Scout Promotion changes

[shaglio]

I noticed changes to the Scout’s Promotions.
Scouting used to be:

+1 Sight
+1 Movement
+1 Sight

Now it’s:

+1 Sight
+1 Sight
+1 Movement

But the big change is in Survivalism.
It used to be:

+1 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
+50% Defense
[March equivalency]

Now it’s:

+5 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
+5 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
[March equivalency] + chance to withdraw from battle when attacked

My question is: does this make the Survivalism Promotion line a viable option now?

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Who said it was not viable before?

 

[Calouste]

Not really. Scouts don't survive contact with a hostile civ, so the only XP they get is from barbs and that limits them to 30XP and two promotions. Although at least in G&K they stand a chance to survive a barb encounter, in Vanilla if they met two barbs at the same time they were dead.

Don't think the change in the Scouting promotions helps either. If they could get to 3 movement they would have a limited role in chasing down and killing heavily wounded units on the retreat in rough terrain, so they could keep gaining XP. Can't see that really happening that much with 2 moves. Getting a unit with 4 sight can be useful, but hardly worth the upkeep if it can't fight.

 

[shaglio]

Who said it was not viable before?

The consensus in the Strategy Forum was that Scouting was better because the additional Sight allowed you to see enemy units before they could reach you and would allow you to avoid them altogether. Also, seeing far was more important to a unit that is used for surveying territory.

But, with the changes to Survivalism, you can still (automatically) avoid combat. And, even if you do get attacked, you can recover quickly and will survive longer than before.

I always preferred Survivalism anyway, because, when I did take Scouting, sooner or later my Scout would wind up stumbling into a position where it couldn't maneuver away from Barbarians and would get killed. Now my stance on Survivalism might actually be supported by others. It'll take longer to scout without the bonus to Sight, but it's quicker than having to build/purchase more Scouts and get them back to where their predecessors left off.

 

[Simplicity4]

The addition of the Composite Bowman was fantastic. The lack of an upgrade path for the Scout bothers me. Even with the Promotions, Scouts are still going to be too weak to go exploring the whole world. How hard would it have been to add one more unit that could better explore over oceans and land (an Explorer, say).

On the other hand, it makes me hopeful for an Age of Discovery/Corporations expansion in the future.

 

[ezbutton]

With the changes to combat, scouts for the most part are hardier and don't get one-shotted. So with that in mind I'd still prefer the extra sight and just position myself better to go around or heal before going around barbs/encampments.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

I always tryed to avoid battle with my scouts, and they clear the maps so fast that they have no need for extra move or site, and I play on huge maps only. though to me, the + 1 heal was always better then site anyways, heal faster back to exploring. *shurg*. 1st time I heard surivalism was a bad tree, guess it is true what they say, I am horrbible player!!

 

[ghost88]

The addition of the Composite Bowman was fantastic. The lack of an upgrade path for the Scout bothers me. Even with the Promotions, Scouts are still going to be too weak to go exploring the whole world. How hard would it have been to add one more unit that could better explore over oceans and land (an Explorer, say).

On the other hand, it makes me hopeful for an Age of Discovery/Corporations expansion in the future.

I never had a surviving scout not promote to archer by way of a "Goody Hut". Then having both survivalism I & II on top of the scout starting perks gives you a very fast tougher arrow unit to track roving Barbarians or protect your Settlers/workers. With the two tile movement and no river crossing penalty in some cases they can out-march Knights or cavalry. Now as the Arrow shooters upgrade to Gatlings then Machine-guns, You can have a few double speed, double heal, +50% defenders.
Bottom line not a complete loser after all.
Note: How this works in my games is I usually build a Scout or two go hunting Barbs get the two survival promotions then go hitting ruins with them. Usually can find a weapons cache in 5 or 6 tries.


Brings up one of my rants though is thier are far too many ruins with people in them either lesson thier apperance ratio or let me choose which city they go too, preferably both.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

I never had a surviving scout not promote to archer by way of a "Goody Hut". Then having both survivalism I & II on top of the scout starting perks gives you a very fast tougher arrow unit to track roving Barbarians or protect your Settlers/workers. With the two tile movement and no river crossing penalty in some cases they can out-march Knights or cavalry. Now as the Arrow shooters upgrade to Gatlings then Machine-guns, You can have a few double speed, double heal, +50% defenders.
Bottom line not a complete loser after all.
Note: How this works in my games is I usually build a Scout or two go hunting Barbs get the two survival promotions then go hitting ruins with them. Usually can find a weapons cache in 5 or 6 tries.


