Map Scouting?

[SeattleKCD]

If you are playing with full fog of war, is there a way to get surrounding area map information other than moving your units there?

[Jdane]

Spies. Everywhere.
Spy on your immediate neighbors enough than you can then send spies to their neighbors, and over time you will map the entire planet.

[SeattleKCD]

I have tried sending spies with this hope in mind, but have never seen any return from them. I guess I need to send more than I have been. I will try that.

[Jdane]

Yes, you need more than a couple to get sight of the neighbors.
It's hard in the beginning, but once you've got a secret intelligence council running with a competent director, the ball really gets rolling.

[Twotribes]

Depends you need 3 to 4 spies to get much information. Depending on difficulty sending one spy can get you two by crit success. Just depends on your difficulty. In those cases I send single spies till I have at least 4 there. Since I generally get a lot of single spy cards.

[eddieballgame]

Spies, spies, & more spies.
The more you send out, the better your intel (vision).
Not sure of the max required per regimes/zones for complete vision.
No reason not to use them (?) unless you are short of 'PPs'.

[Raagun]

On next game I plan to get secret service early for this sole purpose. You can send spies to NON ALIGNED territory. It is still separated into zones tho. So 2-3 spies per zone scouts it and even shows non aligned unit positions. This was game changer. With good leader in secret service council (which I had) you can scout whole world in few turns (depends on size). Not even considering benefit of spying on enemy troop movements.

[Sieppo]

Spying: I always play on full fog. Put the person with the most spec ops in charge and then if available, put a person with next highest skill as an advisor. If you have a better advisor candidate for another position, you get more advisor positions later on. I have had up to three so far, always use and attach them. It can make a huge difference on spying success (and helps with everything else as well. The manual is very straight on with this, read it). I've had terrible candidates that resulted 2/3 of rolls not succeeding or more and vice versa. With critical successes you get double the amount of spies which makes the world visible for you very quickly.

[wodin]

I never play full fog as I find it strange that you know nothing about the lands you've grown up in and whose ancestors have lived yet you have no clue about the planet. If you'd just landed on a planet I get it, but not in this circumstance.

[SeattleKCD]

Depends on how far back civilization fell, and how extensive if any trade/information networks are.

One nice feature is how much you can customize the starting conditions for the world you want to play in.