If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

The world has forgotten its bravery and its honour, and we are left with cowards, who thrive on deception. Cowards who would spill every drop of blood save even one drop of their own. What world are they creating? A realm of thieves and traitors, of those who would desecrate the tombs of our most beloved leaders? It is time to end this. Call upon the cavalry and ready the bows.


This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Scythia has a tier 2 start bias towards horse resources, and a tier 5 start bias towards flat grasslands and flat plains. Getting access to horses is very important for Scythia, as while Saka Horse Archers don't require them, Horsemen certainly do. Furthermore, pasture resources such as horses enhance the Kurgan UI. The grassland and plains start biases improve the odds of starting near pasture resources in the event you don't start near horses.

• Every time you produce a Saka Horse Archer, Horseman, Cavalry or Helicopter, receive two copies of the unit instead of one.
  
  • If the city has an Encampment district and both the City Centre and Encampment are free from units, one will be placed on the Encampment tile and one on the City Centre tile.

• All military and religious units gain +5 strength when attacking units on less than full health
  
• All military and religious units heal 30 HP when they kill a unit

A classical-era ranged land unit which does not replace anything

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.


Notable features

• Classified as a ranged unit, therefore:
  
  • Unable to capture cities
    
  • -17 strength vs. city defences
    
  • Does not exert zone of control
    
  • Uses ranged promotions
    
  • Built faster with the Agoge policy card, not Manoeuvre.
    
  • Benefits from Barracks rather than Stables.
• Ignores Zone of Control, unlike other ranged units
  
• Has a vulnerability to anti-cavalry bonuses, unlike other ranged units.
  
• Has strength equivalent to Archers
  
• Has 1 range (Archers have 2)
  
• Has 4 movement points (Archers have 2)
  
• Production cost of 100 (Archers cost 60), but thanks to Scythia's civ ability, two are produced at once.
  
• Maintenance of 2 (same as Horsemen but twice as much as Archers).

Enhancements

*This assumes you have the enhancements of earlier eras.

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.


Cultural victory isn't a great direction to take Scythia in. Aside from the reasonable faith output being useful for Naturalists and hence National Parks, they don't really have a particular edge there.

Domination is the best route for Scythia. Their major weakness here is their lack of advantages against cities, but they can carve through the armies of enemy civs even if their enemies have a substantial production advantage.

Religion works rather well. While you have no direct advantage to founding a religion, you can use your early combat advantages to take Holy Sites off other civs and gain Great Prophet points that way. Tomyris' bonuses to military units also applies to theological combat, which helps immensely in prolonged religious struggles. Kurgans can be a reasonable source of faith as well. They might struggle against some of the religious powerhouses like Russia or post-renaissance Spain, but they'll give it a good shot.

Finally, science is a weak path for Scythia; they barely have any advantages at all there. The gold and faith from Kurgans can be used to buy science buildings, Great Scientists or civilian units to help with development, but that's not much of a specific bonus. You'd be much better off trying to go for domination or religion.

Sometimes, a perfectly good plan for war can be ruined by the need for production. A nice-looking unique unit suddenly doesn't look so good when they're obsolete by the time you have a good-sized force built. Scythia laughs in the face of this issue; they can spam out units like no-one else.


The first thing to do is prepare for war. Try to track down any horse resources (other pasture resources are nice as well, but horses are important) while working towards the Horseback Riding technology. You can take a diversion to Astrology to try and get a Holy Site or two built, but that will delay an early rush and hence make it less effective. Instead, you can capture Holy Sites from other civs to help get a religion started. You may also need Bronze Working to build an Encampment to let you build Horsemen with only one horse resource.

Once you have Horseback Riding, you can (and should) build both Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers. Keep in mind that Horsemen are built faster with the Manoeuvre military policy card, while Saka Horse Archers are built faster with Agoge. Until you've reached a government at Political Philosophy, you may need to keep switching between these cards for the optimum production bonuses.

