How do we use Scouts? [Archive]

Demosthenes

February 27th, 2004, 01:51 AM

You know the more I play this in SP the less I use my Scouts, except for the whole "bloodhunting scouts" which are so popular in other threads http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . Especially after the first 10-15 turns when your immediate expansion area is pretty clear. The reports on independents from Dominion seems way more accurate than most scouts as well. If I have Spy's I might use one or two to spot for my big armies. But other than using the Scouts to tote gems I don't use 'em much.

I can see how in MP you'd be more worried about what your creative human opponents are doing but they are more likely to have adequate provincial defenses to spot you as well.

So let's hear it folks... What do you do with your scouts?

[ February 27, 2004, 00:18: Message edited by: Demosthenes ]

February 27th, 2004, 01:57 AM

In my experience I use scouts all the time. Knowing the composition and formation of your opponent (In MP or SP) allows you to take advantage of it. Not only for combat, but also for monitoring movements of enemies and allies as they move around the map and take and build provinces.

PD is not very effective at all in stopping Scouts and even less effective in spies. There is also no reason to have a patrolling army in each and every province (as it's economically unfeasible). Also certain nations are naturally bad at patrolling (Ermor for example, or most Underwater nations forget or don't feel the need to patrol) so it's an advantage in that regard.

Scouts are one of the most important thought processes of my turns.

Gandalf Parker

February 27th, 2004, 02:51 AM

In MP games scouts can be VERY useful. Watching other players attacks on indeps or players so you can see his tactics.

Saber Cherry

February 27th, 2004, 04:29 AM

Originally posted by Demosthenes:
You know the more I play this in SP the less I use my Scouts, except for the whole "bloodhunting scouts" which are so popular in other threads http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . Especially after the first 10-15 turns when your immediate expansion area is pretty clear. The reports on independents from Dominion seems way more accurate than most scouts as well. If I have Spy's I might use one or two to spot for my big armies. But other than using the Scouts to tote gems I don't use 'em much.

I can see how in MP you'd be more worried about what your creative human opponents are doing but they are more likely to have adequate provincial defenses to spot you as well.

So let's hear it folks... What do you do with your scouts? Spies are much better than scouts in every respect except 2:

1) Scouts are easier to get;
2) Scouts are cheaper for slaving.

I use scouts insidiously. Some people think 0 defense is enough. If I can take a province without fighting, I never really attacked them, did I?

Scouts are good platforms for Lifelong Protection, Soul Contract, Fever Fetish, and such. They also have secret uses.

Edit: In many of my games, I buy 1 scout per turn per scout-province until the mid game.

[ February 27, 2004, 02:31: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

st.patrik

February 27th, 2004, 05:50 AM

I don't bother with scouts in SP, because the AI is so predictable, but in MP they are absolutely necessary - otherwise you don't know if you're attacking a huge powerful nation or a small weak nation. Information is the most valuable resource in war, and MP dominions is no exception.

NTJedi

February 27th, 2004, 04:26 PM

One of my uses for scouts:

During Mid-Game... take a scout with two experience stars. Give him the eye of aiming, longbow of war, and some item which raises strength.

Now you've got one fellow shooting lots of arrows with precision of 17... and his strength adds to the damage.

rabelais

February 27th, 2004, 04:52 PM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
One of my uses for scouts:

During Mid-Game... take a scout with two experience stars. Give him the eye of aiming, longbow of war, and some item which raises strength.

Now you've got one fellow shooting lots of arrows with precision of 17... and his strength adds to the damage. Bow of war just fires a whole passel of normal arrows at once....

I think you mean thunder bow... the other bows are not affected by strength...

Does anyone else think damage of normal bows increasing with xp might be good? Doubt there's a hook in the code, but....

Rabe the Gratuitously Elliptical

[ February 27, 2004, 14:54: Message edited by: rabelais ]

NTJedi

February 27th, 2004, 05:30 PM

Rabelais... your wrong.

Bow of War is directly affected by the strength of the unit as well. Go back and check.

