Overview
Scythia sweeps across the map with a huge, fast army and can pick apart enemy armies with rapid speed. Here, I detail Scythian strategies and counter-strategies.
Legacy Guide
If you have the Rise and Fall expansion, click here for the updated guide.
This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Rise and Fall expansion.
Introduction
Note: This guide only covers content released prior to the Rise and Fall expansion. Content from any DLC pack released between the base game and Rise and Fall is marked as such.
On the open plains of Central Asia, none shall stop our glorious horse warriors. Massive in number and ferocious in combat, the Horseman and Horse Archers of Scythia shall overwhelm the weak other civilizations of the world. Glory or a warrior’s funeral await us.
This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.
- The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization’s unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
- The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes.
- Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
- Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, civic cards, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ’s uniques are mentioned – these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the “best” choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
- Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.
Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:
- Online: Divide by 2
- Quick: Divide by 1.5
- Epic: Multiply by 1.5
- Marathon: Multiply by 3
Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.
AoE (Area of Effect) – Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they’re within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.
Beelining – The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.
CA (Civ Ability) – The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.
Civic cards – Another name for policy cards; you fill up your government with these for additional bonuses and can switch them for free every time you unlock a civic.
Compact empires – Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.
Dispersed empires – Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.
GWAM – Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.
LA (Leader Ability) – The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.
Start bias – The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.
Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam’s program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.
Tall empires – Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.
Uniques – Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.
UA (Unique Ability) – A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.
UB (Unique Building) – A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.
UD (Unique District) – A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.
UI (Unique Improvement) – A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. “UI” always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to “user interface” or “unique infrastructure”.
UU (Unique Unit) – A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).
Wide empires – Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.
Outline
Scythia has a tier 2 start bias towards horse resources, and a tier 5 start bias towards flat grasslands and flat plains. Getting access to horses is very important for Scythia, as while Saka Horse Archers don’t require them, Horsemen certainly do. Furthermore, pasture resources such as horses enhance the Kurgan UI. The grassland and plains start biases improve the odds of starting near pasture resources in the event you don’t start near horses.
- Every time you produce a Saka Horse Archer, Horseman, Cavalry or Helicopter, receive two copies of the unit instead of one.
- If the city has an Encampment district and both the City Centre and Encampment are free from units, one will be placed on the Encampment tile and one on the City Centre tile.
- All military and religious units gain +5 strength when attacking units on less than full health
- All military and religious units heal 30 HP when they kill a unit
A classical-era ranged land unit which does not replace anything
Horseback Riding
Technology
Classical era
Ballistics
Technology
Industrial era
Field Cannon
(???
)
or
400
or
200
**Purchasing units with faith requires the Theocracy government, which in turn requires the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic. This number does not take into account Theocracy’s 15% discount on faith purchases.
- Unable to capture cities
- -17 strength vs. city defences
- Does not exert zone of control
- Ignores Zone of Control
Notable features
- Classified as a ranged unit, therefore:
- Unable to capture cities
- -17 strength vs. city defences
- Does not exert zone of control
- Uses ranged promotions
- Built faster with the Agoge policy card, not Manoeuvre.
- Benefits from Barracks rather than Stables.
- Ignores Zone of Control, unlike other ranged units
- Has a vulnerability to anti-cavalry bonuses, unlike other ranged units.
- Has strength equivalent to Archers
- Has 1 range (Archers have 2)
- Has 4 movement points (Archers have 2)
- Production cost of 100 (Archers cost 60), but thanks to Scythia’s civ ability, two are produced at once.
- Maintenance of 2 (same as Horsemen but twice as much as Archers).
Animal Husbandry
Technology
Ancient era
Builder
1
per adjacent pasture*1
*This scenario is exceedingly rare; a faith yield of more than 3 is unlikely to be seen in a typical game.
Enhancements
Guilds
Civic
Medieval era
2
Capitalism
Civic
Modern era
3
*This assumes you have the enhancements of earlier eras. A faith yield of more than 3 is unlikely to be seen in a typical game.
