[R&F] Having trouble using Scythians

[Question]

My experience with them is that it takes too long to get horse archers out...and when I do, they are worse than the warrior + archer ancient era combo while costing more. Their range of 1 is too crippling. By this time you probably have warriors + archers anyway because of war happy AIs and they work way better than horse archers. The only situation i can see horse archers being better is if someone is spamming nothing but slow melee units at you for some silly reason...even horsemen hard counter horse archers and other civs get it at the same tech level.

Kurgans are also less than impressive because their adjacency bonus is faith, not gold. Unfortunately, having tons of faith doesnt help you to do much other than found a pantheon at this point, since you need a holy site anyway which is hammer intensive. You need to found a religion to make full use of extra faith (yes i know you can rush buy GPs with faith but thats super expensive anyway and not relevant when you are trying to do early game warring).

I find it hard to justify working Kurgan tiles when i need food/hammers way more in the early game.

By the time i got horse archers out, enemy cities were at the 30+ strength range, which makes them nearly invulnerable to archers/horse archers...and thats BEFORE they get walls. Also funfact : Spearmen take almost no damage from horse archers...because of the anti-cav bonus, another reason for the warrior + archer combo being superior.

Also they cant upgrade to crossbow men, so in the medieval era, even if you did well and got tons of veteran horse archers, you have them sitting around being useless, because you cant upgrade them till you get field canons.

I think horse archers should come out at the same time as archery...you need to get archery anyway, to defend your cities and thats the perfect spot for you to go on the offensive with horse archers as unwalled cities aren't too powerful. The Kurgan adjaceny yield bonus should be gold, not faith so you can afford the horse archer's higher maintenance, and horse archers should be upgradable to crossbows.

Any tips for playing Scythians?

 

[Arent11]

My experience with them is that it takes too long to get horse archers out...and when I do, they are worse than the warrior + archer ancient era combo while costing more. Their range of 1 is too crippling. By this time you probably have warriors + archers anyway because of war happy AIs and they work way better than horse archers. The only situation i can see horse archers being better is if someone is spamming nothing but slow melee units at you for some silly reason...even horsemen hard counter horse archers and other civs get it at the same tech level.

Kurgans are also less than impressive because their adjacency bonus is faith, not gold. Unfortunately, having tons of faith doesnt help you to do much other than found a pantheon at this point, since you need a holy site anyway which is hammer intensive. You need to found a religion to make full use of extra faith (yes i know you can rush buy GPs with faith but thats super expensive anyway and not relevant when you are trying to do early game warring).

I find it hard to justify working Kurgan tiles when i need food/hammers way more in the early game.

By the time i got horse archers out, enemy cities were at the 30+ strength range, which makes them nearly invulnerable to archers/horse archers...and thats BEFORE they get walls. Also funfact : Spearmen take almost no damage from horse archers...because of the anti-cav bonus, another reason for the warrior + archer combo being superior.

Also they cant upgrade to crossbow men, so in the medieval era, even if you did well and got tons of veteran horse archers, you have them sitting around being useless, because you cant upgrade them till you get field canons.

I think horse archers should come out at the same time as archery...you need to get archery anyway, to defend your cities and thats the perfect spot for you to go on the offensive with horse archers as unwalled cities aren't too powerful. The Kurgan adjaceny yield bonus should be gold, not faith so you can afford the horse archer's higher maintenance, and horse archers should be upgradable to crossbows.

Any tips for playing Scythians?

(1) Horse archers are actually bad, at least most people seem not to use them much. However, they count as ranged, not cavalry.
(2) The production advantage applies to all light cavalry, so you should build horsemen for 40 production, you don't even need the maneuver policy card
(3) The +5 combat bonus against wounded units & healing on kill applies to all units (including religious units), so in fact even your immediate warriors/archers are better than the enemy, which is good on higher difficulty levels
(4) One disadvantage is that your horsemen upgrade to cavalry & not to knights, which means there are certain parts in the game where your army is outdated. So you have to supplement some alternative units, either standard warriors/archers that you upgrade or some chariots.
(5) There are some uses for faith in Rise & Fall, but in principle, you do not need to bother much with Kurgans.

 

[liv]

With Scyntia you find horses on the map build by them, you move towards horseback writing as soon as you can and when available you build horses, horses, horses and attack and never look back
Maybe build one horse archer for the era score but not much more (and build a few more before you get to field cannon to upgrade them)

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

Ignore religion. Beeline bronze working for an encampment and secure horses then beeline to horseback riding. Build horsemen for your main army and run Strategos for a GG (requires political philosophy so may not be available immediately). They are so OP it's ridiculous with healing and double cavalry and yes they will take out spearmen easily with a GG and anti-cavalry promotion. Horse archers are quite weak so I only build a few for support and now era bonuses - they are useful for wounding units to enable the combat bonus for Horsemen. Use Magnus chop and the cavalry production card to churn out units until you max out your surplus gold and declare war on whomever is nearby and take whatever cities you want. I'll often forego expansion altogether and do this only with my capital if I have horses there.

 

[Mr. Shadows]

The faith from the kurgan can get you a pantheon in a pinch, and now that it contributes to your era score it's going to be worth building at least one. Getting a pantheon can be extremely helpful, but faith isn't particularly important to Tomyris beyond that. Horse archers are only worth it for the era score, and maybe not even then It's hard to compete with Scythia if you want a good Dom sweep though; health from kills for all units is a very strong bonus.

 

[Victoria]

All been said, An early kurgan does loose you agoge eureka so I would not bother with that initially unless a real zealot. Second builder maybe but not first.
The real strength lies in both their start position which is heavily weighted toward horse and early horsemen is fantastic and also their heal ability allows so much more sustain and attrition power its is hard to defend against. Even without a horse in sight their healing power is OP.
Horse archers are handy to finish a unit you could not otherwise do and ignore ZOC and are fast but I would not build many if any beyond an era score.

 

[Cacimbinhas]

Scythia are my favorite civ for domination. The healing for kills is excellent and if you add the God of Healing Pantheon it really helps with the horse rush as they get +30 healing bonus beside the holy sites you conquer. That saves a few turns waiting for horsemen who are low on health to recover and keeps them on the move a lot faster as their time frame for being useful is limited. I build\chop 4 horse units and a ram which is really x8 horses with the double horse units of Scythia. Start rolling over cities nearby and while u are doing that beeline feudalism and stirrups and churn out 6\7 chariots and a siege tower while stashing gold to upgrade them to knights and you are well on your way to any victory you want. Kurgans are a handy +4 era score when you need it most, as are horse archers. The x2 horse archers are a great defense in a city where barb spawns are likely, their mobility is great for getting to barb scouts before they can cause problems.

 

[slowcar]

Also funfact : Spearmen take almost no damage from horse archers...because of the anti-cav bonus, another reason for the warrior + archer combo being superior.

Horser archers count as ranged units and are not affected by the spearmen bonus. They are still not very useful due to their range 1 and not being able to move after attacking, but can be used to wound a unit (and get the horseman +5), defend against barbs or just deliver the era score when needed.

 

[Victoria]

They are still not very useful due to their range 1 and not being able to move after attacking,

Well the wounding is normally at last 10 HP and with flanking that’s +3 to another unit. 2 for the price of 1 fast no ZOC, I find them useful enough but only played them twice as the civ is just too strong.