Brings up one of my rants though is thier are far too many ruins with people in them either lesson thier apperance ratio or let me choose which city they go too, preferably both.

Not sure how that works for you, before yesterday if I tried hunting barbs with my scouts they ended up dead. Now I can take a hit and run away, still not gonna try to hunt with them. Also, if i took the time to hunt for 2 promos, all the goodie huts are gone. I play huge marathon maps, so tell us your secret.

That being said, I do love the early scout/archer. But I tend to bring those back home to barb hunt.

 

[oddtail]

The addition of the Composite Bowman was fantastic. The lack of an upgrade path for the Scout bothers me. Even with the Promotions, Scouts are still going to be too weak to go exploring the whole world. How hard would it have been to add one more unit that could better explore over oceans and land (an Explorer, say).

On the other hand, it makes me hopeful for an Age of Discovery/Corporations expansion in the future.

I totally agree. Now that all units can be viably upgraded, would it hurt anyone if an Explorer was added, with an upgrade path like Scout->Explorer->[optional unit of some kind]->Paratrooper or the like?

I honestly can't see how I would worry about which Scout promotion to take. I don't use them much by the time they level up considerably - especially since they are unlikely to do any amount of fighting. And if/when they do - joy, I have a unit that costs as much maintenance as any other and has better alternatives for, well, scouting.

 

[Simplicity4]

I never had a surviving scout not promote to archer by way of a "Goody Hut". Then having both survivalism I & II on top of the scout starting perks gives you a very fast tougher arrow unit to track roving Barbarians or protect your Settlers/workers. With the two tile movement and no river crossing penalty in some cases they can out-march Knights or cavalry. Now as the Arrow shooters upgrade to Gatlings then Machine-guns, You can have a few double speed, double heal, +50% defenders.
Bottom line not a complete loser after all.
Note: How this works in my games is I usually build a Scout or two go hunting Barbs get the two survival promotions then go hitting ruins with them. Usually can find a weapons cache in 5 or 6 tries.


Brings up one of my rants though is thier are far too many ruins with people in them either lesson thier apperance ratio or let me choose which city they go too, preferably both.

Yes, but what I wanted was something to scout with...

 

[Heinage]

Aren't the first 2 Survivalism promotions now nerfed when comparing to vanilla?

Vanilla:
+1 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
+50% Defense
[March equivalency]

G&K:
+5 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
+5 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
[March equivalency] + chance to withdraw from battle when attacked


First promotion in Vanilla: lets you recover 10% of your HP (1/10) extra when healing outside of friendly territory.
First promotion in G&K: lets you recover 5% of your HP (5/100) extra when healing outside of friendly territory.
Second promotion in Vanilla: gives you +50% Defense
Second promotion in G&K: gives you another extra 5% recovery of HP (5/100) when healing outside of friendly territory, bringing your total to 10% recovery (10/100) (which you would already have achieved by the first promotion in Vanilla)

Then by the third promotion of either, things even out again (with G&K getting the withdrawal chance while Vanilla retains the +50% Defense)

 

[shaglio]

Not really. Scouts don't survive contact with a hostile civ, so the only XP they get is from barbs and that limits them to 30XP and two promotions. Although at least in G&K they stand a chance to survive a barb encounter, in Vanilla if they met two barbs at the same time they were dead.

Don't think the change in the Scouting promotions helps either. If they could get to 3 movement they would have a limited role in chasing down and killing heavily wounded units on the retreat in rough terrain, so they could keep gaining XP. Can't see that really happening that much with 2 moves. Getting a unit with 4 sight can be useful, but hardly worth the upkeep if it can't fight.

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that. I usually go into the Global Defines file and change it to 99999XP. I know it's frowned upon because I could get tons of XP by farming a barb camp, but I don't do that. I just want to get credit for the combat that I DO survive.

 

[ghost88]

Not sure how that works for you, before yesterday if I tried hunting barbs with my scouts they ended up dead. Now I can take a hit and run away, still not gonna try to hunt with them. Also, if i took the time to hunt for 2 promos, all the goodie huts are gone. I play huge marathon maps, so tell us your secret.

That being said, I do love the early scout/archer. But I tend to bring those back home to barb hunt.

