Scouts and Explorers becoming Diplomatic Units
- Thread starter Enginseer
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pandasnail
Prince
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- Nov 18, 2015
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If anybody wants to try the idea out, there is a (very simple) mod out there that allows Scouts to enter other territory. I played one game with it ages ago, and nothing weird happened, scouts certainly didn't suddenly feel too powerful. Didn't keep using it because it kinda felt like cheating, but that's not applicable if the community agrees the rule should change. Being a vanilla mod, it obvi only does the Scout itself, not the line.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=267690333
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=267690333
Aldebaran1997
Prince
I wonder that how about reconnaissance units have actual specific benefits from exploring like Brazil's UU, which replaces one of them. Surely, they mustn't as good as Brazil's UU, but scouting at this point is too unworthy, especially on higher difficulties, because you should sacrifice early prod, which is so priceless, for unstable benefits. That's why I like the idea of mini-diplo recons, but it seems that people are unacceptable to it. So I suggest that giving recons insta bonus from revealing fog, or make them be able to domesticate barbarians at least.
People let realism get in the way all the time. In this case however it's not about realism it's about common sense.
I'm also not suggesting trailblazer should go, I'm suggesting 'ignores terrain cost' should go, replaced by more movement-speed, which solves another problem, that army-units somehow move just as fast as scouts do through open fields.
ElliotS
Warmonger
Whoa dude, that's even more iconic. Strong oppose from me on that one.
tu_79
Deity
I'm with Funak in this. Choose what is more iconic to you: double movement or ignore terrain, because both things together is what is making scouts movement weird. I prefer to get rid of Trailblazing as it leaves more room for other promotions, but I won't mind it the other way.
I'm ok with scouts being -33% weaker 'when attacking other than Barbs', after your explanation. Going a bit further, scouts can be stronger, have a weaker attack, not able to fortify and be forced to move on first hit, so they can't be used for tanking. Imagine that a scout had a CS=8, like a warrior, but a penalty attacking non barbs of -50%CS. This high strenght is only useful for not dieing, maybe help with early barb clearing and certainly won't be useful for holding a place with the above features.
Let them gain a little more CS before explorers if you like (not really needed imo, survivalist fill the spot here), but upgrading to explorer shouldn't be a punishment. What they really should gain is 3 sight and 3 movement as base, be it from start or after a tech like you proposed.
CrazyG is right about turning scouts into diplomatic units won't solve any problem.
I personally prefer getting rid of 'ignores terrain cost', that leaves you with one promotion-tree boosting movement and one boosting survivability. Of course it would be better to slightly change trailblazer instead, make it ignore terrain-cost in certain terrain instead of doubling movement.
I honestly think the scout could be weaker when attacking barbs as well, scouts aren't supposed to match warriors when attacking anything really. I'm fine with their defense being even stronger than the warrior's however, mainly because defense is more about using terrain and evading attackers, which I feel are fields where a scout would excel.
I can't really find words to describe how much I dislike this suggestion.
The alleged problem is people don't build scouts past very early on, and they often delete them once the map is revealed. Currently the biggest reason to really use scouts is to move through terrain quickly. It seems to me that changing this is going to kill their only niche while not really introducing anything else to use them for. I don't see how this addresses any problem
If scouts start with 3 movement instead of 'ignore terrain cost' they can get through 2 tiles of forest(or jungle/desert/marsh/hill) per turn or 3 tiles of open fields, they're slowed down by rivers which they currently aren't, but other than that they would pretty much be as good at revealing tiles as they currently are, with the exception that they would be faster on open fields and could use that to their advantage, by not climbing up hills or going into jungle, instead walking around them.
Yes, this would not solve the problems of scouts being useless after the ancient era, but it would solve the problem of scouts suddenly getting access to rocket-skates when they're in rough terrain, and only rough terrain.
Its pretty apparent that a lot of people do not find this to be a problem.
It's pretty apparent that a lot of people find this to be a problem.
ElliotS
Warmonger
Here's a strawpoll.
Let's find out if people think it's a problem, now that both sides have made their case repeatedly.
Let's find out if people think it's a problem, now that both sides have made their case repeatedly.
