Scouts=Useless

[The End Is Nigh]

Completely useless. I agree. When playing CivIII, sometimes I would go for the mass regicide game only to use my king units as explorers (7 of them)!!!!

 

[Inflammatory]

Do you use them to scout other empires? Personally I would use them to reveal Fog until I run into someone but no further. i.e., scout to discover where I want to expand, but not scout to map out the other players.

I must admit that I tend to wander about my neighbours' lands. Mainly because I want to know what their terrain and resources look like, and also to determine how large an empire they have. This is to a large extent because of how map trading has become a different matter from Civ3. I do, though, definitely see the merit in doing things your way and will look to try it more in the future.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

So far I have not built scouts, but utilized the one that I got at the start of the game (can't remember which Civ it was, maybe Americans).

Since I've only played the game at chieftan so far (will move to warlord next game), I'm unsure of the value of scouts as compared to warriors. I guess I'll keep this thread in mind as my gameplay progresses.

 

[Inflammatory]

Warriors will obviously not move as fast. The upside when using warriors for scouting are that you are slightly less vulnerable to roaming carnivores, and when a goodyhut spawns barbs your warrior will gain experience if coming out victorious. I'd personally rather get a tech or a lump of gold from a goodyhut, and your scouts won't be pushovers in combat either.

 

[rd_syringe]

I never used Scouts in Civ III, but I use them in Civ IV to find out where resources are so I know where to expand.

 

[Astax]

You guys make me so angry!

Scouts are uber! With promo they move 2 spaces throu FOREST and JUNGLE, I mean come on! On a big map its the premo scouting unit! On a small map I may not build it if I didnt start with it BUT they are useful still! Anyone here read the manual? SCOUTS WILL NEVER ANGER THE LOCALS IN THE GOODY HUTS! So you will never get an angry bunch of maurading barbarians from a goody hut.

 

[onedreamer]

I have yet to build a scout unit.
Since the start of game comes with one scout.

Only because you keep playing a Civ with hunting as a starting tech...

Scouts are extremely useful in this game, early on. People can have their opinion and think they are useless... well let's let them think so. They will eventually understand their use when and if they will learn more about the game.

 

[Fieryphoenix]

I think the real post should be Explorers=Useless.

By the time you can make them, nothing's left unexplored... or more precisely, BY SOMEONE ELSE, so you'll never see the super extra duper goody hut bonus.

 

[onedreamer]

that's not true either. Since in Civ4 you don't see changes in the map (unlike Civ3 where you would see cities built or destroyed, for example) if you don't have a presence in that area, it's good to use Explorers if you have a right of passage with your neighbours.

 

[mrlaze]

The scout s I have made seemed to survive better when exploring, than in Civ 3, where they were 0 attack. I bet the OP sets them on auto explore, they will die all the time that way.

 

[Kissamies]

There's also the Terra map for explorers. If you are first to land your explorer on the new world, there will be huts.

 

[Marquis Mark]

Scouts are excellent, at (imagine this) scouting. They can fight off animals well enough, get good stuff from goodie huts and have two movement. A few civs start with them instead of warriors.

I always keep 1 scout active, at least until my island/continent is explored completely.

 

[smarpoe]

Scouts are excellent, at (imagine this) scouting. They can fight off animals well enough, get good stuff from goodie huts and have two movement. A few civs start with them instead of warriors.

I always keep 1 scout active, at least until my island/continent is explored completely.

Same here. I only use 1, maybe 2 scouts. Then, when my land area has been explored, I'll reuse them when I find another continent.

 

[laylowmay]

My 2 scouts got me 5 free techs from goody huts in my current game. A huge advantage in early game!

 

[combatmonkey]

I believe Scouts can also earn the Medic I and II promotions and serve as escorts for your armies to keep them healthy later in the game.

 

[yturk39]

I believe Scouts can also earn the Medic I and II promotions and serve as escorts for your armies to keep them healthy later in the game.

If my Scouts find goody huts which give bonus experience, then most of the time these are the promotions I shoot for. What's also nice about promoting a Scout along these lines is if you later choose to upgrade it to an Explorer, you haven't wasted exp on either Woodsman I or Guerrilla I which you'll get for free the instant you upgrade.

Other things to consider:

1) Scouts have a very low cost compared to mounted units. If they seem very vulnerable to barbs and animals, it's probably because you're being a little reckless with how you move them around.

2) Scouts provide no happiness bonus when garrisoning a city, making them ideal for snooping on rivals with open borders. You can camp them out in a rival city and he'll still need to garrison it with a unit of his own. If he's running Monarchy, your scout won't give him an extra happiness point.

3) Scouts can actually be used somewhat offensively in war, in interesting ways. You can use them to occupy resource tiles near an enemy city, making that tile unworkable until your enemy either kills the scout, or you decide to move your scout somewhere else.

Likewise, you can use them to block avenues of approach, forcing your opponent to attack the scout first before it can move further units into the area. Not ideal, but I've had it come in a handy a few times. An enemy Chariot is two tiles away from an Axeman I can't move anymore, but due to geography and having a scout handy, I can put a scout in the one direct line of approach and foil the Chariot's chance of wiping my Axeman out the following turn. For that matter, I've rescued wounded Warriors from Panthers this same way.

 

[lymond]

It's completely useless to build scouts and most high level players do not build them - and most play without huts. If you play with huts and have hunting tech at start, you can use it to explore your surrounding area and grab a few. It may be a good idea, if it survives, to help spawnbust and outlying area. I will then delete it after expansion.

However, warriors are better for spawnbusting. Warriors are still very cheap and at least can defend quite well against archers. And it's important to keep in mind that these warriors will eventually fortify new cities. Why build worthless scouts that can't defend or pacify when you have to build defenders anyway. Just a complete waste.

Folks can play however they wish though. If you want to build a lot of scouts and go treasure hunting, have lots of fun but just note that playing that way is very sub-optimal at the most important phase of the game.

 

[wolfblue]

I use scouts and love them. I value them over warriors because i usually make archers my first military unit. Scouts are cheap. fast and good for tribal huts.

but my favorite use for them is blocking barbarian spawn.

Barbarians are able to spawn in any tile that is not visible by a civilizations borders or unit.

so I will often place a picket of scouts on hills or other strategic locations to make sure that there are very few shadowed tiles around me. Since i started doing this I have tended to get fewer barbarian spawn and earlier warning before barbarian spawn get to a dangerous area.

its also nice to push them out to areas with a couple of resources you intend to settle. it helps prevent barbarian cities spawning in those areas. any scout that lasts beyond the early game gets loaded onto caravels during ocean exploration to auto explore new found continents.

 

[Axios]

In my first games, I didn't understand the utility of scout and machine guns. Now they are parts of my strategy always. For example: machine guns are excellent stack defenders.

 

[babar]

what lymond says.

I still haven't seen an argument for scouts over actual military units, which will do any job better (except exploring quite as fast in safe territories), and then can be used as garrison.

The only time I might build a scout is in a (probably poorly managed) OCC game when I have run out of anything else to build, and I already have sufficient spawn busting warriors, and no military resource. I might as well (auto) explore my neighbors' land. The scout gets deleted as soon as the job is done, or earlier if it starts costing maintenance.