An idea for the crippled expantionist civs...

[cassembler]

How about a "scout ship?"

Ok, obviously it would only be available to expantionist civs...

I'm thinkin' one of three things:
A) Available with Pottery. 1/1/3. Carries no units. 30 shields.
B) Available with Mapmaking. 1/1/4. Carries two units (a faster Galley). Same price as Galley.
C) Available at start of game. 1/1/2. Carries no units. 20 shields.

Any modders wanna take this on? I think the civs need it.

 

[sween32]

i'm actually making this unit as the UU for Atlantis. it'll be a mermaid.

 

[Baleog]

The scout ship would be too much of an advantage to a the civs that all ready haave the greatest CSA. If your an expansionist civ on a continent you can send your scouts around to pick up all the free techs in the goody huts making you the best civ straight from the start.

However if you start on a small island it would be a nice help at the expence of being able to build any more scouts from the one you started off with.

 

[cassembler]

However if you start on a small island it would be a nice help at the expence of being able to build any more scouts from the one you started off with.

Yeah that's why I'm steering for a ship that's available at the start of the game, cost 10 shields, 0/1/1 A/D/M, and can't carry units.

It's ONLY benefit would be to look for islands very close by (via coastal squares). You couldn't use the ship to colonize, but you could at least get *some kind* of idea where to start when you do.

My real question is what would be the easiest way to only let expantionist civs get this?

 

[Qurath]

Can't you just set it as UU for all the standard expansionist civs(Russia, America, Zululand, Iroquois, England)? Of course, if anyone created a custom expansionist civ and wanted to use this, they'd have to alter the 'can build' values again..

 

[Gromit]

How about making the scout available to all with pottery and making the start units for expansionist civs two settlers and a scout instead of one settler, one worker and a scout?

 

[Bjorn Bjornson]

the only thing these ideas do is increase the advantage they have in the ancient age, and does not help them in the later ages (when the expansionist flag becomes useless).

i got an idea (that im gonna mess with after i type this) of a new unit, early industrial - maybe late middle age unit

Pioneer: 0/0/1; 50 shields 1 population; all terrain as roads; clear forest/jungle; join/build city

not sure what advance to enable it... maybe thinking nationalism (gov't sponsored unit), or maybe navigation/magnetism (to compliment the explorer), tag it to expansionist civs only

well im gonna go mess with it