Option #2: Discovery Priority

[wise grove]

(Longer-Scope Option)

This option biases toward revealing Discoveries over revealing map tiles. Your Scout will know how to move to a new area where there are a lot of tiles that haven't been scoured by a Search and the Scout will activate Search from that spot. Then, once a Discovery is found, it will move toward it directly. Obviously many tiles will be revealed in this process, but the goal is to pick up Discoveries as fast as possible.

[proud folio]

If we can't get both options I think this one fits better

[terse shard]

Agreed, this is a great second place option!

[torpid violet]

You can - that’s why option 3 exists

[ruby marsh]

I am a discoverer. It is what i do.

[eternal river]

This is closest to how players actually use scouts IMO. But in my opinion they should implement #1 while they work out #3 (which is just adding #2 to #1 anyway)

[summer wing]

Voted here as it's the version I'd use. If we get both as an option, that's great.

[patent ibex]

Same

[candid flare]

Did yall ponder a ranked choice voting instead of pure pick only one? What’s going to happen is the 3rd option is going to receive the mass majority. But in ranked choice, you’d get more info over the next preference in the event that #3 will take substantial time. So in ranked choice id actually imagine this one wins in a landslide over #1

[ruby marsh]

My initial thought is ‘discoveries’ should include high adjacency spots and camels.

[wise grove]

We'll be able to use upvotes as an indicator of what the 2nd and 3rd most popular options are! (And, we'll be scouring the comment sections on all of these threads regardless of winner for feedback and suggestions, too 👀 🙏 )

[patent ibex]

As I said in the option 3 thread, shouldn't option 2 work perfectly well in all ages? All this option says is it will prioritize goody huts when discovered. But, if there aren't really any goody huts left in exploration or modern, then a scout auto set to discovery will just be doing reveal anyway.

On the off chance that there is a hut or two left, they're likely in unexplored areas that a reveal scout would head to anyway, no.

Seems like doing both and giving the option to choose is really for the players that don't want to chase goody huts early. Which, based on the up votes, seems like a niche group anyway.

[lone prawn]

I feel like this option is the least appealing, as this is something you should manually be doing at the beginning of a game in order to get as many discoveries as possible in the early game. Once the first few turns are passed, there are no more discoveries in any case, and the only that really matters is discovering the rest of the map

[patent ibex]

Im thinking the opposite, actually. The other two options seem the least useful. Once all the goody huts are found, a "discovery" auto scout will just automatically act like a reveal scout. If there's nothing left to distract it, it will continue to move and open tiles. It'll just keep revealing.

I think other than for players that don't want to chase goody huts early, options one and three are kind of useless.

[pallid totem]

This getting more votes than 1/3 is odd to me 😄

Isn't most of the micro management for scouts after you already have goody huts already cleaned out?

So without option 1 your scouts are just bad.. wastefully trying to find goody huts that don't exist.

[patent ibex]

Based on the description, it wouldn't be wasteful. Actually, it'll be more effective.

Option one says scouts will just open tiles. Option two says, a scout will open tiles, use search, and if it finds a goody hut, will stop to chase it.

Once goody huts are gone, an option 2 scout will still open tiles, and use search. It just won't redirect towards anything else. So, it'll act like an option one scout, BUT, it'll keep using search, so it'll open up more tiles.

[pallid totem]

But how does the Scout know all the goody huts are gone? That's kinda of unknown. That's a player decision isn't it? To decide goody huts are too few and far between and to just focus on revealing tiles going forward.

[old fulcrum]

There have been instances where I still found goodie huts tucked away in the corners of the map when the Antiquity Age was 90% done.

[pallid totem]

Yes but it's a trade off, and arguably tile revealing was still the right call.

Speed of uncovering vs speed of finding nearby huts

Generally I take proximity to enemy borders into consideration as well as how late into the age I am.

[wise grove]

Big ol' asterisk as I am NOT a member of our design team 😅 , but I *believe * the way this would work is your scout would move toward areas where tiles are not revealed, but then if a discovery is found, will automatically prioritize moving there. So, the folks saying this will work similarly to option 1 after goodie huts are found are correct.

[old fulcrum]

The Search action does reveal a lot of tiles, yes.

[pallid totem]

I'm more meaning the decision point when there's no currently visible goody huts "should I try to use the search ability or not"
Is a factor of how far into the age you are. Because there are less huts. Many have already been found

[pallid totem]

But it's worse than just moving if you want to fill out the whole map. Except for some edge cases.

[lone prawn]

But still, by that time you should have such yields that the goody hutts don't matter to much at this point. Goody hutts are incredible during the first turns of the game to speed up your development but don't really matter afterwards. Even during the exploration age or modern age, I feel like the reward scaling is not interesting enough. Like say you find 45 culture in a goody hutt at the beginning of the game, it is amazing cause it's like 4-5 turns of culture, but finding 150 culture during the exploration age where you have 200 culture per turn doesn't hit the same

I think chasing goody hutts is the most important things during say 20 turns maximum, but then looses interest as the game goes on. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it is super fun to chase them when that's literally the only thing you have to do, but as the game progresses you simply turn your attention elsewhere

[pallid totem]

I think option 2 is a trap, there's some missed nuances to option 1 vs 2 that some are not accounting for.
If they offered just option 2 I think I'll never use auto explore 😂 goody huts just aren't my priority for scouts late game. And early game I'm very interested in EXACTLY where my scouts are going. Map visibility is so so so important for the early settlements

[patent ibex]

It doesn't need to "know". It does a "search", and when no huts are discovered, it just keeps moving in the direction it was.

