[R&F] Civ of the Week: Sythia

Who should be next weeks Civ? (Medieval)


  • Total voters
    30

acluewithout

Deity
Joined
Dec 1, 2017
Messages
3,470
  • Leader: Tomryis
  • Leader Ability: Killer of Cyrus. All units (military and religious) receive +5 Combat Strength when attacking wounded units, and heal up to 30 hit points after killing a unit.

  • Civ Ability: People of the Steppe. Building a Light Cavalry Unit or Saka Horse Archer grants a free second copy of that unit.

  • Unique Unit: Saka Horse Archer. Unique Ranged Unit that unlocks at Horseback Riding (i.e. at the same tech as Horsemen). Melee Strength 15, Ranged Strength 25, Attack Range 1, Movement 4, Production cost 100, Maintenance 2. Uses Ranged Promotions and upgrades to Field Cannon.
  • Unique Infrastructure: Kurgan. No, not that one. Unique Improvement (requires 1 Builder Charge). Unlocks at Animal Husbandry, +1 Gold, +1 Faith, +1 Faith from each adjacent Pasture, +1 Gold (Guilds), and +1 (Capitalism).
  • Leader Agenda: Backstab Adverse. Likes Civilizations who are willing to establish long term Alliance. Dislikes Civilizations who backstab and declare Surprise Wars.
Notes:
  • You won't be surprised to hear Tomrys has a strong "horse start" bias.

  • Yup, you read it right. Tomrys' combat abilities also apply to Religious Units. Bet you're looking at the Kurgan in a new light now. Tomrys' extra faith generation from Kurgan's also synergises with buying units with faith and her "two-for-one" unit ability.

  • Saka Horse Archer doesn't pack a lot of punch given it has only one range. But it does allow you to "chip" an opponent, reducing them from full health. This then allows Tomrys' combat ability to come into play for other horse units (e.g. light cavalary).

  • Two things to think about when looking at Light Cavalry.
    • First, Light Cav are a bit special when it comes to Strategic Resources. Leaving aside unique units, military units usually fall into two camps: usually need resources (eg melee, heavy cav, light cav), and never need resources (eg anti-cav, ranged, bombard). Light Cav fall into the first camp - i.e. they usually need Strategic Resources. But, of the three Light Cavalry units, one doesn't need a Strategic Resource (Helicopters), and the other two use the same the Strategic Resource (i.e. Horses); and that Strategic Resource is also visible from the start and fairly easy to get. So, Light Cavalry are sort of "Strategic Resource Light".

    • Second, unlike Melee and Heavy Cavalry, Light Cav promotions don't really boost Combat Strength or Ranged Defence. So, highly promoted Light Cav are arguable less "punchy" than Melee or Heavy Cav in terms of pure attack power, although that's a very broad generalisation obviously and YMMV.
 
The only problem I've ever had playing as these guys, is the same problem I have with the Venetian arsenal. I always forget the second unit also costs. So I ramp up my unit production and forget to plan for double costs. Then spend the next period fixing my economy
 
Ahh we're early this week. I can probably fire up a game, and I probably should since this is the Civ I've probably played the least of. I just don't like this civ, but I admit I haven't played them well in the past. I made the mistake of building their UU in the past which I personally find near useless. When it's better just to use horseman and battering rams. Also I played on the Earth map which is kind of challenging for her. And from what I seen on the Europe map, it looks damn near impossible for her. I won't play those maps.

I could go for a religious victory with her, but I admit that's not one of my favored victory types. We'll see how things go. There is no guarantee you'll even get a religion with her.

And I'm going to try to make a point to use the Kurgan which I also shied away from in the past. Could be decent if I have a few pastures around.

And is(was) India really classical? How are you labeling these anyways? When pre R&F Gandhi was the only leader and would be in modern era.
 
So here's an interesting start if anyone wants to play with it. Potential St. Basil's Cathedral location, a wonder I almost never build. Seems challenging with all the tundra, but plains hill start is always awesome. I'll keep the map options a secret for more surprise.

Spoiler :
 

Attachments

  • A1.Civ6Save
    449.4 KB · Views: 152
And is(was) India really classical? How are you labeling these anyways? When pre R&F Gandhi was the only leader and would be in modern era.

I use each Civ's unique unit to determine Era.
 
So here's an interesting start if anyone wants to play with it. Potential St. Basil's Cathedral location, a wonder I almost never build. Seems challenging with all the tundra, but plains hill start is always awesome. I'll keep the map options a secret for more surprise.

