Scythia testing volunteers?

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

There's been a lot of discussion about Scythia lately, and a lot of proposed solutions. I thought a thread might be useful where members talk about what they think is the best solution, if they think one is required at all.

Also, people could try some of the solutions in a new campaign and then report back here about how well it is going. So we could see which solutions seem to work best for what people want.

Caesarvincens had one of the best suggestions yet, I think. He came up with the idea of giving the rebel settlements bordering Scythia stronger garrisons, so that they would put up more of a fight and not let Scythia just steamroll over them to Germania and Thrace.

Zarax had another great suggestion, he said that removing the experience bonus should help greatly with the other AI factions, allowing them to defeat Scythia in auto resolve battles. (they almost always lose in the current situation). This makes sense from my experience, as Scythian armies almost always had silver or even gold chevrons of experience, making them far, far better than they were intended to be in the original balance.

Another suggestion that a member gave whose name I can't remember, was that the upkeep for Scythian units be greatly increased, along with their recruitment times. I've used this in two current campaigns as Greece and Rome, and so far it has worked very well at keeping the Scythians from world domination.

However, I'm not very far into the campaigns turn wise, so they could become super powerful later on, only time will tell.

What do you think will work best? Any more potential solutions?

[krasni]

I haven't played through XGM too much but from what I've seen in RTW, I think increasing the upkeep, recruitment times, or both, is the best option. Especially for those obnoxious horse archers.

[Anakarsis]

Well, i like to play scythia so here it is some of my possible solutions.

1st: For all the god´s sake, reduce the auto-resolve strenght of the HAs! their basic troop has a auto-resove rating of 3 vs the 1 that most troops has! how do you think that they can lose that way????? moreover, their basic unit has more people than other cavalries!!! change this first, please, and test it before changing them into a crap faction that i will have to re-edit complete if i want to play it.

2nd: currently Scythia has an income penalty, that they easily overcome conquering the rich lands of the Carpatians, the coastal indi greeks, pontus and the balcans. The main problem of nomadic societies (that were really powerful war forces, no matter what some people say) was not lacking of funds but lacking in people, because pastoralism can only feed a much limited number of inhabitants per square kilometer that farming economies. Try changing their -20 income for a -10 population growth/ -10 income-5

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

Well, i like to play scythia so here it is some of my possible solutions.

1st: For all the god´s sake, reduce the auto-resolve strenght of the HAs! their basic troop has a auto-resove rating of 3 vs the 1 that most troops has! how do you think that they can lose that way????? moreover, their basic unit has more people than other cavalries!!! change this first, please, and test it before changing them into a crap faction that i will have to re-edit complete if i want to play it.

I agree that their auto resolve is very overpowered.

However, horse archers are extremely annoying to fight in the battle map and defeat without taking casualties for most infantry forces. So, if you make their auto resolve weaker, players will crush Scythia via auto resolve, because its much much quicker and easier than doing it in the battle map.

That said, I agree that it needs to be reduced.

2nd: currently Scythia has an income penalty, that they easily overcome conquering the rich lands of the Carpatians, the coastal indi greeks, pontus and the balcans. The main problem of nomadic societies (that were really powerful war forces, no matter what some people say) was not lacking of funds but lacking in people, because pastoralism can only feed a much limited number of inhabitants per square kilometer that farming economies. Try changing their -20 income for a -10 population growth/ -10 income-5

The problem is that the income or population penalty is clearly not enough here.

Is -10 population enough to reflect the difference between the populations of Italy vs the populations of the steppes?

Rome had a million people in 100 BC. How many people do you think lived in all of Scythia's controlled land? Not even a tiny fraction of the number that lived in Rome.

Scythia simply didn't have enough people to ever be a real and lasting threat to the more advanced ancient civilizations.

[Suppanut]

If they so lack of nomad to arm then why don't give them 2 turn recruitment for most units.

[Hippias]

Guys - Just throwing this question out there, but why should we regard steppe horse archers in the form of Scythia as incapable of overruning powerful western civilizations when that is exactly what steppe archers in the form of the Mongols (and to a lesser extent Huns) did, with much the same 'technology?'

