Bring the Scout to the Battlefield!

[Ben]

Topic name says it all! Guys, let's combine our heads and see if we can figure out how to bring scouts into the game. Let's try to keep this at least partly a brainstorming thread: even crazy ideas are welcome! Hopefully we can, together, think of some way of making this unit practical

Scout as is right now:
The scout is nearly useless. He is only seen (and still rarely) when a player's stable has made more horses than his iron can keep up with. Even then, players probably prefer to keep their horses for potential knights.

Why are scouts so unpractical?
The scout is a difficult unit to mass. For example, mass knights (despite being far more powerful) are much easier to acquire. Since the scout requires a player to split his corn production to yet another chain of production, he is compromising food and leather. This economy compromise is not even worth it. Even though scouts have high speed, their armor is so weak and attack so little, that bowmen are not even scared of them: They just turn around and shoot them before they can even get any kills. Flanking doesn't even work.

So what can we do about it?
Some ideas:
1) Increasing scout speed: Many people seem to be against it. Having a unit that is faster than all others seems to be strange as far as most RTS games are concerned.
2) Increasing scout attack to the same as a knight: This would at least enable scouts to better kill routing shooters, especially xbows.
3) Crazy idea: Maybe give the scout an attack bonus against foot-soldiers? This probably wouldn't include lances and pikes, as that would be kinda silly Still, this might be a neat hard-counter to swords! Still, it makes little sense from a realistic point-of-view: Why would a scout have a bonus against infantry but not a knight?

Please continue with ideas!

[pawel95]

Finally one nice guy made a topic about it, so I haven´t to do it I thought that my points about "scout" and "market"(no topic yet) will be ignored, since the bowmen/xbow balance-discussion is still on, but ok

I don´t want to comment here much right now, only that me and TDL made like 2 weeks ago, some tests on the battlefield. Nothing big, just the fighting aspect, specialy against swordmen. Why? When I´m correct, the swordmen and the Scout in the original Game(TPR) were nearly same strong. That means whenever you watched a fighting in the singleplayer with scouts vs swordmen, it end almost with 50/50 (So swordmen are nearly same stong as scouts) This balance actualy makes sence, because of the fact, that scouts are way more expensive, but they have totaly no chance vs swords in the Remake right now.

So already too big coment Just watch the results:

http://www.twitch.tv/pawel95masterofhorses/c/3704655
http://www.twitch.tv/pawel95masterofhorses/c/3704659
http://www.twitch.tv/pawel95masterofhorses/c/3704661

Don´t forget about the 4th idea:
To bring the real "scout function" back to the game, like it was in TSK addtionaly ONLY to one of your mentioned ideas, so the scouts have really something that other units don´t have.

[KaMRemakefan]

(I do really like Ben his first idea!)

[Killer!!]

What About give them an extra defend bonus against range units? It sounds logic, because they are already quicker because they are mounted

[Nissarin]

In my opinion it's not the problem with scout per se, the problem is it's "base" unit - axe fighter - it's just too weak at the moment. Some time ago I've made test map to determine unit strength in 1v1 battles, you can see the result below (unit names and percentages are self explanatory, number in brackets represent number of individual "encounters").

1v1.jpg

As you can see axe fighter wins against sword fighter roughly one time in ten, no wonder axe fighter/xbows doesn't work.. but anyway, perhaps the gap between leather/iron units is too big in general ?

Edit:
Tested using beta client.

[Esthlos]

1) Increasing scout speed: Many people seem to be against it. Having a unit that is faster than all others seems to be strange as far as most RTS games are concerned.

I like this!

But what about, instead, giving them a toggle (maybe located where melee units have their Start Attack command) that would allow them to run past enemies without attacking them?
After all, they're supposed to be Scouts, not Warriors... this way if they were able to run past defences (given that they can survive the attacks from the units they pass through) and into the enemy base, they would be able to do a lot of damage to the enemy town's economy while not being stuck attacking that one serf while the enemy army is coming to defend.
There would be a counterplay - buiding a few towers in between your town's buildings - and would make them better at exploring and at sabotage-like strategies.
Also, they would be the only units able to run straight up for the enemy Ranged troops during a battle.

perhaps the gap between leather/iron units is too big in general ?

By the way, this would make sense balance-wise if there was no Market, as Iron troops would be more powerful but limited.
As if I recall correctly I've already written somewhere, in my opinion this could be balanced by simply making Iron troops slower than their Wood counterparts.
This would also justify making Crossbowmen more powerful, maybe setting the damage limit higher for each of their bolts but with a very low attack speed, which would make them very good versus other Iron troops but easy preys for Wood troops, who could easily Zerg rush them.