Spoiler :

Played your save to turn 168. Had a jolly good time!

The game looked rather challenging at first, which was good as it was King level and I knew it probably wouldn’t end so. It started off slow, but once I built the Temple of Artemis in Pokrovka things started to speed up. The original plan was to spit out a bunch of settlers, so I double promoted Magnus but that proved vexing due to the terrain and Gilgamesh’s war carts streaming past to the south toward Harold.

Early in the game I spied a couple of wounded Sumerian warriors and thought I could do some early game damage to the ziggurat crazed fiend in hopes of averting the famed Sumerian steamroller later in the game.

I noted that Persia has the most votes for next week’s Civ of the Week, so in that spirit I queried Gilgamesh if he was interested in a joint war against Harold, then, once he agreed, immediately declared on him eliminating one of his wounded warriors with an archer before the other scurried away. This strategy proved fortuitous! After peacing out with both Harold and Gilgamesh, they stayed at war...for...quite...some...time. Over the course of the next half a millennia, I watched what must have been 8 or 9 war carts roll right by my area, heading toward Harold.

Spoiler :
Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11) 7_14_2018 2_27_13 PM.png



At times I wondered how Harold could be holding out as nothing was happening except the occasional Nidaros garrison strength dipping to barely wounded, then right back up to full strength. Shrug. I bet the units that survived the 8+ warcart bloodbath must be racking up the experience! After some time Nidaros finally fell, and I accepted an EMERGENCY, joined by Harold and Kongo.

Pokrovka was able to build 2 horseman every 5 turns even without the +50% policy card (needed the slot for something else). As noted by another poster, after producing 6 horses, I had to stop producing them, as they became something of a drain on the economy. Anyway, rather than go toward the emergency site, I went to the emergency source (Gilgamesh).
Spoiler :
Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11) 7_14_2018 3_01_27 PM.png



Harold ended up taking his capital back without anyone’s help and I pocketed 1/3 of the EMERGENCY funds for doing essentially nothing I wouldn’t have done anyway.

The short of it: Gilgamesh’s warcarts put up a spirited defense against the 6 horseman I sent, but once a knight arrived it was game over. I soon took Uruk and a military emergency was declared. Gilgamesh was the only one that answered and this proved another easy 1800 gold.

After finishing the last Sumerian city, I called it. I know how this will end. GG though, as the start made it challenging and fun.
Spoiler :
Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11) 7_14_2018 4_39_25 PM.png

 
I like Sythia a lot. They have a good design, they have unique play style (if you want to use it) and they’re another Civ that’s got better with R&F because they benefit from how faith has changed.

They are a little OP, and really shouldn’t be. I think two small changes would make Sythia more balanced - and more fun.

First, Sythia are a little OP because Horsemem and Lt Cav are too powerful at taking cities. Lt Cav should be a tactical unit - taking out ranged and seige units, pillaging tiles. IMO Lt Cav should get a 17 against cities.

Second, Tom’s ability is a bit strong in that it appplies to all damaged units no matter how minor the damage is. It should probably only apply to unit who have lost half their hit points or more. Either that, or Tom should lose her insta-heal ability. The first option would probably mean the UU would need a small buff (maybe it can move after attacking) and the second option might require Tom’s ability to be buffed a little (say increased yields from pillaging).
 
I like Sythia a lot. They have a good design, they have unique play style (if you want to use it) and they’re another Civ that’s got better with R&F because they benefit from how faith has changed.

They are a little OP, and really shouldn’t be. I think two small changes would make Sythia more balanced - and more fun.

First, Sythia are a little OP because Horsemem and Lt Cav are too powerful at taking cities. Lt Cav should be a tactical unit - taking out ranged and seige units, pillaging tiles. IMO Lt Cav should get a 17 against cities.

Second, Tom’s ability is a bit strong in that it appplies to all damaged units no matter how minor the damage is. It should probably only apply to unit who have lost half their hit points or more. Either that, or Tom should lose her insta-heal ability. The first option would probably mean the UU would need a small buff (maybe it can move after attacking) and the second option might require Tom’s ability to be buffed a little (say increased yields from pillaging).

I disagree with your assessment on light cav taking cities. There is a relatively short window they have to take cities without being slaughtered. It adds a level of strategy to the game, to rush horses or wait on knights (building heavy chariots for upgrade instead). You have to give them at least some window where they can function as your main army or no one would ever build them. I don’t like having to wait to continue a war with upgraded light cav, or that I have to declare peace because my light cav have essentially no hope what-so-ever of advancing further. But at least they generally get something done. If I fully commit to a warmonger light cav strategy, I'm generally able to annex like 3, 4 or 5 cities before they become obsolete. Then I either wait for knights to continue or wait for military science, fighting a defensive war if necessary.

