Scythe

Plays: 5Px1.

The Game

Scythe, published in 2016, is currently ranked 8th at BGG. I only played it for the first time this year. I missed the opportunity when it was hot. Recently when Han visited Kuala Lumpur he suggested to bring it to play with us, and I happily agreed.

Scythe was inspired by a series of artwork by Polish artist Jakub Rozalski. He created a 1920's Eastern Europe in an alternate universe, one with gigantic mechs. The Great War has just ended. The advanced capitalist city-state which produced many of the mechs used during the war has now closed its doors. You play one of the neighbouring nations, rebuilding your country and eyeing the advanced technologies of The Factory. That's what the city-state is called. In this game you develop your nation, capture territories and produce resources. You try to complete as many achievements as possible. The game ends when a player completes his 6th achievement. Scores are tallied, and highest scorer wins.

This is the leader of the white nation.

Everyone starts with a faction mat (bottom) and a player mat. When you play a particular faction, your start position on the map is fixed, and your faction mat is fixed. However your player mat is randomly drawn. So even when playing the same faction, your experience will differ from game to game.

This is the faction mat. The four mechs are placed here. Whenever you build a mech, you move a mech from here to the map, and you unlock one ability. The most basic ability is the riverwalk. At the start of the game you can't even cross rivers. You can decide the order you want to build your mechs and thus unlock the relevant abilities. You don't necessarily have to start with riverwalk. The abilities you unlock by building mechs vary from faction to faction.

There are many rivers and lakes on the main board. The faction capitals are along the edges - those coloured circles. Blue is in the north, red is in the east. White in the west, black in the southwest, and yellow in the south. There's a green one in the northwest, and a purple one in the southeast. I think they are for the expansion.

The Factory is right at the centre, that space with the three hex icon. The Three hex icon means if you control the Factory by game end, you score points as if you control three hexes. There are six hexes with red borders. These are parts of a tunnel, and they are all considered to be connected. Once you reach one of the tunnel spaces, you can easily move to many other places, harassing whoever you want. The spaces on the board have little icons indicating what resources they produce. Blue is oil, red is farmers, yellow is food, grey is metal, and brown is wood.

At the start of the game you draw a number of objective cards. If you manage to complete one of them, you are considered to have completed an achievement.

These are combat cards. Their values range from 2 to 5.

This is the player mat, the most important tool in the game. Your actions are all driven by this. The player mat is divided into four groups. In the second group in this photo above you can see a white pawn. On your turn, you must move the pawn to another group, and then perform the actions listed in that group. This means you can't do the same things over and over again. If you want to do the same thing, you need to wait at least one round, so that your pawn can move back to the group you want.

On this player mat, icons with a green background are resources you gain, while icons with a red background are fees you pay. One type of action you can do in the game is upgrades. That means moving a cube from the upper half of the player mat to the lower half. Notice there are six such cubes. When you move a cube away from the top half, you will reveal a green spot, i.e. in future when you use that action group, you will gain an extra resource. When the cube is moved to the lower half (it can be within the same group or to another group), you will cover a red spot. That means in future your fee will be smaller. I find this a very clever mechanism. If you expect to use a particular action group a lot, you should do upgrades there to both increase you gain and reduce your cost.

I greatly admire this player mat. There are recesses on the mat which precisely fit the components they are meant for. It is not immediately obvious from this photo unfortunately. Every single piece, other than the player pawn, has a matching recess.

These two white figures are my farmers. When you perform the produce action, all your farmers produce resources depending on where they are standing. These two farmers would be producing one wood and one new farmer respectively, as indicated by the icons at their locations. Those two barrels of oil were not produced by them. I got the oil from a trade action. Resources must be placed with farmers. That's why the oil barrels are here.

Those two round markers are encounter tokens. Only your leader may claim them. Once you claim one, you draw an encounter card, and pick one from the rewards listed.

This is an encounter card. Some of the options require a payment.

