(6-CP) Recon Unit Line: Swap Trailblazer and Scouting as Stem/Leaf Promotions

[adan_eslavo]

To be honest, I'm quite happy with how currently Scouting units perform. The only flaw is that there are early problems with scouting when you play on Archipaelago map or even Tectonics with multiple islands. Sometimes it's not a big pressure to rush Emabarking for your units because your economy requires something different. Yet, you are often stuck with your Pathifinder (or Scout) near coast and cannot cross it. If there was an early Amphibious then I would vote yes for that. But this is the only need I have. It could be accessible either from start or the first rank promotions.

In my current game, enemy scout was blocked by my city (natural expansion) on a small peninsula and stayed there for ages.

All three proposals, like @azum4roll admited, are not good. It's change for the sake of change. No for all.

 

[Rekk]

Sometimes it's not a big pressure to rush Emabarking for your units because your economy requires something different. Yet, you are often stuck with your Pathifinder (or Scout) near coast and cannot cross it.

I think the fact that there is an increased incentive to research the top part of the tech tree is a good thing. It's an actual decision you need to make.

 

[adan_eslavo]

I think the fact that there is an increased incentive to research the top part of the tech tree is a good thing. It's an actual decision you need to make.

Maybe yes, but making this only for scouts is odd for me. Scouts should stand by their own while choosing possible expansion directions.
Currently we can choose rough terrain (forest) or other type (desert + snow). Why not make water available too?

 

[ma_kuh]

Currently we cannot choose Forest or Snow. You must "choose" Forest first, then Desert/Snow, and then water/mountain walking.

You're right that outside of theme, there hasn't been a gameplay argument, so allow me to make that here.

The current system works by balancing more sight against faster movement. It only does so after the first promotion, and neglects the fact that forests and jungles have hills, negating the XP reduction significantly by "catching up" all those tile reveals trivially. On top of that, it implies that you should always be revealing forests/jungles first if able, so that when you get to desert and snow you'll have picked up TB 2 and can cover twice the ground. But if your initial area is heavily desert and plains, then by the time you pick this up, that exploration phase is over, and you finally are able to make use of x2 in trees, while your second promotion does basically nothing. So to say it's perfect seems like a stretch, it's perfect for starts surrounded by trees perhaps. Maybe this is made worse by playing on larger maps, but it's definitely noticeable.

Besides this point there is also the matter of recon units owing much of their survivability to ignoring ZOC. Gating this behind one promotion line and denying it from the other should not be the case. There are certainly alternate ways to achieve this (you could add it to Survivalism 2, for instance, so that it's redundant on each path), but I chose the way that keeps an element of danger in the recon game until Classical. The current system basically removes danger as a concern for recon units after the first or second promotion. There may be a case for moving the +1 Movement to Scouting 1, but I think the virtue of equalizing the unit speed is worth the change in scouting meta.

 

[Recursive]

I sponsor everything except any new promotion icons needed. @gwennog has agreed to do those.

 

[Hinin]

MAGI - This thread is locked to allow all discussions to take place on the poll thread (6-48).