This option is just saying when it finds one, it changes course. If it doesn't find one, it won't change course.

[pallid totem]

But doing the search is a waste of time if there's less goody huts on the map. It's not like it's a free action. It spends all their movement.

[patent ibex]

Search still opens a whole bunch of tiles. It doesn't JUST find huts. And it says the scout will move towards unopened tiles first anyway.

[pallid totem]

But the search action means they move towards them slower. Maybe I value the search action far less than others... I find movement a lot more important. Except for edge cases which I wouldn't trust the auto explore scout to get right often enough

[patent ibex]

Actually, it could make the scout move faster.

If you auto go in a straight line without any searches, you run the risk of spending moves going towards mountains/oceans/borders that you have to then turn from. If it does occasional searches, and opens up tiles ahead of it, the scout will redirect towards from those sooner.

To my point, though, option one (and therefore three) seem really niche. The only players who benefit from option one are the players that don't want to take goody huts quickly, want to walk in a straight line, and don't want to do it manually.

It doesn't seem like a big enough group to delay implementation for.

[pallid totem]

Then why does Search and Lookout never get used to option 1?

Are you saying option 1 is not an efficient approach to maximising uncovering tiles?

My view is option 2 is better early in the age and then option 1 progressively gets better until there's some point in the age where the options switch.

This is how I intuitively use my scouts. I use the search and lookout actions less and less as the age progresses.

But as the age progresses I have more units and more stuff to do so the auto explore would be more helpful on option 1, because it helps save time at the point in the game where I need it.

[patent ibex]

I think it's because option one is the easiest (read: quickest) option for them to implement. So if players want something fast, there it is.

And, don't get me wrong, there are plenty of players that don't chase goody huts. That's fine if that's your style (personally, I think it's ineffective). But I'm just guessing it's a smaller group, based on part in the up votes.

So I'm just saying I don't think we need to do option three, since it takes away the only real reason to do option one, which is the short time to implement.

[pallid totem]

I think the "both" camp might have swallowed some people that think option 1 is more useful than 2, but yeh sure.

[patent ibex]

Again, in the later game, an option two scout will work almost EXACTLY like an option one. Once all the goody huts are gone, it'll never get redirected. So it'll just keep moving towards unexplored areas. The one difference is, it'll occasionally use a movement to search in those areas, which will still open up more tiles (possibly more effectively)

[pallid totem]

I feel like option 1 and 2 are more about the value of using Search and Lookout, and less about seeing goody huts..
If 2 is smart enough to not be wasteful with search action I think I agree but I kinda doubt it....

[torpid violet]

Ed did say about how they want there to be a reason late game to always explore, take that as you will but maybe goody huts will evolve throughout the game?

so there is a reason still for these options

[patent ibex]

If it was JUST that, then, imo, no contest: option 2 is better.

[patent ibex]

Now, that would change things a bit. If late game auto scouts could get diverted more, than there could be more players that don't want it (due to other strategies).

But, if new, later game goody huts appear, and are valuable, chances are, players will prioritize finding them.

[long lark]

I would like for Scout automation to use Search for discovery but not chase Discoveries. Any unit can go fetch Discoveries but no other unit can match tile discovery of the Scout. Notify the player and let them choose how the Scout proceeds.

[pallid totem]

Yeh currently I feel like the Search/Lookout actions are a gamble. If you didn't find anything interesting it would have been better to just move forward to get closer to a larger clump of uncovered tiles.

Surely you agree that gamble gets less and less worth it as the age progresses and there's less huts....?

[patent ibex]

Put it this way:

I decide to take a walk in a new city. But, I say to myself, if I see an ice cream shop, I'll go in and maybe get some ice cream.

So I start walking, and I don't see any ice cream shops. I just walk in one direction and see the new city.

Or, I do see an ice cream shop, so I change direction, and go in. Then I start walking again. See shop, go in, start walking again. I'm still exploring the city. And when I run out of shops to redirect me, I just keep walking on.

That's option 2.

But I think players believe option 2 is "let's go for a walk and if we see any ice cream shops we'll go in. Wait, it's 9pm, all the ice cream shops are closed. I guess we'll just stay home."

[pallid totem]

Option 2 takes longer for you to explore the city because your busy trying to find an ice cream shop instead of walking.

I think option 1 is not perfect for the hybrid situations where you selectively want to search/Lookout, but I feel like option 2 is probably too overzealous on using them...

So really neither option would be perfect. I think option 1 would serve the case where I just want them to move around as fast as possible though.

[patent ibex]

Except, I'm not just looking straight ahead. I'm expanding my search range. Temporarily.