Why would a strawpoll even be needed this is a clear breach in logic, and you can't offer any decent explanation for it besides 'I like it'.
Yeah adding elephant mechs with lazorcannons to medieval Incas would also be fun, but it would make absolutely no sense, just like this mechanic.
After some games of Civ 6 it really feels weird for scouts to be the same speed as warriors, and the fact that you actually have to min-max going into rough terrain if you want your scouts to do any scouting is kinda silly, I would ditch the trailblazer branch, keep ignore terrain and give the scout line an extra movement from start.
tu_79
Deity
It's not only realism, it's gameplay too. A unit with 3 starting movement will make scouts easy to scout lands fairly quickly, without relying on promotions. I think this is a case of adaptation. Scouts aren't useful past the goody huts part. But people are used to the unit as is. They are used to not use the unit any more.
If we desire to change this behavior, the unit must change too. Find a role for the scouts passing Ancient era. I believe recon is the most suitable role. Maybe the weird movement of scouts is not directly related to their lack of usefulness, but it would release promotions for other uses and would make the unit easier to understand even by rookies. Besides, I don't think we would be able to make changes again. So better make it the best it can be.
A high defense is right for the scouts if they move after being attacked. Otherwise they would become cheap warriors.
If we desire to change this behavior, the unit must change too. Find a role for the scouts passing Ancient era. I believe recon is the most suitable role. Maybe the weird movement of scouts is not directly related to their lack of usefulness, but it would release promotions for other uses and would make the unit easier to understand even by rookies. Besides, I don't think we would be able to make changes again. So better make it the best it can be.
A high defense is right for the scouts if they move after being attacked. Otherwise they would become cheap warriors.
Yes, multiple have offered explanations for trailblazer staying. This is like the 4th thread to try and solve the scout problems of low CS or getting deleted to be derailed by this trailblazer discussion. The straw poll is needed because your biggest point is that you don't like it, your point of realism does not somehow mean anyone arguing against you is wrong (there is constantly a trade off between realism and gameplay).
If you want an actually productive discussion, give us a complete suggestion to replace trailblazer. So far I see a lot of complaining but no specific replacement suggestion. You repeating the same argument, and getting more condescending each time, is highly unlikely to cause a change. A strawpoll that actually establishes some numbers, combined with a reasonable alternative might. In fact I'm not sure I understood your argument, because I thought you wanted to remove ignoring terrain entirely, which would cause me to build a scout in about 0% of my games
ashendashin
King
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- 989
I assumed everyone here believes that scouts should have a wider role, and the weird movement really doesn't help with expanding towards war. Consistency is important for that and tu_79 explained it well. I thought the balance thread had some really good ideas besides the movement derailment. Or do some people really want them to be pure adventurers? Sounds worthless to me.
And remember that the largest problem facing the AI is visibility. Anything that involves min/maxing like trailblazer will inevitably fall into the players favor if we up their presence in war.
Hey guys, lots of good suggestions in this thread. I'd like to chime in as well.
First, I think Funak is right that the scout moving faster in rough terrain compared to open terrain is just plain silly. It's not game breaking and it's not what causes the scout to feel under powered but it could stand to be changed because it is pretty illogical. I think the idea of replacing the terrain bonus promotions with the promotions of "increase movement by 1", "increase movement by 2", and "ignore river crossing movement penalty" would end up being more logical. Scouts would be able to move 2 hexes in rough and 4 in open territory after those promotions. Though I think it is correct that this change would do little to address making the scout line more useful.
Next, to address the scout's usefulness I think we need to consider carefully what their role is during different portions of the game:
1) Early game - Primary role is to find goodie huts ASAP. Secondary role is to find nearby city-states and map out the immediate area. I think scouts are already pretty decent in this role. They cost less production and move quicker than a warrior so certainly better at finding goodie huts at the critical early stage as well as finding nearby city-states and mapping out the nearby area quicker. Perhaps reducing their production just a tad could make them less punishing on early hammers, though (especially if your starting city is flat without a forest it clears). They also tend to survive pretty decently early on (in my experience) when barbarian units consist mostly of warriors, archers, or hand axes. Though if their survivability is widely seen as weak then maybe an idea could be to naturally give them the ability to fortify at the end of every turn. That would increase their defense and heal them of some damage even when constantly moving. It would encourage their tactic of simply running away from enemies.