Saber Cherry

February 27th, 2004, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Bow of War is directly affected by the strength of the unit as well. Go back and check. Not according to the item description.

Mardagg

February 27th, 2004, 06:36 PM

Playing MP with score graphs disabled,scouts are even more,much more, important.
Its after all the only cheap possibility to gain the much needed imformations,like for example:
-which nations is about to win=near the victory condition
-how many provinces/castles/temples/... do your neigbours have
-...

Other than that ,I tend to use scouts also a lot to move items/gems to commanders,to transfer blood slaves or blood hunt,to watch enemy tactics during battles(you also gain knowledge of the spells the enemy already has researched) AND especially in the beginning of games to attack nearby provinces(order:retreat) to gain accurate information of the defense at once.

NTJedi

February 28th, 2004, 03:18 AM

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by NTJedi:
Bow of War is directly affected by the strength of the unit as well. Go back and check. Not according to the item description. <hr /></blockquote>You are also wrong Saber Cherry...
I just checked the description for the BOW OF WAR

Damage is : 10
( Strength of wielder not added )

That's directly from the game

Arryn

February 28th, 2004, 03:31 AM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by NTJedi:
Bow of War is directly affected by the strength of the unit as well. Go back and check. Not according to the item description. <hr /></blockquote>You are also wrong Saber Cherry...
I just checked the description for the BOW OF WAR

Damage is : 10
( Strength of wielder not added )

That's directly from the game <hr /></blockquote>First you say that it *is* affected, then you quote from the game that it *isn't* ... which is precisely what Cherry said. So how is Cherry wrong? Please make up your mind. And please use a little more tact. Cherry doesn't deserve the highly confrontational tone of your post(s).

I'll go back to lurking again ...

February 28th, 2004, 03:37 AM

NTJedi,

Do you even know what "Strength not added" means?

It means it's not affected by strength. Or more clearly, it means that it's not affected by strength. Which is the opposite of "Directly affected by strength".

NTJedi

February 28th, 2004, 04:02 AM

That could be my mistake then... and the description can be read either way.

Damage 10 saying the damage is 10 and the strength of the wielder has not yet been added.

Seems much more logical for them to add:
(strength of wielder added) to the one ThunderBow
instead of adding {strength of wielder not added to all of the bows but one.

[ February 28, 2004, 02:19: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Arryn

February 28th, 2004, 04:09 AM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
That could be my mistake then...Methinks you owe Cherry an apology ...

NTJedi

February 28th, 2004, 04:12 AM

I was mistaken... not impolite.

Arryn

February 28th, 2004, 04:18 AM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
I was mistaken... not impolite. "You are also wrong Saber Cherry..." was impolite, at least amongst my social circle, and the way I was raised. At the very least it was tactless. But I suppose your understanding of the term "polite" may suffer from the same malady as your understanding of the phrase "Strength not added" ...

NTJedi

February 28th, 2004, 04:22 AM

Originally posted by Arryn:
the same malady as your understanding of the phrase "Strength not added" ... In my strict upbringing you appologize for doing wrong to someone... not being wrong about misreading something. LOL

It seems odd the developers added (strength of the wielder not added) to every bow... when only one bow has the effect where it does matter.
Would have been 10 times easier and more logical for them to add (strength of wielder added) for the one special bow... and leave the others blank.

By the way your quote listed above was not exactly polite.

[ February 28, 2004, 02:26: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

Arryn

February 28th, 2004, 04:24 AM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Would have been 10 times easier and more logical for them to add (strength of wielder added) for the one special bow... and leave the others blank. On this we agree.

EDIT: however, to be fair to IW, for all other weapons, strength is added. Bows just happen to be an exception. A better phrasing would be "Strength does not apply to damage".

[ February 28, 2004, 02:27: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Gandalf Parker

February 28th, 2004, 04:29 AM

Some points here. First, the developers are swedish and that has made a difference in the game. Some of their desriptions get fixed by proofreaders but I still find some wording confusing. I just remind myself that changing it to english is not the same as matching American phrasing.

