Peak scouting -- feature or exploit?

[Lade]

Thinking about it in real life terms, how would a hawk come to you and say "Okay, there was a Malakim Nightwatch over here on this Hill, a city over here with three Svartlafar Vicars, and a river running through here." "Over here are some Pyre zombies, and over here...."

Who knew hawks could talk!

 

[Lost & Confused]

Thinking about it in real life terms, how would a hawk come to you and say "Okay, there was a Malakim Nightwatch over here on this Hill, a city over here with three Svartlafar Vicars, and a river running through here." "Over here are some Pyre zombies, and over here...."

Who knew hawks could talk!

Same could be said about a floating eye, that would be a little creepier then a hawk talking you ya

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Well, with Floating ees it is presumed that there is magic involved.

I would find it believable that Druids or Beastmasters could know the language of their pet birds, but for ordinary hunters it is odd.

 

[DemonMaster]

Okey hunters I can agree on, but at least in DnD, rangers has the same "magical" connection to their Animal Companion as druid has.

 

[blacknight]

I agree that scouting peaks feels broken, whether it makes sense or not.

I propose any of the following, listed in order of preference.

1) Hawks join with hunters (like great commanders) to give them the sentry promotion. No more air-missions or annoying recon-micro! Yea!

2) Hawks always scout a two square radius regardless of terrain.

3) Hawks do not counts as one level up from what ever they are on and furthermore, cannot enter peaks.

Cheers,

 

[Lost & Confused]

1) Hawks join with hunters (like great commanders) to give them the sentry promotion. No more air-missions or annoying recon-micro! Yea!

I like the sound of this idea, but can it be made so they can only be joined to Hunters/Rangers/etc. instead of any unit like the Great Commanders can?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that would definitely get rid of a lot of micromanagement. I kinda like the idea.

 

[Blackmantle]

Imo the real issue here is with the power of the hawks we have now at the tech they appear now for the cost they have now (and for other reasons besides scouting) not the ability to scout on peaks by themselves.

If the birds would be split into 3 Tiers with one at Hunting (gives the Unit that carries it +1/+2 Vision and if possible without the ability to carry items and the likes, probably best solved by a casting block and an implementation simmilar to greath commanders...),
one at the tech that grants rangers or perhaps tracking/feral bond if that's perceived as to late / to early (Hawks they way they work out now but with base cost which is about doubled) and one advanced one at commune with nature (awakened Bird or something like that. With all the abilities of the current Hawks + the ability to investigate + perhaps other nifty tricks depending on civ and the likes... with a cost of about the base cost quadrupled)

At least that would push the map-revealing goodness of open + borders + hawks + peaks (to name one of many examples) back to the tech at which rangers appear. (Animal Mastery?)

That would also fit nicely with the flavor side imo. (hunters train / domesticate birds to help them hunt / scout, rangers befriend/bond with wild ones and have means to communicate with them on their terms, druids / the Luonnotar awaken them to beings with mental powers akin to humanoids... So they let the birds do the talking. )

Since that very likely wont make it into the main mod, something like that sure looks like Modmod material... And I'm sure that I'm far from the only one who would really appreciate that...

For floating eyes i think differently since they usually appear as late as sorcery (which seems roughly in line with Animal Mastery?). The Amurites can use the edge imo. Its magic after all and should be awe-inspiring...

 

[solanacea]

I don't think that this makes any sense - the bird can fly as high if there is no mountain below it, so why should it see better on peak tiles...

Exactly! Each tile in civ is supposed to represent hundreds of kilometers so even 2 tile visibility range is huge. A bird seeing 5-6 tiles away is ridiculous.

 

[Guale]

Exactly! Each tile in civ is supposed to represent hundreds of kilometers so even 2 tile visibility range is huge. A bird seeing 5-6 tiles away is ridiculous.

Where do you get your information on this? Hundreds of kilometers sounds more than a bit farfetched although come to think of it time and space scaling has never been made extremely clear.

 

[zup]

gameplay > realism. I'd also prefer hawks added to hunters for vision boost. less micromanagement = good

 

[wig]

1) Hawks join with hunters (like great commanders) to give them the sentry promotion. No more air-missions or annoying recon-micro! Yea!

What do we need to do to make this happen? Kael, oh Kael!

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

Hawks/etc. can see much too far this way. I think simply redefining peaks such that they did not provide any greater visibility than hills would fix this exploit.

 

[Vitek]

I don't think it's exploit and I really like it. The way how it works does make sense to me. Althouf the micromanagment is bad thing here. I hate clicking select all and hawk gets selected.

 

[Grey Fox]

I like the idea of adding hawks to the recon units for higher visibility. Cuts away on the boring micro. Would be cool if you could do this with all animals.

 

[westamastaflash]

I like the idea of adding hawks to the recon units for higher visibility. Cuts away on the boring micro. Would be cool if you could do this with all animals.

I could live with this. Recon now is so boring, I have to go through my borders each turn to scout to ensure that no one is sneakily coming to invade me...