[dicsoupcan]

yes, the souts army shall get his revenge! http://youtu.be/nVUEVHIFgHE?t=16m43s

but agreed, scoutsserver no purpose in the game at the moment. the only way they could have had some value was if a map had fog ofwar, but even then his scouting radius is not that much larger then other units. Ben you idea to make them stronger against unmounted troops makes sens,e because their horses could trample them and mounted vs unmounted has the advantage except against spearlikeweapons. but enough realism nonsense, this is a game. and yes esthlios is right about the gap between iron and leather troops, iron is not unlimited anymore, which was the only con of using them. although i do not think the attack bonus vs unmounted infantery will be a hard counter agaisnt swords though, as the scouts are still very expensive to use.

in fact many ideas would have a hard time making them usefull, because a knight outclasses them in every practical way, even in lategame. esthlios his idea about the non attack toggle mightbe the most viable options that has bene given at the moment, but then i can see a teamgame where 1 guy makes only scouts, and goes to the enemy towns to wreck their economy, while the other 2 will try to distract and/or defend agaist the other enemies.

Last but not least, yes mass knights is way easier to get, and actually requires less skill in basebuilding then making a normal base. But this is yet again largely to do with the market (yes tdl i am on you side now ), without the market mass knights is not even possible as where mass scouts still can be made to a certain level.

[Tiank]

1) I don't like it. Horses are similar to each other, they have similar strength and similar speed. How could one unit on horse be faster than the other?
2) No. Why should Scouts have higher attack than Axe Fighter (or Militia or Vagabond), since they both have axes? Sword is better than axe, let's stick with it.
3) That "crazy idea" doesn't sound crazy to me at all. Mounted unit should be better against infantry (speed, higher momentum when attacking and unit on horse has more strength, since it doesn't use his own feet to move )

But don't mounted units already have a boost? Because of +1 defence point? Maybe this point should be slightly bigger. I remember recent fight on Battle of Octumn, where few Militias (about 10) take down some Scouts (3 or 4 from troop of 10 I think) which was a surprise for me.

But what about, instead, giving them a toggle (maybe located where melee units have their Start Attack command) that would allow them to run past enemies without attacking them?

This is interesting idea! Ability to sneak into enemy's base could be nice, but then again, would it have any big use? After PT most of the game is determined from economical point of view, since you go for swords+bows, or pikes+bows or something else, so seeing enemy's base would not be any big advantage I think. And it would look weird, that Scout (with visible axe by him) won't attack.

It could affect gameplay too much in bad way, so maybe giving a Scout longer reveal rate is better.

Why are scouts so unpractical?
The scout is a difficult unit to mass

I don't think that make them unpractical. The problem isn't in Scouts, but in the way of obtain mass of them. In mass Knights it's profitable and not that hard.
Going for horses surely affects corn economy, but what about going for iron only and making a lot of scouts? Something like pikes+xbows+scouts combo?

Scouts are still effective against ranged because of speed. It's obvious, that you should have more of them to take down ranged troop. Scouts may not be very effective on PT, but after PT you can get them faster than Knights. After like 20-30 minutes from PT reinforcements are getting weaker. Knights are powerful then, but it takes long time to get them. Scouts are faster to obtain (if you have stable corn and wood economy).

I think there're still some powerful combos that haven't been used, they just need to be discovered. And I think it's too early to think about changing something in Scouts, since Xbows weren't tested that good yet.

[Killer!!]

Just got a very crazy idea aswell...
What if we make it possible for scouts to split up in a battle?
Like if you are getting attacked and you get flanked from some sides you could seperate a group of scouts from the battle where they are in and send them to the player who's trying to flank you.
It maybe sounds stupid but I think people will really use some because they are way more usefull then now

[Ben]

That has already been recommended, Killer
For the record, I do not like it. It would be so frusturating to kill scouts...I'd rather them remain unused

2) No. Why should Scouts have higher attack than Axe Fighter (or Militia or Vagabond), since they both have axes? Sword is better than axe, let's stick with it.

Simple: A unit with the same equipment could easily be more powerful if mounted; although an axe isn't exactly a choice weapon for mounted combat in the first place. Since you mentioned it already, I think it is worth saying that axefighters are a bit too weak at the moment. I think that this is made much more obvious when you put him on a horse.

[Tiank]

Ben, I agree, that mounted unit should be more powerful than standard one, but you wrote:

2)Increasing scout attack to the same as a knight

That's weird for me and that's what I was writing about.

Increasing Scout attack to be more powerful than base unit Axe Fighter? Yes. Increasing attack to be the same as Knight? No. There should be differences between them, that's obvious for me.

But then again, isn't Scout already more powerful than Axe Fighter beacuse of that +1 defence point? Maybe it is as you and Nissarin were mentoning: it is Axe Fighter that should've been taken care of in first place. After that, probably any changes in Scout itself wouldn't be necessary.