While Saka Horse Archers can fight without taking damage thanks to their ranged attack, leaving enemies injured and vulnerable to follow-up attacks, Horsemen are strong, slightly cheaper and can handle cities more effectively. It's easy to assume you should just emphasise the unique unit, but Horsemen are good for their time and are certainly worth building in high numbers.

Sooner or later, Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers together will be costing you a lot of money in maintenance, so be ready to switch to the Conscription policy card and to work a few Kurgans for money once you've got a reasonable-sized army built. That's not to say you should stop building more units entirely - Saka Horse Archers in particular are fairly squishy and die easily, so will need to be replaced.


Aside from Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers, Cavalry (industrial era) and Helicopters (atomic era) are also built in double quantities, making this unique ability useful throughout much of the game. While there may appear to be a long time gap between Horsemen and Cavalry, Military Science can be beelined fairly easily minimising the downtime between wars (and giving you a substantial military advantage).

The arrival of corps and armies in the industrial and modern era respectively ensures Cavalry are still useful for a while (and with a Military Academy present in a city, you can get some very cost-effective Cavalry armies built there) - though beware of the high maintenance costs associated with corps and armies. By the time Cavalry are fading in power, Helicopters arrive.

Light cavalry units all have in common a vulnerability to anti-cavalry units (once Saka Horse Archers start becoming dated, bring some standard melee units like Musketmen or Infantry to handle them), immunity to Zone of Control and a distinct promotion tree. Those promotions are as follows:



Getting double quantities of light cavalry is incredibly powerful for overwhelming your foes, whether through filling their land so enemy armies lack room to manoeuvre, exploiting flanking bonuses, or surrounding cities to place them under siege. It's tempting just to focus on the fact you'll be building Scythia's UU in double quantities, but even without that feature, it's a powerful warmongering bonus in its own right.

Tomyris brings one of the game's most powerful warmongering abilities, ensuring Scythia has quality as well as quantity. But that's not all - the ability also works for theological combat, giving Scythia a useful boost towards religious victory as well.



Look in the bottom-right corner for the bonus.

In the earliest turns of the game, Barbarians can be quite a menace. Building a Slinger or two early on will help most civs handle it, but Scythia can go on the offensive against Barbarians even with a small force. The bonus against wounded units means you can kill them quickly, and the health on kills gives you considerable lasting power. Destroying a few Barbarian encampments will give you a reasonable sum of gold which can help speed up early development.

Of course, where this ability really matters is in wartime. Scythia's civ ability means you'll end up with pairs of units, which works beautifully with this bonus. The first unit can bring an enemy down from full health, while the second can deal heavy damage thanks to the enemy being wounded. In early warfare, get the first hit with a Saka Horse Archer and follow up with a Horseman for the maximum impact.

Wounded units have a strength penalty based on the health they have remaining. Units between 90 and 99 health have a strength penalty of 1, units between 80 and 89 health have a penalty of 2, and so on. Because combat is calculated based on the difference between the strengths of two units, Scythia can essentially add 5 onto those strength penalty numbers.

Killing units restores up to 30 health. For ranged units, healing 30 health means the unit will be 3 points of strength stronger for their next fight. That's pretty important for injured Saka Horse Archers, which have a relatively low amount of strength. For melee units, the strength gained might not be quite so much (as the round of combat will hurt the melee unit) but it gives a considerable amount of lasting power. Being able to constantly heal through combat helps counter the constant damage taken from melee combat, allowing Scythia to last a lot longer on the battlefield than most other civs.

Healing on kills also allows for some manoeuvres with melee units which would be too risky for most other civs, one example being to finish off a strong enemy in a way that would leave your victorious unit in range of other enemies. For most civs, making that move would leave the victorious unit with not enough health to resist further attacks, but Scythia can handle that.

If you want to make a risky manoeuvre like that, pay close attention to the strength difference between your unit and the enemy so it you can ensure it doesn't live thanks to random chance! Here's a table showing how much damage you can expect to deal and take at various strength differences so you can get an idea of when you should fight and when you shouldn't.


