PillageWiki

Scouting

Spy on enemy villages — and stop enemies from spying on you.

Scouts are your eyes on the map. Send them on a Scout mission from the map to learn what's inside another village before you commit an army. Scout missions carry only scouts — they never fight regular troops, and regular troops, walls, luck and morale can never harm them.

Scouts only fight scouts

The only thing that can stop your scouts is the defender's own scouts stationed at home. The defender never loses anything when scouted — their scouts intercept without casualties. Defending scouts fight at double strength, so you need more than twice as many scouts as the defender keeps at home to bring any of yours back.

scouts lost = attackers × min(1, (2 × defender scouts / attacking scouts)^1.5)
A partial interception always leaves at least one survivor; sending exactly double the defender's scouts (or fewer) loses the whole party.
Barbarian villages keep no scouts, so scouting them is always safe and always reveals everything.

What you learn

The more of your scouts survive, the more the report reveals:

SurvivalReveals
≥ 1 scoutTroops stationed in the village
≥ 50%+ current resources
≥ 70%+ building levels

If the entire party is intercepted, the report comes back empty — you learn nothing about the village.

Counter-intelligence

You only find out you were scouted if your own scouts killed at least one intruder — a report tells you who sent them and how many died. Keep a stack of scouts at home in every village: without scouts, enemies can scout you invisibly, with full information, forever.

Defending scouts count double and never die on spy defense. A modest home stack (say 50) forces attackers to send 100+ scouts just to get a look — and you'll see them coming.