Make explorers REALLY useful

[Pep]

In my last game, I arrived to an overseas tiny island (I`m the fisrt to discover navigation ) with a caravel and explorer. I landed the explorer and clear a goody hut, just to discover only barbarians! This process was the same in two more islands ...

My idea is: Give the explorer unit a bonus like the "Expansionistic Civs" to NEVER discover barbarians in a goody hut . Thus way, explorers will become really useful!

What do you think?

 

[The Economist]

I agree. By the time you've got explorers, most of the goody huts have been found already, so its not really unfair to expansionist civs to give the ability to explorers as well.

Also, if an expansionist civ upgrades the scouts to explorers, why should they lose their friendly-barbarian huts ability?

 

[meltone1]

expansionist civ's won't lose their ability. It is not dependant on who triggers the hut, it is just a trait.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

I like the set up the way it is, leave it alone or be expansionist.

 

[Goober]

Personally I like it that way it is, but then again, I don't really like most Expansionist Civs, I find them too agressive and too pushy. I never get anything good from the goody huts anyway, I just have bad luck.

 

[Pirate]

What, explorers never found barbarians/savages in real life? Why should explorers get free reign of the globe? Leave it the way it is and just build more explorers. Why do you think Columbus set sail with 3 ships? (actually 4 but one had to turn back, but that just proves my point of the benefits of redundancy)

 

[Pep]

Originally posted by Pirate
What, explorers never found barbarians/savages in real life? Why should explorers get free reign of the globe?

You're right about that. You've said: "In real life", but this is Civ3. In real world, expansionist civs also found barbs but they DON`T in Civ3. I like this bonus expansionist received but I think it's good to apply it also to explorers to make them usable.

Leave it the way it is and just build more explorers.

Well. In almost all my games, when I have discovered explorers, only inhabitant islands are not revealed in map. If I go to a remote island with a caravel and an explorer only to see how my explorer is killed, next time I won't go with another explorer. I will go with a mounted unit instead: there's no enough mass of land to justify the bonus movement of explorer and with the military unit, perhaps I get an Elite one...

Why do you think Columbus set sail with 3 ships? (actually 4 but one had to turn back, but that just proves my point of the benefits of redundancy) [/B]

I think in Civ3 this is emulated by the fact that caravels have a great pobability to sink in the ocean

 

[Cedrick]

I have never built explorers because by the time they come around 80-90% of map is a known anyway. Without something special (like always getting a goody in the 2-3 huts that might still be left in the remote corners of the world) I have no incentive to ever build them.
As for the expanisionist civs, I never build the scout either but only use the given one. Mostly I explore with horse or warrior.
A much better ability for the explorer/scout would be if they had the special ability of finding resources that no other unit could. Right now a resource might pop up somewhere on the map, why not let these units increase the chance of this occurring? And leave the goody huts out. This would give a good incentive to play those expansionist civs since they would have a good head start over those that had to wait for the explorers but not too great since the really big resources needed are not on the map until after explorers are on the scene.
Just a suggestion

 

[cgannon64]

Well you can't pop techs when Explorers are around (IIRC) so what else do you really want from a hut? 25g? A conscript warrior?

 

[ybbor]

a city/settler would be nice, also on a big island a map wouldn't hurt

 

[Eastern Knight]

I personally like the way it is. How can they have that ability? Superpower? Plus, you can just build a cavalry or something, right?