Overscouting?

[DeletedUser7733]

If I can give an advice to a new player, it would be to keep constantly scouting. The benefits are:

• getting additional expansions earlier (more space for production and guest race settlements)
• having more neighbours earlier (more coins, trading partners and visits)

There are challenges that come with it and they are:

• not being able to complete the provinces (I find it’s ok to let them be for a bit and wait till we have the goods or troops to complete them)
• provinces are getting harder earlier (if we use the space gained to increase our production, this shouldn’t be a big problem)
• we could get stuck waiting for orcs (we can leave couple of provinces that don't need orcs for events, also we can use all our coins to buy KPs to get to Orcs chapter faster)

As there are players that don’t agree with this approach and that's ok, I’d love to have any feedback why this strategy is good or bad.
Thank you

 

[DeletedUser5976]

I don't think the majority of people here think overscouting is bad as such. It is just not wise to overscout so much that you need Orcs to cater before you can make them, because that will make it impossible for them to complete events. If people know about Orcs ahead of time and don't get surprised by it during an event then there is no harm in overscouting.

Overscouting gets most of the time mentioned in the forums in the context of the event, when a player complains they can't complete the event because they need orcs to complete provinces and then of course he is told that he is overscouted too much. That might give an impression that the majority is against overscouting, which I think is not the case.

 

[DeletedUser7733]

If people know about Orcs ahead of time and don't get surprised by it during an event then there is no harm in overscouting.

So you agree, that's great
It's actually always good to leave some provinces for events as in later chapters it takes a long time to scout a province. I usually leave two or three provinces, depends on how close I'm to an expansion and how desperately I need it.

 

[FieryArien]

So you agree, that's great

Of course I can’t speak for LadyHavva, but I see quite a difference in your statements.

If I can give an advice to a new player, it would be to keep constantly scouting.

If people know about Orcs ahead of time and don't get surprised by it during an event then there is no harm in overscouting.

Anyway, based on my personal experience based on two cities I have, I’d give the scouting advice based on the development of the city:

• To completely new players I wouldn’t recommend constant scouting. The scouts are super fast and the fight difficulty and negotiation cost go up fast and steep. That’s my fresh experience from my younger city which I started at the end of September.
• To players in let’s say chapter 4+ your advice makes much more sense. The fights and negotiation are much better balanced and one doesn’t harm their city by extreme spending in the provinces. The most important thing then is to watch for the limit of 220 orcs-free provinces until reaching the Orcs chapter.

One more thing: for me in the 4th and lower chapters the resources I had (troops, supplies and goods) were much better spent in the tournaments than in pushing for expensive world provinces. I got KPs, spells and runes. Not to mention the boosted relics which the young city desperately needs! In and after chapter 5 (the young city is in chapter 6 now) I can do whatever I want in the world map while still being able to gain decent rewards in the tournaments.

 

[RainbowElvira]

Where are the voices that told me to scout only the bare minimum of provinces needed to progress to the next chapter? When I realized that there are no advanced scouts in Amuni, I suspected that I followed the wrong advisors.
Is there any reason to stop scouting once you're able to produce orcs? Keep scouting past the 457 (or what's the correct number) provinces limit?

 

[DeletedUser7733]

Of course I can’t speak for LadyHavva, but I see quite a difference in your statements.

Sorry, I don't play word games. The essence of the post is the same as I did mention the orcs problem.

To completely new players I wouldn’t recommend constant scouting. The scouts are super fast and the fight difficulty and negotiation cost go up fast and steep. That’s my fresh experience from my younger city which I started at the end of September.

The more you scout, the earlier you have more space that you should spend on more production to compensate for increased negotiation costs. It will not work if you fill up the space with other things. I wouldn't recommend fighting world provinces but that's a different topic.

One more thing: for me in the 4th and lower chapters the resources I had (troops, supplies and goods) were much better spent in the tournaments than in pushing for expensive world provinces. I got KPs, spells and runes. Not to mention the boosted relics which the young city desperately needs! In and after chapter 5 (the young city is in chapter 6 now) I can do whatever I want in the world map while still being able to gain decent rewards in the tournaments.

You don't have to do your scouted provinces immediately, you can let them be and wait till you have the resources to do them. You'll find that later in the game you have more than enough resources to negotiate your provinces.