[The Dark Lord]

This is really hard to balance in a fair way. All solutions have odds... I'm not sure if we should do anything. I do agree that scouts are pretty useless, it's just that I don't like the presented solutions. And don't forget about the shield patch, which is very important in this.
Keep in mind that there is not always iron present on a map, so if you boost the scout's attack significantly, it will become overpowered on 'leather maps'. (By the way, I noticed that knights have an almost 30% chance to kill a pikeman?! I think that's way too high, since with bowmen support pikemen will die much faster and thus you might even end up winning with your knights against the supposedly counter to them... Same with scouts, if you boost their attack they might eat lance carriers with a bit ranged support thanks to the shield patch. So IF we were to raise the scouts attack, then lance carrier/pikemen attack against cavalry should be increased too.)
Increasing scout's speed is out of the question; they would be annoyingly hard to catch and it would still be as bad at fighting as it is now. Besides, a good player won't still allow scouts to flank him.
A bonus against foot soldiers doesn't make any sense to me. If the scout should get such a bonus, then the knight should too. And we don't want that, do we.
I like Pawel's idea to bring back the scout's main function: scout. By increasing its view radius. Then again, this does not improve the unit in battle and it will be too easy to scout behind enemy lines (instead of 'just a watchtower' you will be able to see much more) and I don't like that. I like the veil of mysterious darkness around my base, so that my enemies can only guess what terror lurks inside!

Having said all this, I see only one solution: remove the marketplace from the game.


Don't you too love conclusions that don't make any sense at all?
Anyway, looking at Nissarin's test, assuming that his findings are true:
- In my opinion, axe fighter vs sword fighter should be almost equal to lance carrier vs pikemen should be almost equal to scout vs knight. Currently, axe fighters and lance carriers have a 12-16% chance of beating their respective iron comrade, while scouts have only a puny 8% chance of beating the fearsome knight.
- Continuing this kind of reasoning, scouts should have the same chance at beating a lance carrier that knights have at beating pikemen: 23,7% versus 29,5%.
- Concluding from these numbers, the scouts attack should indeed be increased a little as to reach those standards, while pikemen/lance carrier attack against cavalry should be increased a bit as well (debatable, for my reasons to think this see somewhere above). I'm aware this won't solve the problem, but it will make scouts a little less useless. As for now I have no suitable solutions to the 'whole' problem.
- What I would like to know too: are the testing results the same if you swap the position of the units? I can imagine something weird like 'units that stand at the top left and face an enemy at the bottom right will strike first' being possible. All those possibilities should be eliminated.

[Killer!!]

Hmm I agree with TDL, but what if we would make them real scouts?
My idea maybe it is verry bad but i don't know to make scout " invisable" for towers.
So the towers won't trow any stones to them.

[Nissarin]

I like Pawel's idea to bring back the scout's main function: scout. By increasing its view radius.

Scouts and Knights are called "Light cavalry" and "Heavy cavalry" respectively in the polish version of the game, I always thought about those units as mounted version of axe/sword fighter, nothing more, nothing less. I think it's a good example of yet another "unfortunate" unit name used in English version of the game.

Having said all this, I see only one solution: remove the marketplace from the game.

It's funny, because in my opinion it's thanks to the market, we can enjoy some variety in the game (like horse rushes), not just plain old sword + bow :>

Anyway, looking at Nissarin's test, assuming that his findings are true:
(...)
- What I would like to know too: are the testing results the same if you swap the position of the units? I can imagine something weird like 'units that stand at the top left and face an enemy at the bottom right will strike first' being possible. All those possibilities should be eliminated.

The units are positioned as such because you can't place new units in same place as the ones just "cleared" from the board, so it's easier to use diagonal and swap it every iteration. But for the sake of the argument I modified original script to include fights between the same units and retested it with units spawning in the same direction (i.e. one unit looking at the back of the enemy) and facing each other (like before).

1v1 (v2).jpg

I kinda expected no real difference because as far as I know units in KaM have the ability to make a 180 degree turn instantly, also looking at every iteration of the loop and the difference between the same units fighting each other I would say the results have about 2% error margin.

Obviously 1v1 fights don't happen that often but IMHO it's get even worse with numbers, thanks to the bonuses from the direction of the attack (higher chance to get first kill would mean higher chance to win overall). I'm tempted to actually test 2v2 next, I wonder if Axe vs Sword would even go above 5%.

[thunder]

Hi!

I don't think to the problem is mainly the only strengh of the units. Personally now I feel the game the most balanced. Of course there are some forgotten units. But the proble isn't the strenght of the units. We have to search the problem in the city building of creating them. What is need for creating only knights, or knights +milities, swords+bows, axers+xbows...etc...

Most of the time the scouts are coming after the ironmountains depleted...Nobody trying to creating them in PT /normal 60mins pt/ because if creating them you will have only scouts because nearly all resource will go to the scouts./not impossible to abuse them, but only ~40scouts in pt is nothing if the enemy has 40swords+30bows etc.../

But strenght of the units is okay, maybe have to be a little bit stronger vs swords, but not as level then knights.

I think to maybe the MARKET could solve lot of problems of balancing what is still not solve. /and i know there are players who hate this sentence;P/
Basicly now all wares are balanced by producing time and how much is ready/turn , +10% for the market etc...
Should to give some UNIQUE TRADING COSTS, i mean on for example when trading iron to horse. 2 ironbar ->1 horse was imba. 4 is unused. maybe 3:1 could be good.
If trading lot of iron you can abuse the horses, but don't forget you can not abuse knights then because trade your all iron for horses.
Okay this was only an example. But market has power to change the army ingredients:)

I remember when i start to play with Remake a word was in the air:

"Mixed army"

And if the market can solve these abusing problems then why not? This Remake never will be KaM. It is already more!