Wolves usage scout, or better fighter?

[Adamant14]

I wonder why the Wolves usage is scout.
Maybe because the (in Wesnoths history) older Wolf Rider units are also scouts.
For Wolf Riders usage scout fits perfectly, but ...
... Wolves are mostly used in UMC's, and then mostly as generated ambushers (units => monsters => wolf).
As monsters, as Tomato Surprises.
I can't remember any campaign where they were recruitable.
So there is no reason for this usage.
I suggest to change the Wolves usage to fighter.
Usage fighter would fit much better, right?

[Telchin]

Well, the wolves have 8 movement points (just like Wolf Riders), which is probably enough to count them as scouts. Also, IIRC the usage attribute only affects recruitment pattern for the AI, not how the unit is used in action. This leads to far silier things than wolves bveing scouts. For example the human Mage has usage=mixed fighter despite being worse in melee than the designated archer of the same faction (Elvish Archer for Rebels, Bowman for Loyalists), just to make the AI recruit the designated archers more often than the Mage. As the wolves aren´t ussually recruitable their usage attribute is mostly irrelevant.
You´re probably right that the Wolf inherited its scout usage from the Wolf Rider. The two are almost same except alignment (and picture). Note how the wolf has movement cost 2 on forest (despite being a forest animal) and 0% arcane resistance (mundane creatures should have 20%), simply because it uses the same movement type as orcs and goblins.

[Adamant14]

Also, IIRC the usage attribute only affects recruitment pattern for the AI, not how the unit is used in action..

Maybe this will change your mind: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 67#p548789

Does this mean the AI does consider the 'usage' of a unit for combat action?

Not for combat action, but for path finding. ...
You can see that the dragoon at 26,12 is chosen as target (it has the highest score), but that the wolf is moving from 18,10 to 15,13 in order to get there, seemingly moving away from the target.

So, what's happening here is that the AI is trying to keep its scouts safe. It does so with a "trick", by adding a stiff penalty to the pathfinding movement cost for hexes that are threatened by enemies, but only for AI units with usage=scout. The penalty is the higher the more enemies can get to a hex. Thus, since there are so many dragoons, the "shortest" route (in terms of this modified MP criterion) is a big arc the leads south and west first.

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 67#p548729
Thank you mattsc

[Telchin]

Maybe this will change your mind: viewtopic.php?f=21&t=38403&p=548967#p548789

Interesting, I didn´t know that. I stand corrected. It just opens more questions about other units whose usage don´t match their actual use in the game.