Royal Scythia, any tips and tricks, army composiitions

[CelicniOploditelj]

I am thinking about trying out Nomadic cultures, so i came here to gather as much advice as possible. Thanks in advance

[Salty Nobody]

I am quite the fan of the Nomads. They take alot of micro to use to their full potential though.

In the campaign try and devour at least some of the other Nomads early on, they share your culture (no public order penalty to deal with) and the AI is pretty bad at using their early game army compositions so it is fairly easy to roll them all.

Roxolani is actually best at this, as they have a diplomatic penalty to other nomads. Royal Scythia and Massagetae have a bunch of pissed off Greeks/Easterners to deal with at the same time they are worrying about the other Nomadic tribes hitting their rear, however Roxolani arguably has the weakest late game roster. Which isn't that bad, as even the standard Armored Horse Archers you can make very early on if beelined can carry a Nomad player well into the late game.

Army wise horse archers > all your other units with the exception of high tier late game melee and shock cav, and Scythian Royal Skirmishers. Several Horse Archers can usually shoot to pieces any melee cav that tries to chase them and shock cav with their lack of shields often get shredded. AI infantry is awful at countering horse archers running in circles around them and will die quicky to getting shot from the sides and rear. A stack or two with Young Axes and mercenaries is usually also needed to take walled cities, as cav armies have a hard time with that sort of thing.

Any Nomadic armored horse archer is also a decent melee combatant and can charge into most foot ranged and win easily. It is NOT a good idea to enter into a shooting match with foot ranged unless you greatly outnumber them with local superiority. All Nomad archers also deal 40 missile damage, so your volleys hurt more than most Eastern archers. For Scythia specifically Royal Skirmishers can double as mid level melee cav and are one of the best javelin cav units in the game.

Never have your Horse archers sit still if you can help it, they have fire whilst moving and parthian shot for a reason.

The nomads also get a special Draco ability on most of their high level melee and shock cav that negates the anti large bonus of the enemy, allowing you to "safely" do otherwise crazy things with your cav like charging into elite hoplites and getting stuck in with them.

For multiplayer it is really hard to use these factions. People either don't know or don't want to fight them and just leave as soon as the match starts or they do know how to fight them and box or corner camp. It can take up to 40 minutes to pick such a defence apart with cav, and few people have the patience for that sort of thing on the recieving end. Your best bet is to only bring Nomads against Parthia, Armenia, Cimmeria, or other Nomad factions so you can have a fast paced cav on cav fight that both players can enjoy.

[CelicniOploditelj]

Originally posted by Tactician:

I am quite the fan of the Nomads. They take alot of micro to use to their full potential though.

In the campaign try and devour at least some of the other Nomads early on, they share your culture (no public order penalty to deal with) and the AI is pretty bad at using their early game army compositions so it is fairly easy to roll them all.

Roxolani is actually best at this, as they have a diplomatic penalty to other nomads. Royal Scythia and Massagetae have a bunch of pissed off Greeks/Easterners to deal with at the same time they are worrying about the other Nomadic tribes hitting their rear, however Roxolani arguably has the weakest late game roster. Which isn't that bad, as even the standard Armored Horse Archers you can make very early on if beelined can carry a Nomad player well into the late game.

Army wise horse archers > all your other units with the exception of high tier late game melee and shock cav, and Scythian Royal Skirmishers. Several Horse Archers can usually shoot to pieces any melee cav that tries to chase them and shock cav with their lack of shields often get shredded. AI infantry is awful at countering horse archers running in circles around them and will die quicky to getting shot from the sides and rear. A stack or two with Young Axes and mercenaries is usually also needed to take walled cities, as cav armies have a hard time with that sort of thing.

Any Nomadic armored horse archer is also a decent melee combatant and can charge into most foot ranged and win easily. It is NOT a good idea to enter into a shooting match with foot ranged unless you greatly outnumber them with local superiority. All Nomad archers also deal 40 missile damage, so your volleys hurt more than most Eastern archers. For Scythia specifically Royal Skirmishers can double as mid level melee cav and are one of the best javelin cav units in the game.

