Explorers?

[GenocideBringer]

What's their use? Is there any reason to build them? By the time they come about, it seems like all the land is gobbled up.

 

[Unconquered Sun]

They are used on terra maps and such. I've seen some odd use of explorers in MP too.

 

[futurehermit]

they make good medic units

also, one could imagine that on huge maps with small numbers of civs, a unit like an explorer could be useful. and it's not like compass is THAT far away if you want to make use of it. get sailing, generate a GS...you can have explorers quite early if you want them.

 

[shyuhe]

explorers are very useful on large landmass (particularly highland) maps. The AI will buy up your maps for lots of gold too, if you're the first to paper.

 

[popejubal]

they make good medic units

also, one could imagine that on huge maps with small numbers of civs, a unit like an explorer could be useful. and it's not like compass is THAT far away if you want to make use of it. get sailing, generate a GS...you can have explorers quite early if you want them.

...if you want them. I'd much rather just build a handful of Chariots with Flanking and promote them to Sentry as soon as I get the extra 1-2 XP.


If Explorers could attack entrenched barbarians who are guarding a goodie hut, then I'd build them. Their inability to attack even barbarians makes them pretty much useless as far as I'm concerned.

Edit: except for acting as a Medic. I'll still just use a leftover Scout most of the time, though.

 

[Yzman]

I use them to explore new continents on some maps, because of their ability to go into caravels. However as soon as you meet another civ and trade maps, they are useless more or less.

 

[Robovski]

Mostly my explorers are leftover scouts from the early game - and yes, I promote those Combat 1 and then Medic 1 after running into enough animals. Mostly I find them useful in that medic role or to explore somewhere I haven't been (due to newly opened borders or the expedition to discover new lands/sail around the world). I don't generally build explorers though.

 

[Leventis]

Usually if one of my early scouts popped experience and has 2 or 3 promotions I will upgrade him to an explorer, especially if I am going to explore islands for huts.

 

[Weird Piggy]

Late game in a WP / Barracks / Settled GG city making one or two Medic 1 / Medic 2 / March explorers keeps your army alive. Because they never obsolete they are the weakest non-obsolete Modern era unit. Because of this they never get attacked.

 

[Percy]

I'm not sure March is very useful, since they're not attacked =)

 

[Black Mech]

The only time i built an explorer once in any civ game was on a terra map. after that not much use.

 

[ICNP]

It would be nice if their was a later upgrade that was a really good pillagger but otherwise when would you need to explore so much?

 

[TeraHammer]

I use explorers on the Earth18civs map to discover Brasil