Polania Engineering Strategy

It would appear that Polania Engineering is the first Polania Republic combination strategy for the site! Hurrah! Anyway, this particular combination has a lot of fun flexibility and our strategy has it down to 17 turns or less to win. So let’s start digging in and see what we discover.

Engineering Mat.

The Engineering player mat in Scythe is strong in having bottom row flexibility. Its economy is versatile once you get an Upgrade engine going, as everything will be fairly cheap. Additionally, it’s strongest column Bolster / Build, once fully Upgraded and Enlisted can spit out 3 Power, 3 Coin and 2 Popularity along with a structure. That makes it one of the strongest single turn gains in the game. In addition to all this, it has the potential to rush and the potential to stall.

Highpoints: 

• Trade is over Deploy making getting a mech out for Polania a matter of 2 Trade actions.
• Polania starts on a Farm and Forest hex in their base making both Enlist and Build viable and strong options.
• Move is over Enlist allowing Polania to utilize getting enlistments as part of their already very mobile needs.

Lowpoints:

• Polania struggles with not having quick and easy access to a Tundra to make the most out of the Produce / Upgrade action.

Polania Engineering Star Strategy.

I don’t recommend starting a game without considering what Stars you want to achieve. For those unfamiliar, Stars are Victory Points, and the first player to Six Stars ends the game. So, they’re kind of important. However, one of the challenges with the flexibility of Polania and of the Engineering player mat is how many Star options are available.

• Upgrade Star. Generally speaking, for any faction or mat combination to go for the Upgrade Star is rare. In this circumstance, most of our Produce actions should be earlier game when we have little to no access to Oil. Therefore, I think we should consider this a no go.

• Mech Star. Engineering has Trade right above Deploy so we can generally have a mech as early as turn 3. We also want the mobility that mechs offer us, so we’ll definitely go for this Star.

• Build Star. This one is tempting as it means we’re focusing on our most lucrative row. The only drawback is how limited we are in turns to Produce Lumber. As such, this is one we’re going to have to say “maybe” to and let our Encounters decide for us.

• Enlist Star. Because we want to move a lot as Polania to make the most of Encounters, getting out Enlist Star is within grasp. This will also depend on what we get for Encounters. Though, since it’s attached to our Move action, we’ll have it as a higher possibility.

• Worker Star. This is one of the easiest Stars to achieve in Scythe, so we’ll definitely be getting it.

• Objective Star. Objectives are always on the table. We should be able to work our game around getting one completed. If not, we’ll know at the start of the game that we have to make some adjustments and plan for other Stars.

• Combat Star(s). We’ll always have these as a focus. 

• Popularity Star. Very rarely has Popularity gotten to 18 in competitive games I’ve seen or played in. So, there’s really no point in having it as a focus. We might try for Tier 2 Popularity for scoring if Encounters make it possible, but not the Popularity Star.

• Power Star. It’s not very likely we’ll be going for this Star, only because a lot of pieces have to fit together. However, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility, especially if we decide to go for the Build Star. So we’ll say this one is another maybe.

All in all, for Polania Engineering it would be in our best interest to focus on Mech, Worker, Objective, and Combat Stars. We’ll have to pick one of our fallbacks of Build, Enlist, or Power, but we’ll leave that up to what Encounters we get.

Polania Engineering Objective Strategy.

Objectives are a strong part of any game and should be considered early and thoroughly. For those who don’t know, each player starts the game with two Objective Cards. Then throughout a game, players have the opportunities to complete one of those Objectives for an additional Star. Now, because most Stars are more difficult to get, Objectives can be an optimal choice over an option that takes four or more turns to accomplish. As such, it’s highly recommended that we consider our Objectives and see how we can fit them into our play.

This playthrough, we received “Underworld Advantage” and “Shore up the Shore” as Objectives. These are quite optimal as they require only movement to accomplish, and both are doable. Though, to be fair, with Polania Engineering, there are very few Objectives that aren’t possible to complete.

Underworld Advantage says we must “Control at least three Tunnels at the end of our turn” in order to complete. Really, this is a very simple Objective in that we can complete it at any point in the game. Not to mention, it’s even easier considering all Tunnels connect to each other. As such, we could have units on a single Tunnel, and in one Move action complete the Objective.

Shore up the Shore says we must “Control at least five territories surrounding the same Lake at the end of our turn” in order to complete. This one may be a bit tougher than Underworld Advantage. However, it can also be completed in a single Move action with a couple mechs and workers.

Since we received such simple Objectives, we’re just going to leave our options open and see where the game takes us in order to decide which one we complete.

Polania Engineering Strategy Overview.

Our overall strategy for Polania Engineering with these Objectives is to prepare ourselves to leave our home base hexes as soon as possible. As such, we’re going to move and trade metal and then see what we get for an Encounter before making too many plans beyond that. We’ll keep a loose focus on getting to the Factory and then to Encounters. Generally with Polania, we want to see what the board gives us as far as Encounters to guide our choices.

Polania Engineering Step by Step Strategy.

Objectives: Underworld Advantage and Shore up the Shore.

1. MOVE: Hero, Forest Worker to Village.
2. TRADE: 2 Metal.
3. MOVE: Hero to Encounter, Worker from Farm to Village.
   • Encounter: We’d like to get access to quick mechs, metal, food, an Enlist, an Upgrade or Oil. Barring that, we’ll really make our approach to this game based on whatever we get.
   • We received Encounter 32 and chose to pay 2 Popularity for an Upgrade and 2 resources. UPGRADE: Move / Deploy. And then we gain 2 Metal.
   • We also chose to gain $2 and 1 Popularity as not to beggar ourselves early game by spending all our Coin and Popularity. We’ll be going for additional Encounters and want to save up for more options.

