Suggestion for scout units.

[bcursor]

Currently scout units like rangers and skirmishers are useless. I suggest to buff them by making invisible to other units unless they are not adjacent to them. similar to naval raider units. so people can use them to scout enemy armies and use them for guerrilla attacks.

[Aachen]

Moving camouflage from the most-advanced promotion to inherent?

How would that make them more used? “I sneak attack, then get overwhelmed and destroyed?”

[Loviatar]

The thing is, the Scout unit is really only a useful early game unit, due to it's speed and promotions to get through terrain faster.

The later era upgrades were implemented mostly due to community demand to keep the scout from being virtually useless beyond say the Classical Era. They now get stronger attacks, which can combine well with their promotion to move after attacking. They already make fairly effective guerilla units, if you build them that way. They get ranged attacks, which makes them more effective to attack with, since they won't take counter-attack damage. But they're not full on military units; that's why they're cheap. They're meant to scout out new terrain, and survive should there be resistance. But like any unit, they can certainly get overwhelmed by multiple units, or more advanced ones.

What could help it maybe more is a 'retreat' kind of function; if it takes damage, it is force to back away (much like the Hussar's push ability, only in reverse). Not a perfect solution, sure, but it could help the unti get out of being flanked my multiple units and annihilated.

[jonnin]

if they can burn improvements without being seen, that would be ... something ...

[Crim]

I made a fairly extensive post about this in the 2k forums. Here's the Link

https://forums.2k.com/showthread.php?4384550-Okay-Skirmisher-unit-has-been-a-joke-long-enough-Recon-Revamp

I'll save you time and just quote it as well

Okay, Skirmisher unit has been a joke long enough, Recon Revamp
Come on 2K, Sid, Firaxis
Time to buff the Skirmisher

For only 30 less production (15% cheaper), you get a discounted Crossbowman
with -10 melee
with -10 ranged
with half range
with equal sight
with an worse promotion tree...
but we get +1 movement... yay?

......glares at Cavalry with 5 movement...

Listen listen, I'm not saying we should necessarily buff their offensive potential, how about even just giving them +1 Sight... That's it, Just 1 more Sight than a Crossbowman, that's not too crazy right?

With the introduction of the Men at Arms, things have gotten even worse for the Skirmisher.
We are now looking at -10 Production for -25 Combat Strength
The are very comparable to the Saka Horse Archer, admittedly its a unique unit, but let's do a quick comparison.
For 50 Production (Saka) vs 150 Production (Skirmisher)...
Equal Combat Strength
Equal Range
Equal Sight
Skirmisher has +5 Ranged Strength
Saka have +1 Movement
Being from a previous Era, Saka is also about 5-10 less Techs to use.

Now, just +1 Sight is far too insignificant of a buff for them. They need an offensive boost.
Between the Scout, the Warrior, and the Archer. The pattern is that the Scout is -10 CS under the Warrior, and -5 under the Archer.
Between the Skirmisher, the Men at Arms, and the Crossbowman; it's -25 CS under the Men at Arms, and -10 CS under the Crossbowman and -10 Ranged CS.
Between the Ranger, the Line Infantry, and Field Cannon; it's -20 CS under the Line Infantry, and -5 under the Field Cannon and equal Ranged CS (baffling).
Between the Spec Ops and the Machine Gun; it's at -10 CS and -20 Ranged CS

Simpler
Ancient = -10 mCS / -5 mCS
Medieval = -25 mCS / -10mCS, -10 rCS
Industrial = -20 mCS / -5 mCS, equal rCS
Atomic = null / -10 mCS, -20 rCS

Buffs to the Recon line that I would like to see...
+1 Vision to Skirmishers, Rangers, and Spec Ops
- They are meant to be recon, you should be bringing them for their improved Vision, and yet they don't offer anything of the sort.

Equalized combat scores so that they are consistently -5 melee combat and -5 ranged combat strength.
Scout - Is fine
Skirmisher - Buffed by +5 Combat Score, +5 Ranged Combat Score
Ranger - Nerfed by -5 Ranged Combat Score
Spec Ops - Buffed by +5 Combat Score, +15 Ranged Combat Score

One more thing to mention is the production cost of these units.
Scout is -30 production under Archer
Skirmisher is -30 production under Crossbowman
Ranger is +50 production over Field Cannon
Spec Ops is -20 production over Machine Gun

This is awful, it's crazy inconsistent and the gap should be increasing, not jumping all over the place.
Scout is fine
Skirmisher should be -40 production, or 140 production
Ranger should be -50 production, or 280 production
Spec Ops should be -60 production, or 480 production.

Let's not forget that the Recon line has -1 Ranged compared to the Ranged line, this is a MASSIVE nerf. This nerf becomes increasingly more pronounced as the game continues. So, while with these changes the combat strength difference will remain the same. The crippling loss of range becomes increasingly more apparent in the later ages.


