Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

No Flag deleted_user
Ninja
Posts: 14364
Joined: Mar 26, 2015

Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

  • Quote

Post by deleted_user »

In my recent quest to "git gud" I've struggled on how best to properly scout my opponents. I suppose I am mostly talking about early age 2 but other scenarios still apply. I understand there's general meta for almost every MU in the game but I refuse to believe no one meta strategy is best vs everything and even that it can be countered by specific (but perhaps almost always scoutable) counter strategies or even that meta can be made greedier with proper scouting - thus - scouting is of t1 importance.

So how best to balance age 1 and transitional aging scouting? What I mean is if I play proper age 1 and get a lot of treasures my explorer is probably low hp. What if enemy kills him with tc fire? Or even if a lot of treasure gathering is occurring (as it should for a successful age 1) usually my explorer is in the middle of getting a treasure when the enemy ages. Is it worth it to stop treasure hunting when the age up is incoming?

What if I need to build a tp in transition? My explorer will scout later and probably when there are already enemy units out. I cant scout with native scouts theyll get shot by 2x tc shots.

What if my hero is TAD and I need to hold onto him to hold timings? Specifically, china's hero. I can't scout with him he'll be shot with tc fire but then how do I know what my opponents are doing? This is important if I decide to straight or semi ff

Is starting cav meta equal parts scouting and adaptability/flexibility? Which MUs or civs is it most important to scout with? How can I scout vs timing pushes?

How do I scout an age up before he's aged up? I know most of the time it is intuition but still sometimes I get caught off guard.

Am I making too big a deal out of this? Is most of this intuition by top players?

Regardless of rank let me know your thoughts let's get a thing going.
User avatar
New Zealand JakeyBoyTH
Howdah
Posts: 1744
Joined: Oct 15, 2016
ESO: Ex-Contributor
Location: New Zealand

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by JakeyBoyTH »

u scout with ur explorer mission solved its an invincible unit so use it smh.

I've replied now
Advanced Wonders suck

- Aizamk

Ugh Advanced Wonders suck

- Aizamk
User avatar
Canada Mitoe
Advanced Theory Craftsman
Posts: 5486
Joined: Aug 23, 2015
ESO: Mitoe
GameRanger ID: 346407

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

  • Quote

Post by Mitoe »

deleted_user wrote:So how best to balance age 1 and transitional aging scouting? What I mean is if I play proper age 1 and get a lot of treasures my explorer is probably low hp. What if enemy kills him with tc fire? Or even if a lot of treasure gathering is occurring (as it should for a successful age 1) usually my explorer is in the middle of getting a treasure when the enemy ages. Is it worth it to stop treasure hunting when the age up is incoming?

I think part of WHEN you decide to scout depends on the civ you're playing and the matchup. Civs such as Russia, Aztec, Spain, or China often don't really need to know EXACTLY what their opponent is doing because their own plan isn't going to change much based off of what they see. For example, if I'm playing Spain and I scout someone starting cav or building an fb or anything really it's unlikely going to change my gameplan: I'm still going to FF, regardless of what they do. However, it IS important that I scout it in time to adapt my build IF I need to. Afterall, I don't really have room to change up my build until after 700 gold arrives anyway—which is usually at around 5:00 or 5:15—and I can usually delay or cancel my 2nd Colonial shipment if I need to.

So rather than scouting super early in Colonial or in transition, I really only need to focus on treasuring or building TPs and just in general powering up that one build that I'm going to do no matter what, and then making sure I figure out what they're doing so that I'm ready to adapt at the point in my build where I actually have room to adapt, if that makes sense.

Then you have civs like Japan or Dutch (and sometimes British). These civs tend to be more reactive than a lot of other civs, and therefore need to know what their opponent is going to do earlier so that they can decide how much eco they can get away with or how many units they need to hold, etc. and tend to have a lot of variations of their early build orders depending on the situation.

So I guess a general rule of thumb here is that you don't need to put a huge emphasis on scouting early if it's not going to change what you plan to do, and focus more on getting the things that will give that build a greater chance of succeeding (e.g. good treasures, TPs, etc.) AND THEN scout. If you're in a matchup where your success depends entirely on what they do, then scouting is much more important.

And regardless of the matchup, if there's anything you're afraid of happening then you should put an emphasis on scouting. For example, if you know your opponent has a history of doing cheesy strategies or if you're just not confident at playing against a particular playstyle, then scouting will help you be a lot more prepared mentally for the rest of the game.

^ not sure if any of this made sense. I'm running on 2 hours of sleep and am finding it difficult to form cohesive sentences that are easy to read.

What if I need to build a tp in transition? My explorer will scout later and probably when there are already enemy units out. I cant scout with native scouts theyll get shot by 2x tc shots.

There are some other important things to keep an eye on in the game that don't require actual scouting. For example, seeing that they got a trading post, or the treasures they got, checking their decks, etc. can all give you clues to what they might do and what you might need to watch out for or scout for later on. Also, native scouts can actually get pretty damn close to the town center while stealthed without being revealed, you shouldn't need to walk directly under your opponent's TC to know what they're doing a lot of the time—and for the civs where you do, then maybe it's worth losing the scout to gain the information that will win you the game.

