Recon units as their own unit group?

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

I don't think the recon units work well in the game, they are treated as rather weak combat units with access to some special promotions, in fact much of their recon abilities depend on those promotions rather than being inherent. Even the idea that recon units are combat units don't make much sense, I think they should be their own group, able to stack and pass through combat units.

The units themself should also be changed, upgraded units would have all abilities of earlier units, so I don't repeate them.

• Scouts get both Terrain promotions, +1 line of sight and invisbility but no longer have combat strength against other units except for other recon units, only recon units would be able to fight and counter recon units. Scout can also be attached to a unit, providing +1 movement speed to that unit (and the scout would be carried by the unit, if it have more movement than the scout, like cavalry units).
• Skrimishers no longer have combat strength, but instead you can place the skrimisher upon an enemy unit to reduce their movement by -1 and ranged strength by -5, to represent skrimishing.
• Ranger would also reduce melee strength by -5 and nullify great general combat bonus on the unit it is placed on. Movement would be increased to 4
• Spec Ops would also disable all adjacent enemy support units abilities, such as anti aircraft guns and supply convoys. Movement would be increased to 5 and line of sight increased by +1.

 

[Mik1984]

Your ideas are nice, I had plenty of mine ideas how to rework the recon units.For me, recon units could simply be turned into support class units with a special capturing mechanic. A "captured" support unit is simply destroyed:
- support units cannot be ranged attacked, but they can be attempted to capture if unguarded by ranged units
- recons upon capture attempt lose 25hp as base, 50hp for cavalry units +25hp for each flanking unit and combat capable district and +25hp if the recon unit is inside the capturers territory. if the unit loses all hp, its destroyed, if not, it will attempt to retreat, firstly to a tile with a friendly combat unit, if not then to a unit not covered by enemy ZoC, if there is no tile not controlled by enemy ZoC to retreat to, it is destroyed.
- recon units can capture and destroy other non combat units and plunder trade routes, but not tiles and districts. But they can clear barbarian camps and visit goody huts. If a recon unit attacks another recon unit, the same mechanic as above applies, except it has to expend -25hp for such an attack.