Best way to use scouts / How do you use yours? General scouting questions...

Currently playing through a hopefully long-term Man United save and have just finished my first season. Didn't want to change too many things when I started but now it's pre-season again I read SFraser's amazing pre-season thread and am inspired to do things properly. I've cancelled all the default scouting regimes and am ready to serve up some new ones. I've assigned a couple to the upcoming European Championships and U21 qualifiers and am wondering how to assign my others. I've read that scouts can scout both a competition and a region at the same time? What I wonder though is..

- Are distances taken into account here? Say for example if I ask a scout to look at both English Premier League matches AND maybe scout Egypt... Can they do both with no problems or does the game take into account that he'll be travelling all the time and does this reduce his effectiveness?

Also, obviously the amount of scouts I have is limited, even for Man United. I currently have 18. If we say I have one for looking at my opponents and a couple more for scouting around locally for youth or whatever.. It still leaves me with maybe 15 to go travelling anywhere in the world. How do you divide yours up? Is it best to send them to a specific country? Or perhaps a large region like South America?

I guess that question is more for people who have taken the time to make their own scouting regimes at a club with no limits but any input is appreciated!

I started my current save at Gillingham in league two. My first port of call is to hire as may scouts as I can, then go to the board and ask for more scouts, and then employ them too! If memory serves correctly I had 5 scouts

I then go to Arsenal, click the filters and look at Reserves and U18s, then I filter by contact expiry and select all the players that have contracts expiring that summer. I ask for a scout report from the scouting pool.

Then I switch through the teams alphabetically scouting every single player who's contract is due to expire at the end of the season. Then I proceed to the championship, League one and League two. (If I was in League one, I would stop at league one etc).

After a day or two you will start getting the reports flooding in. Some players will clearly be far too good and wouldn't consider joining you ie Paul Scholes at Man Utd etc, I ignore these. Plenty of youngsters will be rated as half a star and Conference players. I ignore these too. If a player is rated as a good or leading player for a club at least a league above me, I will scout him 3 times to get a better report. I tend to buy younger players for smaller teams (lower wages and chance to make a profit etc) so If I spot one that has decent attributes, and good potential I will talk to the press about him being a potential star. A few of these players will even add me to their preferred staff list (increasing the chance of signing them)

After a couple of months, I'll have the details of every player who's contract is due to expire, the best prospects will have some kind of relationship with me and I'll be having an understanding of who I need to sign for the following season. If I have enough players that are potential targets, I will scout them again and praise them again and if possible try to trial or loan them. If I still need more potential targets I will scout the top two flights in Scotland and the top leagues in Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It takes a very long time, especially in the first two seasons, but it is worth it!

My scouting setup is done regionally, i.e. I try to hire a scout from each region (prioritising the regions based on the number of scouts available and which league I am managing in) and assign them to that region (e.g. A Brazilian scout to scout South America). I do this because I believe this is how real-life scouting works and usually a scout will have a better scouting knowledge of his 'home' region. Whether or not the game recognises that, I have no idea - I could actually be paying for my Brazilian scout to constantly fly from the nation my club is based to South America!

For the first 3 seasons or so, I instruct my scouts to only search for players under 24yrs with a minimum potential star rating suitable for the club I am managing (3.5 for a big club). Thereafter, I instruct them to look for players 17 and under, as I like to sign players for the youth team and nuture them for the 1st team.

In addition, I scout the youth leagues of playable nations. So, if I have England as playable, I would hire an English scout and assign him to scout UK & Ireland as well as the England U18 league.

For major tournaments like the WC, if possible, I'll assign a scout who is from the host country's region.

Thanks lads. I do try and assign scouts to their home regions or somewhere similar.

I'm wondering more about this question now, and am wondering if anyone has a definitive answer.

- Are distances taken into account here? Say for example if I ask a scout to look at both English Premier League matches AND maybe scout Egypt... Can they do both with no problems or does the game take into account that he'll be travelling all the time and does this reduce his effectiveness?

Also to add to that, I'm guessing there are scouting costs to be flying all over the place. Is it something I should be worrying about being a big club?

I have 16 scouts and my world scouting knowledge is at 51%. My scouts are set to roaming the world - is it better for them to scout regions in order to improve the world knowledge or just keep it on roaming the world?

quick question about scouting; do you need to have a league loaded to be able to find players through scouting?

i've just sent 5 scouts to countries in africa, because they're getting new regens now, but their scout reports all came back empty.

wondering if it's due to their knowledge, or the fact i don't have those leagues loaded?

quick question about scouting; do you need to have a league loaded to be able to find players through scouting?

No, you do not.

By the way, I noticed that efficiency of scouting improved a lot, when sending them to search for young talents you can expect a whole bunch of wonderkids.

I have realised i did not pay attention to my scout's home nation and where i assign him to. I will change their regions. But still there is a problem.

I have 22 scouts and my world scouting knowledge is at %73, i send them all the regions existed but most of them who are at interesting areas in the world can not find any youngsters or talented players. Are there any values which i have to take into account while scouting. I only care their judging ability and judging potential attributes.

I usually hire scouts from Brazil; they are easier to sign with paying less money. I hire a chief scout from my division and let him take the scouting assingments. In six months, broad knowledge becomes worldwide. It may be lazy but if your chif scout is good, they even know the squad restrictions. For example in Italy, they look more Central Europe, instead of South America.

Ever since i learned that scouts can scout a region AND a competition at the same time, i always try to set them up that way. Then i always have my main scout scouting the world, then theres a few nations which dont seem to be in the region settings like Holland and Belgium (unless im missing something) so then i try to scout those nations too.

The competitions i tend to scout are typically the youth leagues.

I try to set my scouting based on the scouts home area too, so brazil and argentinian scouts to south america, and when they get nearly full knowledge, expand them to mexico and north america etc.

1 scout per "good" region

1 scout per youth league loaded

Everyone else on default

Also the scout that i have scouting the next opposition i also have scouting my home nation. Although i am never too sure on this one.