How much would one additional scout at start make the game easier?

Hi! I usually have my problems in the early game, but if I survive up to the medieval techs, I'm mostly safe and manage to achieve dominance fairly quickly.

For your information, I used to play on Emperor, but I took a long break from civ so I'm on King level again. Just that you know what we're talking about.

My question now is: How much is the worth of a free scout at start? Or a warrior/archer? (Guess it's obvious that a free worker means a lot). I'm thinking about giving myself a free scout and playing one difficulty grade higher, to have a more constant challenge. Do you think this could work out? How much do those starting units mean? And how much role do goody huts play, is the scout all about finding them or is he important even if we don't find many of them?

What I do after starting at a new, higher difficulty than I'm used to is move resources to better locations around the capital and 2nd city. It's like regenerating the map without all the wasted time.

For example, I might move a Fish tile slightly closer to the city, or bump a resource to a river that was on dry terrain (for the +1 bonus). As you get better at your new difficulty level, you can gradually position resources in less-favorable locations, until you're able to handle any start location without changes. It also feels less like cheating than giving free units, since it's just random luck if a resource appears on tile X or tile Y.

To do this, open the tuner's Map tab and use the "Resource Plopper." After moving resources, save and re-load the map so the icons update.

I did it the way you described in Civ4, but it was more comfortable there, no second programm needed. But the idea is good, I'll try using the tuner before my next game. Using the tuner gives you information about the map and hidden lategame ressources, however. Not sure if this doesn't mean a big advantage?

I don't see the free scout as cheating, however. If it is a constant phenomenon that the game is really intense and challenging in the beginning and gets more boring later on, I might as well create a custom difficulty setting with more focus on long-term AI income boosters and less on giving them a head-start. I was more curious about the worth of free starting units than about moral implications


BTW: Not that I'd ever delude people into thinking I could really create a proper and clean mod for custom difficulty settings I do all my "modding" through ugly, brute force core directory XML changes

I'm not really sure what effect exactly a free Scout would have. They only take 5-8 turns to build anyway. If you like that option, go for it!

You only get the knowledge about the map or hidden resources if you use those options (specifically the "give all modern techs" button on the Active Player tab). The tuner provides no extra information on its own - only what you ask for - unlike Civ 4's ingame world editor.

A free scout would be incredible in terms of edge. Often when I play Deity, I start Scout, Scout before anything else. Ruins, CS 30, Meeting civs to sell 50 open borders, and understand who is close and where I can build without getting expansion hate.

@ Sneaks: so would you say a free scout would mean about half a difficulty grade less? Or not so much?

@ Thal: If you use the Tuner to move luxuries or stone closer without revealing the map or any strategics, don't you risk to overwrite some strat ress?

That's a good point I hadn't thought of! May as well do the scout.

@Tomice, I'd say a free scout would certainly make things about half a difficulty less. Any major advantage afforded within the first 20 turns tends to snowball.

There is a mod that changes the starting unit with a scout...
"early exploration" in the browser.
Although that's not exactly what you are looking for