Scythe Starting Strategies - The Mill

hello and welcome to the mill I am your host dusty crane today we are going to be talking about scythe all things sighs actually I am going to go ahead and do the video I keep getting asked to do and that is a strategy video before I get into strategy though I want to talk a few news items this is started arriving for stone buyer champions the pre-orders the first 1900 have started shipping and they're starting to show up at people's houses so get excited it's uh looks like a pretty cool expansion I am going to actually do what Jamie asked and I am going to go into this sight unseen I still have the cards inside and shrink and I'm just going to go ahead and break him out during our next game aside the second piece of news is unfortunately kind of a bummer in the Facebook live chat Jamie did this past Wednesday someone asked about the status of the modular board and he told us that the deadline came he was talking with Jakob and Jakob notified him that he was going to miss the deadline he hadn't actually done much of the art at all it is now going to transition the art is gonna transition from Jakob to Jamie's graphic designer who's going to go ahead and do what he can and you know put it together and then he's gonna send it back to Jakob for some polishing so to me that seems to indicate that maybe they're gonna reuse some of the art that we already have on the map and just that's how things are gonna get swapped out that's just a guess i I don't know for sure but that's kind of what I'm thinking it's kind of a bummer because I think that's gonna push out that modular board longer or further away than what we're thinking but I mean at least we're still getting it so that is a reason to to celebrate before I get into the strategy last week I meant to mention that the mill reached 250 subscribers and that is a super cool super cool milestone for me and for the channel I totally forgot to mention it and just looked before this video we're at almost at 300 supercool maybe by the time you see this we are at 300 or past 300 in any case really the whole purpose was just to let you know if you've given us even 20 seconds of your time or a minute or one video I really appreciate that thank you without further ado let's get into strategy but before we do let me set expectations I didn't get this gig because Jamie thought I was a great sized player all right I am NOT but the majority of my games are played against my son he's 15 and he I'd say we split the games about 50/50 but I don't think either one of us would stand much chance in a tournament we kind of just have fun in so I just want to set the expectation I am NOT going to set your world on fire with these these strategies of these tips so I apologize in advance but I did scour bgg strategy I did watch Jamie's past videos on side strategies and I also watched some videos that the community have put together and and so I'm just gonna go ahead and present I'm gonna do just kind of high-level this is gonna be general strategy I depending on how this is received you know I can go down into the the factions and present some of those strategies but let's start super general I got my list here I'm just gonna go ahead and consult another thing to set expectation is I don't like play books I don't like the strategies that say in turn one do this I turn to do that and it kind of lays out the first 20 turns because on average a game of size lasts between 18 and 22 turns according to a really incredible strategy guide I found on bgg by bgg user who goes by Manhattan jack and that's John Martorano and hopefully I pronounced that right but he has an incredible multipy strategy blog and he mentioned that scythe well yes it is a Forex game or action selection game it's also a race each game aside on average is between 18 and 22 turns getting back to that not liking to do turns I remember being in high school in a game that I'd like to play back then and was a game called Starcraft it's on the PC and looking at the strategy blogs they mentioned you know to do is er crush our Terran Rush here's what you do and it was step by step by step and I found myself playing every single game exactly the same way and I don't think you want to do that for side that if I tell you you know turn one build turn to produced you know it doesn't need to be that static and I think if you actually get in the mindset of it being static like that that it's going to be it's gonna hurt you in the long run I think what I really like about scythe is it's not in isolation you're not playing a game by yourself you have to respond to your circumstances whether it's your faction matter your player board or your opponents or you know what what they're encountering or you know combat all of these things play into how you play the game and so let me start with Jamie strategies he has some basic strategies that are laid out on the QuickStart card in the Box aside and it's great I mean it is if it's the very first time sitting down play side it gives you an idea of things to do I think maybe the first tip is a little geared towards somebody who's sitting down at a table with a bunch of other friends that are playing this for the first time because the first tip that Jamie offers is take an action that no one else at the table has taken yet I think that's great for pushing buttons and seeing what your player mats do and what your action selection does but ultimately I don't think it's competitive I don't think if if everyone else trades on their first turn that you want to necessarily bolster take the Quick Start card use it understand that I think it is more geared towards just poking buttons and and seeing what happens when you do what Jamie was on a youtube video a while back talking science strategy and I took note