Scouts

Scout Attacks

Scouting reveals the following information about a city or castle:

• Amount and type of defending troops
• Amount of goods that can be plundered, including goods that in building or recruiting queues.  Goods in hideout are not revealed.
• Fortification information including type and level of walls, towers, and traps
• Building information including type and level of all buildings

Purpose of scouting

Before you send an attack (plunder, siege, or assault) you want to send scouts to find out if you will have a successful attack or not.  Scouts are relatively cheap to recruit, and they don't engage in battle with other unit types.

• You want to know the type of defending troops, depending what's in the castle you would know what to send. Look at the stats of each unit to see what their weaknesses are.  For example:

• If the defending troops are rangers, then you would send knights to attack.  Knights cut through rangers like a hot knife through butter.
• If the defending troops are guardians, you would send mages or warlocks
• If the defending troops are templars, you would send beserkers

• You want to know the TS of the defending castle/city.  You need more power to have a successful attack.
• Walls and towers provide additional defenses, knowing what type of towers and/or traps are in the city can affect your outcome
• Building types and levels are also important for the same reason.

After you gather all information, you can plug them into a combat calculator to determine battle outcome.

In a scouting attack, only scouts may participate.

• If the defending city has no scouts, all information is revealed.
• If all your attacking scouts die, no information is revealed. 
• If any scouts survive, the amount and type of all defending troops are visible.  You won't know if the troops in the defending city are from that city or sent from another city.  The report will show as if all defending troops are from the defending city.  (In the defense report, supporting players and cities where the troops came from are also revealed)
• If the number of surviving attacking scouts is higher than the number of surviving defending scouts the attacker will know the amount of goods that can be plundered.
• If the number of surviving attacking scouts is twice that of the number of surviving defending scouts the amount and level of fortification is revealed
• If surviving attacking scouts is four times the surviving defending scouts the amount and level of all buildings is revealed.

Super Scout

You can send scouts with your plundering, siege, or assault command and achieve the same results and if you send scouts alone.  If the defending city has no scout, you can send just 1 scout with your plunder, siege, or assault and acquire all information.

Pseudo Scout

If you have no scouts, you can send any type of unit to a castle or city in a plunder, siege or assault (sieges and assaults only apply to castles.)  If any troop survive, you will get the amount and type of all defending troops.  Sometimes, I would send a minimum TS of zerks to a city and castle and see what i get.

Example:  In this example, I gained information on units, resources, and defense structures, but failed to gain information on buildings.