Never have your Horse archers sit still if you can help it, they have fire whilst moving and parthian shot for a reason.

The nomads also get a special Draco ability on most of their high level melee and shock cav that negates the anti large bonus of the enemy, allowing you to "safely" do otherwise crazy things with your cav like charging into elite hoplites and getting stuck in with them.

For multiplayer it is really hard to use these factions. People either don't know or don't want to fight them and just leave as soon as the match starts or they do know how to fight them and box or corner camp. It can take up to 40 minutes to pick such a defence apart with cav, and few people have the patience for that sort of thing on the recieving end. Your best bet is to only bring Nomads against Parthia, Armenia, Cimmeria, or other Nomad factions so you can have a fast paced cav on cav fight that both players can enjoy.

Thanks, this is a really good guide.

[bbolto]

Originally posted by Tactician:

A stack or two with Young Axes and mercenaries is usually also needed to take walled cities, as cav armies have a hard time with that sort of thing.

It's certainly handy later to have a footsoldier-mercenary stack to take walled cities (the Germanic mercenaries make the best backbone, I think, of the recruitable nearby mercs), but, if you siege an enemy army inside a walled settlement with a stack of horse archers, there's a good chance they'll strike out at you to throw off the siege, which is obviously exactly what you want

[Mouse]

I'm pretty experienced with the nomads, recently completed Veni Vidi Vici on legendary with Royal Scythia.

When choosing horse archers, i found the light ones with the longest range to be the best. You need to be able to outrun anything, especially melee cav. Steppe Horse Archers which are the basic tier horse archer are actually efficient. Amazonian Riders (i believe they are called) are about the same, but with longer range (150 > 125). Most archer units have 125 and slingers usually have 150. My mid->late stage army composition was:

8 light horse archers, 6 heavier horse archers (noble or armoured, etc), 2 melee cavalry, 4 shock cav including the general. In terms of battles, i'd keep my melee and shock cav out the fight until right near the end. Id use my light horse archers to lure out any enemy cav, then just keep running away from them and firing at them until they break/die. The AI is pretty dumb, itll likely send its entire army after your light cav just keep running them around the map. At that point i bring my armoured horse archers behind and start firing into the backs at high value targets. My light horse archers would have fire at will turned off. Its really important not to waste any arrows, especially not against tank and large armies (Greek hoplites, etc). You can keep splitting your two groups of horse archers into multiple groups so that you're always shooting them in their backs/sides. Isolating tank units is the best, and its not that hard to do. Just keep dummy charging them, and they will slow down whilst the rest of the army will keep moving.

The biggest danger i found is Artillery. If they do have artillery, i would suggest sending your melee cav to deal with it immediately. Ive had enemy artillery get 200+ kills on me. Second biggest threat is Javelins, you can outrange them, but its not always as easy as that. The trick i used most the time vs skirmishers is to fake charges every so often to activate their skirmish mode and get them behind the infantry so i can shoot the infantry. No point wasting arrows on skirmishers, they are screwed when the melee cavalry comes in. The other main danger is melee or skirmish cav, just keep running and shooting. Horse archers are problematic too, but you should outnumber them in most occasions. Youll likely run out of arrows against most armies before they are all dead, then you can bring in your melee and shock cav to finish them off. Horse sandwich them. They'll be completely exhausted at this point, but your cav will be nice and fresh. Usually took 1 rear charge to finsh them off. I suggest uprading all tech, general perk and traditions for extra ammmunition /accuracy.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233940977
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233919649

Town assaults can be a bit tricky, because usually they don't come out and fight. If they have slingers and javelins only, it will be easy, just stand your horses behind buildings and you can shoot over and they cant do ♥♥♥♥ about it. If they have archers you have to try and outrange them or lure them out. Defending towns you can do the same thing, let them into your objective and then use the same method. or you can try lead them around the map like the methods described above.

