Scouts are probably the most underrated unit in the game. Everyone knows they are important for vision, but did you know that you can easily win the game on brutal difficulty with any settings by just spamming them? In fact, the fastest and easiest win I've had thus far was doing exactly that. The viability of this strategy is subject to change if any nerfs come in the future, but in the current state of the game I think scouts are secretly overpowered.
Race Setup:
Race: Doesn't matter (pick something that looks cool on spiders)
Body Trait: Spider Mounts
Mind Trait: Overwhelm Tactics
Culture: Feudal (best), Barbarian, Dark, Industrious
Society Traits:
For Feudal: Shadow Walkers and either Mana Addicts or Ritual Cannibals
For Barbarian: Shadow Walkers and Prolific Swarmers
For Dark: Prolific Swarmers and Mana Addicts
For Industrious: Shadow Walkers and Prolific Swarmers
Leader: Champion or Mage King work; I prefer Champion though
Leader Weapon: Bow, Orb or Sword&Shield (need to be able to use Spider Mount)
Starting Tome: Tome of the Horde
Strategy:
This strategy revolves around exploiting Spider Mounts and their ridiculously damaging Web Ability. Since scout units automatically get Spider Mounts with this trait, this turns your weak scout units into lethal combatants. So lethal in fact that they outclass everything in Tier 1 and even many Tier 2 units. For this reason I seek to maximize the strength/efficiency of all scout units and swarm the map with them.
Every society gains different benefits from their scouts and they also have different affinities, which in turn changes the priority for which affinities I need to be getting points in from Turn 1 in order to unlock powerful empire abilities. Everyone tends to pick up Shadow Walkers and Prolific Swarmers unless you are Feudal or Dark, which doesn't pick these up for reasons I'll discuss.
Feudal societies get 25% less unit upkeep on their scouts, which makes selecting the Prolific Swarmers trait less efficient since you can only lower a units upkeep by 50% and the Impressment skill in the chaos tree gives you -30% unit upkeep cost, meaning there is about 5% waste already. Nevertheless, Feudal is the best culture for this strategy in my opinion because they get the Stand Together trait which makes their scouts deal 20% extra damage with all their abilities, even Web! Since they don't pick up Prolific Swarmers this opens them up to get something else to buff their scouts even further. Mana Addicts gives their scouts access to lifesteal and ritual cannibals serves a similar purpose without needing the mana consumption, both of which makes their scouts more durable in battle. Mana Addicts has the added benefit of granting a Tier 2 support unit at turn 1 which can help with early battles while you build up your swarm.
Barbarian societies seemingly don't get anything for their scouts, but they still work very well because Barbarian scouts can settle outposts! A very overlooked ability. This gives them a unique advantage of developing their economy and control of the map much faster than other cultures can. Additionally, though their scouts may not hold up in combat as well as the Feudal societies can, Barbarians get access to the Fury archer unit at tier 2 which also ride spider mounts! When playing Barbarians I tend to transition away from scouts in the midgame into Furies but the scouts remain very crucial to this strategy because they can settle outposts, leaving the heroes to focus on war and conquest.
Dark societies are the only society I do not take Shadow Walkers with and that is because their scouts innately have camouflage on many tiles as their unique trait. Additionally, Dark already has 2 Shadow affinity so you don't really need more to unlock the important empire skills. With Dark societies I always opt for Mana addicts because it gives them a powerful Tier 2 battlemage at turn 1 which helps a lot with stacking weakness on the enemy in early battles and still gives all their scouts the lifesteal ability as the game goes on.
Industrious societies may not seem like they get much from this strategy but you'd be wrong. For one thing their scouts are innately tankier than the other societies, making the society itself actually buff the scouts directly in combat just like feudal societies do. In addition, all their scouts have access to prospecting which makes swarming the map with scouts even more efficient because they can quickly get lots of free gold and production from those scouts, allowing them to essentially pay for themselves.
As for tome selection as the game progresses, I tend to focus on accumulating Minor Racial Transformations that buff my scouts since most unit enchantments don't affect scouts. Notable mentions are Spawnkin, Animal Kinship, Astral Blood, Vessels of Chaos, Scion of Flame, Earth Kin, Steel Skin, Gold Touched. For Major Racial Transformation I always go for Gaia's Chosen.
Depending on whether I'm going for Magic Victory or not I'll try to rush tier 5 tomes and so I won't take any lower tier tomes, but if I'm not going for Magic Victory then I do go for lower tier tomes for the Minor Racial Transformations.
After that I just go for good combat spells, siege projects and economy enhancing spells and pretty much ignore researching units whenever I can, since all I need is scouts (unless I'm playing Barbarian, then I build some Furies in the midgame).