The window for cavalry proper is short as well, (albeit a bit longer if you have allot of science and rush military science).

As for Tomyris being OP, shrug, I think you may well be right. I’m not sure how I would address it though, as I like her the way she is ;).

PS, the UU is rubbish.
 
I disagree with your assessment on light cav taking cities. There is a relatively short window they have to take cities without being slaughtered. It adds a level of strategy to the game, to rush horses or wait on knights (building heavy chariots for upgrade instead). You have to give them at least some window where they can function as your main army or no one would ever build them. I don’t like having to wait to continue a war with upgraded light cav, or that I have to declare peace because my light cav have essentially no hope what-so-ever of advancing further. But at least they generally get something done. If I fully commit to a warmonger light cav strategy, I'm generally able to annex like 3, 4 or 5 cities before they become obsolete. Then I either wait for knights to continue or wait for military science, fighting a defensive war if necessary.

The window for cavalry proper is short as well, (albeit a bit longer if you have allot of science and rush military science).

As for Tomyris being OP, shrug, I think you may well be right. I’m not sure how I would address it though, as I like her the way she is ;).

PS, the UU is rubbish.

Well, I’m glad you said that about Lt Cav. That’s my experience with them as well, but from these forums I’d thought people got a lot further with them than me.

I still think they could use a slight nerf against cities. I can’t put my finger on why. Just feels right.

I don’t really know Tom is OP. I don’t play her enough. I think her combat bonus is very punchy, but it depends on the unit you’re using. If you focus on Lt Cav, it’s not so strong.

Their UU is okay. Build one, nets you two, gets you era score, and gives you a fast unit that lets you chip units to trigger Tom’s ability. Building one (two) is a pretty good deal given it’s two for one. They’re not spamable, and that’s fine. They don’t need to be. I’m a big fan on quirky units that you don’t spam. So long as they have some utility, I’m okay with them.

Australia’s Digger is a good example. It’s a bit random. But if you can buy / build a few, they’re quite handy for liberating city states late game for some ace production bonuses.

I mean, nothing sucks as hard as the Sea Dog, right?
 
Last edited:
This is a civilization that can win 1v7 permanent war (pve) within 100 turns, even 1v23 is only a matter of time. This is a civilization where PVP must banned. This is simply the official built-in cheat.
 
I mean, nothing sucks as hard as the Sea Dog, right?

Well, there's always the p--51 mustang or the chariot archer.

The Saka Horse Archer is on the weak end but that's because it's overshadowed by their own horsemen; with no resources they might have a use since using ranged attacks is good to take advantage of the damaged unit bonus. Scythia benefits much from using ranged units in general but because the game likes to pack everyone together even on large maps, this is sorta whatever.

I rolled a pretty OP Emperor/Normal start with Kandy and Yerevan together! Despite not going for a religous win, I was passing 400 faith a turn and I never get that much. Although most of my Holy Sites were stolen or flipped-- only built 2 since building Holy Sites is for losers.
Start



I did an early Kurgan to be silly to get a pantheon (even bought the tile) but it turned out redundant since I met the faith CS first.

Picked up Goddess and was later able to chop out horsemen and buy a Great Prophet. I also became early Suzerain of Buenos Aires, sadly no emergency. There was an emergency for Kandy though and I took that as an excuse to wipe Seondeok out

Spoiler :



Korea's old capital was great for chopping so I dedicated it to be my new Holy City (held off from founding a religion). I would have left everyone alone but Saladin stole all the religious wondered and attacked.... meanwhile my lone ally Tamar is pretty bloodthirsty and wants me to join all kinds of joint wars. Went straight for Theocracy and never got Merchant Republic

That city ended up as my best city; my capital was sorta mediocre and I forgot about it
Spoiler :




[/img]

Theocratic legacy seems really strong. 5 faith per pop in a city with a governor means you could easily get 100 faith per turn if you have 5 governors, each in a pop 5 city, and that's quite the lowball.... Pretty card for a single card! Wait, no, it's 0.5 faith. Whoops. :p
 

Attachments

  • TOMYRIS 1 4000 BC.Civ6Save
    426.8 KB · Views: 136
  • TOMYRIS 127 275 AD.Civ6Save
    1.6 MB · Views: 146
  • TOMYRIS 224 1565 AD.Civ6Save
    2.4 MB · Views: 121
Last edited:
Well, I’m glad you said that about Lt Cav. That’s my experience with them as well, but from these forums I’d thought people got a lot further with them than me.
Boyan Sun mentioned clearing a board with Tomyris. Couldn't even begin to imagine how. Whenever I try for an extended campaign with light cav it's cut shorter than I'd like because they all get slaughtered as other civs tech and garrison strengths advance. The only civ I've had any success with that sort of thing is Macedonia (using Heteroi).