I believe steppe people should definitely have the ability and resources to do this, but it would be better if you could find some way of reducing their inclination to do so. Farming & city dwelling nations didn't try and conquer the steppes because they were too damned big and harsh, and there were much more cost effective returns by picking on each other. It would be only natural for the steppe people to come and grab the riches of the city dwellers, once they knew about them.

Regarding populations, granted Rome was a mighty city, but there is an awful lot of space on those steppes, and horse nations seem to have had no trouble whistling up genuine hordes when they had to.

IMHO I like the option of withstanding a large unit horse archer army on the battle map from time to time, but agree that an entirely orange Germania and Gaul is no fun. Perhaps remove Scythia as a faction from the main campaign (they are still playable in their provincial campaign) and replace them with a full rebel stack in each Scythian starting province, and make those provinces dirt poor and/or highly prone to rebel?

cheers

[Darth Alec]

Make Scythian character force revolts in non-steppe cities. They would still be around, but they wouldn't be able to do anything without losing it.

[Anakarsis]

Remove the "do not atack" between scythia and parthia, them give Scythia Campus Massagetae and substract them Neapolis Scythica. This will force them to expand in many directions, and the IA does not manage well those situations. CUrrently scythia has the same conquest schedule and map than the Vanilla Brutii, ONly starting in the opposite of the map. ANd they comfortably take their place. If neccesary, take also from them Maeotis and Campus Siracae.

Population of "Scythia" in those ages was indeed insignificant. Starting with the point that its territory were around......50 times? Italy. So even if they have one millon, it was so scattered that it can barely be considered a populated lands. I think anyways that a 400.000 figure is more close, that is 125 times less populated than italy.

Rwemoving them from the campaign will leave the game less colorful, and frenetically underpower them will leave them as the useless faction they are in vanilla. I´m sure that another option has to be available

[Hippias]

Population of "Scythia" in those ages was indeed insignificant. Starting with the point that its territory were around......50 times? Italy. So even if they have one millon, it was so scattered that it can barely be considered a populated lands. I think anyways that a 400.000 figure is more close, that is 125 times less populated than italy.

Rwemoving them from the campaign will leave the game less colorful, and frenetically underpower them will leave them as the useless faction they are in vanilla. I´m sure that another option has to be available

Well - if we leave Rome to one side for the moment, I would guess (and talking today about 3rd century BC has to involve huge amounts of guesswork) that the 'steppe people' could mobilise more warriors than any of Iberians, Greek Cities, Pontus, Armenia, Saba, Bactria, Carthage, Macedonia and Thrace (if we consider their recruitment area as extending to the Yuezhi lands) so they were hardly an insignificant force.

Totally agree through that it would be best to gentle them down some. I appreciate XGM is not a history simulator, but I personally get a bit twitchy when factions that historically could never hold together long enough to create an empire end up controlling the map.

The previous offenders were Greek Cities, Iberia and Thrace, all of whom should have the decency to provide some early colour and then die gracefully. I would lump Scythians in with them.

[Darth Alec]

Thing is, Scythia doesn't care. It's units waste all others in auto-resolve. Making them go 50 different ways will just make them expand faster.

[Suppanut]

What would happen if we give all training Scythian units as horde units? Will its instantly disband by 1/3 once captured settlement? If it true then would it accurately how scythia work for AI?

Or maybe we should give them all 2 turn recruitment.

[gaius_caesar]

What if we just change Scythia to Bactria and bring back the Britons? As for the Steppes, make them Rebels.... That may solve the Scythian problem. Who knows....

[Darth Alec]

Making them incapable of holding cities outside of the steppes through traits could solve all of it. They'd take all the steppe areas, but their empire would collapse after every incursion into "civilised" territory. Maybe add farm penalties to keep populations down as well.

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

I agree with Darth Alec. Making them incapable of holding cities outside of where they traditionally should be is the only real sure fire solution.

They were nomadic steppe barbarians, not the administrators of some vast civilized empire that could assimilate and control cities of other cultures.

And I'm not sure who said that the steppes SHOULD be able to overrun everyone else because the Mongols did it....that is precisely the problem. They act like Mongols when they should be acting like Scythians. Ie, staying in the steppes and occasionally sending out a force to some western power.

Hippas, why do you "guess" that Scythia had MORE manpower than many of the Hellenic civilized factions you name? They didn't. They were nomadic, they didn't have massive cities with hundreds of thousands of people in them, they had tiny steppe settlements.

