My scouting guide

hey, this is my scouting guide to help noobs / people learn more about scouts and scouting.

scouts can be used for a few things, scout spamming, scouting other peoples citys and believe it or not, transporting goods from ur main city to your 2nd city quickly (only small quantites) and itll say "food ---- load vacancy" if it says 200 food, i usually send double the ammount it says incase i have a few fat scouts :) and scouts arnt neccecary to send on plundering missions as they most likely will die. (i usually just max out how much scouts can carry with food as im lazy and cbf typing when on scouting missions)

ok, first we will start with "informatics" this is used to get more detailed scouting reports and as i see this it is an essential thing to have, the higher the informatics the more detailed report. informatics is also helped by having a high lvl hero go with them, yes i see it as a high lvl hero with high intelligence (and some attack imo) goes with my scouts and gets a more detailed report rather then sending no hero.

ok, i have around 2000 scouts, ill tell your how to scout enemy places now. the most obvious mistake people make "OMG WAT? I SET THEM TO ATTACK NOT SCOUT!!!" so just dont do that, but now, people notice that there are different types of town walls (i mean when you look at peoples castles from the "map" it has 4 different stages) and i usually scout up to 25miles away, as some of the good stuff is just that far (=
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Part 1: Scouting player citys
Stage 1: the small city
Stage 2: Semi-Castle
Stage 3: almost a full castle
Stage 4: Ultima Caslte

Part 2: Transporting goods between your citys via scouts

Part 3: Scout Spamming

Part 4: Scouting Valleys

Part 5: Scouting Barbarian villages/castles

Part 6: Hero's
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Part 1: Scouting player citys

Stage 1: the small city
small citys are usually easiest to scout, i usually send 100 scouts (5k or below prestige) or 200 scouts (for 5k-10k prestige) and so on... most of these small citys have been abandoned by the people who quit leaving them motionless and in "peace-time" and over time occumulating ALOT of resources. (battle3.civony.com/default.html?logfile/50/c4/08/ee/50c408eee1b17385c32121836d119ccd.xml the guy obviously quit leaving alot of stuff behind, looking at the gold...) but the small citys usually dont have much defense / offense so you wont have to send so many people to take there resources after you scout them. they are good to prey on. (i recomend anywere between 0-4 informatics)

Stage 2: Semi-Castle
i call these Semi-castles because they look small and such lol, alot of people can quit at this point leaving them with some good production and ALOT of resources and most will be in peace-time. i usually send 200 scouts on these missions and sometimes 400 depending on the persons prestige. you might need to send more troops as these will have more defense / offense when you are going to plunder(i recomend between 4-6 informatics)

Stage 3: almost a full castle
i call them that because they look big-but not tall and with 2 big towers. THE MOST essentiel part of the report you get from scouting these is the "Defense / Offense" forces. i usually send 400-700 scouts for these, sometimes 1k scouts depending on the persons prestige. at this stage you wont find many people who quit using these castles. some have quit, my most recent plunder report from one of these is (battle3.civony.com/default.html?logfile/50/c4/08/ee/50c408eee1b17385c32121836d119ccd.xml) notice its defense is ok-ish but comepletly failed on my army. and your can get pretty nice resources from these. (i recommend 6-10 informatics)

Stage 4: Ultima Caslte
i call it these because, well they are big ultimate castles usually used by people with big prestige, i for my self dont have one yet but will have one by tomorrow (zomg leet!!!) these castles are HEAVLY guarded with mass defence (my mate has 4k archer towers...) and most of the time massive offense as well (a guild member has 25k archers, 20k swords, 50k warriors...) and offen in the "negative" food production because of there massive army (if all in the one city) i deffinantly dont recommend anyone within 5-10k prestige of these guys (like you have 70k prestige, he has 75k or 80k) but you can try if you want depending on the scouting report. usually your scouts MAY die when scouting these or get into a fight. these guys should always have alot of resources on them and have more then 1 city, if your looking to plunder these make sure your citys have ALOT of defenses because i can assure you theres most likely going to be re-talliation. i suggest sending 1k + scouts depending on there prestige. (but imo i send 1.5k-2k scouts and my hero with the highest attack / intelligence combo and 8-10 informatics)

