Do Scouts have auto-explore in Civilization 7?

Having your scouts auto-explore in Civilization games makes it much easier to uncover the entire map without manually moving your units around. While previous games in the series included auto-exploring for automatic navigation, Civilization 6 hid it behind an extra menu, while Civilization 7 removed it altogether.

Can your Scouts auto-explore in Civilization 7?

No, scouts don’t have auto-explore in Civilization 7. Your scouts have a few new features, including joining an Army Commander for group navigation and Search for a temporary sight range increase. An option for healing your unit even appears if their health is low. However, auto-explore isn’t among your menu actions, even after moving beyond the game’s Antiquity Era.

In previous Civilization games, you could set your scouts to auto-explore the map and uncover any tiles you’d yet to discover. Having them explore automatically allowed you to focus on other parts of your match, like training your army, watching out for barbarian outposts, and observing the movements of different civilizations. You could even use this feature to discover new civilizations early in the match without thinking about it.

What’s the downside, then? They get into trouble easily. Although exploring any unknown part of the map is helpful, scouts in previous games tend to stumble upon enemies, particularly barbarian camps. They don’t always run away from danger, leaving you with an injured scout out of commission for a few turns. Moving them yourself can help you avoid these situations while gaining helpful intel through exploration.

It’s unknown why Firaxis Games and 2K decided to remove auto-explore from Civ 7 or whether it’ll return in the future. For now, you’ll have to manually move them or add them to an army commander for easier mass-unit movement. Fortunately, Civilization 7’s scouts come with Lookout and Search for increas🥂ed sight range, making exploration slightly easier.