The main weakness is of course the siege battles. In the beginning i just had to wait until they attacked, they often do in the first move after the siege begins. Mid-game i had a couple of armies who had a ballista and a couple of slots available for mercenaries. You could then destroy the enemy scorpion towers, shower the enemies with your arrows, then move your infantry units in to open the gates. These ballistas decrease campaign movement range, and may be useless in land battles. I often just told them to withdraw them in normal land battles. Later in the game i had a full army of mercenary infantry which i used for a lot of the sieges. I did try dismounting an army and attacking a siege normally, it didnt work out very well, even vs weak garrison lol.

In terms of public order, money, etc. I dont remember it being all that hard. Can't remember the exact buildings, but the crafting orientated onnes made so much money. At the end of the campaign i was fielding max armies and still making 20k+ and had over 1million in bank. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1234376701

Good luck. I really enjoy nomad campaigns tbh.

[CelicniOploditelj]

Wow, thanks for the nice suggestions everybody, this has given me some nice ideas. Just one question for Mouse, how did you get victory in the year 226. I mean, how do you suggest expanding and where

Originally posted by Mouse:

I'm pretty experienced with the nomads, recently completed Veni Vidi Vici on legendary with Royal Scythia.

When choosing horse archers, i found the light ones with the longest range to be the best. You need to be able to outrun anything, especially melee cav. Steppe Horse Archers which are the basic tier horse archer are actually efficient. Amazonian Riders (i believe they are called) are about the same, but with longer range (150 > 125). Most archer units have 125 and slingers usually have 150. My mid->late stage army composition was:

8 light horse archers, 6 heavier horse archers (noble or armoured, etc), 2 melee cavalry, 4 shock cav including the general. In terms of battles, i'd keep my melee and shock cav out the fight until right near the end. Id use my light horse archers to lure out any enemy cav, then just keep running away from them and firing at them until they break/die. The AI is pretty dumb, itll likely send its entire army after your light cav just keep running them around the map. At that point i bring my armoured horse archers behind and start firing into the backs at high value targets. My light horse archers would have fire at will turned off. Its really important not to waste any arrows, especially not against tank and large armies (Greek hoplites, etc). You can keep splitting your two groups of horse archers into multiple groups so that you're always shooting them in their backs/sides. Isolating tank units is the best, and its not that hard to do. Just keep dummy charging them, and they will slow down whilst the rest of the army will keep moving.

The biggest danger i found is Artillery. If they do have artillery, i would suggest sending your melee cav to deal with it immediately. Ive had enemy artillery get 200+ kills on me. Second biggest threat is Javelins, you can outrange them, but its not always as easy as that. The trick i used most the time vs skirmishers is to fake charges every so often to activate their skirmish mode and get them behind the infantry so i can shoot the infantry. No point wasting arrows on skirmishers, they are screwed when the melee cavalry comes in. The other main danger is melee or skirmish cav, just keep running and shooting. Horse archers are problematic too, but you should outnumber them in most occasions. Youll likely run out of arrows against most armies before they are all dead, then you can bring in your melee and shock cav to finish them off. Horse sandwich them. They'll be completely exhausted at this point, but your cav will be nice and fresh. Usually took 1 rear charge to finsh them off. I suggest uprading all tech, general perk and traditions for extra ammmunition /accuracy.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233940977
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1233919649

Town assaults can be a bit tricky, because usually they don't come out and fight. If they have slingers and javelins only, it will be easy, just stand your horses behind buildings and you can shoot over and they cant do ♥♥♥♥ about it. If they have archers you have to try and outrange them or lure them out. Defending towns you can do the same thing, let them into your objective and then use the same method. or you can try lead them around the map like the methods described above.