Victory Skew
In this section, the civ is graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type – not how powerful it is. Any score of 3 or above means the civ or leader has some kind of advantage to the victory route above a hypothetical civ with no unique features. A score of less than 2 means some kind of aspect of the civ actively discourages a particular victory route. All values are subjective and may be edited in future.
Culture
Domination
Religion
Science
(Acceptable)
(Ideal)
(Good)
(Acceptable)
Cultural victory isn’t a great direction to take Scythia in. Aside from the reasonable faith output being useful for Naturalists and hence National Parks, they don’t really have a particular edge there.
Domination is the best route for Scythia. Their major weakness here is their lack of advantages against cities, but they can carve through the armies of enemy civs even if their enemies have a substantial production advantage.
Religion works rather well. Tomyris’ bonuses to military units also applies to theological combat, which helps immensely in prolonged religious struggles. Kurgans can be a reasonable source of faith as well. They might struggle against some of the religious powerhouses like Russia or post-renaissance Spain, but they’ll give it a good shot.
Finally, science is a weak path for Scythia; they barely have any advantages at all there. The gold and faith from Kurgans can be used to buy science buildings or Great Scientists, but that’s not much of a bonus. You’d be much better off trying to go for domination or religion.
Civ Ability: People of the Steppe
Sometimes, a perfectly good plan for war can be ruined by the need for production. A nice-looking unique unit suddenly doesn’t look so good when they’re obsolete by the time you have a good-sized force built. Scythia laughs in the face of this issue; they can spam out units like no-one else.
The first thing to do is prepare for war. Try to track down any horse resources (other pasture resources are nice as well, but horses are important) while working towards the Horseback Riding technology. You can take a diversion to Astrology to try and get a Holy Site or two built, but that will delay an early rush and hence make it less effective. Instead, you can capture Holy Sites from other civs to help get a religion started. You may also need Bronze Working to build an Encampment to let you build Horsemen with only one horse resource.
Once you have Horseback Riding, you can (and should) build both Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers. Keep in mind that Horsemen are built faster with the Manoeuvre military policy card, while Saka Horse Archers are built faster with Agoge. Until you’ve reached a government at Political Philosophy, you may need to keep switching between these cards for the optimum production bonuses.
While Saka Horse Archers can fight without taking damage thanks to their ranged attack, leaving enemies injured and vulnerable to follow-up attacks, Horsemen are strong, slightly cheaper and can handle cities more effectively. It’s easy to assume you should just emphasise the unique unit, but Horsemen are good for their time and are certainly worth building in high numbers.
Sooner or later, Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers together will be costing you a lot of money in maintenance, so be ready to switch to the Conscription policy card and to work a few Kurgans for money once you’ve got a reasonable-sized army built. That’s not to say you should stop building more units entirely – Saka Horse Archers in particular are fairly squishy and die easily, so will need to be replaced.
Aside from Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers, Cavalry (industrial era) and Helicopters (atomic era) are also built in double quantities, making this unique ability useful throughout much of the game. While there may appear to be a long time gap between Horsemen and Cavalry, Military Science can be beelined fairly easily minimising the downtime between wars (and giving you a substantial military advantage).
The arrival of corps and armies in the industrial and modern era respectively ensures Cavalry are still useful for a while (and with a Military Academy present in a city, you can get some very cost-effective Cavalry armies built there). By the time Cavalry are fading in power, Helicopters arrive.
Light cavalry units all have in common a vulnerability to anti-mounted units (once Saka Horse Archers start becoming dated, bring some standard melee units like Musketmen or Infantry to handle them), immunity to Zone of Control and a distinct promotion tree. Those promotions are as follows:
vs. anti-cavalry vs. ranged and siege units vs. siege unitsGetting double quantities of light cavalry is incredibly powerful for overwhelming your foes, whether through filling their land so enemy armies lack room to manoeuvre, exploiting flanking bonuses, or surrounding cities to place them under siege. It’s tempting just to focus on the fact you’ll be building Scythia’s UU in double quantities, but even without that feature, it’s a powerful warmongering bonus in its own right.
