Scouting

A scouting mission sends only scouts - no other units, no hero. It does not matter whether it is sent as an attack or a raid: an army of nothing but scouts scouts.

Every tribe's scout

Unit	Trained in	Attack, Smithy 20	Def inf	Def cav	Speed	Cost	Crop	Training
Equites LegatiRomans	Stable	12.8	20	10	16	360	2	0:22:40
ScoutTeutons	Barracks	6.4	10	5	9	360	1	0:18:40
PathfinderGauls	Stable	12.8	20	10	17	380	2	0:22:40
Sopdu ExplorerEgyptians	Stable	12.8	20	10	16	380	2	0:22:40
SpotterHuns	Stable	12.8	20	10	19	380	2	0:22:40
SentinelSpartans	Barracks	6.4	40	22	9	445	1	0:20:32
Heimdalls EyeVikings	Barracks	6.4	10	5	9	350	1	0:18:40

The infantry scouts eat one crop and suit a village that wants cheap, permanent protection. The cavalry scouts are faster. The Roman Equites Legati drops to one crop with a level 10 Horse Drinking Trough.

Scouts show 0 attack, but Smithy upgrades still give them some, because part of every upgrade depends on upkeep rather than the base stat - the "Attack, Smithy 20" column shows how much. See Smithy upgrades: what they do to your units.

Two kinds of report

• Resources and troops: the resources in the target and the troops standing in it.
• Defences and troops: the Rally Point, the wall, the Residence, Palace or Command Center, and on worlds with ships the harbour - plus the troops.

Either way the report shows what is inside the target when the scouts arrive, reinforcements included. It does not show the target's own troops that are away: reinforcing, marching or on the way home. Traps are never shown, and scouts on a spy mission are never trapped.

Defending against scouts

A village's own scouts, and any scouts reinforcing it, fight incoming scouts. The number of scouts, their Smithy level and the wall all count - a higher wall makes a village harder to scout, see Rams and walls. If the defence is strong enough, every attacking scout dies and no report comes back.

• The attacker gets a report only if at least one scout survives.
• The defender gets one only if at least one attacking scout dies. A clean scouting run goes unnoticed.

That makes a few scouts at home worth keeping in every village, and far more in the ones that matter.

A few more uses

• Daily quests to raid an unoccupied oasis or a Natar village are completed by a single scout.
• A farm list entry holding only scouts sends a spy mission instead of a raid.
• Scouting works during a truce, when attacks do not.
• Repeated scouting of the same village shows when its army leaves and roughly how big it is, from how much crop it eats.