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Originally Posted by Stavis_L
The impact is that even if you're gold limited, you would *always* recruit a scout from each castle that you would otherwise be unable to recruit from. As long as it's consistent across nations, it's not a problem, but otherwise, it's an advantage (even if a limited one.)
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A very limited advantage. How often do you not build a commander? At which point in the game? How useful are a handful of scouts at that point in the game?
People recruit indy scouts whenever possible, but that's because they don't take a commander slot. Even with scouts costing nothing (or 1 as I costed them) it makes no difference to whether you build an indy scout or not. Like you said, people will scout up only when they have no gold or are trying to save every last scrap of gold (even at the cost of a commander slot for a turn). This doesn't happen very often and hence I think you'll still see very few scouts.
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Zero upkeep scout units could then be used e.g. to cheaply break into blood via the scout hunting technique (vs. the upkeep on however many scouts you normally devote to such a task.) They'd also be great fever fetish hosts. Or anything else that just needs a unit with available slots as cheaply as possible.
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Indy scouts are way better for all of these things because they don't take a commander slot. You therefore have them in large enough numbers for the blood hunting without disrupting your main strat (no way scout blood hunting in anyone's main strat). It's true they're infinitely cheaper than indy scouts, but they have a far, far greater opportunity cost for the vast majority of the game. They are also inherently fewer in number.
Edit: It should also be noted one reason I made commanders 1 gold in my mods is that I play exclusively on NI maps where the commander slot is even more precious.