Tomyris’ Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus
Tomyris brings one of the game’s most powerful warmongering abilities, ensuring Scythia has quality as well as quantity. But that’s not all – the ability also works for theological combat, giving Scythia a useful boost towards religious victory as well.
In the earliest turns of the game, Barbarians can be quite a menace. Building a Slinger or two early on will help most civs handle it, but Scythia can go on the offensive against Barbarians even with a small force. The bonus against wounded units means you can kill them quickly, and the health on kills gives you considerable lasting power. Destroying a few Barbarian encampments will give you a reasonable sum of gold which can help speed up early development.
Of course, where this ability really matters is in wartime. Scythia’s civ ability means you’ll end up with pairs of units, which works beautifully with this bonus. The first unit can bring an enemy down from full health, while the second can deal heavy damage thanks to the enemy being wounded.
Wounded units have a strength penalty based on the health they have remaining. Units between 90 and 99 health have a strength penalty of 1, units between 80 and 89 health have a penalty of 2, and so on. Because combat is calculated based on the difference between the strengths of two units, Scythia can essentially add 5 onto those strength penalty numbers.
Killing units restores up to 30 health. For ranged units, healing 30 health means the unit will be 3 points of strength stronger for their next fight. That’s pretty important for Saka Horse Archers, which have a relatively low amount of strength. For melee units, the strength gained might not be quite so much (as the round of combat will hurt the melee unit) but it gives a considerable amount of lasting power. Being able to constantly heal through combat helps counter the constant damage taken from melee combat, allowing Scythia to last a lot longer on the battlefield than most other civs.
Healing on kills also allows for some manoeuvres with melee units which would be too risky for most other civs, one example being to finish off a strong enemy in a way that would leave your victorious unit in range of other enemies. For most civs, making that move would leave the victorious unit with not enough health to resist further attacks, but Scythia can handle that.
If you want to make a risky manoeuvre like that, pay close attention to the strength difference between your unit and the enemy so it you can ensure it doesn’t live thanks to random chance! Here’s a table showing how much damage you can expect to deal and take at various strength differences so you can get an idea of when you should fight and when you shouldn’t.
This table shows that if you have a strength advantage of 0, a unit of 22 or less health can be reliably killed. If you have a strength advantage of 10, that number rises to 33. If you have a strength disadvantage of 10, that number shrinks to 16, and with any strength disadvantage, you’ll usually take more damage than you can heal from hills.
Because these bonuses do not work against cities, it’s important as Scythia not to neglect siege. Most siege units are slow-moving which makes them struggle to keep up with your other units, so consider picking off some weaker cities without siege support while you wait for some to arrive to help with bigger targets. Picking off enemy units or pillaging farms can help recover health from doing so. Late in the game, bomber-class aircraft provide a mobile siege solution so this won’t be a problem any more.
While buying some Missionaries and Apostles and sending them off to foreign lands to use their “spread religion” function is the typical way to promote your faith, theological combat is a useful secondary method. When you use an Apostle or Inquisitor to defeat a rival religious unit, you will gain a boost to religious pressure to all cities within 10 tiles, while your rival’s religion will lose pressure. A more complete explanation of theological combat can be found near the end of the Leader Ability section in the guide to Spain.
The key problem with theological combat is that healing religious units can be tricky – they have to go back to one of your Holy Sites to be able to recover health, or you have to spend faith to buy Gurus and use up their charges. Furthermore, because religious units spread religion less effectively when injured, theological combat can be less effective as a tool for spreading your faith as it may initially appear (defeating an enemy religious unit is still very powerful for spreading your religion, it’s just that it slightly holds back spread of religious pressure via the usual method). For those reasons, it’s a good idea to use all but one of your spread religion charges before you engage in theological combat.
