Age of Empires 4: How to Auto Scout

Exploring the map to find resources, relics, and enemy bases is one of the core pillars of Age of Empires. Auto scout is a mechanic and unit command that helps you explore passively, allowing your scouts to uncover the map without you having to micromanage them. But can you auto scout in Age of Empires 4?

Unfortunately, no. There is no auto scout function in Age of Empires 4. Though the unit command appears in Age of Empires 2: DE and Age of Empires 3: DE, it is not present in the latest release in the RTS franchise.

There is a way, however, to beat the system and create a pseudo auto scout command in AoE 4 — and that’s by using waypoints. To create a waypoint, select a unit or control group, hold shift, and right-click two or more locations anywhere on the map. Currently, this way to explore doesn’t seem to work with some Hero units in the campaign mode. 

Unlike Age of Empires, AoE 2, and AoE 3, however, waypoints in Age 4 don’t use flags to mark their locations. In fact, there is nothing marking the location of a waypoint after you’ve placed it. You’ll just have to watch your units’ movements from time to time or trust that you’ve set them up correctly. 

Of course, your units will only travel to and explore the areas of the map you’ve chosen, and they’ll idle once they’ve traveled to the last waypoint. You’ll still have to manually move them about to some extent without a proper auto scout.

Auto scout might be a touchy subject in the Age of Empires community, but it’s a mechanic that casual players like to use to explore maps passively. It’s a unit command that provides a level of freedom on large maps specifically, and perhaps it will make a return in a future update. At the very least, let’s add flags to waypoints! For more on Age of Empires 4, consider heading over to our guides hub.