Scout upgrades?

[Camikaze]

It's probably safe to assume that a scout upgrade is something that the developers considered at some stage, what with the existence of the explorer unit in Civ4 and all. It's unlikely something they just didn't think about. So there must be a decent reason why they opted not to include another unit.

I would imagine that it would have to do with the lack of any feasible upgrade. Given high maintenance costs, you can't just have a unit hanging around doing nothing while it waits for an upgrade late in the tech tree; there must be a series of upgrades that it can work its way through. And each of these units has to be of some use. So what would come between scouting and archaeology, if that's what it were to upgrade to eventually? There's really not much use for some extra sort of scout after that first unit; there's no scouting hole to fill, as such.

One possibility would be to have some sort of colonial function, but that's a fairly in depth feature, and wouldn't be something the developers would just extrapolate from "we need a scout upgrade".

 

[kaspergm]

So what would come between scouting and archaeology, if that's what it were to upgrade to eventually? There's really not much use for some extra sort of scout after that first unit; there's no scouting hole to fill, as such.

I guess that's partially subjective, but I disagree with this. As I see it, there's is a scouting hole when Navigation opens cross-ocean travel, so it's convenient to have a unit that can cross the ocean in a sensible way - which an embarked scout can't, because it moves slow, has no vision, and can't defend properly - but at the same time go to land and explore new continents, which a Caravel obviously can't.

 

[Camikaze]

What's the purpose of scouting another land, though? All the ruins will be gone by that stage, and city states are generally accessible with your navy. Inland cities aren't particularly useful to know about, because you won't be sending trade routes to them. There's curiosity, but then that's not really the best reason to scout.

 

[Aaron90495]

What's the purpose of scouting another land, though? All the ruins will be gone by that stage, and city states are generally accessible with your navy. Inland cities aren't particularly useful to know about, because you won't be sending trade routes to them. There's curiosity, but then that's not really the best reason to scout.

I tend to scout another player's army if there's a war in the foreseeable future. Plus, having scouts WHILE at war is a pretty significant advantage.

 

[tomplum68]

there is a mod that gives the scout an upgrade path

 

[kaspergm]

What's the purpose of scouting another land, though? All the ruins will be gone by that stage, and city states are generally accessible with your navy. Inland cities aren't particularly useful to know about, because you won't be sending trade routes to them. There's curiosity, but then that's not really the best reason to scout.

True, if it's a settled continent, there often will be that much to look for, apart perhaps for the occasional natural wonder (a pity that, but true). If you come across an unsettled continent, there will often be a couple of huts to explore, but arguably it's not a major problem in the game - but on the other hand, something that could be added with very little efford. But then I guess it's good that we can mod the game to our personal desires.

 

[Smote]

Like high templars in starcraft

 

[lindsay40k]

All a scouting unit needs to do is provide intel and be able to survive an attack from one contemporary combat unit so that it can withdraw and heal. Whether that intel should be lots of vision range or telling you about enemy promos is up for debate. The point is there should be a recon unit for every era that doesn't wear Stone Age armour.

Me, I love getting a bunch of Survivalism on a Scout and then finding a Bow. Or getting super vision range and standing on a hill overlooking a sea of jungle. But when I can make humvees and composite armour, my spotter should be able to survive a round of musket fire and not have to keep up with the rocket artillery on foot.

 

[Quineloe]

The key feature of the scout is that he can pick vision range experience upgrades right away, so a scout that is built in a city with Military academy and BB Gate can instantly receive +2 vision +1 movement (scouting 3). The scout should improve accordingly through the ages because such a unit is just perfect for border patrol.

 

[CaptainPatch]

The thing that I dislike about Scouts early on is that the ONLY way that a Scout gets the experience to gain a promo is via combat. But Scouts are pitifully weak. They're seriously outclassed by the barbarian Brute, and practically anything else can slice and dice Scouts, no problem. The only method of survival I've seen is to 1) Attack. 2) Run away. 3) Heal. 4) Attack again. 5) Run away. 6) Heal. 7) Repeat 4-6 until the barbarian -- which doesn't use the time to heal like you do -- is dead.

Isn't it kind of ludicrous that you can heal, but the barbarians can't?

Scouts can't become competent combat units until they hit an ancient ruin and get to arm themselves with better weapons (an Archer's bow). Then they become downright awesome, being able to stand off and whittle an opponent down to nothing. And if the opponent is too dangerous, just run across some rough terrain to evade the foe. By the time the Scout/Archer upgrades to Crossbowman, the combination is seriously potent, even into the Industrial Era. I even prefer them to the Gatling Gun versions further up the Upgrade chain.

But getting that Scout/Archer combo is pure chance. Every other Military unit can be upgraded, thereby being able to be competitive clear through to THE END. The Scout is entitled to the same upgrade possibility as its kinsmen.

 

[Barghaest]

The thing that I dislike about Scouts early on is that the ONLY way that a Scout gets the experience to gain a promo is via combat. But Scouts are pitifully weak. They're seriously outclassed by the barbarian Brute, and practically anything else can slice and dice Scouts, no problem. The only method of survival I've seen is to 1) Attack. 2) Run away. 3) Heal. 4) Attack again. 5) Run away. 6) Heal. 7) Repeat 4-6 until the barbarian -- which doesn't use the time to heal like you do -- is dead.

Isn't it kind of ludicrous that you can heal, but the barbarians can't?

