Changes: Using Scouts

Latest revision as of 15:55, 5 August 2017

Scouts are one of the types of troops available for your army. Their primary purpose is to move quickly to an enemy location, gather information about the target, and return home. The type of information that they can learn is determined by your level in the Eagle Eyes research skill.

Scouts have the fastest movement rate of all types of Troops in the game. They are very weak fighters both on offense and defense. You will always lose Scouts in an attack even against an undefended place. if under attack move all scouts but one out of your city. (this will get your archers one extra shooting round at enemy forces)

Training Scouts

Additional information about scouts as compared to the other types of troops can be found on the Troops page.

	Name	Attack	Defense	Life	Speed	Range	Load	Cost Food Wood Stone Ore	Pop	Might	Food Upkeep	Construction and Research Requirements
	Scout	6	1	20	3000	20	5	120 200 0 150	1	2	5	L2 Barracks L1 Eagle Eyes

How to Scout

Select a location to scout.
- In the Map view, you can click on any tile on the map to open the Profile window. Click the Scout button in that window to open the March Troops window with the March Type and Target filled in for you.
- Or, go to your City view and click on your Rally Point. Click on March Troops to open that window.
Set your March Type to "Scout", if it is not already selected. The March Troops window will gray-out all the troop types except your scouts.
Enter the number of Scouts that you want to send. Do not send any other troops. They will not help the scouts.
Select your Target, if needed. Either enter the coordinates or use a bookmark.
Using a Knight with high INT while scouting will give you an extra level of Eagle Eyes. Meaning if you only have level 9 Eagle Eyes and send an INT Knight along with your scouts you will be able to see last log in date of player. 'Tested with Knight of 84 INT. - Nevyn6o7kn of 224.
You probably don't want to use any items on Scout marches. Scouts move very fast without wasting items to decrease march time on them, and they should not be fighting to gain benefits from items to increase attack efforts.
Click the March button to send the scouts.

The scouts will move to the target tile and attempt to gather information about it for you. If scouts meet other scouts at the target they will fight, unless the target is a player city with the scouts hiding in Sanctuary. If your scouts win over the enemy scouts, then you should get a report back. If they lose, all your scouts will be killed and you will not get a report. Scout vs scout combat does not gain any benefit from sending a Knight along to help fight.

Scouting Tips

How many scouts should I send? - If you know the target is not defended with scouts, 1 scout will do the job and will protect you from losing more troops if you are wrong. If you know the target is defended, then you usually need to send more scouts than the target has to get a report back. If you don't know, start by sending 1 scout and see if it gets attacked. If it does, you'll need to send more. If you're mainly interested in getting a successful scouting report, 500 or so scouts is enough to beat the average Lord or Lady's garrison scouts. (Many people have very few scouts.) Once your might reaches or exceeds 2 million Might you should expect your opponent to have at least 5k scouts, 60/70k becomes quite common when scouting high might players.
(5k = 5000, 60/70k = 60000/70000)

Do I need to scout unowned wilderness tiles or barbarian camps? - No. Unowned Wilderness tiles and Barbarian Camps always have the same number of troops for their level, unless they have been attacked by someone in the last hour. Consult those pages to see what army you can expect to find and do not waste your scouts. Also, you would have to send thousands of scouts to gather the report successfully; it's just not worth it.

Defending

Your scouts in your city will defend against enemy scouts, but only if you do not have your troops in Sanctuary. You may want to keep a large number of scouts on hand when you are defending, so the enemy cannot learn how big your army is, or how many Resources you have to try to steal. The more scouts you have, the larger the enemy scouting force will have to be to get a successful scouting report.

Your allies can reinforce your city with scouts using your Embassy. These additional scouts will also help defend your city against enemy scouting attempts. They will also be the first to die if they try to defend against a real attack, so plan accordingly.

Wall Defenses do not attack scouts when they are scouting.

You can send scouts to reinforce your wilderness tiles. Scouts in your wilderness tiles will also fight against enemies when they try to scout your wild, just like in the city.

A key element of defending against scouts centers around scouts low stats. Because scouts have a base attack of 6, base defense of 1, and health of 20, when they fight vs other scouts, a small numbers difference makes a huge difference in the overall deaths. Outnumbering your opponent 18K to 17K often leads to a kill-death ratio approaching 2. Case in point, with no modifiers, a scout of 18690 took out a force of 17075 and still had 6238 scouts standing when it cleared. This means that the key to defending against scouting is to have overwhelming numbers. Also, because scouts perform so disporportionately to their number advantage, having the advantage often means that you can keep the advantage because you will be losing much less scouts every time and have to work less to keep up. Then you can often buy time by simply keeping them blind: many people will not attack unless they know what wall defenses and units are present.

