Use for Explorers?

[Veritass]

I like that. Have them upgrade to M*A*S*H units.

[HaplessHorde]

sentry with a gun

Originally posted by unamablebuiler
they last till you see grenadiers and rifles keep them on forrested hils though and ptomoted.

they make excellent sentires is this way

In my limited experience, by the time I can build an explorer, I've got at least one city that can turn out a military unit at the same cost. I'd rather have a longbowman or musketman on sentry. Ditto for medic.

Maybe if you could set explorers on fire and send them sprinting into enemy territory...

[gilfan]

Longbowmen/Musketmen etc cannot keep up with tanks and cavalry.

Longbowmen/Musketmen etc might end up being chosen as the defending unit due to their strength, so your medic could end up dying.


Explorers don't have either of those problems.

[unamablebuiler]

an explorer with 2 promotions can have woodsman 2 and gurellia 2 giving +100 percent defense bonus + terrain bonus of 75% (forrested hills) plus the fortify bonus +25 percent giving +200% and an effective strength of 12 with combat 1 whixh would be the next promotion 12.4

longbows using the same calculation endup with a 150 % bonus with 2 gurellia promotions get 15

yes they are stronger than explorers but they cannot run away very effectively facing a superior force Explorers and move 4 tiles on hills and forrest and jungle while the archer can only do so on hills

at this thime longbows are the strongest defense in cities often getting anywhere up to 150 % bonuses in cities on hills
i barely have enough longbows to defend my cities as it is

if nessecary my exploers can be used to pillage enemy roads in jungles and get away with it slowing down an offensive or preventing reinforcment of a city surrounded

[Smellycowsquid]

Originally posted by Willem


How long do they last against the Barbs though? Not very I'm guessing. I've never played Terra so I don't really know for sure.

They are nice to find a area of land Barb-free and to evaluate the barbarians, so then you can bring in units that suit the situation.

[Commodore Hammy]

They're most useful when you do Terra maps, because of exploring the new world. If you've ru out of land by the time explorers arrive, you're probably playing a small map. I sometimes leave explorers on the fringes of my territory or in other's territory.

Once I was playing a game against a CPU, and I had Open Borders with Arabia and was at war with Japan. Japan did not directly border me, but had open borders with Arabia, so he had to move through there. My explorer was in Arabia on top of a hill, with hill defense promotions, and could see all of the units moving through. The explorer got attacked once, but it won because of hill defense bonuses.

Once you get scotland yard, use spies, but don't get rid of explorers. Spies are stealth, and can steal plans, which reveals and removes fog of war for everything your opponent can see. However, some units detect stealth, and the more military units on the tile you perform spy missions, the more likely the spy is to be discovered. In addition, you can only hav one spy at a time (I think ).

Therefore, a good lineup of explorers (Which are very fast-moving) is still useful, since if you can't steal plans or your spy is captured you have some quick-footed cannon fodder to reveal enemy troop movements. Explorers are far more expendable than spies, and are much faster to build, so use them for risky missions.

If only you could upgrade them to spies. That would make them much more useful into the modern age.

I sometimes play without barbarians, which gives them added usefulness.

[Commodore Hammy]

Originally posted by Willem
Except that quite often you can get their world map from them, which gives you the same info with less trouble. And if you can't, chances are you won't have Open Borders either.

Actually, I have had Open Borders and No Map Trading in the middle of the game. They wouldn't let me trade maps because they didn't want me to know about their New World colonies, but I found out anyway via explorers. Then I sent in a bunch of ships and unloaded Marine-promoted riflemen into their cities and captured the colonies.

hehehe

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Willem


How long do they last against the Barbs though? Not very I'm guessing. I've never played Terra so I don't really know for sure.

Well, no, on Terra barbarians seem to get to rifles and granaders at about the same time I do, so you can't use explorers against barbs. However, there are also still huts to pop when you get there, so it might be worthwhile to use a explorers just to pop the huts, so you get better results. (shrug) I've been told it's possible to get modern techs from huts, so it's probably worth the fairly minor investment of an explorer or two.

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
Maybe, if could keep your explorer alive to certain time, you could upgrade him to a great person...

But that medic idea is good.

How are you going to get an Explorer Medic without Combat I? Or is that not the only pre-req for it?

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Willem
How long do they last against the Barbs though? Not very I'm guessing. I've never played Terra so I don't really know for sure.

Long enough to heave a continent, like, explored. Remember that you can send them on Caravels, which often arrive a long time before Galleons (and -- by extension -- Gunpowder units).

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
How are you going to get an Explorer Medic without Combat I? Or is that not the only pre-req for it?

It's not difficult to produce a unit with a few experience points.

[gilfan]

any combo that starts them with more than 5xp, or 2xp if your civ is aggressive... barracks 4, vassalage and theology 2 each, pentagon also 2.


And yeah, it's just combat 1 then medic, only 2 promotions needed.

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Veritass
I think that explorers should just be upgradable to something useful, such as infantry or some basic melee unit. Surely if I can upgrade an old warrior/clubman unit to an infantry, I could retrain my explorer to the same? It seems such a waste to just disband them.

Maybe they could upgrade to Partisans?

[Nikolai]

The only time I've "used" an explorer, was when I set my scout on auto explore, forgot him until the 1700s and deciced to use some spare(had a lot of that) cash on upgrading him, just for fun. Didn't need him at all though.

[Addled Platypus]

Have not used one since Civ2

just retire the unit !!