Nordic Patriotic Strategy

The Northmen rise again with our Nordic Patriotic strategy. A very robust faction meets an equally robust player mat, and the synergy between them makes for a strong game. Some of the big bonuses I discovered in this strategy were strong Coin generating along with a great deal of growth from our Enlist actions.

Better still, this strategy is built to play on the Rusviet side of Nordic’s base, so it avoids being blocked by Albion early game. However, should Albion not be in the game, only a few movement tweaks need to be made to play the Albion side. As such, this Nordic Patriotic strategy seems extremely versatile. Let’s take a look!

Patriotic Player Mat.

The Patriotic Player Mat starts a player off with 2 Popularity and 6 Coin with a turn priority of 3. It’s strongest column is Produce / Enlist, as players can gain their Enlist Star while performing the second most common top row action. Along with that, a player gains a decent amount of coin from this column, and their Enlist can be discounted down to 2 Food with an upgrade.

Deciding the next strongest column is a bit of a toss up between Move / Upgrade and Bolster / Deploy. While Bolster / Deploy seems like the best choice (with Power gain above putting mechs on the board for the best coin gain). It’s also the most expensive a bottom row action can be, with an initial cost of 4 Metal per Deploy. 

Meanwhile, upgrades start as the cheapest initial cost a bottom row action can be; and they drastically cut down on the needed resources for our other strong rows. As well, they fall under the Move action making for a lot of streamlined turns that gain a player some coin. As such, it would seem best to prioritize Move / Upgrade over Bolster / Deploy because the former will make the latter easier to utilize.

Suggested Strategy: For the Patriotic mat, a player would benefit going for the Enlist Star as well as the Mech Star, and as a bonus may be able to pull off the Power Star. That being said, players would be wise to prioritize early upgrades while moving workers to ideal positions for productions.

Nordic Patriotic 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 planning on getting at least two upgrades. Beyond that, we’ll only take them if they’re easily available. So no Upgrade Star for us.

Mech Star. 

Typically mechs are the way to go, but with Nordic there’s some obstacles. Because of our need to cross rivers with our workers to get to a Village hex, we’re going to be short on quick access for our workers to get to a Mountain to Produce. As such, our first mech is probably going to be happening more in the mid to late game. With these variables, it’s best to have the Mech Star as a fall back plan and not a focus.

Build Star.

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

Enlist Star. 

The Patriotic mat favors the Enlist action by having it below the Produce action. Because we can Trade as well as get to a Farm hex before mid game, we’ll want to go for our 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 of Bolstering to Deploy and our early game Enlists, we’ll have this one within our reach. We’d like to get it as it’s probably faster than getting the Mech Star, so we’ll see if an Encounter will help us out.

Overall, for Nordic Patriotic, I think it best that players prioritize their Enlist and Power Stars. In addition to that, we should add in getting the Worker, Objective and two Combat Stars. If there’s an opportunity, we can include the Mech Star to replace the Objective if it’s unachievable.

Nordic Patriotic Objective Strategy.

Getting an Objective is important for us to get our 6th Star, and actually winning with Albion Agricultural in 16 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 “Shore Up the Shore,” and “Become a Despised Warmonger.”

Shore Up the Shore.

“Control at least 5 territories surrounding the same Lake at the end of your turn,” to complete. As Nordic, we have the benefit of wanting to exit our base through our Lake hex with our Seaworthy Mech ability. However; because it’ll be later in the game before we have both our Speed and Seaworthy Mechs out, this Objective may be tougher than usual.

Become a Despised Warmonger.

“Have 3 or less Popularity, at least 13 Power, and at least 2 mechs,” to complete. This seems like a tall order, and in a lot of circumstances, this Objective is one of the worst. However; we will be deploying at least two mechs and getting some Power from Bolster / Deploy as well as our Enlist bonus. That being said, this Objective might be possible to fit into our later game turn sequences.

Overall, we’re going to keep both Objectives as an option. Because they’re both going to have to wait until the later game, we can bide our time and see which one seems more likely. But we will plan on completing one of them.

Nordic Patriotic Strategy Overview.

The Patriotic player mat seems to thrive on early game Upgrades, so we’ll start with a focus on that. From there, it would be ideal to make the most of our early Produce actions by trading for Food to get a couple early Enlists. From there, getting our workers into place to get the most of our Produce actions will be our goal. And by the time we’re ready to move out, we should be close to having half our Stars and seeking to end the game.

Nordic Patriotic Step by Step Strategy.

Objectives: Shore up the Shore. Become a Despised Warmonger.