Even after you unlock your riverwalk ability, it doesn't mean you get to cross a river anywhere you like. You may only cross the river into two specific terrain types. You need to pay attention to your opponents' riverwalk abilities so that you know which locations are within their movement (i.e. attack) range and which are safe.

In this photo you can see the recesses more clearly. At the top of the third action group you can see a group of farmers. Whenever you "produce" farmers, they are taken from here. Each time a farmer is removed from the player mat, an icon may be revealed, increasing the cost of activating this action group. There is a power icon in the second slot. From this point onwards, each time I use this action group, I need to pay 1 power. Notice that in this third action group, I have placed two cubes to cover wood cost positions. In the beginning I had to pay 4 wood to build a structure. Now I only needed to pay 2.

Battle resolution is simple. Each leader and mech is strength 1. When battle is joined, you already know their strength contribution. Two other items contribute to battle strength - your power and your combat cards. There is a power track on the main board where every faction earns and spends power. During battle, you may spend up to 7 power to increase your strength. You secretly decide how much you want to spend, and indicate it using this dial on the left of this photo (now turned facedown). You also secretly decide how many and which combat cards to use. Once both combatants have decided, their power commitment and combat cards are simultaneously revealed. Whoever has a higher total strength wins. The loser's leader, mechs and farmers all get sent back to his capital. Nobody dies. If there are resources on the battlefield, they become the victor's spoils.

This is the triumph table, or the achievement table. You get to place your star here whenever you complete an achievement. Achievements are unique, except for winning battles (3rd and 4th from the right). Your first and second victories are achievements, but your third one onwards are no longer celebrated, sorry. Other achievements include maxing out on popularity, building all four mechs, building all four structures, deploying all farmers, completing all player mat upgrades. Once anyone completes his sixth achievement, the game immediately ends. You don't get to complete the current game round.

This is the popularity track. Some actions increase your popularity, and some decrease it. Scaring farmers off their land with your mechs ticks them off, for example. Your popularity rating affects the victory point values of the three main scoring elements - your achievements, your territories, and your resources. You need to hit a popularity of 7 to reach the middle tier, and 13 to reach the high tier. At the bottom of the photo you can see a structure bonus card. One such card is randomly drawn during game setup, and it determines how your structures may earn bonus points, e.g. when built on specific terrain.

This card on the left of the player mat is a Factory card. When you access the Factory, you get to pick one such card from a small deck. It becomes an additional action group for you. This signifies you learning a new tech from the Factory. The earlier you access the Factory, the more options you have. You may only ever claim one Factory card.

The Play

We did a full 5-player game. Han brought his two sons along. I had not seen them for ages and they are big boys now!

Allen's daughter watched us play for a while.

These three bags are food. They are deluxe game components. Very nice.

These three bricks on the left are metal.

I was white, and Han's elder son black. The unique ability of the black faction is every battle won is an achievement, and not just the first two. So it has a tendency to be a warmonger. Elder son was my right neighbour, so I needed to watch out. At this point his leader and one mech were both near me, so I had to be on high alert. Thankfully the riverwalk ability was restricted to specific terrains, so I did not need to worry about the whole length of the river. At the moment I only needed to protect this particular space where I had my leader and one mech.

In the foreground I had built a windmill. The windmill serves as a farmer. It produces one resource whenever you perform the produce action. The only difference is it never moves.

My left neighbour was Han (blue). He had one expeditionary force near my area now, with one mech and four farmers. They had even produced four barrels of oil. My (white) leader and mech were on alert. This was an imminent threat. However, it was also an opportunity, since he only had one mech protecting his farmers and oil.

Elsewhere on the board, elder son (black) had sent his mechs out making use of the tunnel. He did so mainly because he wanted to complete a mission, not that he intended to attack (yet). If he wanted to attack he would not have split his forces this way.

Since Han's expeditionary force was small, I decided to grab the initiative and I attacked. Throughout our game he had been guiding and helping his sons, so he was effectively the strategist for three nations. He was too busy and underestimated the danger in this area. Eventually both his sons' nations did better than his own. My attack set him back significantly. He had spent much effort moving his mech and farmers and producing the oil here, only to lose them to my opportunistic attack.

