Scouts useless now?

[publicanimal]

Does anyone else feel like scouts aren't worth building anymore?

They don't ignore terrain any longer and since you get tech boosts for killing a unit with a slinger and clearing a barbarian encampment, coupled with the fact that cities can no longer launch ranged attacks from the start of the game, it makes more sense to scout with slingers and warriors instead.

I would use scouts if they could move 4 hexes per turn but with only 3 hexes per turn they don't seem worth it since most of the time the terrain will prevent you from using all of their movement points anyway.

Am I missing something, or should they have just eliminated the scout unit altogether?

[Ydyp]

publicanimal eredeti hozzászólása:

It probably wouldn't be worth it if you didn't get the boost towards researching archery when you kill a unit with a slinger.

Those research boosts really help you advance through the tech tree a lot faster. That's the key factor that makes the difference IMO.

I still build a scout first then a slinger and still get a ton of research boost As I don't rush archery as a main research point either there are more optimal ways as expansion and recon are more important then having an archer in early game. Like walls that enable your cities with the ranged attack again.

[publicanimal]

SailaNamai eredeti hozzászólása:

I sort of agree with op

You seem to be the only one, but I appreciate the moral support. :)

Ydyp eredeti hozzászólása:

I still build a scout first then a slinger and still get a ton of research boost As I don't rush archery as a main research point either there are more optimal ways as expansion and recon are more important then having an archer in early game. Like walls that enable your cities with the ranged attack again.

For me it's not so much about rushing archery, it's about researching the techs in which you have boosts in first so that you have time to get the boosts in the other techs that you want to research.

[Fņŏŕď]

Scouts die to fast to be truly useful.

[civilization]

Regarding using them to counter barbarian scouts I've found that trying to catch those can be very random, often becoming an exercise in frustration. It can be done, but it seems far more efficient to go straight for the stationary target, the barbarian camp, moving behind its scout so that it can't get back, at least for located (or approximately located) camps, which can be eliminated leaving a redundant scout to find and remove for experience later. This has a large impact on the effectiveness of your own scout units.

They cost 75% of the cost of a warrior, but they can't help finish off a barbarian camp in the early game and in the late game they can't capture (barbarian or other) builders and settlers. Their opportunities for experience are few and the promotions provide only tiny increments in usefulness. Their upgrade path is woeful (and upgrade costs are always too high IMO anyway) and if you bring them back to your city to upgrade them they have to stop scouting for way too long.

This is not to say that they don't have a niche – When local barbarian camps are no longer a risk and you need more units to scout to reach the City States and 'goody huts' (or whatever they're actually called in Civ 6) first and find the good spots to expand in a timely manner – This is their time to shine. However, as the huts seem to be few and far between and of much less importance in 6, a couple of Galleys may (depending on map type of course) be more useful in the short-medium term as the extra turns used to make them will soon be made up for by the fact that all Coast is one movement point and there's always the possibility that Ship Building may prove extremely useful. If you do go the two Galley route by the time you're done with that you're probably going to be strongly considering making settlers to colonize what you've found rather than find more units to explore – Otherwise you may be (extremely unlucky or) waiting too long for ideal locations to colonize rather than just getting on with expanding.

In history the natural progression from scout was to spy and/or sniper. Sniper may be too 'small' an effect to implement in the 'view from 40,000 ft' that Civilization is, but elements of a spy could certainly be done, giving a scout the ability to move behind enemy lines through promotion or upgrade (but not to attack/capture while there) would be fairly simple to implement IMO. It would make it possible to find the natural wonders that are hidden deep within enemy territory. This would give them more long term viability. As it stands I currently have two scouts (that I got from goody huts) that have become virtually useless.

[Parane]

publicanimal eredeti hozzászólása:

I guess I need to look more into what the promotions are. In civ 5 I pretty much only used scouts to gather ruins and got rid of them once they had mapped out my home continent.

So you've not actually looked into anything, but you're coming to these flawed conclusions anyway? Isn't that very dishonest and, frankly, stupid? Why wouldn't you try playing the scout in different scenarios and levelling it up before saying it's "useless"?