1. TRADE: 2 Oil.
2. MOVE: Worker from Tundra to Village. Worker from Forest to Tundra. UPGRADE: Move / Enlist.
3. TRADE: 2 Food.
4. PRODUCE: 1 Oil and 1 Worker. ENLIST: Deploy / Combat Cards bonus. 
5. TRADE: 2 Food.
6. PRODUCE: 1 Oil and 2 Workers. ENLIST: Upgrade / Power bonus.
7. MOVE: 2 workers to Farm. 1 worker to Tundra. UPGRADE: Produce / Deploy.
8. PRODUCE: 2 Oil, 2 Food, and 1 Worker. ENLIST: Enlist / Popularity bonus.
9. MOVE: 2 workers from Tundra to Mountain. Hero to Tundra. UPGRADE: Bolster / Deploy.
10. PRODUCE: 2 Metal, 2 Food, and 2 Workers. ENLIST: Build / Coin bonus. [Worker Star] [Enlist Star].
11. BOLSTER: 3 Power. DEPLOY: Speed Mech on Village.
12. MOVE: Mech + 3 workers from Village to Tunnel Forest (leave workers on Farm). Hero to Encounter. Worker from Tunnel Forest to Mountain. UPGRADE: Bolster Combat Cards / Deploy.
    1. Encounter: We’d prefer Metal, Power, or Combat Cards.
    2. We received Encounter 36 and chose to gain 2 Oil and 1 Popularity.

13. PRODUCE: 3 Metal, 2 Lumber, and 2 Food. ENLIST: just for the coin and Combat Card.
14. BOLSTER: 3 Power. DEPLOY: Seaworthy Mech on Tunnel Forest. [Power Star] [Objective Star].

15. MOVE: Hero to Combat with Polania on the Factory. Mech from Tunnel Forest to Combat with Rusviet on E. Farm. Mech + 1 worker from Tunnel Forest, leave worker on different Tunnel, and to another Tunnel. [Combat Star] [Combat Star].
    • Combat: Polania had 4 Power and 5 Combat Cards. We bid 9 and won.
    • Combat: Rusviet has 2 Power and 6 Combat Cards. We bid 7 and won.

End Game Stats.

• Stars: Power, Enlist, Objective, Combat (x2), Worker.
• Round 15; 70 Coin.

Thoughts & Tips.

As I mentioned early on in this article, I love that Nordic Patriotic as a combination synergizes so well to Upgrade and Enlist. Because of this, our early game thrives and gets us a lot of bonuses from our neighbors’ actions. Additionally, because our Hero and mechs aren’t in reach until the mid to late game, we’re not much of a target for our opponents. Unless, of course, Rusviet just wants to be mean and knock our workers out.

To that last point, one of the only big risks we run in this strategy is our workers getting knocked back to base. But that risk depends on three factors: How early is Rusviet planning on getting to the Farm hexes for their Enlists? Do they want to waste part of their Move action to knock us out (especially with no mech threat)? And, do they want to lose that Popularity? Because most of these factors seem to make it more inconvenient for Rusveit to knock our workers back, I feel it’s only going to be in exceptional circumstances that they would do that. 

Unlike some other strategies I post, I’ve run Nordic Patriotic a few times against real life players. I can say that the results are still the same and the only variances might be around longer or shorter depending on if we’re attacked or if there’s a lack of players in the vicinity for our final round combats.

That being said, this play through was against the hardest Scythe bots, and they posed no real threats. So as always, I encourage players to play against other real players. Because real players add a lot of intuitive challenges that bots could never pick up on.

Nordic Patriotic Video.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a video strategy for this combination yet that I like, but once I do, it’ll be here.

Epilogue.

And there you have it, Nordic Patriotic! I hope this strategy helps you discover some of the finer details of Scythe and gets you a win or two!

If you’re unfamiliar with the Nordic faction, check out our Nordic Kingdoms overview guide. And if you’re seeking more faction and mat combinations, check out our Strategy Archive. Additionally, if you’re new to Scythe or would like some specific strategy refreshers, feel free to peruse our Quick Tips & Strategy section.

Lastly, if you’re looking to get more into Scythe, you can buy the tabletop version from Stonemaier Games. A bit on the pricey side, but totally worth every penny if you’re an avid tabletop gamer. Otherwise, the Digital Edition on Steam is an inexpensive way to go to play on PC and against other players around the world.

Thanks for checking in with us, and as always feel free to comment below on thoughts, suggestions, or highlights from your times trying this strategy out!

Happy gaming!

• Norman