warrior exploration

[geofelt]

Most people use two movement units like horsemen for exploration. I use horsemen for barbarian defense, and send out the warriors to explore. Early on, I build a warrior which gives me time to accumulate food to get to size 2 and produce a settler shortly after. The next unit will likely be a horseman which stays home for defense, and I send the warrior out to explore. The warrior seems to be able to explore faster than I can expand. He will identify and bypass huts, insuring only a good outcome when a new city is founded nearby. The warrior is also cheaper and somewhat expendable. Since adopting this approach, I have had very little problems with barbarians. Any comments?

[Marquis de Sodaq]

I could see using this only in areas with significant 2+ move terrain. A horseman just covers ground faster. If you bypass huts until you can build a city nearby, you haven't gone very far, IMHO. Once you have the gov't to minimize corruption at that distance, the warrior and horseman are useful only because they haven't gotten killed yet while exploring. Once diplomats and explorers are in the game, they are the best units for opening up the map.

[War4ever]

no doubt the best way to explore in an island world is with the explorer and diplo.... but in the early game i like the idea of warriors and horses. If the land is tough, then warriors are better.... your horse won't survive anyways so why waste the extra ten shields....

as for not tipping huts.... you live and die by huts.... its just the chance you take IMO

[EOL]

Horsemen are better on flat terrain since they cover more ground and if you open the hut with the first movement then you can kill a barb if one appears with the second move. You've got to open some huts if you're going to expand quickly, rather than playing it completely safe and waiting to build a city nearby. In rough terrain its cheaper to go with the warriors and while its more dangerous to open huts, since if you only have one unit there it will be a sitting duck for barbs, you're much more likely to pick up nomads in those huts.

[Smash]

If warriors is all I got then warriors it is.I'd rather have 2 warriors out than 1 horseman.I often build 4 for exploring in my first 2 cities.Clear out the black ASAP.For the huts and city sites.Chances are if I'm first to uncover an area I'll be first to settle it.

[War4ever]

however i would send horses to an area where my warrior died by barb attack.... it often is a sign of other civs in the area....ever notice you unit dies....then you go back and discover a civ around there later....

[Rasputin]

my warriors always seem to die too easily tipping huts, never thought of bypassign them till i had city nearby.. wil lgive thsat a try and see how it effects expansion

[Edward]

I fall on the "open it now" side. New (often NON) units from hut tipping offsets losses from barbarian hordes IMHO. And every hut looks like a tempting new city or settler to me.

Until the superior "explorer" unit, many cheap explorers are better than a few fast explorers. The Playstation version of Civ2 generates some yucky (patchy and rough) terrain that diminishes the speed advantage of horsemen. Also, when they hit an AI border, two warriors can better form a temporary "wall" to contain AI expansion. Yah, they're bad at fighting, but they mainly serve as scarecrows and alarms. They can "hold off" AI expansion for a long time merely by their menacing presence.