I can't check in the game right now.

Along the same lines, however, they do make excellent medic units. Try the great general medic III promotion. You can essentially heal your units in enemy territory like it was your own. Since it also heals the surrounding tiles, you can have it behind a heavily sieged city to help your defenders. Your attacker better finish you off completely or your units will heal incredibly fast.

The explorer can't get the Woodsman III bonus.

yeah, lets explore this subject.

The explorer can't get the Woodsman III bonus.

Uh? Is it a hard-coded impossibility for the explorer? If so, it would be unexpected and kind of dumb, too.

If also _alphaBeta_ is right and Woodsman III works only on the self, then goodbye dream of Mash unit...

Building them in the RedCross city would work for comabt medics, add them to your SoDs and march off to war. I'll be giving this a try with my next game.

Uh? Is it a hard-coded impossibility for the explorer? If so, it would be unexpected and kind of dumb, too.

If also _alphaBeta_ is right and Woodsman III works only on the self, then goodbye dream of Mash unit...

It's impossible to give Woodsman III to a Recon unit because it wouldn't have use for the attack bonus Woodsman III promotion provides.

i use thousand year old chariots to do the same thing.

whats wrong with just using horses/gunships as medics? in a late game decent production city with red cross you could pump out a cavalry or gumship in couple of turns - why waste production on explorer?

whats wrong with just using horses/gunships as medics? in a late game decent production city with red cross you could pump out a cavalry or gumship in couple of turns - why waste production on explorer?

The thought was to have a unit that will be attacked pretty much last. It a 4:strength: unit that will only defend after the stack is pretty much dead anyway. You don't want to be several tiles into enemy territory and lose your medic.

Of course modern, stronger units would work fine. It's just a matter of personal preference. Some would say you're wasting a medic promotion on a unit that should get an attack prootion instead. It goes both ways.

Believe it or not I use a GG to give the Explorer Medic III. With Sentry, Guerilla I, II, Woodsman I, II and Medic I, II, it will be a great medic that will never have to defend the stack. Your stack can take collatoral damage and heal very fast.

I usually have my original scout at 10exp and level 4 when he is upgraded to explorer.

i see the point of "never" being attatcked thus the explorer would be good. but surely it would still be better to have him able to defend if worse came to worse and a huge stack attacked your huge stack. normally my medics arent as strong as my "star", "gunpowder" or "first strike" troops anyway. especially if u attach a great general to the unit it would be nice if it could hold its own if caught out of position. would be sick if my strength 4 great general medic explorer got wiped out due to a bad move or bad fortune.

but its a good idea in some situation i guess

Believe it or not I use a GG to give the Explorer Medic III. With Sentry, Guerilla I, II, Woodsman I, II and Medic I, II, it will be a great medic that will never have to defend the stack. Your stack can take collatoral damage and heal very fast.

I usually have my original scout at 10exp and level 4 when he is upgraded to explorer.

Promotions:
1) Sentry
2) Guerilla I (free unless original scout) & II
3) Woodsman I (free unless original scout) & II
4) Combat 1 (needed for Medic)
5,6,7) Medic I & II & III

So 7 promotions, level 8 unit. XP required: 50. Explorers can't attack and thus gain XP. How will you make those units? With Charismatic trait we're talking about 37 (or 38?) XP still.

Red Cross will drop two proms, but it's way too late - I need my MASH available a lot earlier.

Chariot is easy: get to 6 XP, drop general in, and you have:
1) Combat 1
2,3,4) Medic I & II & III
+ one promotion based on taste.

A scout however can pop experience from huts. This is how you can amass promotions.

I modded my xml so explorers can attack, start with sentry, and can get woodsman III / guerilla III. Now I actually use them!

The Guerilla II and Woodsman II promotions aren't going to be that useful for movement anyway, since you want your Medic to stay with your stack, not be moving all over enemy territory. And those promos just increase the likelihood of your Medic being attacked. No, give me 26 XPs and I'll give my scout Combat I, Medic I-III and Sentry. I wouldn't even take the free explorer upgrade.

I don't think you've fully explored this idea.

i use thousand year old chariots to do the same thing.

Yeah, me too. Once I can use either theocracy or vassalage, I'll build a chariot in a city with stables+barracks, so it starts with 7xp. Add a great general, and you end up with enough xp to give him strength 1, medic 1,2,3 and march as well.

Yeah, me too. Once I can use either theocracy or vassalage, I'll build a chariot in a city with stables+barracks, so it starts with 7xp. Add a great general, and you end up with enough xp to give him strength 1, medic 1,2,3 and march as well.