They could raise a few dozen thousand men, sure. But if that army gets wiped out, that's IT for a long time. They can't just muster another ten legions like Rome could.

Look at the literature of the period. The Romans practically never even mentioned the Scythians. They weren't a major power, they didn't have the potential to be one for very many reasons, and they shouldn't have the potential to be one in XGM either.

They were honestly an irrelevant faction. You could portray the ancient world very accurately without including them at all. (just have rebels on the steppes called "Scythians".)

[Anakarsis]

Not agree at all. ROman sources mention few from them form some particular reasons

1) Scythian themselves lost power as the top dogs of the Steppe in some moment between Alexander death and the born of Pontus as a Kingdom. In 280 the power was already in the hands of the Sarmatians, that by that moment were "camping" more close to the Urals and the Caspian Sea, but yet they didn´t grasp the lands around the Black Sea, that were still on the hands of the weakened scythians that still refuse to join the Sarmatians as vassall tribes. While Sarmatians has many features close to the scythians (their lineage was traced by the mother, cattle herd nomadism as the basis of economy, etc.) their organization has many elements in common with the Germans: they were much less centralized than the scythians, more equalitarian (many tombs of people of definitive non-noble origin with well crafted armours exists), and their tribes were more independent ang go mostly on their own. Sarmatians are mentioned in Roman sources a lot, as enemies, allies, mercenaries, occasional subjects, commerciaal partners, etc.

2) The huge distance between Rome and Sarmatian´s more important lands make them a worse target for conquering than the parthians. Also, they were no so unfreindly towards Rome, as when the hellenic elites of the bosphorans kingdoms were exterminated by Mithridates, they were replaced by Sarmatian-named elites, yet Roman traders retained their rigths previous to the Pontic conquest without major problems. Roma does not wanted to own the world, just the Mediterranean, and the Sarmatians were also not so friendly with their Parthian enemies. The empire will not waste troops on trying to expand more their already streched-to-the-limit administrative capacity.

3) By the time that there was still scythians around, Rome was busy surviving from Epirus, Carthage and the Gauls. Only after 220 AC they moved into the hellas. By that time Sarmatians were already the top dogs, an they political centre was much far away than that of the scythians.

I think that Scytho-Sarmatians deserve a place in the same degree as Germasn, who were more or less equally descentralized, and from wich we did´t hear ANYTHING until at least 150 years after the beginning of the game. GErmania was more important for Roman history? true, very true, but then, why we have Bactria, from wich Romans probably NEVER heard? (they were wiped out by year 135 AC by a -COFF COFFF- Scythian tribal confederation . Another reason for i want giving them Campus Massagetae instead of Neapolis Scythica.)

I gonna start a campaign test NOW giving them a -25 penalty to happiness in places without the "steppes_AI" resource and i gonna tell you what happens (i gonna play with spain to give them "free room")

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

That's what I was saying earlier: as you point out, the Sarmatians and other various tribes were always fighting for power with the Scythians, and often beating them.

So when you ONLY put in the Scythians, and they get all of Russia to wander around in, of course they're going to end up trying to attack Germania and Thrace and such. Which is stupid.

If you want steppe factions, you need several of them, so that they can balance each other's power, as they did historically. Just including one isn't historical or balanced, as we've seen.

Of course, if only one is possible, then limiting its power severely is the only choice.

[Andy1984]

Perhaps making the steppe area pretty rebellious (quite often big rebel armies) might destroy some Scythian stacks? Occassionally, rebel horse archers might be able to besiege and/or take Scythian settlements.

[Darth Alec]

Anakarsis, do it fast and tell us how it goes. I'd try it myself if I didn't love my current one.

[Anakarsis]

On my way. Hey, Iberia happens to be a great faction! never noticed

[Vercingetorix_Defeated]

On my way. Hey, Iberia happens to be a great faction! never noticed

In my Greek campaign Iberia kicked Carthage right out of Spain. I was surprised, because in my first XGM campaign Carthage took all of Spain and destroyed Iberia very quickly.

I think Iberia has more versatile units than the other barbarian factions. I prefer using them more, at least. They're actually useful as auxiliaries, I only hire barbarian auxiliaries to use as expendable cannon fodder (the guys who charge into the enemy line to hold them there while my more valuable troops go around for flanking haha)