Crimea Militant Strategy

Well here we are, back with Crimea Militant. As per the usual, Crimea is such a well honed faction that makes almost all its player mat combinations synergize well with it. Crimea Militant is no exception, and it’s another one of Crimea’s combinations that threatens to end the game extremely early.

Along with Crimea Innovative, I’ve seen game play notations where we could allegedly end the game by Round 12 with a couple helpful Encounters and good Objectives. As such, some players have suggested both of these combinations end up on the banned list, but at present their still perfectly legal. So yeah, let’s talk a look!

Militant Player Mat.

The Militant Player Mat starts a player off with 3 Popularity and 4 Coin with a turn priority of 2A. It’s strongest column is Move / Deploy, because not only is Deploy nestled under the most standard game action of Move, but it’s also the highest coin gain. As a bonus, the Deploy action can be discounted down to 2 Metal. This means, with a single Upgrade, a player’s Move action can be enhanced and Deploy be discounted, which makes it increasingly more valuable.

Second in order of strongest columns, we have Trade / Enlist. Having Trade above Enlist is helpful as it means we don’t have to Produce for a lot of Food to complete this bottom row action. Additionally, the Enlist action can be discounted down to only 1 Food with two upgrades, and it has a decent coin gain.

Suggested Strategy: With the Militant mat, players would benefit a great deal from focusing on their Mech and Enlist Stars. Both bottom row actions are the top coin gains on the mat, so in addition to Stars, players will be scoring fairly well off coin alone.

Crimea Militant 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. 

We’re not planning on getting any Upgrades unless it’s through our Encounter(s). So, no Upgrade Star.

Mech Star. 

Move / Deploy is our strongest row, so we’re going to be sure that we get our Mech Star.

Build Star.

We have no plans for buildings in this game, so no Build Star.

Enlist Star. 

The Militant player mat favors the Enlist action by having it under our Trade action. Additionally, as Crimea, it’s important to Enlist early to start having Combat Cards for use with our Coercion faction ability. As such, we will go for the Enlist Star.

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 that’s about it.

Power Star. 

Because Bolstering is above our Upgrade action, we really have no use for that row in this game. So, no Power Star for us.

Overall, for Crimea Militant, I think it best that players prioritize their Mech and Enlist Stars. From there, getting our Objective, two Combats, and Worker Stars would be optimal. If our Objectives weren’t possible to achieve, we’d likely have to come up with a plan B to figure out getting our Power Star as well.

Crimea Militant Objective Strategy.

Getting an Objective is important for us to get our 6th Star, and actually winning with Crimea Militant in 14 Rounds will require us to complete an Objective. 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 “Balanced Workforce,” and “Foundations of the Empire.”

Balanced Workforce.

“Have the same number of workers as recruits,” to complete. This is a tough Objective for any faction to complete. The reasoning is, your number of Enlists and workers have to be the same. As such, once you go over 4 workers, this Objective is Obsolete. So, in order to complete it, most players have to derail their plans and get it done right away.

Oddly enough, the Militant mat is well suited for this Objective because it has the potential to get us two Enlists in 4 Rounds (Produce, Trade/Enlist, Produce, and Trade/Enlist). However; Crimea isn’t the most optimal faction to make this happen without derailing our action sequences. For Crimea, we’d have to use a Move action before producing to get our worker off the Village. Which means, we’ll be 5 Rounds into the game before completing this Objective and though we’ll have 2 Enlists, we’ll only have 2 workers as well. This will be too slow for us, so we’ll have to pass on it.

Foundations of the Empire.

“Have at least six of your tokens (character, workers, mechs, and structures) on one territory,” to complete. This is possibly the best Objective to get in Scythe. It’s easy, and for Crimea Militant, it fits into our action sequence quite well as we’re getting all of our workers out.

Overall, we’re going to get Foundations of the Empire, almost on accident. So, we know we’ll be getting our Objective Star in this game and need not consider other Star options than those we already planned on.

Crimea Militant Strategy Overview.

Crimea Militant is a fast paced combination. The goal here is to get our Stars quickly before our opponents have had enough time to develop their strategies. Because we have the advantage of speed, we also want to be on the lookout for any other possible advantages that may pop up for us through our Encounters or Factory Card.