Scythia has a way around that problem. When you defeat a unit via theological combat, your religious unit will recover up to 30 health. Of course, that requires you to directly defeat the unit – bringing it onto low health and having it use its last spread religion charge isn’t enough. For that reason, it’s a good idea to bring Apostles in groups of at least two when you’re trying to spread your religion to the lands of other civs (you’ll also get flanking bonuses, so that’ll be helpful as well). Much like with Scythia’s military units, the first hit can bring the enemy down from full health so the second Apostle onwards can exploit the +5 strength bonus from attacking a wounded unit.
Tomyris brings survivability to military and religious units, giving them an edge in attrition battles. Less time needs to be spent on healing up, which means more time conquering or engaging in religious warfare. However, capturing cities can still be quite tricky; Scythia lacks bonuses against them and siege units are slower than mounted ones. Keep this in mind as you cut across the landscape.
Unique Unit: Saka Horse Archer
As unique units go, Saka Horse Archers are not especially powerful. They’re no stronger than Archers, have a lower range, are only mildly cheaper (when you take the fact you get two a time into account) and have double the maintenance cost. However, they do have a very useful pair of features – they have higher movement than other ranged units, and ignore zone of control just like cavalry! Ignoring zone of control usually can help a unit get through enemy defences, but fighting can leave it vulnerable to counter-attacks. For Saka Horse Archers, the fact they can deal damage without receiving any helps there, although keep in mind their low melee strength can still be a problem.
A more hidden benefit of Saka Horse Archers is that unlike regular Archers, they arrive in the classical era and as such can benefit from the strength boost of Great Generals.
Because Saka Horse Archers are squishy and have to get right up to a unit to fight them, make sure you bring along some Horsemen to help protect them. Try damaging enemy units with Saka Horse Archers, then finish them off with Horsemen. Aside from giving the health-on-kills to a unit that can always make use of it, it’ll ensure the Horsemen are on the front lines between your turns.
Against cities, Saka Horse Archers get a -17 strength penalty, making them pretty terrible in that situation (at least, at first). Still, if your siege units haven’t arrived yet, it can be worthwhile to surround the enemy city with Saka Horse Archers to deal some damage in the meantime. Horsemen will take heavy damage when assaulting a city despite being able to deal a lot more damage, so using Saka Horse Archers is a better stopgap measure.
So, Saka Horse Archers make a reasonable component of your army, but they shouldn’t be relied upon alone. Mix them up with your Horsemen and siege support and you’ll have something far more effective.
Unique Improvement: Kurgan
The Kurgan occupies an unusual position among Scythian uniques. Although it can complement early warfare, it leans towards benefitting the religious game. It’s one of the earliest sources of faith in the game, and can still be reasonable for faith even late into the game, in addition to offering a growing gold output.
Generally, Kurgan usage can be divided into early, where it mostly complements early warfare, and late, where it complements religious aims.
The biggest thing Kurgans can do for you early in the game is to help you secure a pantheon quickly. Divine Spark is a reliable pantheon to help you found a religion (capture Holy Sites off other civs and enjoy the boost to Great Prophet Points) while God of the Forge will help you get an army built sooner.
Without adjacent pastures, Kurgan yields are fairly low early on. As such, once you have a pantheon, you might want to stop working those low-yield Kurgans.
The second early role of Kurgans is to help support your army. Scythia’s reliance on sheer quantities of units makes maintenance troublesome. Kurgans might not offer that much gold at first, but it’s better than falling into negative gold-per-turn. Guilds doubles the gold output of Kurgans, making it a good civic to aim for after Political Philosophy and Theology.
Once you’ve taken a few Holy Sites off other civs, you hopefully should be able to found your own religion (if you can’t, don’t worry – faith can purchase units with Theology, which makes raising Cavalry armies easier). Kurgans help supply a reasonable source of faith to help support it, but you can’t rely on that alone – be sure to develop your Holy Sites!
