What do you think of Kurgans (Scythian UB)?

[GT_OKEZ]

• +1 Faith
• +1 Gold
• +1 Faith for each adjacent Pasture
• Cannot be built on Hills or next to another Kurgan.

It's a tile improvement. Upon a glance it doesn't seem particularly useful to me since most early cities are focused on food and production. Maybe I can see it useful on a flood plane?

 

[Larsenex]

It is a tile improvement or a replacement to a farm? Early gold is always good for rushing builders, not sure how it will affect adjacency of other tiles and seems that a district would be better in place of it.

 

[Siptah]

Is the requirement 'not next to another kurgan' still in? I thought I saw them next to each other a few times. They would be stronger if they could be build on hills to get some production as well as the faith/gold.

 

[skyclad]

Id say it depends on your strategy. If youre going religious VC i see it being very useful! Otherwise not so much unless its next to 2+ pastures.

 

[GT_OKEZ]

It is a tile improvement or a replacement to a farm? Early gold is always good for rushing builders, not sure how it will affect adjacency of other tiles and seems that a district would be better in place of it.

It's not a farm replacement. It's just a unique tile improvement option. 1 extra gold isn't that much unless you spam kurgans but you have placement requirements (no hills, can't be next to other kurgans) and it doesn't seem like early population would be focused on this (food and production are more important). Plus, you can always chop trees for faster production instead of spending too much gold to buy them.

I think this was trying to give Scythia a mid game option for a religious victory since most of their power is focused early domination. It just doesn't seem like the Kurgan fits great into Tomyris' playstyle like when compared to a leader like Montezuma.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

Bad, particularly for early game, as actually working it kills growth and production (since you aren't working another tile with more food or more production). It also utterly fails to work with any of the Scythian bonuses.

Later on it is theoretically situationally useful if you really need extra faith generation and have quite a few pastures. But it seems worse than just working a holy site for faith, which wouldn't take away from housing as this does (while the kurgan isn't a farm replacement, the opportunity cost is a farm). Which also means disrupting farm adjacency in mid and late game.

Scythians are a strange civ. But they hit medieval and essentially fall apart and have to coast on the bonus against wounded units and healing for multiple eras before they pick back up with cavalry (the unit) and then helicopter spam.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

They wanted to make them more than a one trick horse archer civ like the Huns in CiV who barely had anything at all after ancient era (slightly better production).
I can see them as marginally useful if built next to pastures, not much anywhere else, and they are definitely not meant to be spammed everywhere, thought spamming them might create an interesting situation with huge faith generation for religious victory but then you better win quickly.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

They wanted to make them more than a one trick horse archer civ like the Huns in CiV who barely had anything at all after ancient era (slightly better production).

Honestly, this all I think they are (actually less, since they don't have that production boost). Post early game, Scythians have to frantically rush to cavalry and then helicopters, coast on one trait's fairly mediocre bonuses, or avoid war at all costs.

Norway has much the same problem (though their bonuses are a little more applicable past the early game). Their bonuses are neat, but they don't win games the way bonus districts, extra card slots, or faster ways through tech or things that contribute to the easier victory conditions (science and culture). The religious victory is actually really hard in the face of AI missionary spam, and a couple extra points of faith isn't going to do it.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I can see it being useful for Faith-rushing Great People, but you definitely don't want to spam it all over.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Honestly, this all I think they are (actually less, since they don't have that production boost). Post early game, Scythians have to frantically rush to cavalry and then helicopters, coast on one trait's fairly mediocre bonuses, or avoid war at all costs.

I don't fully agree. They are not worse at war than many non-war oriented civs past their UU window of opportunity, they are actually better than some thanks to their auto-healing and bonus strength against wounded units. Wound them even slightly with ranged units, even badly outdated Horse Archers and get an immediate boost with other units that can heal if they land the killing blow (and thus end up on the front line).
At the very least, they are a multi trick Horse Archer civ.

Not sure how well they could transition into a more peaceful game thought with merely the Kurgan to help them. They are probably quite reliant on their early strength to get them a head-start much like the Huns were. At least they can use pillaging wars later if they want to avoid full fledged conflicts while there was little to gain in CiV from wars outside of conquests.