This strategy has been tested and it can work quite well.

Is there any reason to stop scouting once you're able to produce orcs?

I would never stop scouting till I reach the expansion limit. It takes very long time to scout the more you progress, the earlier you start scouting, the earlier you get expansions. And space is very important in this game.

Keep scouting past the 457 (or what's the correct number) provinces limit?

I don't think I will scout much past that. Just necessary provinces so I'm ready for events. But things can change and it's possible that Inno will give us more free expansions but I wouldn't count on that.

 

[DeletedUser3097]

There is an important factor not mentioned yet- Advanced Scouts.

​

This particular player *cough* has overscouted which means that for 297-220= 77 Provinces, they have paid higher scouting costs and paid higher negotiation costs or faced larger army sizes than if they had kept with the suggested limit.
Also, this player was trapped within the Ring of Orcs for several chapters until the Orcs chapter was reached and Orcs could be produced.

So, would I advise a new player to overscout- no.​

 

[DeletedUser3571]

In my opinion i would keep i keep to the province limit per chapter to make use of the advanced scouts benefit. However once you are producing orcs, i can see an argument to just keep scouting as its possible to do as you have better armouries and goods production at that stage, to handle the extra cost.

On the knowledge of the orcs and events, i would just say that people often forget about the events so would not save provinces or that they would just take the benefit and still complain about events troubles. Also most events end up needing 4 provinces not just 2.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

Without exception i recommend scouting 24/7.
Even if you hit the orc ring while in chapter 6 you. An use the extra 12 expansions you got to blow through dwarves and fairies in 50 days total.
A dozen wonders rely on scouting/scouted provinces, your seed production also relies on it, your trading partners too, the extra relics and KP also help, and above all expansions are the most powerful reward in the game.
The many many benefits massively outweigh the tiny downside of paying more to negotiate.

I would add as others have that leaving 3 scouted provinces uncleared for events is a smart move, as is stopping around 200 cleared until you unlock orcs.

 

[FieryArien]

The more you scout, the earlier you have more space that you should spend on more production to compensate for increased negotiation costs. It will not work if you fill up the space with other things.

I think here you captured the essence of our disagreement. In my worldview this is growth for the sake of growth itself and at the cost of hindering other areas of city development. I mean the cost grows so high that it doesn’t allow player to do much else with their resources. I actually tried that with my first city. It wasn’t voluntary, it was simply because we didn’t have tournaments in the app and so I put my resources only into research and into world provinces. The cost was unbelievable and for example I simply didn’t get significant relics boost out of it. I was on the verge of quitting sometime around the 4th chapter. Fortunately I pushed through that awfully unbalanced part of the game and since then the world provinces have been fun.

And this is exactly the reason why I would never encourage new player to overscout. Specifically I wouldn’t recommend overscouting before around 4th chapter. At/After that time the world provinces cost doesn’t grow so dramatically compared to player’s own growth and player actually doesn’t have to invest all the “overscouted” space back to production.

Once again and I hope clearly: I dispute the new player part in your advice. I don’t dispute benefits of overscouting, I argument against recommending it to the players in the first few chapters. I thought I expressed myself clearly in my first post, but I’m biased because I see into my own head. ;-)

EDIT: few minor clarification fixes.

 

[DeletedUser5976]

Everyone of course has a point. When I started playing this game I was very careful to keep myself to the recommended number of provinces. In fact I had to regularly unlock provinces after finishing research to be able to move to the next chapter. I was also always short of gold and that indeed changed around chapter 4 (I didn't know about revolving quests). So of course people should and can only scout within their means. However when you get to know the game better you are not as limited.

Currently at the end of Orcs I am so far overscouted that I could unlock Sorcerers and Dragons (if I had the tech) not just Woodelves and I still don't need Orcs to cater (I call myself mildly overscouted ). Of course I have to pay more goods to cater those provinces (I don't fight provinces, my troops are only for tourneys), but that's a one time cost and compared to the goods I need for tourneys those catering costs are peanuts. I am willing to pay that for the space it gives me.

So I guess, yes I would recommend it to new players, after making them aware of all those points mentioned in this post, so they can make their own informed decisions.