Part 2: Transporting goods between your citys via scouts

ive done this a few times, i usually send all my scouts at the same time (it doesnt matter if u have a hero) it is a fast way if you dont have calvary / in a hurry and your cav are out. first of, send double the ammount of food your guys require to go on the trip (thats the way i do it) and then max out the resource you want to send. with 2k scouts you can send around 16k stuff (well, thats me) the scouts will make transporting very fast if you cant wait. just click the "transport" button and not "re-inforce"

Part 3: Scout Spamming

(MAKE SURE YOU SET THEM TO ATTACK NOT SCOUT)
ok, this is done by ALOT of people and is a good way to lower peoples loyalty / raise greivance fast. first off use your main army to kill the desired persons place defenses. if you cannot kill "abatis" dont send your scouts as the abatis will kill them (via your scouts going to 100 rounds of battle and then theyll die) once the enemys defense is gone, scout spam them like mad, i send around 100 scouts but i hear you can do it with 1 anyway. also send a hero with them, when loyalty is at "10" itll go much slower with scout spamming. WARNING once loyalty reaches 5 (people have reported that it can open at 20, 15, 10 but mainly 5 for me), the enemys gate will open unleashing there army onto your guys. so at 5 loyalty, send your army. after you kill there army start scout spamming again. when at "0" loyalty you will capture the enemys city (assuming you have the rank)

Part 4: Scouting Valleys

ok most valleys are easy to scout, from valley lvl 1-4 i send 200 scouts (and hero) and make sure you have lvl 1-5 informatics (imo) lvl 5-7 valley send 400-500 scouts (and hero) and have 6-8 informatics (again, imo) and from lvl 9-10 valleys send around 1k or more scouts and have either 9 or 10 informatics. my theory is (and im sure most people agree) have most of the time, 1 informatics lvl higher then the valley (but it isnt neccecary, id just do it for the extra information) say a lvl 5 valley, make sure you have lvl 6 informatics.

Part 5: Scouting Barbarian villages/castles

ok, its basically like scouting a normal players city using the same lvl of informatics (id say) but just use more scouts as they are barbarian towns, heavly defended / mass offense and ALOT OF FOOD / GOLD. id deffinantly send a hero on this trip aswell

Part 6: Hero's

some people dont send heros on scouting missions but i do. if your going to scout a high lvl place i recomend having a hero with high attack / intelligence. why? intelligence gives you more information (imo) and attack incase they get into trouble. i find heros essential for scouting missions.

ok, im done with this guide at the current time. i may update it in the future when i gather more information / test some theory. thanks for reading :D

does the number of scouts u send affect the info u get?

some people think the number of scouts depending on your informatics tells you more information thats why i said in the guide to send them in 100's etc...

icic.. thanks

I send in Bond, James Bond. One man recon team.

Second the james bond approach. 1 single scout is as good as 1000 afaik.

Important aspect to scouting:

Open gates vs closed gates.

When your gates are open the scouts garrisoned in your city fight against the invading scouts to prevent a scouting report. Defending scouts appear to have a bonus in the combat so you want to have a 2 to 1 ratio in attacking scouts. If you send 200 scouts an the opponent has 100 with gates open, you will kill all their scouts, gain honor and get your scouting report. The opponent will not get a report on their end but may notice 0 scouts and a loss in honor. If you fail the scout battle, the opponent will receive a report of your failed scouting attempt since his scouts are there to report back.

When gates are closed, number of scouts sent doesn't matter, your scouting mission is instantly a success and you get info based off your informatics level. Sending 1 scout is an easy check to see if gates are open/closed as long as the city has some scouts in it.

I think these things are no longer exactly true following the server update. Can someone please verify? I lost 600+ scouts today with lvl 9 info to a lvl 3-6 town with the gates shut (they had ats, traps and abatis, I think the abatis is what is different now)

:cool: lol I just lost 200 scouts to a city I know has No defence because I have killed it all.. I sent the scouts on attk with hero .. Just to get rid of the 1 loyalty point that was there while my other troops were inc to said city.. So scouts can't attk at all?

I've learned that once the loyalty of a city gets below 5 (or so) the gates automatically open, unleashing the troops within.