The Scout

[JonoLith]

With Civilization 5's new one unit per tile system, advanced scouting is finally going to be much more viable then it ever has been in the past. This makes a unit like the scout much more valuable to have then previous. However, due to unit caps, and things of that nature, I believe that the scout needs to be changed to truly justify it's expense. Thusly, I suggest this unit.

Scout

Power 2, Movement 3.
Unit is invisible to all non-scout units.
Unit may enter enemy territory without sparking war.
If unit is captured in enemy territory, it will damage the reputation between the two civs, but not result in immediate war.

I believe that this is in keeping with the general feel of the unit, while simultaniously making it a much more powerful unit.

Right off the bat, yes, it's a spy. Well, a lesser spy. I understand that it's a spy. Telling me it's just a spy will result in me saying "I know. I told you that." However, I've always felt like there should be an ancient version of the spy; an invisible unit that can gather intell. This is especially true as the game's mechanics get tighter and tighter.

The obvious problem, if you want to call it that, would be the age old question of detection. Perhaps you don't want to build a scout of your own to scout out the scout. Well, perhaps there could be detection type things going on in cities, or what have you.

Either way, I send this into the ether, to see what people think.

 

[megamanciv]

I guess historically, scouts were probably used to decide which way to move an army. So maybe a scout that could stack onto armies could increase their movement +1 since they would be able to plan the best route through fields/hills. Maybe visibilty +1. But this almost sounds like a promotion, and stacking units is going away.

Your idea isn't bad, I never build a scout once civ boundaries are set. Except for as a medic unit. Invisible and enemy territory is nice, I hate not knowing how many units are in a city I plan on attacking.

Maybe the scout could mark trails through enemy territory. It would be like building a road in enemy territory that your army gets bonus movement on, but the enemy cant see it.

 

[TheDS]

You know, now that you mention it, Scout and Spy could be combined into a single unit. Hopefully it's one that can stack - eg, it's on a different "layer" than regular units. In Panzer General, scouts are a hassle to use and really interfere with fighting the battle. I can't stand the way they do fog of war, so I just turn it off. The scenarios are tight enough as it is without having to devote half my force to units that die easy and can't fight well.

I don't know why, but you kind of reminded me of the old game, Modem Wars. Excellent RTS long before RTS was coined. It had invisible spy units that could only be seen by other spies, and their job was to scout out enemy positions. (Your ComCen could see it on its radar screen, and shoot it, but it couldn't direct other units to shoot it and stay hidden.) Spies were very important units for finding enemy positions without triggering them, and finding enemy spies. And the enemy ComCen. Dan Bunton was the (wo)man!

But anyway, it worked well that way, and that game only allowed one unit per tile, but most units had a shooting range of 2-3 squares, so manybe it won't translate well.

 

[PeterWimsey]

I've always kind of thought that the scouts in civ were more like Lewis and Clark or Hernando de Soto (or Robert Perry) - more explorers than military units.

 

[Earthling]

I agree with Peter. Also, I don't think a viewpoint based on removing fog of war or what was done in Panzer General is not really going to translate well to the civ game.

However, I do agree scouts and explorer units could be a bit better implemented in civ5. Some good ideas, which already exist in civ mods:

-Have the Scout closer in basic strength to the warrior, so that in ancient times, it stands up well enough to barbarians etc... Animals are probably gone, goody huts may still be around, but I don't think the bonus there is entirely necessary. So if the Scout is strength 2 and the Warrior Strength 3, that's a far better starting point - warriors clearly better militarily, but the scouts have additional movement and aren't total pushovers (the 2:1 ratio meant a single warrior could trash many scouts).

-Perhaps give scout or later explorer units an advantage with city states or passage into opponents' borders. Stricter rite-of-passage agreements in the first place, but then allowing those units to pass by without angering another civ, is probably not a bad idea. With 1upt, at the very least, players won't be moving entirely armies through neighbors' territory thanks to a scrap of paper that says right of passage, but allowing scouts/explorers through could be a good idea.

I never was really a fan of invisible spy units, and they are just worthless to bother with against the AI, the only real purpose being in a human metagame, but I think the game could do without that. Civ4's espionage system could even have done without the horribly luck-dependent spy unit, just allow points to be spent directly (some espionage was too cheap or expensive or just broken and imbalanced, too. Instead of destroy improvement "missions" and stuff, when you shoudl just destroy improvements by bombardment/pillaging, just let spies do city investigations or sabotage, technology, map reveals and such things)