Their UU is okay. Build one, nets you two, gets you era score, and gives you a fast unit that lets you chip units to trigger Tom’s ability.
Not a bad idea. Recall them being fragile and nearly useless, but to get a unit damaged so a horse can get the extra combat bonuses is not a bad idea. Maybe I'll try a few next go around.

Australia’s Digger is a good example. It’s a bit random. But if you can buy / build a few, they’re quite handy for liberating city states late game for some ace production bonuses.
I mean, nothing sucks as hard as the Sea Dog, right?
I think tanks might get the job done better than diggers, but if you have no resources I'd imagine the extra era score and combat bonuses are nice.
PS, the Sea Dogs take allot of grief on the boards, I rather enjoyed the latest 6otM with England. The Sea Dogs ugraded nicely to nuclear submarines, shrug.
 
Last edited:
Played your save to turn 168. Had a jolly good time!

The game looked rather challenging at first, which was good as it was King level and I knew it probably wouldn’t end so. It started off slow, but once I built the Temple of Artemis in Pokrovka things started to speed up. The original plan was to spit out a bunch of settlers, so I double promoted Magnus but that proved vexing due to the terrain and Gilgamesh’s war carts streaming past to the south toward Harold.

Early in the game I spied a couple of wounded Sumerian warriors and thought I could do some early game damage to the ziggurat crazed fiend in hopes of averting the famed Sumerian steamroller later in the game.

I noted that Persia has the most votes for next week’s Civ of the Week, so in that spirit I queried Gilgamesh if he was interested in a joint war against Harold, then, once he agreed, immediately declared on him eliminating one of his wounded warriors with an archer before the other scurried away. This strategy proved fortuitous! After peacing out with both Harold and Gilgamesh, they stayed at war...for...quite...some...time. Over the course of the next half a millennia, I watched what must have been 8 or 9 war carts roll right by my area, heading toward Harold.



At times I wondered how Harold could be holding out as nothing was happening except the occasional Nidaros garrison strength dipping to barely wounded, then right back up to full strength. Shrug. I bet the units that survived the 8+ warcart bloodbath must be racking up the experience! After some time Nidaros finally fell, and I accepted an EMERGENCY, joined by Harold and Kongo.

Pokrovka was able to build 2 horseman every 5 turns even without the +50% policy card (needed the slot for something else). As noted by another poster, after producing 6 horses, I had to stop producing them, as they became something of a drain on the economy. Anyway, rather than go toward the emergency site, I went to the emergency source (Gilgamesh).


Harold ended up taking his capital back without anyone’s help and I pocketed 1/3 of the EMERGENCY funds for doing essentially nothing I wouldn’t have done anyway.

The short of it: Gilgamesh’s warcarts put up a spirited defense against the 6 horseman I sent, but once a knight arrived it was game over. I soon took Uruk and a military emergency was declared. Gilgamesh was the only one that answered and this proved another easy 1800 gold.

After finishing the last Sumerian city, I called it. I know how this will end. GG though, as the start made it challenging and fun.

I agree about the slow start. The lack of good city sites meant war was pretty much necessary to get out from behind. My science was atrocious since I went double holy site and just barely got a religion. Amazingly I got Earth Goddess pantheon despite one of my later goody huts giving faith.

horseman and one battering ram made short work of both Giglamesh and Harold. I only built 2 of my uu, my unpromoted uu's struggled to take even one barbarian encampment. But were better after one promotion. Only issue with my horseman strat is I had to wait for bronze working and build an encampment to build horseman. Still better than using my uu in my opinion.

I still have yet to build my ui, I can't find a good spot for it. I just don't like this ui.

question is do I keep rolling or go for religious victory? I'll play later today even though the game is essentially won. I'm thinking of peacing the rest of the game since I haven't met several civs and there's a chance at alliances.

most of the civ I wouldn't say is op except one ability. The double horse units is insanely powerful. The healing ability really wasn't that useful against the 2 civs I wiped out, but I found it very useful against barbarians.
 