Scouts can't become competent combat units until they hit an ancient ruin and get to arm themselves with better weapons (an Archer's bow). Then they become downright awesome, being able to stand off and whittle an opponent down to nothing. And if the opponent is too dangerous, just run across some rough terrain to evade the foe. By the time the Scout/Archer upgrades to Crossbowman, the combination is seriously potent, even into the Industrial Era. I even prefer them to the Gatling Gun versions further up the Upgrade chain.

But getting that Scout/Archer combo is pure chance. Every other Military unit can be upgraded, thereby being able to be competitive clear through to THE END. The Scout is entitled to the same upgrade possibility as its kinsmen.

I disagree with this. If you send scouts in pairs they can handle most barbarian encampments until barbarian pikemen start appearing... especially after a few survival upgrades or Honor policies. With Survival III a pair of scouts can slow down (or even destroy) advancing AI armies and aren't really in danger of outright obliteration from anything below Industrial cities/siege. They destroy them almost as fast as the basic Warrior and can rush from camp to camp much faster with their ability to ignore terrain (which also comes in handy if more barbs spawn and you want to avoid losing your unit... being able to traverse rough terrain faster than your opponent increases survivability significantly).

Scouts are my main units in the early game (and quite devastating depending on terrain and how you use them) and I devised my upgrade line for them because it always saddened me for my level 13+ Scouts to become completely obsolete later in the game... giving them upgrade to Ranged/Melee makes them far too OP (they're pretty nasty anyway) which is why I designed a weaker scouting class unit for the later eras that was still restricted to scout promotions.

 

[Talcove]

Maybe it should just remain "scout", but have an upgrade to its combat strength and picture each age, ending up with maybe 6 speed by the information age? (keep in mind that it'll still ignore terrain so it's still faster than modern armour)

By the time Modern Armour comes around, one should already have Helicopter Gunships, which, with only two or three military training buildings, give it access to two +1 movement bonuses, making it an 8 movement unit that ignores terrain cost, and can go over mountains - vastly superior to any scout. Though, to give it credit, the scout requires no resource, while Helicopters take up aluminum (Worth it, IMO, for the pillaging).

Though, yes, the scout should change the same was as workers, or trade units: change it's picture/model at the industrial era, and give it a slight boost.

 

[Quineloe]

I disagree with this. If you send scouts in pairs they can handle most barbarian encampments until barbarian pikemen start appearing... especially after a few survival upgrades or Honor policies. With Survival III a pair of scouts can slow down (or even destroy) advancing AI armies and aren't really in danger of outright obliteration from anything below Industrial cities/siege. They destroy them almost as fast as the basic Warrior and can rush from camp to camp much faster with their ability to ignore terrain (which also comes in handy if more barbs spawn and you want to avoid losing your unit... being able to traverse rough terrain faster than your opponent increases survivability significantly).

Scouts are my main units in the early game (and quite devastating depending on terrain and how you use them) and I devised my upgrade line for them because it always saddened me for my level 13+ Scouts to become completely obsolete later in the game... giving them upgrade to Ranged/Melee makes them far too OP (they're pretty nasty anyway) which is why I designed a weaker scouting class unit for the later eras that was still restricted to scout promotions.

How do you get survival 3 on scouts when barbarians stop giving exp beyond 30? Do you farm a city state military?

 

[Barghaest]

How do you get survival 3 on scouts when barbarians stop giving exp beyond 30? Do you farm a city state military?

If necessary (even DoWed a CS once and rotated out scouts letting their city shoot them after I slaughtered all their units to grind to level 4)... usually I just use my scouts to defend against early AI DoWs.... inevitable since I run a skeleton force early; however, I seldom play Vanilla Civ V anymore and the mod I use increases Barb xp to 60 since it makes sense that fighting even the weakest of opponents (although Barbs are a bit tougher in my mod than from vanilla) is worth more than basic training (can reach 45-60 xp for newly trained units with buildings/policies... so why should barbs give less?).

 

[njmfff]

Upgraded Scouts are awesome, but they can get promotions only via fighting.

I think they get +2 or +3 to sight, +1 movement and heal (two choices: either Survivalism or Heal outside Friendly Territory)

 

[Walter R]

The one thing about scouts that has always bugged me is how crap their sight is when embarked. To me it just makes no sense at all. Are we to infer that the only way they can move on water is to lay flat on some raft and paddle with their hands?! Any promotion should first look at this.

 

[Quineloe]

The one thing about scouts that has always bugged me is how crap their sight is when embarked. To me it just makes no sense at all. Are we to infer that the only way they can move on water is to lay flat on some raft and paddle with their hands?! Any promotion should first look at this.

They want you to build triremes and caravels to scout the sea, not have the scout do everything.

 

[dashwinner]

I always felt the ruin upgrade to Archer from vanilla was seriously OP. If I leveled a scout to 6 or higher where they had all three Survival and Scouting upgrades before they got the promo to Archer they were a nearly unbeatable unit from that point on... especially once a few promotions were achieved in their new combat class.

In my 2,000+ hours of civ5' I don't think I ever leveled a scout 6 times, THEN somehow still managed to find a promotion ruin.

 

[Beaver79]

Even if they upgraded to explorers I would still delete the scout once I discovered everything on my land mass. They are good for finding ruins and CS. If none of those remain then you're just paying unit maintenance on a unit that can't fight.

 

[Walter R]

They want you to build triremes and caravels to scout the sea, not have the scout do everything.

Sure, I get that; but they ought to be able to not run smack into a barb that they couldn't see - I just find that annoying and unnecessary.

edit: I should have said 'paddle' into a barb...