Crimea Agricultural Strategy

And here we are with the Crimea Agricultural Strategy. This combination has some fun and differing strategies in comparison to other Crimea combinations. The agricultural mat is a bit slower in general due in large part to a general misalignment of best top row action and best bottom row actions.

As such, Crimea is put in a position here to consider a more economic engine build and not have the immediate ability to rush onto the board. For some players this may be frustrating, but for others it’s a refreshing change of pace.

Either way, without further delay, let’s check it out!

Agricultural Player Mat.

The Agricultural Player Mat starts a player off with 4 Popularity and 7 Coin with a turn priority of 5. It’s strongest column is Bolster / Enlist, as both Power and Enlist are potentially achievable Stars, and getting closer to two Stars in one action is highly valuable. In addition to this, Bolster / Enlist is also the highest coin generating column as a player gets 3 Coin for completing an Enlist. Not to mention, the Enlist action is widely considered the most beneficial bottom row action( BRA) on any player mat.

Aside from that, the Agricultural mat has the Upgrade action beneath the Move action. This allows a player to have the option to include an upgrade or two into their typical turn sequence without spending additional turns to do so. Additionally, the Upgrade BRA starts at just 2 Oil which is the cheapest any BRA can start at.

Finally, it has the Trade action above Deploy. Although deployment is expensive at 4 Metal on this mat, having the Trade there can help with having quick access to necessary additional Metal to complete a Deploy action. As an added bonus, the Deploy action can be discounted down to only 2 Metal with two Upgrades making the potential for getting a mech out a single seamless turn.

Suggested Strategy

On the Agricultural mat, it would be wise for players to build their turn engines to be able to Bolster / Enlist to get the Power and Enlist Stars. Adding in a couple turns to Upgrade the cost of enlisting or deploying down will also go a long way toward that.

Crimea Agricultural 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.

Upgrade Star. 

Aside from hoping to get an upgrade or two, we don’t have plans so go after this Star.

Mech Star. 

Crimea needs at least their Speed and Riverwalk Mechs in a game. But, because Deploy is below our Trade action, it forces us to take additional turns to get mechs out. However; there may not be very many other Star options available to us. So, we’ll plan to get our Mech Star.

Build Star. 

The Build action is below our Produce action; however, with no immediate access to Lumber, and the high Lumber cost of the Build action, it just seems like it would take more effort to make this work than it’s worth. No Build Star for us.

Enlist Star. 

Crimea Agricultural is geared to Enlist, and when player mat and faction agree on a Star, we go after it.

Worker Star.

In the course of all our necessary Produce actions, it won’t be difficult to gain our eight workers, so we’ll go for this one.

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.

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. 

We’ll have the potential to gain the Power Star, but we’ll probably need a decent encounter to make it happen. We’ll say maybe to the Power Star.

All in all, for Crimea Agricultural, we’re going to focus on our Mech, Enlist, Objective, Combat (2), and Worker Stars. We’ll also have some flexibility for the Power Star if our neighbors Upgrade a lot and if we get a decent encounter. 

Crimea Agricultural Objective Strategy.

Getting an Objective is important for us to get our 6th Star. Because of this, we really need to have a solid plan going into the game of how we can accomplish one of the Objectives we get; and if we can’t, knowing right away that we’ll have to adjust our gameplan.

For this game, we received “Population Advantage” and  “Divide and Conquer.”

Population Advantage.

“Control at least three Village territories at the end of your turn” to complete. This Objective is relatively easy considering we start with a Village in our base hexes. Beyond that, we have one right outside of our base and one that we can get to by Tunnel. So, within a single Move action we can complete this at any point in the game. Easy peasy.

Divide and Conquer.

“Have zero Factory Cards and control at least two territories adjacent to the Factory at the end of your turn,” to complete. Ideally, Crimea can accomplish this Objective fairly easily considering the benefit to utilizing mid to late game worker spread. This can definitely be on the table as an option.

Overall, considering both Objectives, we’ll lean toward completing Population Advantage. It’s a bit easier and really requires little more from us than a single round’s Move action. However; if it’s not possible due to the other factions in the game getting in our way, we’ll keep Divide and Conquer as an option.

Strategy Overview.

Because Crimea and the Agricultural player mat synergize well with the Enlist action, we’ll be focusing on trying to get to those immediately. We’ll build up our worker economy so we can make massive Produce actions to avoid overusing it (as we won’t be Building, the bottom row action to Produce will be almost useless). By the mid game we hope to be getting out onto the main part of the board and causing havoc with our Scout mech. Though Crimea is typically very quick, the Agricultural player mat isn’t. So we’ll be trying to create a fine balance of building our economy while trying to end the game as soon as we possibly can.

Crimea Agricultural Step by Step Strategy.

Objectives: Population Advantage. Divide and Conquer.