4. TRADE: 2 Metal. DEPLOY: Submerge Mech on Village.
5. PRODUCE: 2 Workers.
6. TRADE: 2 Oil. DEPLOY: Speed Mech on Village.
7. MOVE: Hero to Factory, Mech + 1 Worker to Factory Tundra. Mech + 3 Workers to Polania Farm, Mech to Forest.
   • Factory Card: We chose card #6 which lets us trade 1 Power for 3 Coin. We chose this because it’ll help get our coin score up a bit as we’re not looking to get a ton of coin this game.

8. PRODUCE: 3 Food and 1 Oil. UPGRADE: Trade Popularity / Enlist.
9. MOVE: Hero to S. Village Encounter, Mech + 1 Worker to Polania Village. Mech from Forest to Lake below Factory. ENLIST: Deploy / Power reward.
   • Encounter: We’re looking for Food enough to Enlist, Metal enough to Deploy, mechs, or Oil enough to Upgrade. Barring that, Power or Combat Cards.
   • We received Encounter 22. We gained $2 and 1 Popularity and paid $2 for 4 Metal.

10. TRADE: 2 Food. DEPLOY: Riverwalk Mech on Polania Farm.
11. MOVE: Hero to Crimea Mountain Encounter. Mechs to Lakes. ENLIST: Enlist / Combat Cards reward.
    • Encounter: We would like Food, Power, Combat Cards, or a big Popularity boost.
    • We received Encounter 19. We paid 2 Popularity for 2 Combat Cards and 3 Power and we also paid $2 for 4 Food.

12. FACTORY CARD: Trade 1 Power for 3 Coin. MOVE: Mech from Lake to combat with Crimea on Crimea Village.
    • Combat: Crimea has only 1 Combat Card and 7 Power. We don’t want to spend too much because Crimea probably needs that 1 Combat Card for a resource. How much Power are they willing to spend? I imagined they’d keep 1 Power to Produce. So I threw down 1 Power and a 4 Combat Card. That way they’d have to spend at least 6 Power to win. However, they surprisingly used all their Power and their Combat card, beating us with 10 total Power. We lose, but they won’t ever recover from that, so we’ll attack them again.

13. MOVE: Hero to combat with Crimea on Crimea Village. Mech from off board to move Workers from Farm to Village. Mech from Lake to Polania Village. ENLIST: Upgrade / Coin reward. [Combat Star].
    • Combat: Crimea only had 1 Combat Card and 0 Power. I didn’t think they would use their Combat Card, but I put in a 3 Combat Card just in case. Well, good thing I did. Crimea surprised us again and put down a 2 Combat Card.

14. TRADE: 2 Metal. DEPLOY: Camaraderie Mech on Village. [Mech Star].
15. PRODUCE: 4 Workers. [Worker Star].
16. FACTORY CARD: Trade 1 Power for 3 Coin. MOVE: Mech + 3 Workers (dropping them off on Tunnel Mountain, Factory Forest) to combat with Nordic on Factory. [Combat Star].
    • Combat: Nordic had 2 Power and 10 Combat Cards. We put in the max they could get of 7 and won.

17. MOVE: Spread out mechs and workers to claim Objectives and gain territory. ENLIST: Build / Popularity reward. [Enlist Star] [Objective Star].
    • Hilariously, we completed both Objectives, but can only get credit for one.

End Game Stats.

• Stars: Mech, Enlist, Objective, Combat (2), Worker.
• Round 17; 59 Coin.

Polania Engineering Thoughts & Tips.

This playthrough went smoothly, though had one or two things gone more our way as far as available combats or better Encounters, we might have shaved a couple turns off this game. Something I love about the Engineering player mat is that you can plan to end the game with a Move action and your final Enlist. As such, that’s what we did and were able to capitalize on getting additional territories before the win.

A tough aspect of the flexibility of Polania combined with the versatility of the Engineering mat is the seeming paradox of choice that opens up as the game progresses. I find it difficult to make solid choices on things like what Stars we’re going to get and how many Encounters we should limit ourselves to. It’s so open ended when dealing with these flex options that often it can feel daunting. Because of this, I try to limit myself to only moving to an Encounter when there’s other moves that will benefit me with new worker positioning or combats. That way, Encounters are in addition to those actions and we’re not burning through turns getting nothing done. With planning Stars, I try to make a decision by the time we get a Factory Card or a second Encounter.

In addition, my standard rant is that playing even the hardest Scythe bot is no replacement for real players. The bots just don’t have the intuition real players have and they make a lot of dumb choices and mistakes that real players won’t do. So don’t get comfortable battling bots, but try this strategy out on real players and see how it fares or what adjustments you have to make.

Polania Engineering Strategy Videos.

With the great content creators out there we’re fortunate to be able to throw in a video to this strategy that you can follow along with and learn from as well. This one is by FOMOF who is a fantastic Scythe player and the June 2020 Scythe Discord Tournament winner! Enjoy it!

Thanks for checking this strategy out! I hope it was informative and helps to enhance your playing style. If you’re a newer player or want to brush up on some general Polania specific strategy, check out our Polania Strategy overview. Additionally, feel free to peruse our entire catalog of Faction and Mat Strategies.

If you haven’t yet gotten into Scythe gaming, you can check out the physical table top game at Stonemaier Games. Or, if you’d prefer, the less expensive Digital Edition option on Steam.

Lastly, as always, feel free to comment below on any thoughts or concerns or successes you have with this strategy!

Happy gaming!

• Norman