Scout/Ranger Plus 1.00

[Kavis]

Kavis submitted a new resource:

Scout/Ranger Plus - Recon units: Base Sight Range+1, Initial Level +1

Currently recon units are not as good as I thought. It is useful, but not necessary.

Since Barbarians and AI are crazy to attack player from the beginning. I usually get warrior+slinger or bowman instead of scout in order to protect myself. Warrior can recon as well as Scout in the beginning stage, when there is no big different before the first promotion.

Thus, I have made 2 adjustments as below:
1. Increase initial level to 2: This will provide a free promotion to choose ignore...

Read more about this resource...

 

[Arkatakor]

Agreed that scouts are underpowered at the moment; I currently use my warrior to scout since the movement is virtually the same as that of a scout, rendering the latter useless. Will be looking forward to trying this mod.

 

[Gilgasmash]

Wait, scouts don't have a sight range of 3? 'Cause they do in my game... now I wonder if I didn't accidentally change it very early in my modding efforts and never noticed.

On another note, beware about buffing scouts, because barbs get the same scouts. Sight range of 3 makes it easier for them to spot your city. I think one of the best scout buff is to lower the production requirement. This way you don't buff barb scouts in the process.

 

[Arkatakor]

personally I would have made scouts have by default the 2 promotions which make them ignore forest as well as ignore hills (like civ 5) and leave it at that.

 

[Kabba QuzAi]

Wait, scouts don't have a sight range of 3? 'Cause they do in my game... now I wonder if I didn't accidentally change it very early in my modding efforts and never noticed.

On another note, beware about buffing scouts, because barbs get the same scouts. Sight range of 3 makes it easier for them to spot your city. I think one of the best scout buff is to lower the production requirement. This way you don't buff barb scouts in the process.

Has this been tested? Because I'd like to use this mod, and having barbs spam like crazy without us knowing would be bad.

For me it doesnt seem like the scouts need to see the city center to run back to their camps. And it also isnt about seeing the borders of our empire, because in most cases they would be able to see us without us seeing him. It feels like he has to "touch" your borders. But I didnt test it to say for sure.

What do you guys think?

 

[Gilgasmash]

Yes, this has been tested. There was a thread on reddit not so long ago...
https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/5bqs6h/barbarian_scout_mechanic_explained/
Also, I can confirm that increasing the scout sight range increases the distance they spot your city from. But it's pretty easy to manage if you're not super greedy. Sight of 3 only really matters if your city has no forest/hill to block the view, so you simply gotta zone him out of flatlands and hills. And the AI has 5 warriors to do this on Deity, so they can manage, but otherwise they are terrible at defending barbs.

On a final note, I prefer to give scouts river crossing and leave them at no promotion. They get their lvl 1 pretty fast anyway, and their level 3 is insanely OP if you get it fast.

 

[Cosmic Fox]

OMG I want to kiss you man! No I am not that kind of person but sweet nectar perfect. I was asking about this and viola it appears like magic. Thanks a lot I will think of you every time I move my scout or ranger. Now if only someone would make different era scouts, perhaps an explorer hmm?

 

[gunnergoz]

Thanks for this mod. One question: do the promotions remain the same, i.e. that the sight range +1 promotion now take sight out to 4 hexes?

Also as it is, I found my scouts never survive long enough to get that 10 point combat strength boost. Perhaps now with this start buff they'll have a chance to do so.

 

[Gilgasmash]

OMG I want to kiss you man! No I am not that kind of person but sweet nectar perfect. I was asking about this and viola it appears like magic. Thanks a lot I will think of you every time I move my scout or ranger. Now if only someone would make different era scouts, perhaps an explorer hmm?

Don't know if it's related, but I did add Explorers in my mod (and buffed scouts a lot) ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/gilgameshs-generous-gifts.603779/ ). Unfortunately, adding new units is glitchy and requires overwriting default files to be done properly, so don't expect too much. Also, as it turns out, explorers are not very useful considering you have to bring your scouts back to upgrade them. It does make them much more resilient to random barb caravels, however, but barbs upgrade to Explorers pretty early and they're very annoying!

But if scout is the only change you want, this mod does it just fine. Adding new units is not really worth it yet.

 

[Kavis]

OMG I want to kiss you man! No I am not that kind of person but sweet nectar perfect. I was asking about this and viola it appears like magic. Thanks a lot I will think of you every time I move my scout or ranger. Now if only someone would make different era scouts, perhaps an explorer hmm?

Thank you, too. I am glad you like it.

As your question, I think Gilgasmash has made an explorer in his mode as he mentioned as above. Maybe you can try it out.
But to me, I feel that Scout to Ranger is good enough. Maybe change some out-looking via era when official SDK is out.

 

[Kavis]

Thanks for this mod. One question: do the promotions remain the same, i.e. that the sight range +1 promotion now take sight out to 4 hexes?

Also as it is, I found my scouts never survive long enough to get that 10 point combat strength boost. Perhaps now with this start buff they'll have a chance to do so.