Couldn't even begin to imagine how
Started to build 1 or 2 settlers depending on the capital's production, and then rush to horsemen and Magnus, and then chop all the way. Don't kill the AI in front of you, just take the capital and ask for compensation. And you have to keep on looting to maintain your huge army. It sounds scary, but as long as you don't go broke before you win, that's OK.
Permanent war is much harder, really challenge. You cannot get compensation at all. Obviously I can't do it, but some expert player can. It's amazing, it's incredible, but there's even live videos.
 
I wouldn't call Scythia OP.
They need 2 horses or a horse and an encampment before they can start their early rush.
Macedon, Greece, India, Sumeria, Nubia and Aztecs can all get their early UUs out without any strategic resources.
Unless Scythia is very lucky with its starting position it won't be able to rush as quickly as them.
 
I’m not really the right person to say whether Sythia are OP or not. I don’t play them enough.

But if they are OP, then Tomry’s ability is a big part of that. Being able to heal on killing is very powerful - you can just keep moving, which is the key to fast Dom. Her ability works for all units, so you can go Knight rush, and your Knight army basically never gets tired. You then get to add that to Sythia’s combat bonus. Nice and effective.

Lilylancer rates those abilities lower than the two for one ability. I wouldn’t disagree with that per se. I imagine the two for one combined with chopping is very effective, but I don’t usually play that way. But the attack bonus and insta-heal is something that applies regardless of play style really, ie is easy to use, and is very powerful in my view.

To be clear, I don’t really think Tomry’s is OP in the sense she should be nerfed. It’s more I think maybe horsemen should be nerfed a little, and perhaps if she needed to be nerfed beyond that her leader ability is the thing that should be looked at.
 
Last edited:
But if they are OP, then Tomry’s ability is a big part of that. Being able to heal on killing is very powerful - you can just keep moving, which is the key to fast Dom.

I hate HATE HATE being up against AI scythia on higher difficulties because of this ability. Double light cav is an insanely strong ability, but really only works for horsemen and cavalry, which leaves a massive gap in the middle of the game, as others have pointed out. However, Healing 30 hp on kill is insanely strong. I know most probably go with Royal society to help shave off a few turns on the spaceship, but the War Department, which offers +20hp heal on kill, is already an amazing building when you get it. Tomyris gets that x1.5 on turn one. There's a reason they nerfed her from +50hp on kill that the game launched with. +5str vs wounded is also very strong. Especially in a game where you have defender of the faith, crusader, Mapuche's anti golden age combat bonus, and all kinds of other unbalanced perks that can swing a war against you- +5 really helps keep those situations from being too brutal.

To be clear, I don’t really think Tomry’s is OP in the sense she should be nerfed. It’s more I think maybe horsemen should be nerfed a little, and perhaps if she needed to be nerfed beyond that her leader ability is the thing that should be looked at.
The biggest issue with 2 for 1 abilities is that they are incredibly hard to balance around the rest of the game. Imagine if a leader had 2 for 1 builders, or 2 for 1 religious units. The only way it works without being broken is if the underlying isn't already balanced with the rest of the game. Light cav is in a weird spot, but if she had 2 for 1 heavy cav, we would be singing a different tune. So now firaxis has the problem: if we fix mounted units relative to others, we will break scythia in one direction or the other. I don't know if I would say she needs a nerf as much as, a reallocation of her power budget to something that's easier to balance with the game mechanics. (venetian arsenal is the same way, it's just that no one needs it.)

The kurgan is kinda interesting- I actually like the idea of a civ having a "trading post" type +gold improvement, but I can't help but shake the fact so many vanilla UIs are +faith. I think they learned their lesson with R&F- hence the UIs there aren't about faith (chemamull, polder, mekewap, golf course.)
 
But if they are OP, then Tomry’s ability is a big part of that. Being able to heal on killing is very powerful - you can just keep moving, which is the key to fast Dom. Her ability works for all units, so you can go Knight rush, and your Knight army basically never gets tired.

Just wanted to point out at least in my game, I still spent a fair amount of time resting to heal. You don't get any healing when taking a city unfortunately, and all those horseman you were using to attack the city all got wounded in the process and need to heal before moving on to the next city. After the process of eliminating their army is done, you aren't getting healing from any other sources. Though it should be pointed out I play slower speeds, which means less army is produced after the initial slaughter is complete.
 
Yea, they still have to heal since the nerf; before that there was no such thing as a roadblock. :lol:

But the thing about Scythia is that they turn close fights into slaughters. And fights in their favors just benefit them. It's quite demoralizing to say the least.
 
Top Bottom