Questions about reconnaisance.

[BigJMoney]

I was wondering what the different forms of recon do, and how they rate against each other. The few methods of recon I'm aware of are scouts, magic and dominion spread. I'm mainly curious about how accurate the information is from these different things. Sometimes I'll look at a province and I'll see that it has 30 defenders, and the next turn I will see that it has 20. Is this because Indies change every few turns? Do they grow as the game goes on? Or, is it simply that the different forms of recon give variable results? Sometimes I even seem to find magic sites when I scout a terrain, or get the specific name of an enemy commander, and sometimes not.

Also, is there any way to learn the stats of enemy commanders without actually having to fight them in battle? Are there any other useful bits of recon I can gather that I have not mentioned here?

=$= Big J Money =$=