I hope you like this MOD. Yes, I only change the BASE sight range, so it will be range 4 when you get +1 sight range promotion.

 

[Kavis]

Has this been tested? Because I'd like to use this mod, and having barbs spam like crazy without us knowing would be bad.

For me it doesnt seem like the scouts need to see the city center to run back to their camps. And it also isnt about seeing the borders of our empire, because in most cases they would be able to see us without us seeing him. It feels like he has to "touch" your borders. But I didnt test it to say for sure.

What do you guys think?

I am not sure, but I like barbs spam like crazy. It is more challenge.

I have tested this MOD on Deity difficulty several times, and the rage barbs is not an issue at all. I usually keep Barb's camp "alive" to train newly units or gain culture points when play as Gorgo. Sometime, I can use it to prevent AI to attack my cities as well. And the AI is so stupid at this moment. It is too easy to catch up enemy scout or it won't move sometimes.

But If you really worry about Barbarian issue, you can add another line as below, to change min distance between cities and barbs camp (default is 4):
UPDATE GlobalParameters SET Value = 5 WHERE Name = 'BARBARIAN_CAMP_MINIMUM_DISTANCE_CITY';

 

[HuskyPeter]

thank you, i will test this a.s.a.p

 

[Cosmic Fox]

Don't know if it's related, but I did add Explorers in my mod (and buffed scouts a lot) ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/gilgameshs-generous-gifts.603779/ ). Unfortunately, adding new units is glitchy and requires overwriting default files to be done properly, so don't expect too much. Also, as it turns out, explorers are not very useful considering you have to bring your scouts back to upgrade them. It does make them much more resilient to random barb caravels, however, but barbs upgrade to Explorers pretty early and they're very annoying!

But if scout is the only change you want, this mod does it just fine. Adding new units is not really worth it yet.

What I mean is the same old boring scout throughout the game until ranger can and should be addressed. I said explorer just as example, I mean like every other era or something along that line, provide an upgraded different looking scout, call him elite scout w/e. Barbarians shouldn't be able to upgrade their scouts, that be crazy to play against.

I simply want a unit to break off the gap between to the ranger unit. Plus new abilities as well, makes no sense presenting new improved without new added abilities. Sadly no one is doing that bit, I may have to look at how to mod and attempt myself.

Oh can you upgrade the attack from 10 to 12? That be sweet and help them survive more if not then forget it I guess. Wouldn't want the barbs having that though. yikes!

 

[Kavis]

What I mean is the same old boring scout throughout the game until ranger can and should be addressed. I said explorer just as example, I mean like every other era or something along that line, provide an upgraded different looking scout, call him elite scout w/e. Barbarians shouldn't be able to upgrade their scouts, that be crazy to play against.

I simply want a unit to break off the gap between to the ranger unit. Plus new abilities as well, makes no sense presenting new improved without new added abilities. Sadly no one is doing that bit, I may have to look at how to mod and attempt myself.

Oh can you upgrade the attack from 10 to 12? That be sweet and help them survive more if not then forget it I guess. Wouldn't want the barbs having that though. yikes!

I have made Scout's Combat Strength to 12 from 10 as attached file for you. Hope you like it.

My ideal was making Scout to be useful like - "I will produce at least one Scout in every game, but not trying to replace Warrior".
When Scout's Combat Strength is 10 with Sight Range 3, I still have to manage movement carefully in order to avoid "one hit kill" from other units.

But when Scout's Combat Strength is 12 with Sight range 3, it becomes a little bit overpowered and difficult to kill.
Thus, I moved "Base Sight Range = 3" to optional choice for balance. You can simply remove "--" mark if you still want to keep it.

 

[Gilgasmash]

What I mean is the same old boring scout throughout the game until ranger can and should be addressed. I said explorer just as example, I mean like every other era or something along that line, provide an upgraded different looking scout, call him elite scout w/e. Barbarians shouldn't be able to upgrade their scouts, that be crazy to play against.

I simply want a unit to break off the gap between to the ranger unit. Plus new abilities as well, makes no sense presenting new improved without new added abilities. Sadly no one is doing that bit, I may have to look at how to mod and attempt myself.

Oh can you upgrade the attack from 10 to 12? That be sweet and help them survive more if not then forget it I guess. Wouldn't want the barbs having that though. yikes!

Barbs automatically upgrade to any unit marked as Recon. We can't do anything about that. As for abilities, you can give them Commando (I already gave river crossing to all recon units), a ranged attack, but ultimately, there is little value in these. Most of the land exploration is done by then, and unless you make them tactically useful in a fight, they don't really affect the game. And if you do that, you know the AI won't be able to use them anyway.

Until we get a modkit, any change we do to recon units is basically a buff to barbs, with no other impact.

 

[jsurpless]

Tried increasing InitialLevel to 3 like so but it doesn't seem to work?

UPDATE Units SET BaseSightRange = 3, InitialLevel = 3 WHERE UnitType = 'UNIT_SCOUT' OR UnitType = 'UNIT_RANGER';