The Han Dynasty.

The Sam Dynasty. Allen did much production. In the early game, he too overlooked a threat and got his farmers expelled and his resources confiscated.

We gradually advanced to the Factory at the centre. Younger son (red) was first to get there and to obtain a factory card. I (white) never pushed myself towards the Factory, preferring to focus on self-development. One particular type of upgrade in the game allows you to gain small benefits whenever your neighbours perform certain actions. Han made use of this well, expecting that I would do a lot of upgrading. I was a little torn. I didn't want to benefit him, but I could not resist doing my upgrading and engine-building. I still went ahead with my plan. Because it sparked joy.

Now younger son (red) had captured the Factory. All four of his mechs had been built. That army of three mechs was downright menacing. I (white) had been defeated in battle, so my leader and mechs were back at my capital. In the early game, mobility is very low. You can only move one step at a time, and you can't even cross rivers. As you improve your abilities, your mobility will increase significantly. Some factions even get to move onto lakes. With the help of the tunnel, you can get anywhere relatively easily. Nowhere is safe. It is important to watch how far your opponents have improved their mobility.

This was a battle of the Han brothers, red vs black. This was mainly for the achievement, since there was no resource to fight over. There aren't many battles in Scythe, but each battle may have severe repercussions. Both Han and Allen were badly set back due to early losses. It is not easy to gain power and combat cards. You need to conserve them. Doing battles is a game of chicken. You know once you start fighting and spending your power and combat cards, the vultures will be eyeing you and will likely swoop in during your moment of weakness. Often you want to let others fight first and exhaust their resources, so that you will have easy victims to bully.

Younger son (red) had won that battle. Elden son's (black) mech was sent back to his capital at the bottom right. Elsewhere on the board, younger son's other army was on a tunnel space, and Allen's (yellow) army too. This means they were in fighting range. Han (blue) had two armies next to a tunnel space, and I (white) had one too. I think by this point both of us had a movement range of 2. This means all of us were within fighting range. Battle could break out any time. It was a matter of whether it was worth the risk and the trouble.

We were all rather unpopular. Only Han (blue) had some semblance of respectability, being just one step away from the mid tier. It is probably best to do all the unpopular stuff early in the game. If your popularity drops to rock bottom, you can't fall any further, and you can continue to do more horrible deeds "for free". You can turn over a new leaf after you are done with all the required nasty stuff for scoring points (e.g. winning battles). You have time till game end to rebuild your popularity. All this is easier said than done. It's not easy to attack early due to low mobility and the shortage of mechs. Also it is not easy to increase popularity.

This was just before the game ended. Elder son (black), younger son (red) and I (white) all had 5 stars. Eventually it was elder son who completed his sixth achievement and ended the game.

The Thoughts

Of Jamey Stegmaier's games, I have only played Viticulture and Scythe. Both are in the top 20 on BGG now. Before I played the games, I had only read a little about them, and I did not have high expectations. After I played them, I did not find any big surprise. I don't consider them in top tier among games I've played, because I don't find any particularly outstanding touch of genius. However in both cases I found myself enjoying the game more than I expected. They are well crafted. The unassuming elements come together to create a fun and immersive experience. The games do have some clever bits. They have character and they are not just a bunch of familiar mechanisms packaged together with a pretty setting.

Scythe is mainly a development game. I hope I don't feel this way just because I primarily played it as such. I enjoy improving my abilities and becoming stronger and stronger. I greatly admire the component design of the player mat. The artwork is excellent. I think the amount of conflict is just right. Battles are simple and streamlined. They are quick to resolve. Yet they are meaningful and they can have a big impact. You need to prepare. You need to be alert. The tension among players escalates. It is a race to reach the 6th achievement. Within that time you try to maximise your score. If you are first to get your 6th achievement, you should be one of the frontrunners, but victory is not guaranteed. Timing the game end is important and players will try to manipulate it to their advantage.