Kurgans should be built with caution; working too many ones with low yields will come at the cost of other yields such as food and production. Instead, here’s a good general rule to follow:
- If there are no adjacent pastures, Kurgans should only be used if you haven’t founded a pantheon yet, you’re exceptionally desperate for gold, or the city has no need for food and production and you need the faith.
- If there is one adjacent pasture, Kurgans may be useful if you can spare the citizens to work it, but don’t go overboard. Once you’re fairly close to a religious victory, it may be worthwhile to work more just to squeeze as much faith as possible.
- If there are two or more adjacent pastures, Kurgans should almost definitely be built (the main exception being if there’s a useful resource blocking the tile). 3 faith is a fine yield, as is the gold that will be added over the course of the game. New cities might not be ready to work them, but otherwise the tiles should usually be worked.
You’ll need to use your own judgement in regards to exactly how many Kurgans should be constructed and improved. A higher faith output can help speed up a religious victory, but if you set back development too far, it’ll leave you vulnerable to attack. Scythia’s unique military abilities can only do so much against a greatly superior foe.
Finally, at the Capitalism civic in the modern era, Kurgans gain an extra point of gold. 3 gold and 1 faith for a single improvement is a reasonable yield in itself, but you’re still better off sticking to Kurgans adjacent to pastures.
The Warrior Monks follower belief allows you to purchase Warrior Monks with faith in cities with a Temple. They have 35 strength and 3 movement points, but more importantly, very strong promotions which make them ideal to use as the backbone of your army in the gap between Horsemen and Cavalry.
- Use Kurgans to help secure a pantheon
- Beyond that point, only pasture-adjacent Kurgans should be worked except in exceptional circumstances.
Administration – Government and Religion
The administration section covers the governments, policy cards, pantheons, religions, wonders, city-states and Great People which have particularly good synergy with Scythian uniques. Be aware that these are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options that you should consider more than usual if playing as Scythia relative to other Civs.
Classical Era Governments
Oligarchy is a fairly safe bet due to the unit experience bonus and reasonable distribution of policy cards. The +4 bonus for melee units might see some use, but remember that you’ll mostly be using units that don’t benefit from that. Alternatively, you may want Autocracy as it lets you take Agoge, Manoeuvre and Conscription simultaneously.
Medieval/Renaissance Era Governments
Theocracy is a good choice here. The discount on faith purchases and improved strength in theological combat helps your religious aims, while being able to purchase units with faith is a helpful way to make use of Kurgans if you didn’t manage to found a religion.
Modern Era Governments
Fascism offers an array of military advantages that will greatly help Cavalry or Helicopter-led conquests. Although the array of policy cards isn’t the best for religious victories, usually conquering a few policy card-adding wonders should be enough.
Ancient Era
Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) – Helps you to build Saka Horse Archers faster.
Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) – This allows you to have some money to maintain Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers with while still trading internally for production bonuses.
Conscription (Military, State Workforce) – Reducing unit maintenance costs is very important when you build units in large quantities.
Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) – It’s useful to be able to make use of Kurgans early, but at the same time, you’ll have plenty of other tiles to improve. Getting a bonus to Builder production at this point in the game is therefore a good idea.
Manoeuvre (Military, requires Military Tradition) – Helps you build Horsemen faster, but not Saka Horse Archers.
Classical Era
Raid (Military, requires Military Training) – Light cavalry are particularly good at pillaging thanks to the Depredation promotion. This policy card takes that even further, helping you to receive powerful yields from pillaging.
Medieval Era
Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) – Allows you to construct Cavalry faster. Considering Military Tradition is fairly easy to beeline, it’s nice for this policy card to arrive relatively early.
Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) – Constructing high quantities of units makes upgrading a bit of a nightmare. This policy card takes some of the pain out of the process.
