Improved Scouting for adventurers

[pcw27]

Adventurers have the option to scout right now, but they aren't very good at it. Why not make scouting a skill that can gradually be improved upon?

[De-Legro]

Why do you assume its not already linked to a skill?

[pcw27]

Are you saying it is?

[De-Legro]

Are you saying it is?

No actually. I play a advy and have no intention of spoiling that aspect of the game for myself by looking at the code. I haven't scouted enough to really have any data on if skills make a difference, I could do so soon I guess, it has been a long time since I bothered to scout. What I am asking here is what evidence do you use to make this request? How long have you played a advy, how much time have you spent scouting etc.

So far as I have seen advies have three skills that are boosted by playing the advy game, two of them would certainly make sense to affect scouting but I couldn't definitively say if they do.

[pcw27]

I've scouted a lot with my adventurers, one of them even started out being used as a spare scout for one of my nobles. I've only ever gotten a list of nobles in a region, nothing about force composition. This hasn't stopped me from scouting for the realm's army mind you since the number of nobles present at least gives you an idea of if there are troops there too.

The only thing I can get detailed information on is monster hordes through the hunting option.

It would be possible to link scouting directly to adventuring, but that might make it too easy for adventurers to get a job with an army.

[De-Legro]

you are talking about this option?

"Scout this region - gather detailed information about the region, its infrastructure and people located here."

In that case I believe it is entirely intentional that you didn't get force composition info. It is not a chance based thing, Priest and Adventurers are not meant to replace scouts, and would allow for a very powerful scout force if they did.

[Shizzle]

They're already quite handy, and letting them produce 'real' scout reports' would imbalance the game, I think... The fact you already use your advy as a back-up scout proves there useful enough, no?

[Tom]

a) It is absolutely intentional that adventurers can't be used as scouts.

b) please read the sticky topic titled "feature freeze".

[pcw27]

Oh, I saw that one a while back. Sorry if the four new ideas seemed like I'd gone nuts but that's really all the ideas I've got for the foreseeable future.

[Tom]

It's not that I don't appreciate the ideas. It's that they come at a bad time for new ideas.

[Indirik]

Adventurers have the option to scout right now, but they aren't very good at it.

They are not intended to be good at scouting. Advys are not a military auxiliary.

Why not make scouting a skill that can gradually be improved upon?

Because we do not want them to be used as a military auxiliary.

When advys were first implemented, they instantly turned into a real-time, deep-penetration scouting force. They were used by realms to travel with armies, and then on demand move a few regions deep into enemy territory and scout for their realm. The mechanics of advy movement meant they could generate on-demand scouting reports of nearly anywhere without needing to have hired scouts, and without any chance of those scouts getting captured.

That's why the game mechanics were changed so that advys can't see military forces in the region. Anything that can be militarized will be militarized.

And when that happens you will find that just about every advy will be arrested on sight by just about every noble.

[Anaris]

Basically, pcw27, before you submit any feature request for BattleMaster, you need to take at least 10 minutes thinking, "How would I turn this into a weapon, or a way to gain something I shouldn't be able to?"

Because as soon as a new feature hits, several hundred people will start thinking exactly that.

[egamma]

And, if advies provided that information, all standing orders would say "arrest foreign advies on sight", and it would completely suck to play one.

[Tom]

everything is said, locking the topic.