What unconventional units do you explore with?

[iyyillius]

I regularly use Apostles with only one charge left to explore the map.
Especially ones with the +20 theological combat promotion and the Martyr promotion.
They dont have to acknowlege borders so you can basically explore the entire map.
Also the AI is EXTREMELY reluctant to do theological combat on a unit that has the +20 promotion (cant remember what it is called) something like great speaker or something. But the AI knows they have this promotion and will basically allow you to walk through their lands unmolested like this allowing you to explore the entire map if you like.
I like to send out several of these units after expending all but their last charge.

 

[Halcyan2]

GPs are not capturable or killable, because it would be a major exploit for human players to use. You always know when and where a GP will spawn. It would be too easy to steal or kill them. I think their movement should be reduced, especially with the free teleport available.

I think the 4 movement is fine. It's a direct consequence of the district system and requiring many Great People to travel to specific districts to activate their abilities. It does mean that a Great Person in a city can usually reach any district in that city within one turn.

 

[RealAntithesis]

I think the 4 movement is fine. It's a direct consequence of the district system and requiring many Great People to travel to specific districts to activate their abilities. It does mean that a Great Person in a city can usually reach any district in that city within one turn.

This seems so unnecessary to me. It seems as if Civ 6 is trying too hard to justify the existence of districts. The only reason for Great People to move directly on the map (except obviously Great Generals and Admirals) is so they can make the trip to some district of some city and expend whatever highly situational (and often quite useless) special ability they have.

But Great People can magically teleport. If they can do this, then the player may as well just use them as they would a trade caravan - just select which city they should be applied to and the ability is activated, rather than introducing more unneeded micromanagement tasks to also direct that Great Person to an applicable district and then activate.

The movement step to use up a Great Person can be cut out entirely and the game will be no worse off - it will instead be more streamlined.

The alternative is to remove the teleport and force GP to travel the entire way on foot as if it were any other civilian unit which needs protecting.

Another alternative is to give Great People generic abilities like they had in Civ 5 (ie tile improvement) to not only make them relevant all the time, but also give them a good reason to be able to move around.

Using GP as explorer units because they end up as better explorers than the scouts that are supposed to be specialised to that task is not a good mechanic - it doesn't make sense.

 

[Gehennas]

Bear in mind that Martyr only triggers if the Apostle dies in theological combat. It doesn't work if they simply get squished by a hostile military unit.

Sorry for off-topic, but I find this promotion very strange. I don't know what theological combat is supposed to represent, but Martyr is supposed to die in violent way.

And yes, I usually scout with Martyrs, because I can kill two birds with one stone here.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Sorry for off-topic, but I find this promotion very strange. I don't know what theological combat is supposed to represent, but Martyr is supposed to die in violent way.

I also don't really understand what theological combat represents when it involves the apparent death or destruction of the losing party.

The losing party dying (or 'losing health') when the 'combat' ends makes sense if the combat really does consist of thunder and lightning bolts. But since the general consensus is that combat is merely an abstraction representative of a theological debate, then why does this end in death?

Does the losing apostle, missionary or inquisitor commit suicide when they discover that their beliefs are not the one true belief as espoused by the other debater? Do they throw down their version of the good book and simply run away? The animation shows them falling to the ground and appearing to die (apparently from lightning bolts but this doesn't make sense), but who knows.

Theological combat should be straight out removed. There are better ways (that make more sense) to represent the spread of (and defense against) religion.

But back to the topic at hand - the mechanic of religious units walking around the map should be removed in favour of a better way to represent religion. That will also stop them from being used as explorer units - which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since actual explorer units should be doing the actual exploring.

 

[Victoria]

I never build scouts. Production is too valuable in the early turns, they have very limited movement advantage (none if there are lots of hills, or forest) and are useless against barbarians. Plus they don't upgrade.

Scouts do upgrade to rangers
I have played scout first in the last 15 games now... I also start with the scout experience card unless on high difficulty. If you can get that scout both hill and forest then 3 MP and only marshes and rivers slow you down.
However i m not sold on them... I am still playing them because they force me to explore and a just cannot argue about the benefits those goody huts and CS bring in.
They are very soft and die easily and when you loose 1 with those 2 promotions and all that hard work it is a tad annoying.