Same map size/speed Lower difficulty was working for me on warlord I limit the number of Major Civs and CS. Also play small continents usually have about 200-400 tiles on my cont.. It gets a lot harder if one of the other major civs is on the same cont., but there seems too be one or two CS only large islands. With the new hit points find a Barb camp attack lose 30 pts to his 25, attack lose 30 to his 25, upgade. take five turns to heal Rinse and repeat if the camp spawns a second Barb get the hell outa Dodge and bring up a real combat unit to deal with the second Barb. Takes two camps you get the two promotions and are ready to go.Including healing from the second attack (3 to 5 turns ) takes 25 turns max. If you have a second Scout he is off in a different direction and of course you warrior is Ditty bopping around also.
Now if your lucky the Barb will be an archer. in this case you move as close as you can get to camp 1 or 2 spaces take your maybe hit from his arrow barrage never seen more than 14 damage attack next turn damage 65 9r above to your 14 attack next turn, heal go on to next mission if the archer attacked as you approached and between your attacks you hav the first promotion plus four point toward the second and about three or four turns of healing.
Now all this time you are exploring your world in between fights. As well as gaining gold from the camps.
I have not played higher than Warlord so I know not if the Camp Guard Barbs are more aggresive the higher the difficulty. I am however playing my current game with raging Barbs am somewhere around 2000BC and have two fully buffed archers and one fully buffed warrior (2promos ea} and have explored and cleared my cont. with them. Did get lucky with only two CS and no Major Civ on about 400 land spaces (game huge Marathon Small Cont. 5 Civ 15 CS Chieftan Celts} still working out the new abilities so not going higher, plus I play to pass the time not so much to win.

 

[ghost88]

Aren't the first 2 Survivalism promotions now nerfed when comparing to vanilla?

Vanilla:
+1 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
+50% Defense
[March equivalency]

G&K:
+5 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
+5 HP recovered outside of friendly territory
[March equivalency] + chance to withdraw from battle when attacked


First promotion in Vanilla: lets you recover 10% of your HP (1/10) extra when healing outside of friendly territory.
First promotion in G&K: lets you recover 5% of your HP (5/100) extra when healing outside of friendly territory.
Second promotion in Vanilla: gives you +50% Defense
Second promotion in G&K: gives you another extra 5% recovery of HP (5/100) when healing outside of friendly territory, bringing your total to 10% recovery (10/100) (which you would already have achieved by the first promotion in Vanilla)

Then by the third promotion of either, things even out again (with G&K getting the withdrawal chance while Vanilla retains the +50% Defense)

It is now 5% heal and 25% defense for both I and II so no overall change. Have not had a war so do not know what S III is.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Same map size/speed Lower difficulty was working for me on warlord I limit the number of Major Civs and CS. Also play small continents usually have about 200-400 tiles on my cont.. It gets a lot harder if one of the other major civs is on the same cont., but there seems too be one or two CS only large islands. With the new hit points find a Barb camp attack lose 30 pts to his 25, attack lose 30 to his 25, upgade. take five turns to heal Rinse and repeat if the camp spawns a second Barb get the hell outa Dodge and bring up a real combat unit to deal with the second Barb. Takes two camps you get the two promotions and are ready to go.Including healing from the second attack (3 to 5 turns ) takes 25 turns max. If you have a second Scout he is off in a different direction and of course you warrior is Ditty bopping around also.
Now if your lucky the Barb will be an archer. in this case you move as close as you can get to camp 1 or 2 spaces take your maybe hit from his arrow barrage never seen more than 14 damage attack next turn damage 65 9r above to your 14 attack next turn, heal go on to next mission if the archer attacked as you approached and between your attacks you hav the first promotion plus four point toward the second and about three or four turns of healing.
Now all this time you are exploring your world in between fights. As well as gaining gold from the camps.
I have not played higher than Warlord so I know not if the Camp Guard Barbs are more aggresive the higher the difficulty. I am however playing my current game with raging Barbs am somewhere around 2000BC and have two fully buffed archers and one fully buffed warrior (2promos ea} and have explored and cleared my cont. with them. Did get lucky with only two CS and no Major Civ on about 400 land spaces (game huge Marathon Small Cont. 5 Civ 15 CS Chieftan Celts} still working out the new abilities so not going higher, plus I play to pass the time not so much to win.

