Step by Step Guide for Crimea with the Industrial Mat
I playtested the Crimea Industrial combo on the digital version of Scythe against hard bots with varying degrees of player counts. I won every game by a large margin, bots are not that good I know, but its the only way to efficiently play Scythe 10 times in a row!
- Turn 1 trade for 2 food.
- Turn 2 produce 1 worker 1 food.
- Turn 3 move your character to the farm and worker from the farm to the mountain territory.
- Turn 4 trade for 1 food and 1 metal, enlist (move the enlist token from the enlist option to the 2 CC option).
- Turn 5 produce, deploy riverwalk mech on the village(use CC as 1 extra metal)
- Turn 6 move all workers(you should have 5 total now) from village to mountain using mech. Move your character to the mountain, do the encounter. Select something that gives you food or an enlistment if available, but not at the cost of popularity.
- Turn 7 produce, deploy speed mech(Use CC)
- Turn 8 move your character to village territory with the encounter(same parameters as above), move mech and 3 workers to the forest territory just outside starter zone
- Turn 9 produce, deploy scout mech on forest territory(use CC if available)
- Turn 10 move character to the factory, pick a card that gives you enlistments or the ability to gain food(like the one combat card for 3 resources) move workers and metal to oil territory. Build mill on oil(use CC if available)
- Turn 11 produce, deploy your last mech for 1st star
- Turn 12 move your character to an encounter if available or to complete an objective(I completed an objective here for 2nd star), move 1 worker from the forest with a mech to wherever building gains you building bonus, then build the monument there.
- Turn 13 Bolster(power), Upgrade. Take the cube from bolster power to the upgrade action.
- Turn 14 produce
- Turn 15 move the worker and mech to the next territory that has a building bonus. With your remaining move, you can either win combat, do an encounter, or try to complete an objective. Build either building, it doesn’t matter at this point (use CC if available)
- Turn 16 produce
- Turn 17 Move at this point you will know what is best to move, either a worker from forest to spread and build last building or win a combat/complete objective. You should be getting fairly spread out at this point as you are getting ready to end the game. 3rd star for buildings.
- Turn 18 bolster, upgrade. If you have food it is beneficial here to upgrade the trade for 2 pop, if not you can upgrade w.e you want. Move the cube to upgrade enlist.
- Turn 19 If you have managed to pick up some food at this point you can trade for pop and enlist (use CC if possible) otherwise trade for 2 food and enlist.
- Turn 20 move, to spread or win combat/complete objective. At this point, you likely have already completed your objective and won 1 or 2 combats and should be sitting at 4 or 5 stars. ( I technically ended the game here with a 2-star turn using a factory card enlist and moving to the factory for a combat win)
- Turn 21 trade 2 food or 2 pop if you have food from encounters or stealing from other players. Enlist. This could technically be your last enlist if you managed to pick up food earlier in the game and do one extra enlist instead of an upgrade, or used a factory card that got you an enlist. If not…
- Turn 22 Do whatever you need to here to hold your position or gain popularity.
- Turn 23 trade and enlist for your 6th star.
- Most games I ended up with somewhere between 72-110 coins. Anything above 70 coins is a well-played game and usually translates to victory. Especially if you are doing your due diligence to bully where possible.
Combat and Popularity
It is good to be aggressive with Crimea, Crimea Industrial is no exception. Try to bully someone early on to get an easy combat victory. If you can steal some food in the process that is rad as well. Be smart with your combats, try to spend as little as possible by picking on weak people. Always end the game in at least the 2nd tier popularity. Don’t pick options on encounters that cost popularity, do pick options that gain it. If possible, you should try to get your 2nd enlistment out before you start to build so you can gain popularity. This doesn’t always work out though as it is totally dependent on encounters.
Strong Start, Smart Finish
Admittedly this gets a little murky near the end, but that is due to how Scythe begins to play out in the mid to late game. The strong start sets you up for a dominant finish though. Around turn 15 you should start to think about what is going to be the best way to get that last star out. It could be popularity, enlistments, or power depending on how 1-15 went.
The above is basically the worst-case scenario. In all likelihood you will complete your objective early, win at least one easy combat, and pick up some help for completing the enlistments via a factory card or stolen food.
I hope this Crimea Industrial Guide helps you win some extra games! Use it in conjunction with my general Crimea guide found here https://thedailyscythe.com/crimea-strategy/ Let me know what you think in the comments below.
And as always, here is a link to Stonemaier games if you don’t own the game. I don’t get paid for this, I just love the game and think you will too! https://stonemaiergames.com/games/scythe/