This table shows that if you have a strength advantage of 0, a unit of 22 or less health can be reliably killed. If you have a strength advantage of 10, that number rises to 33. If you have a strength disadvantage of 10, that number shrinks to 16, and with any strength disadvantage, you'll usually take more damage than you can heal from kills.

Because these bonuses do not work against cities, it's important as Scythia not to neglect siege. Most siege units are slow-moving which makes them struggle to keep up with your other units, so consider picking off some weaker cities without siege support while you wait for some to arrive to help with bigger targets. Picking off enemy units or pillaging farms can help recover health from doing so. Late in the game, bomber-class aircraft provide a mobile siege solution so this won't be a problem any more.


While buying some Missionaries and Apostles and sending them off to foreign lands to use their "spread religion" function is the typical way to promote your faith, theological combat is a useful secondary method. When you use an Apostle or Inquisitor to defeat a rival religious unit, you will gain a boost to religious pressure to all cities within 10 tiles, while your rival's religion will lose pressure.

The key problem with theological combat is that healing religious units can be tricky - they have to go back to one of your Holy Sites or a city with Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) to be able to recover health, or else you have to spend faith to buy Gurus and use up their charges. Furthermore, because religious units spread religion less effectively when injured, theological combat can be less effective as a tool for spreading your faith as it may initially appear (defeating an enemy religious unit is still very powerful for spreading your religion, it's just that it slightly holds back spread of religious pressure via the usual method). For those reasons, it's a good idea to use all but one of your spread religion charges before you engage in theological combat.

Scythia has a way around that problem. When you defeat a unit via theological combat, your religious unit will recover up to 30 health. Of course, that requires you to directly defeat the unit - bringing it onto low health and having it use its last spread religion charge isn't enough. For that reason, it's a good idea to bring Apostles in groups of at least two when you're trying to spread your religion to the lands of other civs (you'll also get flanking bonuses, so that'll be helpful as well). Much like with Scythia's military units, the first hit can bring the enemy down from full health so the second Apostle onwards can exploit the +5 strength bonus from attacking a wounded unit.


Once you have a tier three government (Democracy, Fascism or Communism), you're able to build the War Department building in your Government Plaza district. This makes your military and religious units heal an additional 20 HP when they successfully kill enemies, making Tomyris' total up to +50 HP on kills. This allows you to heal through kills even with a 10-point strength disadvantage.


Tomyris brings survivability to military and religious units, giving them an edge in attrition battles. Less time needs to be spent on healing up, which means more time conquering or engaging in religious warfare. However, capturing cities can still be quite tricky; Scythia lacks bonuses against them and siege units are slower than mounted ones. Keep this in mind as you cut across the landscape.

As unique units go, Saka Horse Archers are not especially powerful. They're no stronger than Archers, have a lower range, are only mildly cheaper (when you take the fact you get two a time into account) and have double the maintenance cost. However, they do have a very useful pair of features - they have higher movement than other ranged units, and ignore zone of control just like cavalry! Ignoring zone of control usually can help a unit get through enemy defences, but fighting can leave it vulnerable to counter-attacks. For Saka Horse Archers, the fact they can deal damage without receiving any helps there, although keep in mind their low melee strength can still be a problem.

A more hidden benefit of Saka Horse Archers is that unlike regular Archers, they arrive in the classical era and as such can benefit from the strength boost of Great Generals.

Because Saka Horse Archers are squishy and have to get right up to a unit to fight them, make sure you bring along some Horsemen to help protect them. Try damaging enemy units with Saka Horse Archers, then finish them off with Horsemen. Aside from giving the health-on-kills to a unit that will always benefit from it, it'll ensure the Horsemen are on the front lines between your turns.