It just seems that since the barbarians are so much more aggressive from the beginning that building a scout instead of a true military unit isn't worth the opportunity cost.

You always have the option of playing a game without barbarians. You know that, right?

[Ydyp]

civilization eredeti hozzászólása:

Regarding using them to counter barbarian scouts I've found that trying to catch those can be very random, often becoming an exercise in frustration. It can be done, but it seems far more efficient to go straight for the stationary target, the barbarian camp, moving behind its scout so that it can't get back, at least for located (or approximately located) camps, which can be eliminated leaving a redundant scout to find and remove for experience later. This has a large impact on the effectiveness of your own scout units.

The counter lies in the fact that you can use your scouts to stop the barbarian scout from advancing and discovering your city. With the +1 movement it is way better then the warrior in doing so. Just keep in mind a barbarian scout wants to avoid the fight as much as you want to avoid fighting with yours early on.

[Fņŏŕď]

Scouts are largely a waste of time. Just build slingers and warriors or archers and spearmen and clear the camps The barbarians will find your cities regardless. Scouts are far more useful later game for embarked sea exploration.

[uadrian]

Scouts are good for.... scouting. They give you advances from goodiehuts and bonuses from city state discovery if you are first and these bonuses are very important in early game. After some discoveries and hitting barbarian units you can get 2 promotions (its easy on larger maps) and it make scout really fast and useful for thwarting barbarian scouts.

[civilization]

To back up the insignificance of goody huts (in general rather than individually) I have the following example: Playing islands and the first to get ship building I have acquired all of about 8, having revealed all but about 2% of the huge map at epic speed. They seem far less common than in Civ V. Individually they also suck, as gold is much easier to get in VI, making the amount from a hut (which also seems to have been reduced) unimpressive.

[Panic Fire]

The thing about archery is its a dead research. Researching it doesn't lead to anything else. Archers are really great early on, however I've started skipping archery in many of my games.

[katzenkrimis]

Like them as decoys in fortfied stance.

They just need to be handled carefully, so you can upgrade them. Then they are great.

Especially when you turn them into a Ranger Corp or Army.

[Red Dragon]

Scouts are extremely useful, you need them to find city states before the other civs do to get the first envoy, you need them to grab the goodie-huts, you need them to find good settlement locations for expanding. And above all you also deny your opponents all these things, if you get them done first - and on top of that your immediate neighbours are usually also your biggest rivals and threats, so scouts are really good to grab all the good stuff from under their noses.

You need to move scouts with a little care though, to make maximum use of them - i.e. crossing a river takes all your movement, so plan accordingly and end your turn next to a river. If you do get "overrun" by barbarians you can use them as blocker units by fortifying on hills or in forests to tank a few hits while your other units do their work on some barb-faces.

Scouts can be so valuable that I'd not even go builder first. Under most circumstances I'd go scout, builder, scout, monument (or slinger if barbarians are knocking) and then grainary and then units. If you delay scouts too much, you're gifting your immediate rivals all the good stuff. Your warrior is just not a decent scouting unit - if you use them on flat terrain to scout a little that's fine but no more than that - you simply need scouts to do that job properly.

Also they do not cost maintainace, only the one-time opportunity cost of not building something else instead. The only dangerous thing are horsemen and horse-archer barbs, if you die to anything else, then you are doing it wrong.

[publicanimal]

Panic Fire eredeti hozzászólása:

The thing about archery is its a dead research. Researching it doesn't lead to anything else. Archers are really great early on, however I've started skipping archery in many of my games.

That's true, but ranged units are super useful throughout the entire game, especially if you don't have much access to horses and/or iron (knights require iron). Archers upgrade to crossbowmen which are quite powerful. If you keep your original archers alive they'll have promotions that persist through the rest of the game.

[Messiah]

They become quite good after a few promotions, you just need to get lucky with them finding tribes for XP

[ZoeMonster]

What do you do with scouts when you finish exploring? The map is open and I don't really need them anymore... They should give us some upgrade, or some bonus if they join Encampment distric...