of those I was gonna say advanced strategy I don't think it necessarily qualifies as that but a few of the things that he called out at the start of the game consecutively trade and produced to get your bottom roll action on your second turn I think that is a good idea I think that is a good idea because so much of sigh and especially if with it up being a race game so to speak is you want to get those bottom row actions as much as you can so much of the strategies that you read online and so much of watching how people that are good at the game play is building an engine that you can knock off those bottom row actions one after another after another after another is ultimately pretty important if you want to be competitive inside I mean you don't want to have too many wasted turns when you only have 18 to 22 turns to play so the first one that Jamie offered was in the start of the game consecutively trade and produce to your bottom roll actions going the second one is try to aim for five workers to keep spending down and get more later if necessary now anyone who plays I knows that the sweet spots are three workers five workers and seven workers and the reason for that is once you put bring out your fourth worker you incur a penalty or cost now instead of it being free to produce you are also paying a power once you have the next tier out is your paying popularity and finally once you have all your workers out you're paying power and popularity and coins to get that production out no yes you also achieve a combat star or I'm sorry not combat sorry you do also achieve a star towards your objectives but not towards your objectives either I'm using all kinds of terminology that I shouldn't it is a way to get a star it's getting your eight workers out there Jamie mentions that for him the sweet spot is five workers I think for me more often than not it's five workers so that's his number to try to aim for five workers number three is ignore objective cards if they don't fit into your to your strategy I think that's great advice there's some objective cards that say become a pacifist you know there's also objective cards that say become a despised war monger these two things are wildly at odds with each other and if you're looking at your mat and gaining power is not going to help you achieve your your goals or gaining popularity isn't going to help you achieve your goals then maybe you just ignore that at all and that's important feel free to discard any part of it that or not use any part of it that is not going to ultimately aid you in in continuing on the next one presented was spread out across the board particularly with workers because it slows down other players now one of the functions of the workers being on the board is once a mech or a character it enters a territory with a worker their movement stops whether they have a whether they have a speed mech out if they enter a territory with a worker they stop they also take a popularity hit so it's a nice way to slow them moving across the board well you have minimal impact you I mean yes your workers back at your home base you got to get them back out there again but that popularity hit could be beneficial to you at the end the fifth and final strategy Jaime provided in that YouTube video was to continue taking bottom row actions even after you have got the star or upgraded them to reap all the benefits so if you got all your recruits out and or you've recruited everyone and you have a three coin benefit to recruiting keep doing it I mean it doesn't matter if you do the recruit recruit action five times six times seven times you're still getting the reward for that you're still getting the the three coins or the two coins or you know if you're just trying to take the that to get an extra combat card or whatever it is you can still keep taking those actions even if you don't gain the benefit that they would have otherwise provided so you can still get you know the the three coins or the two coins even if you're not adding a new recruit to you know your board so that's something that some folks don't know about you can't absolutely keep deploying mechs even if you've are got four on the board next I'm just gonna go ahead and I just got some bullet points here that I'm that I'm gonna run through and kind of give you an idea of maybe some of those strategies I found surrounding those particular items stars stars are ultimately how you bring about the endgame how you end the game they're not necessarily how you're gonna win the game depending on your popularity tiers those stars are worth varying point amounts you know in the lowest popularity tier a stars worth three gold the next one for the next one five that means if your opponents are in the lowest popularity tier you doing one bottom row action that is your three coin bottom row action if you have one financially it's the same thing it's not gonna bring about the endgame but if you have more coins at the end of the game I mean that's how you win somebody who has you know three stars out can beat somebody who deployed there or put their six star out and into the game so stars are not the end-all be-all I mean if you see somebody putting down their third or fourth star and you only have one yes start going about earning those stars in whatever fashion you can there's no reward for getting most of your mechs deployed or most of your recruits there's no bent endgame benefit to getting seven of your workers out so keep an eye on that but also know that stars are not the end-all be-all the next piece of advice I found the next strategy I found was encounters they are of varying importance depending on where you're at in the game early in the game encounters are very important they provide great resources I was cautioned in one of those strategy