The main weakness is of course the siege battles. In the beginning i just had to wait until they attacked, they often do in the first move after the siege begins. Mid-game i had a couple of armies who had a ballista and a couple of slots available for mercenaries. You could then destroy the enemy scorpion towers, shower the enemies with your arrows, then move your infantry units in to open the gates. These ballistas decrease campaign movement range, and may be useless in land battles. I often just told them to withdraw them in normal land battles. Later in the game i had a full army of mercenary infantry which i used for a lot of the sieges. I did try dismounting an army and attacking a siege normally, it didnt work out very well, even vs weak garrison lol.

In terms of public order, money, etc. I dont remember it being all that hard. Can't remember the exact buildings, but the crafting orientated onnes made so much money. At the end of the campaign i was fielding max armies and still making 20k+ and had over 1million in bank. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1234376701

Good luck. I really enjoy nomad campaigns tbh.

[warhammerfinn]

I think that probably six hundred of the eight hundred hours that I have logged in this game have been with nomads. I use Massagetae the most because I really like their late game units, but Royal Scythia is cool too. I have found that they do involve a lot of micro managing, and battles generally take longer. Try to put archers on multiple sides, and focus fire. It eliminates units really fast.

I also have found that the heavier armoured units are often worth it. They take less casualties in missile exchanges, and they are pretty good at running over infantry when you isolate them and attack with multiple units in close combat. Basically, they can outrun anything that they can't outfight or outshoot. They can also beat most of these units in melee, given the circumstances that you can set up. If a lot of artillery is present, run until they split their forces and fight on your terms. Artillery and missile troops that stray too far from melee troops (the computer has trouble keeping it's armies coherent) is really easy to hunt. The biggest challenge that I have is changing from them to another unit. I have been playing Kush lately, and the tactics are just so different that it's tough until I change my mindset.

One big campaign advantage that I have enjoyed is that your agricultural buildings double as your recruitment buildings. They also provide garisson troops. Fighting a nomad garrison is super annoying, if the player knows what they are doing. Running away to run out the clock is pretty easy.

For me, there is no army quite as fun as nomads. If you like Scythia, give the Massegetae a try. Their shock cavalry is amazing, and their tier four horse archers are, in my opinion, one of the coolest units in the game during campaign.

[CelicniOploditelj]

Originally posted by warhammerfinn:

I think that probably six hundred of the eight hundred hours that I have logged in this game have been with nomads. I use Massagetae the most because I really like their late game units, but Royal Scythia is cool too. I have found that they do involve a lot of micro managing, and battles generally take longer. Try to put archers on multiple sides, and focus fire. It eliminates units really fast.

I also have found that the heavier armoured units are often worth it. They take less casualties in missile exchanges, and they are pretty good at running over infantry when you isolate them and attack with multiple units in close combat. Basically, they can outrun anything that they can't outfight or outshoot. They can also beat most of these units in melee, given the circumstances that you can set up. If a lot of artillery is present, run until they split their forces and fight on your terms. Artillery and missile troops that stray too far from melee troops (the computer has trouble keeping it's armies coherent) is really easy to hunt. The biggest challenge that I have is changing from them to another unit. I have been playing Kush lately, and the tactics are just so different that it's tough until I change my mindset.

One big campaign advantage that I have enjoyed is that your agricultural buildings double as your recruitment buildings. They also provide garisson troops. Fighting a nomad garrison is super annoying, if the player knows what they are doing. Running away to run out the clock is pretty easy.

For me, there is no army quite as fun as nomads. If you like Scythia, give the Massegetae a try. Their shock cavalry is amazing, and their tier four horse archers are, in my opinion, one of the coolest units in the game during campaign.

Thanks for the advice, but i was told that they were the hardest nomad faction too start as

[Mouse]

Originally posted by CelicniOploditelj:

Wow, thanks for the nice suggestions everybody, this has given me some nice ideas. Just one question for Mouse, how did you get victory in the year 226. I mean, how do you suggest expanding and where

Took me twice as long as that, i use 2 turns per year. If you are still curious, the map shows pretty much how i did it. Most eastern factions were quite happy with me once i got rid of the other nomads. so i could secure that eastern border and forget about it. For the victory conditions, i dont remember them all, but i believe you need land on Hispania, Italy and Africa. I remember not particularly wanting to go to war with all greek factions so i took the barbarian route. Greek factions have lots of tough units, and pikes. Sparta was the toughest faction i had to fight, arrows did nothing to those guys. It all really depends on who declares war on you at the beginning and what difficulty you play as. You often have to just go with the flow. Eastern factions could be difficult to kill, most have their own horse archers, and lots of skilled skirmishers.