2) Early-Mid game - Primary role is to map out the world, finding every civ and city-state. The biggest hurdles to this are having to return to owned lands in order to upgrade/embark, surviving attacks by barbarians who have much higher CS at this point, and having crappy vision when embarked. For the first problem, simply allowing them to be upgraded to explorers or gain embarkation regardless of being in owned lands or not would be ideal. Being able to upgrade to an explorer outside of owned lands would also help with their survivability. Increasing their vision while embarked and possibly giving them better movement when embarked would make them much better at exploring through oceans (something I currently use caravels for).
3) Mid game - Primary role is currently unclear, but I would argue that it should be to act as a spotter and do recon during wars. I would envision a zeppelin moving along with your army just behind your front line troops. With a good amount of movement points, each turn it could move a few hexes out in front, see what's ahead, and then move back to safety before you move your troops further along. It would also obviously be great at spotting for artillery, like in ElliotS's mountain range scenario. To make Zeppelins even better in this role I would say give them a drastically increased sight range. I often find myself unsure of what enemy troops are waiting for me when I push into their lands. I often will place spies in target cities just for the sight radius, but having Zeppelins with a huge sight radius would be much more useful in this regard.
4) Late game - I think the primary role would still be recon, though the Zeppelin should probably have a new upgrade unit. Upgrade it into either a spy plane or a satellite. New base ability to not be restricted by open borders. Could make it un-targetable as well (they would be like 'observers' for anyone that played Starcraft).
So to recaps:
Scout - possibly replace trailblazing promotion line with better base movement, possibly reduce production cost to make the decision to build them less punishing on early hammers, possibly give them a 'always fortify at the end of a turn' ability for some health regeneration and natural defense that doesn't make them better fighters than warriors.
Explorer - allow them to gain embarkation and be upgraded from scouts without having to return to owned lands. Increase their movement and vision while embarked so that they aren't so badly outclassed by caravels in ocean exploration.
Zeppelin - drastically increase their sight range to act as recon/spotters during war (which I think is historically accurate from WW1 and 2).
Satellite - not restricted by open borders, un-targetable.
First, I think Funak is right that the scout moving faster in rough terrain compared to open terrain is just plain silly. It's not game breaking and it's not what causes the scout to feel under powered but it could stand to be changed because it is pretty illogical. I think the idea of replacing the terrain bonus promotions with the promotions of "increase movement by 1", "increase movement by 2", and "ignore river crossing movement penalty" would end up being more logical. Scouts would be able to move 2 hexes in rough and 4 in open territory after those promotions. Though I think it is correct that this change would do little to address making the scout line more useful.
Next, to address the scout's usefulness I think we need to consider carefully what their role is during different portions of the game:
1) Early game - Primary role is to find goodie huts ASAP. Secondary role is to find nearby city-states and map out the immediate area. I think scouts are already pretty decent in this role. They cost less production and move quicker than a warrior so certainly better at finding goodie huts at the critical early stage as well as finding nearby city-states and mapping out the nearby area quicker. Perhaps reducing their production just a tad could make them less punishing on early hammers, though (especially if your starting city is flat without a forest it clears). They also tend to survive pretty decently early on (in my experience) when barbarian units consist mostly of warriors, archers, or hand axes. Though if their survivability is widely seen as weak then maybe an idea could be to naturally give them the ability to fortify at the end of every turn. That would increase their defense and heal them of some damage even when constantly moving. It would encourage their tactic of simply running away from enemies.
2) Early-Mid game - Primary role is to map out the world, finding every civ and city-state. The biggest hurdles to this are having to return to owned lands in order to upgrade/embark, surviving attacks by barbarians who have much higher CS at this point, and having crappy vision when embarked. For the first problem, simply allowing them to be upgraded to explorers or gain embarkation regardless of being in owned lands or not would be ideal. Being able to upgrade to an explorer outside of owned lands would also help with their survivability. Increasing their vision while embarked and possibly giving them better movement when embarked would make them much better at exploring through oceans (something I currently use caravels for).
