Anyway, welcome to the inauguration of "The Bearded Tim Show". Today we will be discussing early scouting methods. One thing that I'm almost always guilty of is missing that one all important shallow, eventually leading to 10 axers runing through my town at 11 mins, while my explorers went up against lions hepped up on goofballs and lost. First, I'll describe what I do, and then all you guys can tell us how to really do it. There are, of course, previous threads about scouting, so if you wish to reference one of these then by all means go ahead.
There are two cases I see in games: playing a connected land mass game (hell, inland) where there really aren't shallows, and then games with land masses connected with shallows (med, cont, coastal, narrows), islands is totally different since there is no dock-blocking or finding the enemy early anyway. Lets take the inland type games first. Maybe this is my downfall right away, but I usually start scouting with vil 10 (after building the house). I like to get the first 6 on berries for food production, and get the next 3 on stragglers to start getting wood for houses at least and a pit later. I usuall send vil 10 toward the enemy, later to be joined by another vil depending on when the pit goes up. I usually stagger these vils around so that they generally go toward the potential enemy location, but can sway to and fro to find any resources along the way. Once they find the enemy they are the ones to put up the rax (or two) and further forward buildings (eventually even a new TC should the forward base still be standing). Other vils go exploring when new resources are needed, such as finding a forest for a wood pit, or new berries, or gold, etc. I'll have them search in circular patterns around my base to reveal as many resources as possible.
The shallow connected case is a bit more interesting. Again I start exploring with vil 10, and send him toward the enemy, but he will almost always find a coast first. I let him follow the coast looking for good dock spots along the way. If he finds a shallow, and it's not already dock-blocked, then I'll go ahead and send another vil, and have them dock block the shallow and continue on that direction for a forward base. Once the wood pit is up, and its time to start docking, I'll have 2 vils wander around the coast to build docks. Along the ways, again, they may find other shallows (to enemies, I usually don't worry about the ones connected to allies early). If they do find a shallow, again, if not already dock-blocked, I will try and dock-block that shallow as well and build on the other side. I may then have to have more vils search the remaining coast for other dock spots or shallows.
So here's the questions I have. Is it better to just send 1 vil exploring and hope he can survive wildlife attacks so that there's 1 more vil gathering rather than not? Do I really need to start sending the 8th or 6th first, instead of the 10th (this might be a no-brainer, not sure)? Is it always a good idea to dock-block any shallow, or just plant a radar house and prepare for defenses? When dock-blocking multiple shallows, is it good to put forward bases beyond every one, or leave some blocked but save the vils for local gathering? Is it a necessity to scout out the entire coast-line as soon as possible, before even searching for the enemy? How come I miss 1 shallow in the pocket position and still get tooled when my partner on that side is left alone? How come I'm still rambling on about this?
Well, now that that's done, you can rip apart my strat and knock some sense into me. I would assume others will learn from these comments as well. And remember, any guest that has something constructive to say is welcome on TBTS.
P.S. For some deranged reason, Mark (he really is a sick muther) wanted me to post a pic so I dusted one off. - Bearded_Tim