1. PRODUCE: 1 Food and 1 Worker.
2. TRADE: 1 Food and 1 Metal.
3. PRODUCE: 1 Food and 2 Workers.
   • OR – Bolster Combat Card here and Enlist if neighboring opponents look to be completing an Enlist or other bottom row action before our next turn.
4. BOLSTER: 2 Power. ENLIST: Enlist action and Combat Cards bonus.
5. PRODUCE: 1 Food and 3 Workers. [Worker Star].
6. TRADE: 2 Metal. DEPLOY: Speed Mech on Village (use a Combat Card toward cost).
7. MOVE: Heroine to Mountain Encounter. Mech + 7 Workers from Village to Farm, leave a total of 3 Workers on Farm, and then to Mountain (total of 5 Workers). UPGRADE: Bolster / Enlist (use Combat Card toward cost).
   • Encounter: We’d prefer an Upgrade or a cheap mech. Barring that, Oil, Food, Metal, or Power.
   • We received Encounter 36 and gained 2 Oil and 1 Popularity. Unfortunately, the mech was too expensive for this point in the game.

Mid Game.

8. PRODUCE: 3 Food and 5 Metal.
9. TRADE: 1 Oil and 1 Metal. DEPLOY: Riverwalk Mech on Farm (use a Combat Card toward cost).
10. MOVE: Heroine to S. Village Encounter. Mech + 4 Workers from Mountain to S. Tunnel Tundra, leave Workers, and then to S. Village. UPGRADE: Move / Deploy.
    • Encounter: We’d benefit from and Upgrade or a cheap mech. Otherwise, we’d take Power and/or Combat Cards.
    • We received Encounter 23 and gained $2 and 1 Popularity.

11. BOLSTER: 3 Power. ENLIST: Upgrade action and Power bonus.
12. TRADE: 1 Oil and 1 Metal. DEPLOY: Scout Mech on S. Tunnel Tundra.

Late Game.

13. BOLSTER: 3 Power. ENLIST: Deploy action and Popularity bonus.
14. MOVE: Heroine to Factory. Mech + 2 Workers from S. Tunnel Tundra to Tunnel Village, leave 1 Worker, and then to combat with Togawa on Togawa Mountain. Worker from Farm to Village. UPGRADE: Trade Popularity / Enlist (use Combat Card toward cost). [Objective Star].
    • Combat: Togawa had 8 Power and 2 Combat Cards. Although we stole one Combat Card from them with Scout, they still unexpectedly threw out max 7 Power and a value 3 Combat Card. Because we want to conserve our Power for the Power Star, we only threw out 3 Power and a value 5 Combat Card and ended up losing.
    • Factory Card: We chose Card #5 where we can trade 1 Power for 2 Popularity. We likely won’t use it, but in the event we need a boost to clear Tier-2 Popularity, we’ll have it to use.

15. BOLSTER: 3 Power. ENLIST: Build action and Coin bonus (use Combat Card as Food resource).  [Power Star] [ Enlist Star].
16. TRADE: 1 Oil and 1 Metal. DEPLOY: Wayfair Mech on S. Tunnel Tundra (use a Combat Card toward cost). [Mech Star].
17. MOVE: Mech to Combat with Rusviet on Rusviet Tundra. Spread out other Workers and Mechs. [Combat Star].
    • Combat: Rusviet had 4 Power and a bunch of Combat Cards. We had some value 5 Combat Cards and could go max 7 Power easily. Rusviet still had two combat units, though so it was a risk but we ended up winning.

End Game Stats.

• Stars: Power, Mech, Enlist, Objective, Combat, Worker.
• Round 17; 64 Coin.

Crimea Agricultural Thoughts & Tips.

Not a bad run through, though a bit slow for Crimea considering having to utilize all four columns of actions through the game. There were a couple instances where we might have shortened the game with our Encounters. But in consideration of not tanking our economy, we opted to take a bit longer.

The access to combat was a bit tougher in this game than usual, and losing to Togawa on our first combat set us back from winning the game in 16 Rounds. But, we still managed and made use of getting the Power Star for the win.

Aside from that, a big point to remember is that Crimea Agricultural is a strong economy builder. So if things aren’t lining up for a quick victory, it’s totally within reason to slow play down and work on building up Coin reserves and getting Popularity to higher tiers.

As always, this play through example was against Scythe’s “hard” bots. They aren’t as good as real players, not even inexperienced players. As such, I would highly recommend giving these strategies a try in real player games and see where you have to be flexible.

Crimea Agricultural Video.

Content creator FOMOF has a live stream where he gets a solid victory with this combination. The difference is he does it in 20 Rounds and manages to achieve Tier-3 Popularity (which is amazing for a competitive game). Check it out and see how his strategy works!

Crimea Agricultural Epilogue.

That’s about it! If you’re a newer player or would like a refresher on some general parts of Scythe, check out our Quick Tips and Strategy section. Looking to get into Scythe? Check out the tabletop version at Stonemaier Games or the Digital Edition on Steam!

Otherwise, if you’d like more Albion combinations, check out our Albion Strategy overview, and if you enjoy our faction / mat combination posts, find more of them in our Strategy Archives. As always, leave a comment if you have any thoughts or want to share how this strategy worked for you!

Happy gaming!

• Norman