Even the persians in 300 did some reconnaissance ^_^
I don't feel like watching
300 ever but I'll take your word for it.
The Hound, Beric etc were captured near the Wall by Wilding scouts in season 7.
Sure. Scouts exist. The Night's Watch has rangers. Daenerys sends riders in various directions during her journey through Essos. People look for things. But nobody really
knows anything about the battlefield, because that would impede the designated Great General in his effort to work his Cunning Plan, or interfere with the sense of suspense that the viewers have. So you get maneuvers that seem like they'd be kinda silly if they were tried in real life.
These things are undoubtedly more common in the back half of the show. Part of that is because the back half of the show depicts actual set-piece battles - which are rare before Castle Black and Hardhome - and part of that is because the showrunners do go for suspense even when it doesn't really make sense. They did the same thing with the Battle of Blackwater Bay, after all. Martin's version of the Battle of Blackwater itself makes a bit more sense than the show's in that the Lannister and Tyrell force isn't entirely unexpected and does have something of a fight, but it vastly outnumbers its Baratheon foe and so the outcome is never really in doubt once the relief army engages Stannis' troops.
Again, I do want to emphasize that in no way am I some sort of Benioff and Weiss stan. When they get the chance to do things on their own, it often turns out worse.
Robb Stark captures Lannister scouts in Season 1, then lets one go after feeding him false information so that Tywin expects 20,000 men are coming to meet his army when he really plans to send only 2,000 there and have 18,000 attack elsewhere.
Yep, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Tywin doesn't actually conduct reconnaissance but
does bite on the ridiculous story from one scout.