Screw Scouts - build Warriors

[Dermo]

I must be doing something wrong,
I 've played a half dozen games, and my scouts haven't found any huts, just a bunch of ruins

 

[Grunthex]

If you get red wine with your steak, then I get a nice dessert wine with my chocolate mouse. Maybe a Riesling?

I'm still casting the deciding vote for the steak.

 

[taltamir]

question, what kind of game speed is everyone here playing on? quick? standard? epic? marathon?

 

[jayjackson]

disagreeing with you isn't trolling.
As for getting an archer from a scout... great upgrade in terms of price... if you luck out and get it, but its based on luck, and it means spending a bunch of turns looking for ruins instead of doing something constructive (aka, conquering someone)



There is a difference between "always" and "better"... warriors are better if they are just slightly more likely to do any of these things. They don't need be ALWAYS perfect to be worth it.

You are TOTALLY trolling. Yes, the only thing that is ever constructive in Civ V is conquering people. And you can always do it with three warriors, under any situation, level and map, right?

It's not even just looking for ruins. You are also looking for barbarian encampments (which obviously warriors do well against), but you are also looking for City-States, which if you get to them first provide double the gold. You are also looking for positioning of the AIs, you are looking for the ruins, you are looking for choke points.

Honestly, I usually would never tell anyone "not to post" anything. But, flat out, you should never post in a strategy forum ever again. Even if your strategy had merit, the callous way you treat other individuals and refusal to acknowledge literally tens of things that are wrong with your strategy, or the way a differing strategy could improve play, means you should just keep it to yourself. Strategy forums are to help others or yourself. You are doing neither, and honestly if a beginning player took your advice, you'd actually be HURTING their experience.

I don't want to start a flame war, this is just fact in my eyes. It's very rare that I ever get worked up over a thread on a forum, but the way you have talked down to countless other people in this thread has seriously irked me. I mentioned it to you before, you ignored it (while replying to the rest of my response, badly I might add) and you are still posting in a tone that is far from friendly. It's a cross between arrogant and , to give you an idea.

Moderator Action: Warned for flaming.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

If you want to prove me wrong, take this challenge... go up ONE difficulty level, to King, and use your strategy on a continents map with standard resources. Don't reload, play it as if you were playing a Hall-Of-Fame submission.

If you actually take the challenge, I think it'd be days before we'd see you submit up to 1AD. Your "spam warriorz and conQuerz" strategy would step you right into line on even King, IMHO.

 

[Slowpoke]

Personally I like the warrior better than scout. Sure the scout buys you 3 turns and may get you a ruin more, but the warrior can get you influence with a city state by killing a barb. camp. That's the equivalent of a few hundred gold. You may say that the starting warrior can do this as well, but he can't be everywhere at once.

And if you're songhai or germany you do not build scouts period, obviously.

Edit: I suppose America and iroquios can do well with scouts since they're better at ruin hunting, but america is soo.. ugh.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Moderator Action: A warning to all posters: Stop with the accusations of trolling. That itself is generally looked upon as trolling and will often earn you warnings/infractions. If you think someone is trolling, report the post and moderators will deal with it as necessary.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[the343danny]

Arent scouts cheaper than warriors? IDK, but I always start on my scout as soon as I get into the game. Too early for workers, and no need for warriors. Scouts can beat up brutes because barbarians are just too weak, and if you are fighting in the woods, you can move one tile, and after seeing that you might lose in battle, you can retreat it, unlike with warriors. Another part of the scouts is that they can get Survival which lets you heal really fast, and that makes taking out barbarians early on just as fast as warriors because I can heal fast. Also, if you want to be cheesy, I used my scout to tank enemy city fire, because with survival you can soak up a lot of damage if you are healing while fighting.

 

[delra]

Scouts can beat Brutes only if you take Honor... not the case for my past few games. And in general my feeling is that majority of players skip on Honor and Tradition waiting for Patronage and Piety...

What I am planning to test though is to try to keep my Scouts in pairs - never farther than 2 tiles from each other. Cost should be similar to a full warrior but with better speed and ability to loot barbs swiftly. They could hit barbs as one and take them out before I lose 7-8 HP and my scout has to sit half a Stonehenge healing.

 

[taltamir]

Scouts can beat Brutes only if you take Honor... not the case for my past few games. And in general my feeling is that majority of players skip on Honor and Tradition waiting for Patronage and Piety...