Anyone who would rather get a builder than +4 gold per turn or +2 production, science, culture by getting to the CS early... and also you are denying the enemy that bonus. But yes you can use something else and a horseman is far superior.

Probably the most annoying thing for me is a scout counts as a combat unit and so annoys civs by scouting... its stupid, they need to buff scouts somehow.

By the time I get my first GP I have explored my continent but my second continent will normally be done with them once my scouts die - which they norally do.

 

[Jimdigriz]

I did a lot of exploring with a builder unit left with one build on. It was just easier to do that and accept the risk from barbarians then build another scout/galley.

 

[UWHabs]

This seems so unnecessary to me. It seems as if Civ 6 is trying too hard to justify the existence of districts. The only reason for Great People to move directly on the map (except obviously Great Generals and Admirals) is so they can make the trip to some district of some city and expend whatever highly situational (and often quite useless) special ability they have.

But Great People can magically teleport. If they can do this, then the player may as well just use them as they would a trade caravan - just select which city they should be applied to and the ability is activated, rather than introducing more unneeded micromanagement tasks to also direct that Great Person to an applicable district and then activate.

The movement step to use up a Great Person can be cut out entirely and the game will be no worse off - it will instead be more streamlined.

The alternative is to remove the teleport and force GP to travel the entire way on foot as if it were any other civilian unit which needs protecting.

Another alternative is to give Great People generic abilities like they had in Civ 5 (ie tile improvement) to not only make them relevant all the time, but also give them a good reason to be able to move around.

Using GP as explorer units because they end up as better explorers than the scouts that are supposed to be specialised to that task is not a good mechanic - it doesn't make sense.

Well, some great people have to be used on the map (ie get science from each adjacent mountain), so they need some movement points. And I'm guessing that the teleport ability is more because you don't control which city they spawn in, so could be annoying to have it spawn on the other side of the world from where you want to use it. But yeah, it definitely feels to me like they should either have the high movement, or the ability to teleport, and not both. If they were all just move-2 units with the ability to teleport, I don't think anyone would care and it would at least make them much less useful at exploring.

 

[diamond geezer]

Religious units make great scouts I've found. Unless you're at war with someone they have free access to everywhere and they move quite quickly as well.

 

[Halcyan2]

Sorry for off-topic, but I find this promotion very strange. I don't know what theological combat is supposed to represent, but Martyr is supposed to die in violent way.

And yes, I usually scout with Martyrs, because I can kill two birds with one stone here.

In the case of fighting against Inquisitors, it is pretty clear what happens to the losing side....

As for fights with Apostles, maybe it involves convincing the populace to do away with their opponent? Historically that happened a lot when mobs were incited. Maybe there could even be a supernatural element (as with the graphics), like the "debate" between Simon Magus and Peter where Simon Magus supposedly levitated through sorcery and Peter's supposed prayers caused Simon to fall (injuring or killing him).

Scouts do upgrade to rangers
I have played scout first in the last 15 games now... I also start with the scout experience card unless on high difficulty. If you can get that scout both hill and forest then 3 MP and only marshes and rivers slow you down.
However i m not sold on them... I am still playing them because they force me to explore and a just cannot argue about the benefits those goody huts and CS bring in.
They are very soft and die easily and when you loose 1 with those 2 promotions and all that hard work it is a tad annoying.

Anyone who would rather get a builder than +4 gold per turn or +2 production, science, culture by getting to the CS early... and also you are denying the enemy that bonus. But yes you can use something else and a horseman is far superior.

Probably the most annoying thing for me is a scout counts as a combat unit and so annoys civs by scouting... its stupid, they need to buff scouts somehow.

Before the patch that nixed disbanding units for gold (you can thank Scythia for that), it was actually very profitable to get a Scout from tribal villages. Even if you didn't want the unit, you could disband it for more gold than you would get from a tribal village gold reward.

I think of Scouts as cheap fog busters who can quickly protect caravans from barbarian scouts.

In the early game, their 3 movement also makes them good for launching surprise attacks to steal workers and settlesr.