Against cities, Saka Horse Archers get a -17 strength penalty, making them pretty terrible in that situation (at least, until they can be promoted). Still, if your siege units haven't arrived yet, it can be worthwhile to surround the enemy city with Saka Horse Archers to deal some damage in the meantime. Horsemen will take heavy damage when assaulting a city despite being able to deal a lot more damage, so using Saka Horse Archers can sometimes be a better stopgap measure.

Ultimately, Saka Horse Archers aren't the backbone of your military, but a helpful supportive unit to complement Horsemen and ensure they can deal as much damage as possible. Indeed, you may often want to train more Horsemen than Saka Horse Archers.

The Kurgan occupies an unusual position among Scythian uniques. Although it can complement early warfare, it leans towards benefitting the religious game. It's one of the earliest sources of faith in the game, and can still be reasonable for faith even late into the game, in addition to offering a growing gold output.


The biggest thing Kurgans can do for you early in the game is to help you secure a pantheon quickly. Divine Spark is a reliable pantheon to help you found a religion (capture Holy Sites off other civs and enjoy the boost to Great Prophet Points) while God of the Forge will help you get an army trained sooner.

Without adjacent pastures, Kurgan yields are fairly low early on. As such, once you have a pantheon, you might want to stop working those low-yield Kurgans.

The second early role of Kurgans is to help support your army. Scythia's reliance on sheer quantities of units makes maintenance troublesome. Kurgans might not offer that much gold at first, but it's better than falling into negative gold-per-turn. Guilds doubles the gold output of Kurgans, making it a good civic to aim for after Political Philosophy and Theology.


Once you've taken a few Holy Sites off other civs, you hopefully should be able to found your own religion (if you can't, don't worry - faith can purchase units with the Grand Master's Chapel building, which makes raising Cavalry armies easier). Kurgans help supply a reasonable source of faith to help support it, but you can't rely on that alone - be sure to develop your Holy Sites!

Kurgans should be built with caution; working too many ones with low yields will come at the cost of other yields such as food and production. Instead, here's a good general rule to follow:

• If there are no adjacent pastures, Kurgans should only be used if you haven't founded a pantheon yet, you're exceptionally desperate for gold, or the city has no need for food and production and you need the faith.
  
• If there is one adjacent pasture, Kurgans may be useful if you can spare the citizens to work it, but don't go overboard. Once you're fairly close to a religious victory, it may be worthwhile to work more just to squeeze as much faith as possible.
  
• If there are two or more adjacent pastures, Kurgans should almost definitely be built (the main exception being if there's a useful resource or very strong district location blocking the tile). 3 faith is a fine yield, as is the gold that will be added over the course of the game. New cities might not be ready to work them, but otherwise the tiles should usually be worked.

You'll need to use your own judgement in regards to exactly how many Kurgans should be constructed and improved. A higher faith output can help speed up a religious victory, but if you set back development too far, it'll leave you vulnerable to attack. Scythia's unique military abilities can only do so much against a greatly superior foe.

For non-religious games, you'll find more uses for the faith yield as the game goes on. The Monumentality Golden Age dedication offers a cheap way of obtaining Settlers and Builders via faith, while the Grand Master's Chapel (available once you have a tier two government) lets you purchase military units with faith. You can potentially support a huge army by faith-purchasing Cavalry or Helicopters, and using Kurgan gold to cover maintenance costs.

Finally, at the Capitalism civic in the modern era, Kurgans gain an extra point of gold. 3 gold and 1 faith for a single improvement is a reasonable yield in itself, but unless you really need the gold (e.g. you're working towards the Big Ben wonder and want to accumulate as big a treasury as possible beforehand) you're still better off sticking to Kurgans adjacent to pastures.


The Warrior Monks follower belief allows you to purchase Warrior Monks with faith in cities with a Temple. They have 35 strength and 3 movement points, but more importantly, very strong promotions which make them ideal to use as the backbone of your army in the gap between Horsemen and Cavalry.

• Use Kurgans to help secure a pantheon.
  
• Beyond that point, only pasture-adjacent Kurgans should be worked except in exceptional circumstances.
  