Oh and my tiny new city is doing things a little differently and not as afraid of unlocking more provinces than recommended as it's bigger sister was

 

[DeletedUser7733]

This is Silly Bubbles account info. He did get stuck on not being able to complete provinces for 2 or 3 weeks because of orcs. Also, he has 9 more provinces already scouted and ready to be completed once he finishes Orcs and moves to Woodelves research to help it out a little.

 

[Deleted User - 341074]

@FieryArien
Regarding players in the super early chapters (1-4) I know I'm biased, but those go by so quickly when I make testing cities that they seem like part of the tutorial.
If a player is involved enough in the game to ask you for your advice about overscouting, then I think it unlikely that they will fall victim to the possible downsides.

The main factor is what a player does with the extra space from scouting 24/7.

• If they use it to allow for a pretty city with lots of extra roads and space between buildings while keeping that cool looking building from chapter 1, then yeah, they'll run into trouble.
• If they cram as many boosted factories as possible into the new expansions and use the goods for clearing and getting massive kp/relics from the tournament to advance the tech tree, they'll be in great shape.

Perhaps before trying to give advice on something like this we(especially including me) need to really consider who is asking.
I know I should have a disclaimer on many of my posts since I forget about players who value aesthetics over efficiency, diamond players, players who care about ranking, and anyone who plays less than 6 times per week. Maybe I should make that my signature....

 

[Pauly7]

If they use it to allow for a pretty city with lots of extra roads and space between buildings while keeping that cool looking building from chapter 1, then yeah, they'll run into trouble.

Even though this applies to me I still agree with you and didn't have any issues with overscouting save for the obligatory temporary Orc problem.

 

[Wowwie]

yes over scouting
side effects
its not such an issue as it was 2 years ago
so you pay more for catering
so your now your a new unbalance trader trying to get every dollar for a the price of a dime
But you gain much needed extra expansion if used wisely you have no problems
building extra t3 boosted will get you farther in the trader
Once the Orcs are out the way poof your game is on its way

 

[DeletedUser]

I don't think the majority of people here think overscouting is bad as such. It is just not wise to overscout so much that you need Orcs to cater before you can make them, because that will make it impossible for them to complete events. If people know about Orcs ahead of time and don't get surprised by it during an event then there is no harm in overscouting.

Overscouting gets most of the time mentioned in the forums in the context of the event, when a player complains they can't complete the event because they need orcs to complete provinces and then of course he is told that he is overscouted too much. That might give an impression that the majority is against overscouting, which I think is not the case.

It happened to me. I couldn't scout any provinces from Dwarves to Orcs because of over-scouting and it took me a long time to get the scouting and encounter costs down. I don't recommend it and I wish the game has somehow warned me about the need for Orcs in advance.

 

[FieryArien]

I found an example of “overscouted” province and province scouted “within chapter schedule”. *) Here follow two screenshots illustrating the difference in difficulty (of fight as well as of negotiation):

Spoiler: Full sized pictures

The enemy squad size difference it huge. At the moment I can fight and win even the harder province, but at the time of scouting it wasn’t possible. On the other hand, negotiating overscouting provinces (except the infamous Orcs wall) isn’t really that big of a deal.

If I am asked about constant scouting, I would still recommend it in/after 4th chapter (my reasoning is posted in previous posts) and I would warn the player about losing the possibility of easy fights in the world provinces (and the higher negotiation burden). It’s not meant to discourage them from scouting, but to make them count with and be prepared for the consequences.


*) how that happened? I had an important trading partner two rings out of my scouted area and I decided to reach out to the city to get rid of the trading fee. The last province required orcs and the fight was crazy difficult, so the province is just sitting there unresolved. It will get (quite easily) sorted out before I move to next ring. ;-)

 

[Susie49]

Unfortunately once you get to Halflings you get penalised if you have NOT overscouted since the basic divine seed production is proportionate to the number of completed provinces I believe. That is very annoying since I have avoided overscouting so that I can fight provinces.

 

[DeletedUser3571]

I find that aw levels is more important to seed production than the completed provinces.

 

[Killiak]

I find that aw levels is more important to seed production than the completed provinces.

Correct. The collection bonus you can get every 3 hours (based on total AW levels) heavily outweighs the regular production.