What if my hero is TAD and I need to hold onto him to hold timings? Specifically, china's hero. I can't scout with him he'll be shot with tc fire but then how do I know what my opponents are doing? This is important if I decide to straight or semi ff

Again, this is kinda similar to my previous point. Pay attention to the indirect information you have, and be aware of certain things you need to look out for. You can still scout with those units as well, but be mindful of your hp and whether he'll have units out to kill it while you're scouting.

Is starting cav meta equal parts scouting and adaptability/flexibility? Which MUs or civs is it most important to scout with? How can I scout vs timing pushes?

Opening cav is a great way to apply map pressure and scout at the same time, while also leaving the option to adapt into Colonial play if needed, as cav is still useful against most unit compositions.

In my opinion this is how each civs should prioritize scouting:

Aztec: Low priority
British: Medium Priority
China: Medium-Low Priority
Dutch: High Priority
French: Medium Priority
German: Medium Priority
India: Medium Priority
Iroquois: ?????? (honestly don't know in current meta. On RE, low priority)
Japan: High Priority
Ottoman: Low Priority
Portuguese: Medium Priority
Russia: Low Priority
Spain: Medium-Low Priority
Sioux: High Priority

In general, low priority scouting means that your plan is unlikely to change much depending on what you scout, medium priority means that you have a lot of options to adapt your build to what you see but don't necessarily need to adapt, and high priority means that you essentially need to know what your opponent is going to do if you're going to win the game.

How do I scout an age up before he's aged up? I know most of the time it is intuition but still sometimes I get caught off guard.

Are his vills gathering food, or are they on wood/gold? Where is his explorer, is it heading towards a TP or sitting on a TP socket earlier than you'd normally expect? What kind of treasures did he get?

Am I making too big a deal out of this? Is most of this intuition by top players?

To be honest, I don't know if a lot of the "rules" of scouting that I've already stated is something that I follow. I think I usually try to be aware of what my opponent is capable of doing and prioritize scouting for the thing I'm most or least afraid of (hurray, I ended my sentence with a preposition!). A lot of when I scout is determined by my own age up time, their age up time, or whether or not my opponent has a weird deck or strange TPs or something.

I think trying to come up with rules of scouting is a good way to get yourself thinking about it more, but at the end of the day, whether you need to scout or not or what you need to be scouting for changes game by game depending on the matchup and map, and the best advice I can give anyone is just to be thinking about what your opponent is doing AT LEAST as much as you are thinking about what you yourself are going to do, if not more.
No Flag deleted_user
Ninja
Posts: 14364
Joined: Mar 26, 2015

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by deleted_user »

GOAT response. I'm giddish!
User avatar
Poland pecelot
Retired Contributor
Donator 03
Posts: 10459
Joined: Mar 25, 2015
ESO: Pezet

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by pecelot »

As China scout with a disciple :idea:

Generally utilise pets, converted treasure guardians, single units, low-HP ones etc.
No Flag deleted_user
Ninja
Posts: 14364
Joined: Mar 26, 2015

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by deleted_user »

Disciples have poor LOS and even worse hps (doubly so for converted guardians) and is usually nice to have for defending the cavs but yeah could work.
User avatar
Poland pecelot
Retired Contributor
Donator 03
Posts: 10459
Joined: Mar 25, 2015
ESO: Pezet

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by pecelot »

A converted coyote is not going to be targeted by the TC — if it does, then it's a win for you as your opponent loses VS, and it can also be a mark in itself that your enemy doesn't want his base scouted — nor is it useful in fights.
User avatar
United States of America _H2O
ESOC Business Team
Donator 06
Posts: 3409
Joined: Aug 20, 2016
ESO: _H2O

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by _H2O »

It depends on how seriously I am taking the game but I would probably kill a scout wolf depending on who I am playing and what info it is about to give.
Spain NekoBerk
Lancer
Posts: 804
Joined: Oct 4, 2015
ESO: Nirket
Location: Barcelona

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by NekoBerk »

I always try to kill explorers + scouts or something near my Tc no matter what
"That's why we sing for these kids who don't have a thing
Except for a dream and a fuckin' rap magazine " - Eminem

"And we hate po-po
Wanna kill us dead in the street fo sho' " - Kendrick Lamar
User avatar
Netherlands Goodspeed
Retired Contributor
Posts: 13002
Joined: Feb 27, 2015

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by Goodspeed »

You need to know the enemy civ very well to know exactly what to look for in their build to know what they're doing. This varies so much per civ and even per year (the meta changes) that there is hardly any general advice to give. Someone familiar with the current meta would need to write a "scouting guide" per civ for it to be useful. I attempted as much in my previous guide (page 25) some of that will be outdated now but I would think it's still somewhat useful. Doesn't go into much depth though.
Attachments
Guide2014_v1.02.pdf
(1.08 MiB) Downloaded 15 times
User avatar
Italy Garja
Retired Contributor
Donator 02
Posts: 9729
Joined: Feb 11, 2015
ESO: Garja

Re: Scouting: An In Depth Discussion

Post by Garja »

General rule is to check early age2:
- vills on wood or gold and how many
- military building
- first card

After that just check army size and composition.

I think the most interesting thing to scout is army position and composition. You can often gain something from knowing exactly where and how to engage
Image Image Image

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests

Which top 10 players do you wish to see listed?

All-time

Active last two weeks

Active last month

Supremacy

Treaty

Official

ESOC Patch

Treaty Patch

1v1 Elo

2v2 Elo

3v3 Elo

Power Rating

Which streams do you wish to see listed?

Twitch

Age of Empires III

Age of Empires IV