[pallid totem]

But then you have to walk into the tiles you just searched to get to more fog, which kinda wasted a lot of the time you spent doing the search.

[patent ibex]

But some of those are tiles you would have left covered walking in a straight line that you'd have to use time and come back for anyway.

[pallid totem]

Yeh that's where it's a bit edge casey and I'm not really sure option 2 would use the actions selectively enough for those situations, rather than really proactively trying to hunt down goody huts. Which does make the scout slower...

Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and like option 2. That would change how I manually use my scouts if that happens.

[patent ibex]

The description says "will move to an area where there are a lot of tiles that haven't been scoured by a search..." and "many tiles will be revealed in the process".

So I'm not sure what the concern is. That it'll keep activating "search" in an area with no fog of war?

If so, that's more a concern about the programmers ability as opposed to the concept, no? And couldn't the same concern be said if option one?

[pallid totem]

The more I play civ 7 the less I used Search/Lookout after the initial flurry of Goody Hut hunting, because it's just faster (in my opinion) to just keep walking. You cover more ground that way. Completeness of map in every direction vs find all the civs and ips (they're all multiple tiles wide so if you do a grid search it's kinda hard to miss them) as soon as possibly.

[patent ibex]

Let's say you're a player that prefers to send other units after goody huts, and just sends your scout into fog of war areas. Option two doesn't preclude you from doing that. When the scout discovers hits, you can send anyone out after them. And when they're gone, they won't be there for the scout to get redirected to.

Now, it'll still likely start moving towards the closest one to it, and possibly get rerouted to a second one, but, early game, those are likely in fog of war areas anyway.

[patent ibex]

Search can also be more effective on difficult terrain maps. Less wasted movement.

[pallid totem]

But I don't think auto explore is really that important early game. The scouts only get annoying after like turn 80+ when you're getting a bit overloaded with decisions.

I guess my position is auto explore should be tailored towards what the priority is late game, and we have differences of opinion on how useful Search is at that stage

[pallid totem]

What's even better? Going around the coastline

There's no difficult terrain if you just trace the coastline. Also you're far more likely to find settlements because civs tend to gravitate towards water. The centre of the continent is good for goody huts but less ideal for quickly finding other people, because how slow going it is

[patent ibex]

Fair.

But now I get to ask: do you think that's how option one will be programmed?

[pallid totem]

Just asking that in option 3 chat because the coastal scouting has got me thinking maybe not great... 😄

The conclusion seems to be "let ships access goody huts on the land right next to the water, so scouts aren't as necessary for coastal scouting"

That would probably mean I pivot and use scouts more exclusively inland - which makes option 1 my preference again.

[ruby marsh]

Please allow what is a discovery priority to be modded.

[opaque bridge]

To clarify: are you requesting this to reveal new types of tiles outside sight range (like how the Discoveries show up now)? Or just me a specialized form of what a Scout moves toward in this form of Auto Explore?

[ruby marsh]

I'm assuming there would be a "target" - the default might be goodie hut. I'd like to add camels or high adjacency building spot so the scout would move to the spot so I can determine if/where I would place a settlement there.

Sorry I still call them goodie huts...

[opaque bridge]

Oh the design team does too. It's actually been tricky trying to remember their thematic name since it differed on Civs V, VI and now VII.

[ruby marsh]

The strech goal would be leader/civ specific targets. I'm Trung Trac if you find a tropical title head that way...

[ruby marsh]

And no, nothing new needs to be revealed outside of sight range

What do you call a settlement with two camels? Camelot.

[summer wing]

I think this is how the behaviour proposed has been described. But hopefully the scouts would operate with the same knowledge as the player. In at least one other recent 4X for auto-scouting the scouts clearly had additional knowledge of where the "goodie huts" were, and it made manual scouting obsolete. I don't want auto-scouting to be better than doing it manually.

[long lark]

This is now leaving the scope of just the Scout unit and Search ability.

Automated exploring may serve many functions and thus have different modes of automated behaviour for any unit.

For instance, Scavenge mode, where units would hunt for Discoveries. Prospecting for finding resources. Surveying, where units would prioritize map reveal. Cruising for mapping out coasts and navigable rivers only. Navigating could be mapping Distand Lands exclusively.

Then you could utilize different units for different jobs. Scouts would Scavenge, Galleys would Cruise, Warriors could Patrol or Escort... Missionaries could have Crusade automation to go and spread religion. Excavate for Explorers, to dig up artefacts.

But if we automate every unit's primary function, what is left to play with?

[pallid totem]

"What is there left" - I agree with this sentiment.

I think auto explore should just be for maximising revealing map -- But scouting manually will still be more effective for other use cases.

Is not as straight forward as "discover mode".

There's a whole bunch of conflicting priorities which can't all be automated, it's too nuanced..

• trying to find a place to put your second settlement
• being careful not to walk into hostile units when on low health
• deciding when to ignore a map section because it feels like a dead end
• kiting hostile units to "keep tabs on them" etc

[wise yacht]

I think it is still worth discussing if only to improve the AI behavior which is very poor on all of these points.