Scouting - overscouting.

[Daiman Rahl]

Would like some advice on scouting. I've now read comments to not overscout and others to not worry about it.
What is the most popular advice on this topic.
Right now I'm just finishing up the dwarves and I am 9 provinces out and have already scouted 199 provinces. is there such a thing as way overscouted, LOL
Thanks.
Daiman Rahl.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Yes, you can over-scout if you are not yet in chapter 8 - Orcs. If you scout far enough out before then, the fights will be too hard to win and in order to negotiate, you will need a type of orc that can only be made once you are in chapter 8. I can't remember right now the province ring around your city where this requirement starts, but I am sure someone else will comment on it here.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

You need orcs for negotiating ring 10 and further. IIRC that's 222 provinces that can be done before hitting that wall. So yeah, you're overscouted and it might get nasty (i.e. unable to do certain event quests until getting into Orcs chapter). Once you clear the orcs wall there are no hard barriers. Your catering/fighting gets more expensive, but is probably still worth it as long as you're gaining expansions. Your scouting gets much slower though, so event quests that require that will become very annoying.

 

[Daiman Rahl]

So Slow the scouting down, or stop while i'm in Fairies completely?

 

[Darielle]

I'm in Dwarves now and on the North and South I am 10 provinces out. I am only about 6 out at the East and West. I did that only because I was aiming to be a neighbor to one particular person who had tons of trades I wanted. Now there's another person 10 out to the East and I'm aiming for there, to make trading easier. So far I haven't had any problems except that the fights of course were very hard. I catered most of them. I don't have any advice for you; I just want to add a different perspective on it.

 

[AtaguS]

So Slow the scouting down, or stop while i'm in Fairies completely?

I think, as you've seen on the forum, this is somewhat of a player's preference thing. Personally, I would slow down your scouting, or pause all together, for a while....everyone likes to play the game their own way and that's a good thing. That said, I whole heartedly agree with the warnings of @MinMax Gamer . I scouted like a mad woman right up to the Orc Wall and was grateful for the forced slow down because I saw things start to get easier around my city the more I caught up with the game's scouting "suggestions". Costs went down, fighting got easier, etc.. I stick to over-scouting each chapter requirement by a meager 1-3 provinces now (mostly for event quests and ya...plan waaaay ahead), and I like the pace. But I'm not in a hurry in this game, so my advice is only good to you if we like to play at the same pace.

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

So Slow the scouting down, or stop while i'm in Fairies completely?

Depends how much you care about possibility of stopping dead in your tracks in some future events. I'd probably just stop until Orcs if I'd be you as events have (or had ) a lot of useful stuff - especially for mid chapters. You already have pretty sizable headstart as far as scoutable expansions are concerned.

A lot indeed depends on how quickly you move through the chapters. I never stopped scouting throughout the game, and only got ahead by about 1 chapter mid game. And I even had to fast track some provinces towards the end (i.e. drop some timeboosts because I was not hitting the province requirements). But that's with about 1 month per chapter pace. So unless you're moving much slower, I see no reason to slow down on scouting after the orc wall.

 

[Daiman Rahl]

Thank you all for the advice.

 

[KarlD]

My feeling is that you should keep scouting even if you decide to stop solving provinces for a while. Just because you've scouted a province doesn't mean you have to solve it right away. You should always have a few unsolved provinces and a few unscouted provinces for events. But you only have one scout and I think it's best to keep it busy because you can't get back that time that your scout is idle.

 

[Darielle]

I had over scouted at the beginning, so I had 4 pages of scouted provinces that were all red (very hard) and no provinces that were either hard or medium. There were also no unscouted provinces that were not red. I paid a high price to get those done, and no, the scouted ones didn't switch to orange or yellow once I advanced in research ... only the unscouted provinces turned orange or yellow, so I was sorry I had done it. I stopped scouting until I could clear all but one page of those scouted but undone very hard provinces. Once I did that, I had a lot of yellow to scout and am now concentrating on those. I'm not sure my experience is common, and I also don't know if I would have gotten as far ahead as I am without doing it, but I am proceeding more carefully now to avoid throwing away all my resources trying to cater hopeless fights. I agree that since you only have one scout, it's best to use it ... up to a point. If you have tons of pages of red, I would stop until you get yellow or orange provinces showing. Just my humble opinion.

 

[KarlD]

I had over scouted at the beginning, so I had 4 pages of scouted provinces that were all red (very hard) and no provinces that were either hard or medium. There were also no unscouted provinces that were not red. I paid a high price to get those done, and no, the scouted ones didn't switch to orange or yellow once I advanced in research ... only the unscouted provinces turned orange or yellow, so I was sorry I had done it. I stopped scouting until I could clear all but one page of those scouted but undone very hard provinces. Once I did that, I had a lot of yellow to scout and am now concentrating on those. I'm not sure my experience is common, and I also don't know if I would have gotten as far ahead as I am without doing it, but I am proceeding more carefully now to avoid throwing away all my resources trying to cater hopeless fights. I agree that since you only have one scout, it's best to use it ... up to a point. If you have tons of pages of red, I would stop until you get yellow or orange provinces showing. Just my humble opinion.

One thing that I should keep in mind when I talk about overscouting is that I enjoy manual fighting and that I have tended to concentrate on developing my military capabilities. This may mean that a fight that is designated as hard or very hard may not be so hard when fought manually. I also did all the optional squadsize upgrades until fairly late in the game and that would mean I could scout further out and still have reasonable fights compared to folks who skipped them. I tend to spend more time on the game than most and so tend to have more resources as might result from more frequent collections so maybe even negotiating is easier. It's hard to think of all the reasons why whatever advice I might give may be terrible advice for someone else who may play the game very differently. Having said that, I still think scouting as far ahead as practical will be benefit. Having a number of expansions earlier than planned has no downside that I can think of and I'm sure everyone has their own ideas of what they might do with several more expansions.

 

[Deleted User - 4366037]

To summarize all of the previous posts in this thread: it depends.

 

[Fayeanne]

My feeling is that you should keep scouting even if you decide to stop solving provinces for a while. Just because you've scouted a province doesn't mean you have to solve it right away.

Researching "Advanced Scouts" only decreases the difficulty of provinces scouted after researching the technology. So if you scout too far, you wind up shooting yourself in the foot since you must slog through unnecessarily difficult provinces, expending more resources than you otherwise would have spent.

So...it depends.

 

[Ashrem]

The state of being over-scouted is a fact. Whether (or how much) the cost of being over-scouted bothers you, depends.

 

[ajqtrz]

I have not scouted a "hard" or above province since chapter 6. It has saved me a lot. I first decided that the "minimums" for advancing were a pretty good guide and thus made sure I didn't go too much over them. I then scouted only Medium" or below. In this manner I always had an easier time fulfilling quests etc. It also means I am not yet out of expansions I can earn. (I think I have 1 left and am in ch 14). My advice for all players is to focus early on learning how to use space well rather than on gaining more space. Using space effectively is, in my opinion, the key to having fun rather than frustration.

 

[KarlD]

Ultimately it comes down to each person and what they want to accomplish. I tend to push harder than most people and that extra effort builds on itself. So if I solve more provinces and get more expansions that gives more space for more factories for more goods or more workshops for more supplies for more troops to help fight harder provinces, etc, etc. I tourney hard which means more spells which means more supplies which means I can keep my factories running and keep training troops to keep everything moving forward. The extra effort is never really lost. In the worst case scenario I just get to a point where I need to stop solving provinces or stop growing for a while and wait till I accumulate enough resources to continue moving forward, but ultimately I am probably further ahead and will likely remain further ahead than if I just stopped before I really needed to.