Scythian Roster

[RollingWave]

Some thoughts playing Scythians recently.

1. Their starting province has Sarmatian Heavy Lancer as the AOR unit which seems to defeat the point of their reform (which I assume is to go from almost everyone being horse archer to more Lancer / armor heavy.)

2. Their one heavy infantry is ridiculously strong. it's stats are better than most elite hoplites. That seems... excessive.

3. On the other hand they really have no middle tier infantry . and if your going to make a significant amount of your army as these elite infantry your army is either going to be uber expensive or quite weak in their actual strongest point. (The cheap light HA that has a huge ammo pool.)

4. I'm not sure about giving them ballista , especially this early, perhaps it could be a late upgrade through research but right now they can have a near perfect roster almost immediately of cheap HA, ballista to force the opponent to you, and then protect the middle with uber heavy infantries.


Some general suggestions

A. no ballista , at least not this early, something late via research might be ok.
B. Their elite hoplite should cost first class warriors. not second.
C. on the other hand, their should probably be some more middle tier infantries to work with at least later on.
D. Their basic spearmen probably should have javelin. right now you rather use to axemen even against cavalry because of the javelin issue.
E. The Sarmatian heavy lancer AOR unit should be changed to something else.
F. As with most other barbarian navies, please give at least some reasonable options for their crew if their only way to fight is to board. right now they have a very light infantry and very light archer. at least have a heavy infantry option somewhere.

[servent9]

mama~ please change this food for my taste please~~ yamiyami

[popovic]

mama~ please change this food for my taste please~~ yamiyami

You obviously have no idea who Rolling Wave is, or how much experience he has in modding TW games.

Also, I personally find that RW`s suggestions above all seem reasonable (even though I have no experience with this faction).

And finally, I`d like to point out that a faction like Scythia is fairly badly documented in ancient sources.
So there is little need to stick to this or that when it comes to their faction roster.

[RollingWave]

You obviously have no idea who Rolling Wave is, or how much experience he has in modding TW games.

Also, I personally find that RW`s suggestions above all seem reasonable (even though I have no experience with this faction).

And finally, I`d like to point out that a faction like Scythia is fairly badly documented in ancient sources.
So there is little need to stick to this or that when it comes to their faction roster.

We have a general idea. and we can also look at later / other nomadic confederations because the Nomads interact with each other over great distances and have a lot of similarity. and the once across space and time don't change THAT much on a military level, the difference between strong and weaker once tend to be more tied into their political organization and leadership.

The general is : Scythian = almost entirely horse archer
Sarmatian = More lancer / catarphract . (both Scythian and Sarmatian have records of Women fighting in their army )
Hun = First clearly Asiatic and probably Turkic Nomads, their biggest difference is their ability to unite (at least for a while.) a huge effective confederation.. probably due to influence of contact with nomads in the far east.
Avar = First clear example of metal Stirrups.
Turks = most noted is that they don't favor lancers and part of the major reason is because they have exceptional swords / sabers .
Mongols = final evolution .

But even with these differences, the general military makeup is basically the same from Scythian all the way to Mongols.

There's basically 2 types of tribes and 3 types of level of units.

The levels are essentially the rich / the minor noble / the common tribesmen. and the big divide is an inner circle of tribes vs an outer circle of tribes. (and among the inner circle, the Royals among some of the bigger confederations.) The Outer Circle can vary greatly, most common are of course, other nomadic tribes, but for larger once it can easily be more settled tribes as well (for example the Huns had a boatload of Germans with them.) and for the greatest they will be able to grab enough of engineers from settled places to form engineer corps for siege engines etc. by this point it's probably a disaster for anyone within their path.

Their style don't differ that much (though the more melee oriented troops tend to be the rich more simply because they can afford the armor. ) most of them are horse archers, the poor goes in with basically bows and padded clothes and whatever random side arm they can get, the wealthier you are the more armor your wearing and the bow quality probably improves a bit.

[KAM 2150]

I will look into it soon.

[gerfand]

The Saka Yuezhi Noble Cav lacks Cantabarian Circle (which I thought they would have), as many other Nomands units, expecially the Sarmatian ones

[Dresden]

I agree with most of these points. The ballista is definitely something that should be later or not at all - most barbarians are reform locked by that doesn't really fit the theme of their reforms.

In terms of infantry, the idea was for them to have a bit better options than other steppe factions but still have limited choices. So, that is why they have a quality unit but not a large selection.

[RollingWave]

I agree with most of these points. The ballista is definitely something that should be later or not at all - most barbarians are reform locked by that doesn't really fit the theme of their reforms.

In terms of infantry, the idea was for them to have a bit better options than other steppe factions but still have limited choices. So, that is why they have a quality unit but not a large selection.

I think there are some relatively simple ways to deal with these issues that make sense both game wise and historic wise. (and this encompass the general barbarians to some extend as well. ) The inner / outer circle tribe nature of the Nomads is essentially the concept of AOR units, the only question is to make it more reasonable.

For example, the City of Olbia was unquestionable GREEK at this period, in fact, this is true for all black sea settlements. Olbia is a city state that had relationships with the general Scythians around them, either as allies or as masters. but it was clear the Scythians had no interest in removing the Greek population (in fact the Greek population's decline was due to Dacian invasions in the 1st century AD.) and instead they helped them immensely to trade slaves / amber / gold wares etc.

This is more or less true to how the barbarians and especially nomads interacted with the civilized world during this period (and beyond.) they are interested in being your masters, but they're not really interested in living in your cities. We see this for the Galatians as well, and the Thracians (the City of Odessos was also clearly Greek.)

So the simple way to do this is

Short term: Change Olbia's AOR unit to a Hoplite Unit. you solved both the Scythian issue on infantry, not imbal, and historically make sense. (Also, I highly suggest you change the pricing structure of the Scythian AOR Horse archer, it's the same price as their roster unit of the same stats save morale, it should be cheaper. ) this of course, also means you change the base culture of the province to more like 10-15% Greek instead of 100% Nomad as it stands

Longer term: Change how the main settlement chain works for Nomad and probably all Barbarians.

You now have essentially two types of chains
1. Not displacing the original settlers (Say call it Hellenic/ other culture subject settlements depending on region probably need at least Hellenic / Barbarian / Eastern, probably region locked. ) :
Positive : Better AOR units / Better trade and income (could depend on types.) / larger overall population
Negative : Culture penalty / limited core population which means you will have a hard time recruiting from your core roster and sometimes might even effect replenishment. / more foreigners for population.

2. Standard Nomadic settlement (where for non purely nomadic regions your displacing the settlement's original population .)
Positive : your core roster / culture / larger core population
Negative : Little to no AOR units / general less income. / overall less population due to large penalties on foreign population.

This also gives an out to the issue of Barbarian Navies. you limit it to needing Hellenic core settlements and probably also later in the tech tree and then you can build more or less Hellenic ships (maned by Hellenic soldiers. )