Scouting Report — Scouting City. Attacker had level 10 Eagle Eyes and no knight. Note that the player with the most scouts did not win.

Sniper Attacks

This section has been deleted due to KOC's update, sniping wilds can no longer be achieved with 1 scout.

Transport Units

Scouts can be useful in an emergency situation to quickly move small amounts of resources. Each scout unit can carry 5 resources, or more with high Research skill in Featherweight Powder. An army of 10k scouts could transport 50k-100k Food to a starving City faster than any other type of unit.

To use scouts as transport units:

Select the allied City on your Map view to open the Profile window.

Click on Transport to open the March Troops window.

Set march type to "Transport" if needed. not "Scout"!

Look for the checkbox to "Display supply troops only", in the top right corner of the window. Uncheck that box to allow you to select any type of troop for transport.

Select your scouts, the more you send, the more you can carry.

Select items to transport. This will probably be food, but it doesn't matter. Fill the scouts.

Select your target if necessary. Standard rules for transporting still apply: the target city must be one of your own cities, or a city in your Alliance.

Do not select a Knight, they are not needed to send a transport.

Click March to send the supplies.

You could use Cavalry in place of scouts if you prefer. Each cavalry can carry 100 resources, but they move at about half the speed of scouts.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[File:Scout.jpg|right]][[Troops#Scout|Scouts]] are one of the types of troops available for your army. Their primary purpose is to move quickly to an enemy location, gather information about the target, and return home. The type of information that they can learn is determined by your level in the [[Eagle Eyes]] research skill.
+[[File:Scout!.png|thumb|left]][[File:Scout.jpg|right]][[Troops#Scout|Scouts]] are one of the types of troops available for your army. Their primary purpose is to move quickly to an enemy location, gather information about the target, and return home. The type of information that they can learn is determined by your level in the [[Eagle Eyes]] research skill.
-Scouts have the fastest movement rate of all types of [[Troops]] in the game. They are very weak fighters both on offense and defense, but their high speed makes them very effective sniper units against undefended positions.
+Scouts have the fastest movement rate of all types of [[Troops]] in the game. They are very weak fighters both on offense and defense. You will always lose Scouts in an attack even against an undefended place. if under attack move all scouts but one out of your city. (this will get your archers one extra shooting round at enemy forces)
 ==Training Scouts==
@@ Line 44: / Line 44: @@
 *Enter the number of Scouts that you want to send. Do not send any other troops. They will not help the scouts.
 *Select your Target, if needed. Either enter the coordinates or use a bookmark.
+*Using a [[Knight]] with high INT while scouting will give you an extra level of Eagle Eyes. Meaning if you only have level 9 Eagle Eyes and send an INT Knight along with your scouts you will be able to see last log in date of player.'' ''''Tested with Knight of 84 INT. - Nevyn6o7kn of 224.'''''
-*Do not choose a [[Knight]]. You do not need to send a Knight to send a scout march. There is no benefit to having a Knight along.
 *You probably don't want to use any items on Scout marches. Scouts move very fast without wasting items to decrease march time on them, and they should not be fighting to gain benefits from items to increase attack efforts.
 *Click the March button to send the scouts.
 The scouts will move to the target tile and attempt to gather information about it for you. If scouts meet other scouts at the target they will fight, unless the target is a player city with the scouts hiding in [[Sanctuary]]. If your scouts win over the enemy scouts, then you should get a report back. If they lose, all your scouts will be killed and you will not get a report. Scout vs scout combat does not gain any benefit from sending a Knight along to help fight.
 ===Scouting Tips===
-'''How many scouts should I send?''' - If you know the target is not defended with scouts, 1 scout will do the job and will protect you from losing more troops if you are wrong. If you know the target is defended, then you usually need to send more scouts than the target has to get a report back. If you don't know, start by sending 1 scout and see if it gets attacked. If it does, you'll need to send more. If you're mainly interested in getting a successful scouting report, 500 or so scouts is enough to beat the average Lord or Lady's garrison scouts. (Many people have very few scouts.)
+'''How many scouts should I send?''' - If you know the target is not defended with scouts, 1 scout will do the job and will protect you from losing more troops if you are wrong. If you know the target is defended, then you usually need to send more scouts than the target has to get a report back. If you don't know, start by sending 1 scout and see if it gets attacked. If it does, you'll need to send more. If you're mainly interested in getting a successful scouting report, 500 or so scouts is enough to beat the average Lord or Lady's garrison scouts. (Many people have very few scouts.) Once your might reaches or exceeds 2 million Might you should expect your opponent to have at least 5k scouts, 60/70k becomes quite common when scouting high might players.<br />