I was playing a veni vidi vici campaign (no losses) so i played very cautiously. Movement wise id attack in 2 layers, by that i mean one army on the border, one army on the next settlement back. Utilize agents of course too. Can use force march too a lot. You might get ambushed.. but have you ever tried to ambush a nomad faction? it's not the smartest move lol.

How's the campaign going?

[bbolto]

There's luck involved with any nomad start, but yeah, they can be in a tricky position as you have to take a walled settlement as your probable opening move and you're surrounded on almost all sides by enemies and potential enemies. It depends a lot on how the whole Seleucid satrapy mess shakes out (as the Massagetae, you start out as kind of a vulture waiting to pick up the vulnerable pieces.) Royal Scythia is probably the easier start.

You're already pretty lucky in that you're getting all the nomad experts in this thread (pretty much everyone else here has more nomad time than me )

[CelicniOploditelj]

Originally posted by Mouse:

Originally posted by CelicniOploditelj:

Wow, thanks for the nice suggestions everybody, this has given me some nice ideas. Just one question for Mouse, how did you get victory in the year 226. I mean, how do you suggest expanding and where

Took me twice as long as that, i use 2 turns per year. If you are still curious, the map shows pretty much how i did it. Most eastern factions were quite happy with me once i got rid of the other nomads. so i could secure that eastern border and forget about it. For the victory conditions, i dont remember them all, but i believe you need land on Hispania, Italy and Africa. I remember not particularly wanting to go to war with all greek factions so i took the barbarian route. Greek factions have lots of tough units, and pikes. Sparta was the toughest faction i had to fight, arrows did nothing to those guys. It all really depends on who declares war on you at the beginning and what difficulty you play as. You often have to just go with the flow. Eastern factions could be difficult to kill, most have their own horse archers, and lots of skilled skirmishers.

I was playing a veni vidi vici campaign (no losses) so i played very cautiously. Movement wise id attack in 2 layers, by that i mean one army on the border, one army on the next settlement back. Utilize agents of course too. Can use force march too a lot. You might get ambushed.. but have you ever tried to ambush a nomad faction? it's not the smartest move lol.

How's the campaign going?

Playing on hard, its going okay, but i made a mistake, getting prepared to invade the Cimmeri (so that Pontus would accept a trade deal), but the Kartli keep attacking me, so i decided to sack them (getting some money). Defeated 2 there armies, mostly eastern spearmen, which were easy to kill, but those eastern slingers are giving me a lot of trouble. So i decide to attack there city, send my only army to destroy them trough the forest mountain path, as i do that an Ardhan army, with whom I am not at war, blocks my retreat, and then one Kartli army attacks me, and kills off half of my army, so now i am stuck. Luckily I saved before that. Gonna see what I will do now, other load the save, or try to sneak by the Ardhan army, or throw everything into this campaign, cause i started recruiting an army in my back province. Ponto-Caspia is mine in its entirety, and plan on marching on Scythia, as the Roxolani are causing me trouble.

Originally posted by bbolto:

There's luck involved with any nomad start, but yeah, they can be in a tricky position as you have to take a walled settlement as your probable opening move and you're surrounded on almost all sides by enemies and potential enemies. It depends a lot on how the whole Seleucid satrapy mess shakes out (as the Massagetae, you start out as kind of a vulture waiting to pick up the vulnerable pieces.) Royal Scythia is probably the easier start.

You're already pretty lucky in that you're getting all the nomad experts in this thread (pretty much everyone else here has more nomad time than me :reexcited: )

Yeah, I got really lucky. :)