Increasing scouting knowledge and using scouts

Having progressed in my United save through a few seasons I am starting to find good regens so I am starting to take more of an interest in my scouts, though I really don't know much about how to use them. I guess ideally I would have every nation with a full bar in the scouting knowledge section, but that would be hard to obtain. With a bigger bar I'm guessing it increases my chances of spotting a quality player from that region? What's the best way to go about increasing my knowledge? Say if I send a scout to a region he has no knowledge on whatsoever... When he is finished, would he now have that nation in his list? So should I try and send my scouts literally everywhere? Or should I just look for cheap unemployed scouts from an obscure region to bump up my overall knowledge range?

Similarly, is it best to send scouts to nations they have SOME knowledge on, in order to build it up to full? Or should I just concentrate on sending them to places we overall have very little knowledge on?

Of course, if anyone could direct me to a good scouting guide that'd be a great help too. Thanks!

Since i've stopped using player search i've been trying to get the most out of my scouts lately so i'll try to help..

-As far as i know, having better scouting knowledge from the club itself only affects the player and staff search, until you have scouting knowledge of let's say Italy, you will miss a lot of players and staff from the Italian League.

-Scouts knowledge of a country they aren't natural from will decay over time, and for that reason i don't really reccommend scouting regions unless they have a lot of natural knowledge from the countries composing that region, a good example is norwegian scouts that have a really good natural knowledge of most countries in Scandinavia, so i generally try to sign a Norwegian scout and just send him to Scandinavia.

-When a scout has full knowledge of a country, he will finish that assignment a lot faster, that's the biggest advantage and it's why i generally have a scout on one or two countries instead of going to a region, since he will keep his knowledge longer and finish his assignments faster.

I see. So if I try to use player search for a nationality I have no club knowledge of at all... Then the results will be few until I increase that knowledge? I never use the player search anyway. It seems very cheap and unrealistic. I find scouting much more fun and it's nice to find a real gem from an obscure country before any of my rivals!

So basically... scouting knowledge doesn't actually affect the results of the assignment? So I could theoretically sign an English scout with 20 in judging PA and CA but no knowledge of outside countries.. And the scout results would be similar as if I had sent a scout with full knowledge? Except it would take a lot longer.

Exactly, only the players with really high reputation from those countries will show up, once you have full knowledge of the country it should show all of them on search.

From my observations that is correct as well, only JPA and JPP makes a difference on the quality of the players found and their reports.

I think I got my scouting network upto about 70% before but everytimea scout jumped ship it obviously reduced it, I think having feeder teams in these countries gives you 100% knoledge in those Countries

So basically... scouting knowledge doesn't actually affect the results of the assignment? So I could theoretically sign an English scout with 20 in judging PA and CA but no knowledge of outside countries.. And the scout results would be similar as if I had sent a scout with full knowledge? Except it would take a lot longer.

A LOT longer. With no prior knowledge, some of the larger countries will take almost a year to scout. With prior knowledge, no more than a couple of months And the learned knowledge will decay away in around a year (It seems that all knowledge decays back to starting levels over about 12 months).

Feeder clubs are a very effective way to increase knowledge, especially when they are based in countries where it is hard to find scouts. However, this only helps you on the player search screen and the scouting knowledge screen, and not when actually assigning scouts to that country.

With 'manual' scouting reports, I get quite miffed that scouts with no prior knowledge of a player can determine so much about him without necessarily even watching him play.

Yeah I noticed that I seem to have a lot of knowledge from feeder clubs. I have lots of knowledge from American and Asian countries because I have DC United and a Japanese team as feeder clubs. But it seems this wouldn't really help me for proper scouting since it goes off a scouts particular knowledge and not my overall club knowledge. Like I said I very rarely use the player search screen. Do other people? It just seems kind of lame trying to find a good winger for example and searching through any players with 20 pace and acceleration or whatever. Although I suppose if my overall knowledge for obscure countries is good enough I could still find a real gem this way.

About the decay part.. So I guess it's best to keep sending my scouts to places they have full knowledge on in order to stop it decaying..

If they had full knowledge in the first place (i.e. they are from that country or have spent a lot of time in that country) it won't decay at all.

Ah right, I see. So only things they learn from assignments will decay. Thanks very much for the replies!

So I don't have to make a new topic.. On the topic of scouting still, I was wondering just what a lower CA and PA judging ability will mean with regards to the scouting report?

Say I have a scout with 15 in judging CA and PA. He goes off and returns some reports saying perhaps a random 17-year old is a potential 4-star player. How should I treat this report? Obviously I would scout him again with better scouts to see what they have to say. But how would his report have been affected? Could it be that this player is in fact terrible and would really have a 1-star rating? Or, since he still has a fairly respectable 15 in judgement.. Would he only be perhaps a half-star away from the correct player rating? How does it work?

Ah right, I see. So only things they learn from assignments will decay. Thanks very much for the replies!

So I don't have to make a new topic.. On the topic of scouting still, I was wondering just what a lower CA and PA judging ability will mean with regards to the scouting report?

Say I have a scout with 15 in judging CA and PA. He goes off and returns some reports saying perhaps a random 17-year old is a potential 4-star player. How should I treat this report? Obviously I would scout him again with better scouts to see what they have to say. But how would his report have been affected? Could it be that this player is in fact terrible and would really have a 1-star rating? Or, since he still has a fairly respectable 15 in judgement.. Would he only be perhaps a half-star away from the correct player rating? How does it work?

The most disparage I have seen is 0.5 stars higher/lower than the scout said. Once you have a good enough scout that he provides you with all the hidden information (especially in the personal/positions screens), star rating should not be an issue. I think 15 is the magic number in this regard. The "excess" jca/jpa points I think is seen in the speed with which they are scouting, but I am not sure about this.

One thing I am wondering about is scouts that have the typical one nation max knowledge and the rest zero. After like five years of scouting one such guy had achieved 30% knowledge of one nation in the region he scouted. I let his contract expire as he was only of "regional" reputation (20/20 jca/jpa). Is there a connection?