To start this game, we’ll be focusing on getting a couple Enlists and our workers out. From there, we’ll shift our focus to our mech deployments and spreading out. Our Move action is strong with the potential to get us combats and finish off with a Deploy action, so we’re going to plan to end the game on one of our Move actions.

Crimea Militant Step by Step Strategy.

Objectives: Balanced Workforce. Foundations of the Empire.

1. TRADE: 2 Metal.
2. PRODUCE: 1 Worker and 1 Food.
3. TRADE: 2 Food. ENLIST: Upgrade / Combat Card bonus.
4. PRODUCE: 2 Workers and 1 Food.
5. TRADE: 2 Food. ENLIST: Enlist / Power bonus.
6. MOVE: 1 worker from Village to Farm. Heroine to Farm. DEPLOY: Speed Mech on Village.
7. PRODUCE: 2 Food and 3 Workers. [Worker Star] [Objective Star].

Mid Game.

8. TRADE: 2 Metal. ENLIST: Upgrade / Popularity bonus.
9. MOVE: Heroine to Mountain Encounter. Village workers to Mountain. DEPLOY: Riverwalk Mech on Farm.
   • Encounter: We’d prefer an Upgrade, Popularity or Power.
   • We received Encounter 23 and chose to gain $2 and 1 Popularity.
   • Optional Encounter Choice: Had our neighbors been using their Enlist actions more, we would’ve probably chosen to pay for an Enlist to shorten the game. However; because we needed those Combat Cards, it was a better choice to hold off for the organic Enlist action.

10. PRODUCE: 2 Food and 6 Metal.
11. MOVE: Mech + 1 worker from Farm to Mountain, pick up 5 workers, and then to S. Tunnel Tundra. Heroine out to Village Encounter. DEPLOY: Scout Mech on S. Tunnel Tundra.
    • Encounter: We’d prefer an Upgrade, Power or Popularity.
    • We received Encounter … and chose to pay $2 for 3 Popularity.

Late Game.

12. TRADE: 2 Food. ENLIST: Build / Coin bonus. [Enlist Star].
13. MOVE: Heroine to Factory. Mech + 2 workers from S. Tunnel Tundra to Tunnel Village, leave worker, and then to N. Tunnel Tundra. DEPLOY: Wayfair Mech on S. Tunnel Tundra. [Mech Star] [Combat Star].
    • Factory Card: None of them would help us at this point, so we just picked one.
    • Combat: Before our next turn, Rusviet attacked us on the Factory. They had a handful of Combat Cards and 9 Power. I went for maxing out the bid to 12 Power and we ended up winning.

14. FACTORY MOVE: (skipped top row). Mech + 2 workers from S. Tunnel Tundra to Tunnel Farm. Leave 1 worker, then to Tunnel Forest, and leave worker. Finally to combat with Rusviet on W. Farm. [Combat Star].
    • Combat: Rusviet was pretty low from our last combat with only 2 Power and some Combat Cards. We bid as much as we could and won.

End Game Stats.

• Stars: Mech, Enlist, Objective, Combat (x2), and Worker.
• Round 14; 66 Coin.

Thoughts & Tips.

As anticipated, everything went smoothly in this play through. Crimea Militant is fairly single tracked, so we’re able to stay focused on our action sequences. 

We were so close to getting Tier-2 Popularity for scoring, but there were no other combat options available except Rusviet. So, we had to lose 4 Popularity just to attack them. But, just knowing that this combination also has that potential with a decent Encounter is good enough.

Other than bad Objectives, the only thing that can really derail this combination are other factions. But like all games, Crimea needs to watch out for Togawa, Saxony, or Polania. Even if they don’t seem threatening, it’s just good practice. 

And finally, as always, I have to get on my soapbox about playing bots. So here it is in a sentence: bots aren’t as good as even mediocre players, they make bad decisions, and they have no reaction to real players closing in on winning. So, have fun against bots at your own risk, but know that real players will definitely always have their sights on Crimea and especially this combination.

Crimea Militant Video.

Thanks to great content from top ranking players like FOMOF, we can also offer a video to check out. Here, he plays Crimea Militant where you can just watch and/or follow along. Enjoy!

Crimea Militant Epilogue.

That’s about it! If you’re a newer player or would like a refresher on some general concepts 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 combinations, check out our Crimea 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