Sack (Military, requires Mercenaries) – While you should generally be restrained in regards to how many districts you pillage (after all, you might want that city for yourself later), relying on light cavalry units which can pillage cheaply makes it tempting.
Renaissance Era
Religious Orders (Economic, requires Reformed Church) – Gives all religious units +5 strength. With the Theocracy government and Tomyris’ leader ability, you could have as much of a +15 religious strength advantage.
Industrial Era
National Identity (Military, requires Nationalism) – Scythian units already have a lot of lasting power thanks to their ability to heal on kills and bonus against wounded units. This policy card extends that further by reducing the strength penalty injured units have. What may be a fair fight between one of your units and that of an enemy one turn will swing greatly to your favour the following turn.
Total War (Military, requires Scorched Earth) – Combining the bonuses of Raid and Sack, this will make your Cavalry and Helicopter units’ strong pillaging ability even better.
Modern Era
Levée en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) – Cutting unit maintenance costs is important considering how many units Scythia typically produces.
Lightning Warfare (Totalitarianism) – Allows you to construct Helicopters faster.
Divine Spark – Considering you may be conquering Holy Sites rather than building them, it helps to have something to help you catch up in the religious race.
God of the Forge – Aids in producing Horseman, Saka Horse Archers, Siege Towers and other such useful units faster.
God of the Open Sky – Kurgans encourage you to settle near pasture-heavy land, so this pantheon adds more for you than most civs.
God of War – Scythia’s unusually strong ability to slice through enemy units can make this pantheon a viable source of faith.
You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.
Missionary Zeal (Enhancer) – Chasing down enemy religious units to finish them off can be tricky. This belief makes it a fair bit easier.
Monastic Isolation (Enhancer) – If your attempts to heal up religious units via theological combat go badly wrong, this bonus ensures the damage to your religious pressure is minimised.
Tithe (Founder) or Church Property (Founder) – Scythia needs all the gold they can get early on, when double quantities of Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers are a huge drain on gold.
Warrior Monks (Follower) – Combine your military and religious strengths with this special military unit which has access to some powerful promotions!
Administration – Wonders, City-States and Great People
Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) – If you’re crowding cities around a pasture-heavy area to maximise Kurgan yields, this wonder can be a powerful source of faith. The catch is the strict terrain requirement – it has to be built on desert hills. Requires the Nubia civilization pack.
Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) – Get your religion off to a great start. Either fill out your religious beliefs, or try to spread the faith further. Remember to try and use up all but one of your spread religion charges before you engage in theological combat to avoid a loss of religious pressure.
Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) – If you have time to build just one wonder, make it this one. Having every individual unit receive a free promotion synergises beautifully with Scythia’s civ ability, ensuring you have both quantity and quality in your army.
Alhambra (Medieval era, Castles technology) – Scythia can make good use of a lot of military policy cards, so receiving an additional one will be very helpful.
Hattusa (Scientific) – If you get an unlucky start and lack nearby horses, being suzerain over Hattusa may be the only way to be able to build Horsemen.
Kabul (Militaristic) – The high frequency in which Scythian units engage in combat gives them a lot of experience. Kabul doubles that experience gain, meaning it won’t take long until you can reach the really strong promotions like Expert Marksman (can attack twice) for Saka Horse Archers.
Preslav (Militaristic) – Scythia’s heavy emphasis on light cavalry makes this city-state much more useful than it is for most civs. A bonus when fighting in hills makes it much easier to handle annoying fortified units, helping you to finish them off before they can heal up.
Stockholm (Scientific) – Offering a bonus similar to (but stronger than) the Divine Spark pantheon, Stockholm is greatly helpful when you’re trying to found a religion.
Valletta (Militaristic) – If you haven’t founded a religion, Valletta’s suzerain bonus gives you a useful alternative way to spend faith: City Centre and Encampment buildings.