+(5k = 5000, 60/70k = 60000/70000)
 '''Do I need to scout unowned wilderness tiles or barbarian camps?''' - No. Unowned [[Wilderness]] tiles and [[Barbarian Camps]] always have the same number of troops for their level, unless they have been attacked by someone in the last hour. Consult those pages to see what army you can expect to find and do not waste your scouts. Also, you would have to send thousands of scouts to gather the report successfully; it's just not worth it.
@@ Line 59: / Line 60: @@
 Your allies can reinforce your city with scouts using your [[Embassy]]. These additional scouts will also help defend your city against enemy scouting attempts. They will also be the first to die if they try to defend against a real attack, so plan accordingly.
 [[Defensive Unit|Wall Defenses]] do not attack scouts when they are scouting.
-You can send scouts to reinforce your wilderness tiles. This is an effective defense against the 1-scout sniping described below, but any scouts you leave on defense will die very easily to any other type of troops. Scouts in your wilderness tiles will also fight against enemies when they try to scout your wild, just like in the city.
+You can send scouts to reinforce your wilderness tiles. Scouts in your wilderness tiles will also fight against enemies when they try to scout your wild, just like in the city.
+A key element of defending against scouts centers around scouts low stats. Because scouts have a base attack of 6, base defense of 1, and health of 20, when they fight vs other scouts, a small numbers difference makes a huge difference in the overall deaths. Outnumbering your opponent 18K to 17K often leads to a kill-death ratio approaching 2. Case in point, with no modifiers, a scout of 18690 took out a force of 17075 and still had 6238 scouts standing when it cleared. This means that the key to defending against scouting is to have overwhelming numbers. Also, because scouts perform so disporportionately to their number advantage, having the advantage often means that you can keep the advantage because you will be losing much less scouts every time and have to work less to keep up. Then you can often buy time by simply keeping them blind: many people will not attack unless they know what wall defenses and units are present.
-==Sniper Attacks==
-While scouts are very weak fighters, they move very quickly and can do enough of an attack to conquer undefended [[Wilderness]] tiles. This tactic is discussed on the [[Defensive Strategy#Wilderness_Ping-Pong|Defensive Strategy]] page.
+[[File:Scouting_Report.jpg|thumb|left|Scouting City.  Attacker had level 10 Eagle Eyes and no knight.  Note that the player with the most scouts did not win.]]
-To make a sniper attack with a scout:
-*Before trying this, make sure you have a slot available to conquer a wilderness in your [[Castle]]. If you don't, the attack will succeed but you will not gain control of the tile.
-*Select an enemy-controlled [[Wilderness]] tile on the map. Choose a tile that has no defenses, or just send a small attack at it to find out if it does.
-*Click on Attack on the tile's Profile window, to open the [[March Troops]] window.
-*Set the March Type to "Attack". not "Scout"!
-*Send 1 scout. If the tile is undefended, you will win. If the tile is defended, you will lose, but only 1 scout.
-*Do not send any other troops. The idea is to send scouts which move fast. Other troops will slow down the attack to the slowest troop speed.
-*Select the target if needed.
-*Choose a [[Knight]]. Since this is an attack, you will need to use one of your knights to lead the attack. The knight cannot be killed, so don't worry about losing it.
-*As with scouting, do not waste items to improve your scout attack.
-*Click March to send the scouts.
-*If the attack succeeds and you get a report, refresh the game. Stealing a wild is one time the game client always fails to update correctly. When you refresh, you should see that you have successfully taken the wild.
-*Now, think about defending your new wild. You can leave it undefended and vulnerable to be re-stolen by the previous owner. Or, you can defend it with your own troops and a Reinforce march. Or, you can abandon the wild to let the barbarians take it back and let them defend it against the previous owner.
-*New Editions of Koc are beginning to neutralize the sniper attacks. The ability to build traps and hire mercenaries means that it requires almost a full attack to take a defended wild, and the defender can indeed defend every wild. Sniper attacks are still valuable, but less so.
+==Sniper Attacks==
+This section has been deleted due to KOC's update, sniping wilds can no longer be achieved with 1 scout.
 ==Transport Units==
@@ Line 105: / Line 111: @@
 [[Category:Troops]]
 [[Category:Battle]]
+[[Category:Strategy]]
+[[Category:Scouts]]