Scouting - The Art of Answering the Question: Where the h*ll are they?

A question has come up regarding scouting and how it’s going to be handled in the game.  Without further ado a description of how scouting will work:

There are several ways you will be able to actively scout.

Starting with the ones overtly in your control:

1. Your cavalry is detached by stand to form scouting parties, up to two parties per stand.  Having stronger scouting parties (keeping the two together, sending two stands with to the same location, etc) will increase the likelihood of accurate results as well as allowing the potential for penetrating the other guys screening troops.  Scouting orders are giving them instructions about where you want them to go, what you want them to do if they find someone, what to do if they don’t, and anything else you can think of that you’d like to put in there.  Remember that your instructions are going to be interpreted, and most likely interpreted the way a Captain or Lieutenant of Cavalry, desperate to show off how heroic he can be, would want them to read. 
2. You can detach whole units (battalions) of light infantry for the same purpose, their orders will be read more in the spirit you normally intend.

Some troops are simply better at scouting than others, as a general hierarchy of effectiveness you’d get something like this:

1. Austrian Light Cavalry
2. Other Light Cavalry
3. Prussian Hussars (I’m basing this on my reading of Prussian Hussars consistently losing the “little war” against the Austrians for the majority of the 7 Years’ War, when generally they were used as battle cavalry not as effective scouts) & LIPs, for those of you not up on your M*A*S*H* references that would stand for “Local Indigenous Personnel” or natives of the Demi-Bishophric.  I'm putting them in this category as, while they're probably great at finding armies trooping around, they may not be very accurate in their estimations and descriptions.
4. Dragoons & Light Infantry
5. Other Cavalry

Other ways to scout:

Once you enter the Demi-Bishophric you can expect to have some segment of the locals either on your side, willing to be paid to be on your side, neutral, or against you.  This is one of the things that you can invest your money on, offering rewards for information, hiring locals as scouts, or whatever other ideas you can come up with and explain to me.

In all cases there will be a degree of randomness to the results, look at the hierarchy of scouting prowess as die roll modifiers for how accurate the information is and you’ll be on the right track.  Also the terrain will factor into things, locals and light infantry will be much more efficient in woods or difficult terrain than horse will be, etc.

If you have any questions please let me know.