CrazyWizard
Shaman
In the past that did not count, once you paid the coins a enemy SS was set and it sticked,you forgot the advanced scout research techs
That said they have implemented a lot of changes to make things easier for especially beginners so I would not be suprised if that was changed and now those costs are recalculated afterwards. (tho you will not get the money back)
These are all deriviates from the gold cost of a scout.Basically there are 3 things affecting difficulty of map provinces:
- distance from your city (which is obviously fixed and you can do nothing about)
- number of advanced scouts (which reduces your enemy numbers and terefore also reduces negotiation costs)
The more you scout + the further away from your city you scout the higher the gold cost.
Advance scouts influence the cost of your scout.
It's still a simple province cost x gold coins = x SS conversion.
In a similar fashion as x cold coins takes x time for the scout.
http://crazywizard.info/en/tnt_scout_times.html