Why Build Scouts?

Equites Legati, Scouts or Pathfinders

As all the above do the same job – I will refer to them from now on as scouts (As it’s the shortest to type!)

For those of you who don’t already know, scouts are a type of troop. There are called different names for the different tribes:

Roman is Equites Legati (trained in the stables)

Teuton is Scout (trained in the barracks)

Gaul is Pathfinder (trained in the stables)

First and foremost, you should have at least 1 scout in every village, and 1 in every oasis you own. If someone scouts your village you will get a report that you have been scouted which can be an “early warning” of an attack. You can then prepare to move troops or resources to minimise any losses you may incur.

How scouts work.

Scouts are Spies – they creep into your village and take information back to the attacker – but we can stop them by having spies of our own. If you have a single scout, and they scout with 1, they may or may not get a report back – the easiest way to understand this is to look at your village – there are 4 entrances – if your scout is watching a front entrance and the attackers scout creeps in at the back – he will go home with the information, but if he comes in the front entrance your scout will kill him.

So is 4 scouts enough?

No – if the attacker sends 5, some will die but some will get through, the general rule for scouts is to have as many as you can feed. On a previous server I dedicated a village to scout building so I could always get a report from any village I scouted (Not many people keep 1000 scouts in a single village)

So how many do I need?

This depends on how many the attacker sends, but in order to ensure they do not get a report you need to have at least 50% more than they send. Looking at some recent scout reports – The attacker sent 50, and the defender had 55, 42 of the attackers scouts were killed but the 8 remaining took a report home – so the attacker knew what was in my village. The nest scout was 40 from the attacker, but by then I had built 75, all his scouts died and he did not get a report.

Scouting other villages

You can also use your scouts to look into someone else’s village. Like all attacks you have the choice to Attack “Normal” or “Raid” – with scouting this makes no difference. You then have a choice to scout resources and troops or defences and troops. Both will tell you how many troops they have, but remember some of their troops may be out raiding – you only see the ones in the village when you scout gets there. The difference is the first option will tell you how many of each resource they have (But remember, if they have crannies, you may still get nothing if you attack) and the second will tell you the level of the wall and Palace or residence – this is useful if you are planning to conquer a village.

Upgrading scouts in the Armoury and Blacksmith

If you have spare resources, it can be worth upgrading your scouts in both, the armoury will make them better at defending, meaning they will kill a greater number of attacking scouts, the Blacksmith will make them better at defending, meaning that more of any attackers scouts will die, if they try to scout you. Scouts also work as a defensive troop, so if you only had scouts and were attacked, some of the attacker’s troops will die in the fight.

You also won't be able to see scouts attacking until they have reached your village. As you won’t know when someone is going to scout you, or how many they will send it is useful to have a fair few in your village.

Some scout reports

In this one the Defender had just enough scouts to kill all the attackers scouts so the attacker would have got no report (This screen shot is taken from the defending account) so the attacker would not have seen the lower part and would not know how many troops I had.

This one is taken from the attackers account, he sent 20 scouts and the defender had no scouts at all, so not only did we not lose any of our scouts, the defender does not even know that he has been scouted.

Another one where the defender does not know he has been scouted – but this one is where we have scouted to look at defences and troops, rather than resources. The defender has no troops and no residence or palace, but does have a level 3 wall. Note that we cannot see the resources on this scouting.