What I am planning to test though is to try to keep my Scouts in pairs - never farther than 2 tiles from each other. Cost should be similar to a full warrior but with better speed and ability to loot barbs swiftly. They could hit barbs as one and take them out before I lose 7-8 HP and my scout has to sit half a Stonehenge healing.

that sounds like a really cool strategy, I am going to try it out too.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I really like scouts sometimes. Their promotions can be a bit more useful than those of warriors. Ideally the +1vision and +1move, IMO.

They can be used as a cheap support unit to get the flanking bonus against an enemy for another of your stronger units, or the +15% to adjacent units policy from the Honor branch.

Of course, their mobility and cheapness are advantages too.

The problem with scouts is, that as you get into the game a bit, unless you're using them as garrison units for happiness, it's probably best to delete them to save on maintenance costs. If they're not out exploring, they're an unnecesssary drain on the economy.

 

[highfive]

Scouts die fast against barbs? Not if you use them smart. I generally get at least one scout up to level 3 (+1 move; +1 sight) I find them every helpful to keep behind lines in a battle. When I have a front with several units attacking/being attack it is nice to have a small, fast attacker to finish of an enemy unit that may be in a spot I don't want them.

Yes! They will survive longer if placed on terrain hexes that give defensive bonuses and are great at cleaning up some archers or wounded warriors.

Personally, I'm starting to look more at using pikeman and quick moving/mounted units as my main front .. especially if iron isn't readily available.

Using terrain correctly and having high movement land units that either have high sight or high attack can be brutal against an unprepared civilization.

 

[aimlessgun]

Big fan of scouts if you're getting Honor. They can take out barb camps on their own if you're willing to wait (pretty effective on marathon/epic), plus there are TONS of wounded barb camps lying around from the AI. Easy gold for your scouts. If you have honor, look for where the new camps spawn: your scouts can speed over there and grab the gold. Pretty easy money for a few thousand years until the map fills up.

Basing this off my deity experiences, if that matters. The scout I built first has definitely been more useful than a warrior.

 

[taltamir]

In regards to parking your scout on a hill next to the barbarians and waiting for them to come to you, don't all those turns wasted waiting negate the scout's benefit of ignoring terrain type?

 

[Udey1]

Big fan of scouts if you're getting Honor. They can take out barb camps on their own if you're willing to wait (pretty effective on marathon/epic), plus there are TONS of wounded barb camps lying around from the AI. Easy gold for your scouts. If you have honor, look for where the new camps spawn: your scouts can speed over there and grab the gold. Pretty easy money for a few thousand years until the map fills up.

Basing this off my deity experiences, if that matters. The scout I built first has definitely been more useful than a warrior.

Precisely- I have found the same to be true. In my experience you will be wanting the honor route on Deity as well. Fancy culture slingshots don't always work there An honor scout can take loses and heal/reattack to overcome barbs

 

[Slowpoke]

Yeah, it really does some even enough to be a "play what you find comfortable with" sort of thing. The only ones I think that are "forced" into warrior/scout are songhai and germany/america and iroqoi. The 2 scouts for the flanking bonus does sound pretty nice, but I want that worker faster :/ I should point out that scout's really have very little speed advantage, though. A warrior can almost always find a way to cover a good amount of ground by going plains to plains or plains to rough.

 

[JudgeDeath]

It's easiest to win by conquering early. So Honor is actually pretty useful. Of course if you can conquer without it, then that's even better.

Possibly it should say "Screw Scouts & Warriors, go straight to Horsemen" following what's been said in the other thread.

 

[Roxlimn]

It may be map dependent.

Yes, you can go around the world conquering people with Horsemen, if you're on Pangeaea and every Civ is on one land continent. On Continents, you may build all those Companion Cavalry only to find one other Civ on your continent and your development lethally behind because you spent hammers on units you didn't need.

Playing on Standard Size, Continents, I rarely find Warrior sufficient for scouting purposes. There are almost always areas of the continent solidly blocked off by multiple tiles of hills, forests, and marshes. Warriors take forever to get through those, and take forever to get back. Not a sound investment of resources, if the aim is to scout and meet-and-greet.

 

[xcaine]

If you think warriors are better than scouts, go play higher difficulty and your theory will quickly be proved very wrong.

 

[tharg]

It obviously depends on game conditions. However playing huge pangaea I routinely build one scout straight off and buy another as soon as I can.

There is no reason why you should loose a scout if you don't want to. CivV combat is much more predictable than CivIV combat. An upgraded scout is much better than a spearman. Scouts are cheaper, you probably average at least one more goddie hut ( or whatever they are called now) if you start scout rather than warrior.

Although it would be nice if they had a regular upgrade path.

I assume we are only talking about first build. If you wait then its better to build spearmen or horsemen than either.