3) Mid game - Primary role is currently unclear, but I would argue that it should be to act as a spotter and do recon during wars. I would envision a zeppelin moving along with your army just behind your front line troops. With a good amount of movement points, each turn it could move a few hexes out in front, see what's ahead, and then move back to safety before you move your troops further along. It would also obviously be great at spotting for artillery, like in ElliotS's mountain range scenario. To make Zeppelins even better in this role I would say give them a drastically increased sight range. I often find myself unsure of what enemy troops are waiting for me when I push into their lands. I often will place spies in target cities just for the sight radius, but having Zeppelins with a huge sight radius would be much more useful in this regard.
4) Late game - I think the primary role would still be recon, though the Zeppelin should probably have a new upgrade unit. Upgrade it into either a spy plane or a satellite. New base ability to not be restricted by open borders. Could make it un-targetable as well (they would be like 'observers' for anyone that played Starcraft).
So to recaps:
Scout - possibly replace trailblazing promotion line with better base movement, possibly reduce production cost to make the decision to build them less punishing on early hammers, possibly give them a 'always fortify at the end of a turn' ability for some health regeneration and natural defense that doesn't make them better fighters than warriors.
Explorer - allow them to gain embarkation and be upgraded from scouts without having to return to owned lands. Increase their movement and vision while embarked so that they aren't so badly outclassed by caravels in ocean exploration.
Zeppelin - drastically increase their sight range to act as recon/spotters during war (which I think is historically accurate from WW1 and 2).
Satellite - not restricted by open borders, un-targetable.
I've said replace 'ignore terrain cost' with +1 movement, how is that not a suggestion?
My biggest point has to do with it being completely unrealistic, and while realism should not always be used as an argument, I've yet to hear one decent argument against this.
A strawpoll is completely unnecessary, because this is not an argument about which line is more fun, this is a situation where one option is clearly wrong as it can't be supported by reality at all. This is not in fact a clash of gameplay versus realism, because there's no gameplay benefit to this either.
If you want a solution to the scout going obsolete, there isn't one, scouting only has one use outside of revealing tiles, and that's spotting units, either by keeping scouts near an AIs border and see when they start moving them towards you or spot for an artillery unit firing from behind a mountain. Both those purposes could just as easy be filled by normal units, which you're pretty much bound to keep around anyways because getting attacked when you're not prepared kills you.
If you want to create an artificial role for the scout, then there are quite a few options, but they are all artificial.
You could make the scout provide nearby friendly units a bonus to defense or offense, you could have nearby scouts providing nearby enemy units a penalty to defense or offense. This would make scouts extremely valuable especially if it stacked with the great general bonus, and it would make the scout another in a line of units that you need to keep around to make your army efficient along with the great general and the gatling-gun. This feels like something the player would exploit at the cost of the AI however.
You could make the scout incapable of attacking but make it around as durable as a melee-unit of the same era, along with that you could give it a chance to escape when attacked and reduced damage from ranged attacks. This would allow it to scout out enemy territory and pillage tiles during war or act as a line of defense. I would suggest giving some sort of extra benefit from pillaging tiles to the unit, but I feel like that's something that a player would exploit at the cost of the AI.
Inability to attack and relative cheap cost would make it inefficient for the enemy to attack them, leaving them wreaking havoc behind the lines. Annoying with their ZoC and minor harassment. This however once again feels like something the player would exploit at the cost of the AI.
You could go the JFD route and make experienced enough scouts turn into superscouts that can settle cities. This however once again feels like something a player would exploit.
However, whatever is done, the first step is making the leap in tech between the units in the scout-path smaller, because this clearly isn't working.
ashendashin
King
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2016
- Messages
- 989
Alright since recon is often irrelevant for the player, how about adding a 'sabotage' element. Some submarine invisibility like element (proposed by tu, but I think an exact copy could turn out badly) along with extra damage to siege units. Get some extra sight and it should provide access to siege trains. Alternative to invisibility would be ignoring the need for hills to see past enemy lines, thus keeping them relevant without anything that may break how some view frontlines. I don't see why a unit sitting in enemy territory should be totally inept.
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