Anyway, that's why I think scouts are secretly the most underrated unit in the game. This strat is very powerful. Give it a try and tell me what you think!
Race Setup:
Race: Doesn't matter (pick something that looks cool on spiders)
Body Trait: Spider Mounts
Mind Trait: Overwhelm Tactics
Culture: Feudal (best), Barbarian, Dark, Industrious
Society Traits:
For Feudal: Shadow Walkers and either Mana Addicts or Ritual Cannibals
For Barbarian: Shadow Walkers and Prolific Swarmers
For Dark: Prolific Swarmers and Mana Addicts
For Industrious: Shadow Walkers and Prolific Swarmers
Leader: Champion or Mage King work; I prefer Champion though
Leader Weapon: Bow, Orb or Sword&Shield (need to be able to use Spider Mount)
Starting Tome: Tome of the Horde
Strategy:
This strategy revolves around exploiting Spider Mounts and their ridiculously damaging Web Ability. Since scout units automatically get Spider Mounts with this trait, this turns your weak scout units into lethal combatants. So lethal in fact that they outclass everything in Tier 1 and even many Tier 2 units. For this reason I seek to maximize the strength/efficiency of all scout units and swarm the map with them.
Every society gains different benefits from their scouts and they also have different affinities, which in turn changes the priority for which affinities I need to be getting points in from Turn 1 in order to unlock powerful empire abilities. Everyone tends to pick up Shadow Walkers and Prolific Swarmers unless you are Feudal or Dark, which doesn't pick these up for reasons I'll discuss.
Feudal societies get 25% less unit upkeep on their scouts, which makes selecting the Prolific Swarmers trait less efficient since you can only lower a units upkeep by 50% and the Impressment skill in the chaos tree gives you -30% unit upkeep cost, meaning there is about 5% waste already. Nevertheless, Feudal is the best culture for this strategy in my opinion because they get the Stand Together trait which makes their scouts deal 20% extra damage with all their abilities, even Web! Since they don't pick up Prolific Swarmers this opens them up to get something else to buff their scouts even further. Mana Addicts gives their scouts access to lifesteal and ritual cannibals serves a similar purpose without needing the mana consumption, both of which makes their scouts more durable in battle. Mana Addicts has the added benefit of granting a Tier 2 support unit at turn 1 which can help with early battles while you build up your swarm.
Barbarian societies seemingly don't get anything for their scouts, but they still work very well because Barbarian scouts can settle outposts! A very overlooked ability. This gives them a unique advantage of developing their economy and control of the map much faster than other cultures can. Additionally, though their scouts may not hold up in combat as well as the Feudal societies can, Barbarians get access to the Fury archer unit at tier 2 which also ride spider mounts! When playing Barbarians I tend to transition away from scouts in the midgame into Furies but the scouts remain very crucial to this strategy because they can settle outposts, leaving the heroes to focus on war and conquest.
Dark societies are the only society I do not take Shadow Walkers with and that is because their scouts innately have camouflage on many tiles as their unique trait. Additionally, Dark already has 2 Shadow affinity so you don't really need more to unlock the important empire skills. With Dark societies I always opt for Mana addicts because it gives them a powerful Tier 2 battlemage at turn 1 which helps a lot with stacking weakness on the enemy in early battles and still gives all their scouts the lifesteal ability as the game goes on.
Industrious societies may not seem like they get much from this strategy but you'd be wrong. For one thing their scouts are innately tankier than the other societies, making the society itself actually buff the scouts directly in combat just like feudal societies do. In addition, all their scouts have access to prospecting which makes swarming the map with scouts even more efficient because they can quickly get lots of free gold and production from those scouts, allowing them to essentially pay for themselves.
As for tome selection as the game progresses, I tend to focus on accumulating Minor Racial Transformations that buff my scouts since most unit enchantments don't affect scouts. Notable mentions are Spawnkin, Animal Kinship, Astral Blood, Vessels of Chaos, Scion of Flame, Earth Kin, Steel Skin, Gold Touched. For Major Racial Transformation I always go for Gaia's Chosen.
Depending on whether I'm going for Magic Victory or not I'll try to rush tier 5 tomes and so I won't take any lower tier tomes, but if I'm not going for Magic Victory then I do go for lower tier tomes for the Minor Racial Transformations.
After that I just go for good combat spells, siege projects and economy enhancing spells and pretty much ignore researching units whenever I can, since all I need is scouts (unless I'm playing Barbarian, then I build some Furies in the midgame).
Anyway, that's why I think scouts are secretly the most underrated unit in the game. This strat is very powerful. Give it a try and tell me what you think!
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