Well, you are not barb hunting on the higher levels with a scout, at least no way I will lol. average of 17 turns to get 3 scouts out, and one mean barb can destroy those turns. I also max out CS and more civs, and that is why you have ruins that late.

 

[ghost88]

Well, you are not barb hunting on the higher levels with a scout, at least no way I will lol. average of 17 turns to get 3 scouts out, and one mean barb can destroy those turns. I also max out CS and more civs, and that is why you have ruins that late.

Didn't say I was a good player just that if you can get your Scouts to archer they are far better with Survivalism as there first two buffs than with more sight/movement.

As for less Civs and CS I like to turtle till I get to the Industrial thats the reason for the setup I use with two Caravels and a couple of frigates as backup I can explore most of the world by 1650. I Know the AI is not a challenge to a lot of you but I do not have the ability/trianing to think more than a few turns in advance so when I play higher I actually can get headaches trying to remember all the "exploits" many of you use to help you out. I tried to learn Chess but, was never good enough to see more than two or three turns ahead and if I did try Headaches. Thus as I play to pass time ( I really do not have a life ) playind higher is not fun. I do suppose if CiV was the only game I played I would work up to higher levels alas I discovered Paradox Interactive.
Sorry for the rant guess this old country boy is feeling sorry for himself today.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Didn't say I was a good player just that if you can get your Scouts to archer they are far better with Survivalism as there first two buffs than with more sight/movement.

As for less Civs and CS I like to turtle till I get to the Industrial thats the reason for the setup I use with two Caravels and a couple of frigates as backup I can explore most of the world by 1650. I Know the AI is not a challenge to a lot of you but I do not have the ability/trianing to think more than a few turns in advance so when I play higher I actually can get headaches trying to remember all the "exploits" many of you use to help you out. I tried to learn Chess but, was never good enough to see more than two or three turns ahead and if I did try Headaches. Thus as I play to pass time ( I really do not have a life ) playind higher is not fun. I do suppose if CiV was the only game I played I would work up to higher levels alas I discovered Paradox Interactive.
Sorry for the rant guess this old country boy is feeling sorry for himself today.

I was not critizing lol, your game your time you play how you want. Trust me there are times I play at lower levels just to have fun. Nothing wrong with how anyone plays, you define your fun not us. King in 5 feels like warlord of IV to me, so that is why I do not mess much with the levels here.


I do resent you saying I use chessy exploits, I never abuse the AI, I would never sell my OB for any ammount, when I trade resources it is 1 for 1 or no go. I always add handicaps for myself, for instance the 1st AI I meet I will give into all their demands. But I tend to be more of an RP type player, always have been. Right now I am working on my never build a unit game, not sure I will make it.

 

[ghost88]

I was not critizing lol, your game your time you play how you want. Trust me there are times I play at lower levels just to have fun. Nothing wrong with how anyone plays, you define your fun not us. King in 5 feels like warlord of IV to me, so that is why I do not mess much with the levels here.


I do resent you saying I use chessy exploits, I never abuse the AI, I would never sell my OB for any ammount, when I trade resources it is 1 for 1 or no go. I always add handicaps for myself, for instance the 1st AI I meet I will give into all their demands. But I tend to be more of an RP type player, always have been. Right now I am working on my never build a unit game, not sure I will make it.

You misunderstood what I said. "I said trying to remember the exploits many of you use meaning the many exploits mentioned by posters on Civ Fanatics not you as in "Randall Flagg uses". I should have added "strategies and" to that statement.
RF also english is not my first language, Redneck is, the difference being with Redneck you never use one word in a sentence when using none is easier.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

You misunderstood what I said. "I said trying to remember the exploits many of you use meaning the many exploits mentioned by posters on Civ Fanatics not you as in "Randall Flagg uses". I should have added "strategies and" to that statement.
RF also english is not my first language, Redneck is, the difference being with Redneck you never use one word in a sentence when using none is easier.

I was hoping my Happy face showed I was joking, all good though. And I have a giant sign out in front of my house, thats says * Redneck Lane*

Still, I did try hunting with my scouts last night, and got them both 2 promos, the new battles are much easier on scouts. 1st game I ever played and did not get a unit upgrade ruin, so pretty wasteful. That would really be a super archer with the move, and the heal bonus!! However with my new build, i will only be doing one scout, so no way i can stop to heal that much. The Ai's I am sure know where all the ruins are, they dang sure get grabbed quick.