Be careful if you come up against the Khmer and their Ballista Elephant. It will target your mounted units first.

All of this is good, but doesn't change the basic fact that Explorers suck at what they are supposed to do.

I'd far prefer if the next patch

1) introduced a medic unit, actually looking like a medic, which could share the same stats with the Explorer for all I care (perhaps switch that Woodsman I for Medic I).
2) gave the Explorer an explorer-related boost. The idea I find most promising is that an Explorer projects culture starting with a "one square city cross" in the square it's in, provided it doesn't move. That means another Civ must start a war against you if they want to pass that square or settle in it. Eventually the culture will expand into a four-square cross, then a nine-square cross (the maximum). If the explorer moves, all accumulated culture is lost.

This way it can be used for "historical" purposes: not only can it explore terra incognita and bust goody huts (which it does fairly badly as it can't dislodge barbarians guarding the huts, and will die fairly quickly if in the way of barbarian migrations) but also something completely unique: staking out lands for future expansion.

To simulate how european powers had colonial wars without fighting at home I also propose that Explorers can attack enemy scouts and explorers (like privateers, without having to make declarations of war).

Be careful if you come up against the Khmer and their Ballista Elephant. It will target your mounted units first.

In 20+ games of bts, many of which had khmer in........ I've never seen the AI sucessfully get ivory and then build ballista elephants....... I guess it might happen one day!

i prefer using opera instead of explorer

In 20+ games of bts, many of which had khmer in........ I've never seen the AI sucessfully get ivory and then build ballista elephants....... I guess it might happen one day!

I have. I didn't know they targeted my Knights, and quickly destroyed my stack. They're hard to counter until much later.

Okay people, this thread has made it to two pages now and still I'm the only one who has acknowledged that Scouts/Explorers cannot get Woodsman III, therefore they're not the super war doctors you want to believe.

Either the unit needs to be able to operate on land and sea (he can deploy a little boat) or he needs to be made into something else, only a unit that can operate in both land & water, would still be useful (mainly on water maps) as an explorer, without this feature there is no more use for the explorer as a explorer since what can he explore?

Creating a medic style unit has promise, the exploer would need to be renamed an given the basic medic one promo, he would then make a good addtion to a stack as basic healer

I actually find Explorers semi-useful. The only time I really use them is if I'm on a large landmass. They usually come too late in the game to, you know, actually explore things. Plus, with Paper, I've usually gotten a few world maps and know where most of the stuff is.

However, if I'm low on espionage, other civs are still fogged out. So, I build a couple of Explorers and send them out on auto-explore, and they eventually spread themselves out and constantly monitor the territory of civs as they go along.

Not exactly wonderful, but they can give you a heads up on what's going on in other parts of the world.

spies seem to be able to explore aswell, if not better than explorers lol. just stick to what works and designate medic troops of ur best. put a machine gun with first strikes alongside your medic in ur stack and ur pretty safe.

spies seem to be able to explore aswell, if not better than explorers lol. just stick to what works and designate medic troops of ur best. put a machine gun with first strikes alongside your medic in ur stack and ur pretty safe.

Can they be set to auto-explore? I can't remember. Also, there's a risk of them getting caught and suffering a relations penalty isn't there?

... Also, there's a risk of them getting caught and suffering a relations penalty isn't there?

Sure is. They will be caught sooner or later.

"Yeah, our jungle-hardened exploring doctors are now swimming under our carrier doing repairs. They thrive in extreme conditions."

:lol: :lol: :lol:

I use spies as a sentry net in neutral territory since they only get detected if they're in rival territory (as far as I know), so I can see what's coming my way several turns before it arrives. It's really saved my butt on more than one occasion. I'll see a super-stack on its way and I'll scramble my defenders quickly through my road network to thwart the attack. I wonder if the AI can come up with a strategy where the ruler civ sends its vassal's stack of doom in first to soften up a target, and then follows behind with its own stack to clean up whatever's left. I've noticed two super stacks come my way a few times and I'd think, Oh crap if they hit me with a 1-2 punch, I'm dead...but for some reason they'll always give me a turn or two to recover between attacks (maybe because I play on Warlord level??).

Anyways, back on topic, I can see the use of an explorer as a medic. Even without a Woody3 or Hilly3 promotion, the level 2 gives you the extra speed, and along with medic promotions, it can become a useful doctor. As above, it won't get attacked until the end. And if you can see your stack is in danger of getting killed off, you could decide to cut your losses and have the doc run away to join another group.