guides to not underestimate popularity and so a lot of the times the cost the very expensive cost on the encounter card comes with a popularity hit it may be hard depending on where you're at at the game to climb back out of that hole so if you're getting it earlier you have a little bit more time to do that but remember early on that the encounters are worth more and as you go on and as your engine gets built and your you're gaining more and more things from a from a build action or from a from a produce action then those encounter cards become less important the next one I found was mechs when I started playing scythe and even really as recently as the last time I played before I was reading these strategy guides as I kind of thought this is a race to get out your River mech your Riverwalk mech get that out there as soon as you can see you have more mobility that might explain why I've been so bad at playing chromia because they are one of those factions that you can really do a lot from inside your home base and there are maybe better mechs to start first the the strategy guide I read from manehattan Jack mentioned it seemed like a lot of his his suggestions were actually built around getting that speed mech out first and the reason being is once you start building workers you want to be able to get those workers around quickly once you have your full accompaniment of workers however many you're gonna build you want to be able to move them around the board quickly so having that speed Mac being able to move you know further in faster especially in a race game is very important alright the factory the factory is very popular for very obvious reasons you get a very popular or sorry a very powerful factory card you also get three territories if you end up there at the end of the game but you don't always need the factory yes it is nice to have at the end of the game you don't always need a factory card so my advice that I found regarding the factory card is if you're gonna go there earlier the better probably I'm sure there's circumstances where that's not necessarily the case but if you're gonna go go early so that you have your choice of what factory card you walk away from toward the end of the game you know if you're the last one of the factory you've got the leftovers that no one else wanted and chances are they didn't want them for a reason not to mention the factory card usually substitutes or does what a second row action does anyway in so maybe you've already got your stuff belt maybe you've already got your buildings built maybe you've already got your workers built or your mechs deployed the factory card to I think is probably one of those things like encounters that you could say is worth less more worth less further into the game not always true as of every strategy but I think that's probably that's probably pretty good advice last one I've written down is enlistments don't sleep on the enlistments because not only do you get a bonus for putting them out but every time the person in your left or your right takes that action whether you take the enlistment for building outer ten they put a mech out you get that benefit and yes it's true for you too that if they've already built all four of their mechs and they take that build action again you still get that benefit even just because the mechs not going out on the board doesn't mean that you're not getting that enlistment bonus this is all pretty high level in a lot of you that place either regularly are probably you know nodding your head and thinking yeah that's all pretty obvious but it's not if you're new to scythe or you have played with a very limited group and you are pretty successful in your group then you know maybe there's not much reason to pursue strategy but it's pretty exciting it's one of those things I like about side that I can have played 30 or 40 games and think that I know what I need to know and still you know break open one of these strategy guides and read and think wow I did it all wrong I I don't need to break it down turn by turn by turn by turn but I can you know find common ground with some of these tutorials and say hey when I am playing what I am playing you know roofs theater I am playing pull on yeah this is you know something I can do to maximize what I'm doing I don't have to do turn one turn to you know step by step by step but I can you know take the best practices and improve my game so I'm gonna point you in the comments and the show notes to Manhattan Jack's awesome blog there is so much good stuff there check that out if you want something more faction related there's a bgg user out there JK Murr who has put together posts that are based on the different factions that's another great one to read I will like I said depending on how this is received you know go into a deeper dive for each individual you know faction thanks for watching this video if you have anything else related if you want to discuss you know did I give a bad piece of advice here did I say something that doesn't make a lot of sense or you think makes sense but maybe needs a little bit more explanation feel free to drop in the comments if you have a good strategy video or a good strategy blog that you think that I could benefit from or anyone viewing could benefit from feel free to include that too I again thank you so much for watching for liking and subscribing if your not subscribing and you like what you see here go ahead and click subscribe click the bell to get notified and that's all I got for you today you guys have a good one thanks bye [Music]

Channel: The Mill

Views: 67,426

Keywords: Stonemaier Games, Stonemaier, The Mill, Scythe, Scythe Strategy, Scythe Strategies

Id: IKtpaIehO6A

Length: 18min 59sec (1139 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 13 2018