Also, the game has built in stages. Its not like they created all the bows at once. For a clearer idea of this examine the AllView game and the order that creatures have been added.

Yossar

February 28th, 2004, 05:01 AM

The description is perfectly fine in my opinion. It could be read to mean something else, but if you know that for most weapons strength is added to damage and that most weapons don't include the strength not added to damage line, it is almost impossible to do so.

[ February 28, 2004, 03:04: Message edited by: Yossar ]

NTJedi

February 28th, 2004, 05:10 AM

Originally posted by Arryn:
A better phrasing would be "Strength does not apply to damage". I would have to agree with Arryn that the following phrase would have been better:
"Strength does not apply to damage"

Graeme Dice

February 28th, 2004, 11:07 AM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Damage is : 10
( Strength of wielder not added )
[/QB]I'm sorry, but there's only one possible way to read that. It tells you that the damage is 10, and that the strength of the wielder is not added. There is no possible way to obtain the information that strength affects damage with the sentence above.

PhilD

February 28th, 2004, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by NTJedi:
Damage is : 10
( Strength of wielder not added )
I'm sorry, but there's only one possible way to read that. It tells you that the damage is 10, and that the strength of the wielder is not added. There is no possible way to obtain the information that strength affects damage with the sentence above. [/QB]<hr /></blockquote>I tend to agree, though, since English isn't my native language anymore than it is the devs', I may be biased. But I never had any trouble understanding this mention right.

Gandalf Parker

February 28th, 2004, 03:50 PM

I could see it read both ways. But my jobs have given me alot of experience reading and speaking english as its learned by others rather than how country-American is spoken in Iowa where I grew up. I tend to automatically read Dominions in "international" mode. The english used in Dominions is closest to "LA-California English" which is considered the most neutral in the US.

alexti

February 28th, 2004, 04:25 PM

Originally posted by NTJedi:
Damage is : 10
( Strength of wielder not added )
After careful examination I can see this standing for one of these:
<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Damage: 10
(Strength of wielder is not included [in 10], but shall be added for combat resolution purposes)
Damage: 10
(Strength of wielder is not included [in 10] and shall not be added for combat resolution purposes)</pre><hr /></blockquote>As yet another non-native english speaker I am not sure if "Strength of wielder not added" is a correct rewording of "Strength of wielder is not included", but it looks clear where the confusion comes from. But if one reads the manual from the beginning I think the original statement can only be interpreted as "... shall not be added".

johan osterman

February 28th, 2004, 04:32 PM

Strength is not added to damage for most bows. And I agree with NTJedi that the phrase "strength of wielder not added" could be read as it refering to the damage before strength is added, but it is not intended to be read that way. I do think that in the context of the game it is obvious what it means though since it is the exceptions from the norm that have the phrase in question attached to them, ie weapons that do not add strength, weapons whose damage resolution deviate from the way most weapon damage is resolved.

Gandalf Parker

February 28th, 2004, 04:54 PM

Another way I see it is

Strength of wielder is not added
Damage is 10

or

Damage is 10
strength of wielder is not added

Having it before or after the statement makes it read alittle bit differently to me. But I do find Arryns suggestion of "Strength does not apply to damage" to be clearer. I guess we can make this suggestion in the typo thread?

Also, since I dont read Docs much it wasnt until I saw that phrase on a bow that I realized that strength apparently applies to everything else if it doesnt say otherwise?

[ February 28, 2004, 14:56: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

February 28th, 2004, 05:46 PM

With the exception of a few weapons and special effects. Str applies to all damage.

The formula is I believe for damage
wdam+str+2d6(oe) vs prot+2d6(oe) for all weapons.

I would hope that the onus of competency would not be on the phrase but on understanding the game mechanic.

Everything can be interpreted in totally misunderstood ways, especially in a multi-language enviroment. That doesn't mean that this particular phrasing is more or less misleading. Especially if you look at the basic mechanics of strength used in the game. I think the fault comes from making blanket statements of being 'wrong' when in actuallity you have no idea of what you are talking about.

[ February 28, 2004, 16:18: Message edited by: Zen ]