Yerevan (Religious) – If you constantly give Apostles the Debater promotion, you’ll have a huge advantage in theological combat. The only thing you’ll really need to worry about is the other civ declaring war on you.
Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Scythian uniques, not necessarily the most effective options. Obviously, all Great Generals and Admirals can be useful for a domination victory, but it would be redundant to list them all.
Classical Era
Marcus Lacinius Crassus (Great Merchant) – Any gold you can get early on will help with unit maintenance, while being able to annex a tile for free can help if there’s a horse resource just outside of your borders.
Medieval Era
Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) – At first glance, a Eureka for Printing might not sound that impressive, but keep in mind that it’s a prerequisite for Military Science (and therefore Cavalry), and that having the Eureka that way means you don’t need to take a diversion to Education for it.
Atomic Era
Georgy Zhukov (Great General) – Improving flanking bonuses permanently is really helpful considering Scythia’s reliance on large quantities of fast units.
Counter-Strategies
Although a war with Scythia is a frightening prospect, they do have some major weaknesses that you can exploit.
Scythia sweeps across the battlefield with a vast army, but the huge reliance on light cavalry produces three glaring weaknesses: a reliance on horse resources, vulnerability to anti-mounted and a poor ability to capture cities.
If Scythia starts near you, denying them access to horses makes them far more manageable opponents. Saka Horse Archers can be fought effectively by practically anything while Horsemen typically need to be met with Spearmen.
If Scythia has access to Horses, make sure you have Bronze Working quickly. Spearmen are fairly cheap, can stand up reasonably well to Horsemen and do very well against Saka Horse Archers (even despite the fact the +10 anti-mounted bonus doesn’t work against them). Unfortunately, their usual advantage – their relative cost-effectiveness – is eliminated thanks to Scythia’s doubled production of light cavalry. The Echelon promotion can help, but that is cancelled out by the Caparison promotion light cavalry have.
What can help is ensuring Scythia’s units attacks yours rather than the other way around. Fortify your Spearmen (they’ll get a +6 strength bonus after a couple of turns) and it’ll be harder for Scythia to kill your units. Make sure you rotate injured units with full-health ones so Scythia can’t score kills.
Building city defences is a great idea. A walled city will be very hard for Scythia’s Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers to take, even if surrounded. This can allow you time for a counter-attack.
Try to work towards Military Tactics if possible. Pikemen have more than enough strength to wipe the floor with Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers, meaning Scythia won’t be too much trouble until the industrial era. By that point, you’ll have a few more options available (promoted Musketmen earlier on, or even AT Crews later being two reasonable examples).
The important thing here is to make sure your wounded units are kept out of reach from Scythia. Keep rotating your units so your front lines always consist of full-health units. That way, you won’t be on the receiving end of their +5 strength bonus, and they’ll find it difficult to use their health-on-kills bonus.
When it comes to religious units, it’s a good idea to keep your Apostles paired up when entering Scythian lands. That way, instead of Scythian Apostles and Inquisitors winning an attrition battle against you, you can spread your incoming damage between more than one unit. Remember to return them to a Holy Site you control to heal up, or use up a Guru charge to heal them before you use the “spread religion” function again.
Saka Horse Archers are very vulnerable in defence, and their low range means they’re very prone to counter-attack after they fight. Pretty much any kind of unit can be effective against them, but perhaps the best method is a front line of Spearmen followed by a second line of Archers. The Spearmen can help deal with any incoming Horsemen, while the Archers outrange the Saka Horse Archers allowing you to deal damage without taking it.
Depriving Scythia of pasture-heavy lands can help set their future faith output back, but this requires a lot of effort on your part. Generally, if you’re going to deprive them of any tiles, deprive them of horses.
When you’re at war with Scythia, pillaging their Kurgans is a great idea. Aside from the fact you can’t keep unique improvements when you take cities off other civs, and that it’ll give you 25 faith, it deprives Scythia of a gold supply. Scythia’s reliance on large quantities of units leaves their economy vulnerable.
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