Finally, let's talk about the awful promotion tree.
Ranger and Alpine - Faster Movement in Woods or Hills... Awful, its the absolute worst needing to pick against these 2 because often times BOTH are screwing with you. Let's combine it into a single promotion.
Sentry - See thru Woods and Jungle... That's it? THAT'S IT?! AN ENTIRE PROMOTION FOR THIS?! No! Unacceptable.
Spyglass - +1 Sight Range... Solid, this is what Scouts should be good at
Guerilla - Can move after attacking... Interesting... but actually garbage. Most of the time the Recon won't be able to move because of Zone of Control.
Ambush - +20 CS in all situations... This is kinda of an absurd bonus, right?
Camoflage - Only Adjacent enemies can reveal unit... Land Sub, and its a cool bonus, let's keep it.

So, it's clear that the promotion tree basically encourages 2 types of Scouts. Recon and Combat. So, let's work on emphasizing those traits.
Left 1 - Pathfinder - Faster movement in all terrain.
- Including Woods, Jungles, Hills, and Marshes.

Left 2 - Sentry - +1 Sight Range, can see thru Woods and Jungle.
- The previous Sentry was beyond unusable, but its still a useful effect. Let's also remember that Naval Melee units are allowed to have +1 Sight as their 2nd promotion.

Left 3 - Strider - +1 Movement.
- Not very exciting, but simple and important. Could potentially be swapped with Sentry, but Movement seems more powerful than Sight.

Right 1 - Survivalist - Double this unit combat strength bonuses from Difficult Terrain.
- This helps Recon units in 2 different ways, they can leverage this for actual combat, or they can use this to focus on survival thru hostile territory.

Right 2 - Guerilla - Can move after attack, Ignores Zone of Control.
- This is practically a necessary fix to make Move after Attacking actually work properly. This also now comes after a Combat Buff feature, making it actually make sense with the Recon line's subpar combat stats.

Right 3 - Ambush - +10 Combat Strength and Ranged Combat Strength in all situations.
- That's right, we are nerfing Ambush from +20 to +10. This nerf comes for a few reasons. For starters we are already introducing a sweeping buff to all Recon units base stats. We are also introducing another combat stat increasing in Survivalist. In general the Recon line will already be performing better than before. However, this one would require testing. Maybe a +15 Combat Strength change is more appropriate.

[Maya-Neko]

So... you want all the promotions of this class without actually training them properly?

You may want to take a look at Scout Exploring-mods, which make it easier to promote them into the OP class you want to have. removing the Exp-cap for barbarians might also make it easier to train them.

[Crim]

Maya-Neko původně napsal:

So... you want all the promotions of this class without actually training them properly?

You may want to take a look at Scout Exploring-mods, which make it easier to promote them into the OP class you want to have. removing the Exp-cap for barbarians might also make it easier to train them.

I mean, I think a better point he's making is that the Naval Raider class is allowed to be invisible and no one cares about it... You don't see any threads being spammed about how busted the Naval Raiders are.

I think he's arguing that stealth being a final promotion is just poorly designed. It's arguably core to their identity, but basically doesn't come around ever...

[evertebrate]

They could just get rid of later recon units. There is no good reason to not do that. Or they could just leave it as it is and we just don't build them. They are doing no harm being worthless.
This game is just not made for recon and scouting, except for the early game exploring. It's not an RTS.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Unless I am on a very water-centric map, I always build at least one or two scouts. I try to keep them around if possible. If I do and they get promoted enough, the ability to attack and still move away is very nice. And if they don't end up making it, not that big a loss.

Granted they are not gonna win any battles against heavy hitter units, but I definitely enjoy using them as is.

[Sticky Wicket]

As it is: scout is purely an early-game unit. They become pretty much redundant from classical era onwards.

The only real use later on is if they could have a proper covert-ops functionality and a fundamental change in the spy mechanics. Imho spies need to be actual units (like in civ 4). It would make sense to be able to upgrade scouts to spies.

[PhailRaptor]

The reality is that if you are using Recon units for any kind of combat, you're doing it wrong. Full stop. They have 1 purpose and 1 purpose only -- exploring. I'd go so far as to assume they only reason they are a military class unit, rather than a civilian class unit, is so that Barbarians can't capture them.

That said, I would like to see them get more movement points as they upgrade to later forms. I find it sort of silly that their final unit, 3 upgrades later, still only has 3 movement. And lets be real, their air-drop ability is pretty useless.

[Sticky Wicket]

PhailRaptor původně napsal:

The reality is that if you are using Recon units for any kind of combat, you're doing it wrong. Full stop. They have 1 purpose and 1 purpose only -- exploring. I'd go so far as to assume they only reason they are a military class unit, rather than a civilian class unit, is so that Barbarians can't capture them.

That said, I would like to see them get more movement points as they upgrade to later forms. I find it sort of silly that their final unit, 3 upgrades later, still only has 3 movement. And lets be real, their air-drop ability is pretty useless.

Their airdrop ability would be useful if it had a much greater range.

[pitonsnaboca]

If it could keep movement points and the "move after attack" after the drop, it wouldn't need any attack buffs.