• For non-religious games, Kurgans can help you buy military (with the Grand Master's Chapel) and civilian (with the Monumentality Golden Age dedication) units to support conquest and general development respectively.

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.


Tier One

Oligarchy is a fairly safe bet due to the unit experience bonus and reasonable distribution of policy cards. The +4 bonus for melee units might see some use, but remember that you'll mostly be using units that don't benefit from that. Alternatively, you may want Autocracy as it lets you take Agoge, Manoeuvre and Conscription simultaneously.

The Warlord's Throne helps your warmongering strengths feed into general production - useful for training more units, getting your religious infrastructure off the ground or general development.

Tier Two

Theocracy is a good choice here due to its discount on faith purchases, helping you get more out of Kurgans.

Complement it with the Grand Master's Chapel so you can buy military units with faith, helping you raise a huge army quickly. You can pillage any enemy tile for faith with this building as well - light cavalry with the Depredation promotion are particularly good pillagers.

Tier Three

Fascism offers an array of military advantages that will greatly help Cavalry or Helicopter-led conquests. Religious players might want to go with Democracy instead for its better array of policy card slots and discount to gold purchases (you'll get a lot of gold from Kurgans as a side-effect of working them for faith, so you can get a lot out of such a bonus).

The War Department is a great choice of government building, complementing your existing health-on-kills ability to make it even easier to keep your military and religious units going for longer.


Ancient Era

Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) - Helps you to build Saka Horse Archers faster.

Caravansaries (Economic, requires Foreign Trade) - This allows you to have some money to maintain Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers with while still trading internally for production bonuses.

Conscription (Military, State Workforce) - Reducing unit maintenance costs is very important when you build units in large quantities.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - It's useful to be able to make use of Kurgans early, but at the same time, you'll have plenty of other tiles to improve. Getting a bonus to Builder production at this point in the game is therefore a good idea.

Manoeuvre (Military, requires Military Tradition) - Helps you build Horsemen faster, but not Saka Horse Archers.

Classical Era

Raid (Military, requires Military Training) - Light cavalry are particularly good at pillaging thanks to the Depredation promotion. This policy card takes that even further, helping you to receive powerful yields from pillaging.

Medieval Era

Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Allows you to construct Cavalry faster. Considering Military Tradition is fairly easy to beeline, it's nice for this policy card to arrive relatively early.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Constructing high quantities of units makes upgrading a bit of a nightmare. This policy card takes some of the pain out of the process.

Renaissance Era

Religious Orders (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Gives all religious units +5 strength. With the Theocracy government and Tomyris' leader ability, you could have as much of a +15 religious strength advantage.

Industrial Era

National Identity (Military, requires Nationalism) - Scythian units already have a lot of lasting power thanks to their ability to heal on kills and bonus against wounded units. This policy card extends that further by reducing the strength penalty injured units have. What may be a fair fight between one of your units and that of an enemy one turn will swing greatly to your favour the following turn.

Total War (Military, requires Scorched Earth) - Combining the bonuses of Raid and Sack, this will make your Cavalry and Helicopter units' strong pillaging ability even better.

Modern Era

Levée en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - Cutting unit maintenance costs is important considering how many units Scythia typically produces.

Lightning Warfare (Totalitarianism) - Allows you to construct Helicopters faster.

Atomic Era

After Action Reports (Military, requires Rapid Deployment) - Scythian military units can engage in combat more frequently than units of most other civs thanks to Tomyris' health-on-kills bonus, allowing them to gain more experience in the same number of turns typically. This policy card builds upon that advantage, without the huge financial penalty of the otherwise more powerful Elite Forces Dark Age policy card.


Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - A great bonus for Scythia, not only does it make your Horsemen incredibly strong at attacking wounded units, but Tomyris' leader ability allows you to circumvent the downside.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Scythia's early-arriving UU and UI, in addition to their strengths at clearing Barbarians, make securing a classical-era Golden Age easy. Scythia's unique bonuses, however, do not directly help you to found a religion. Still, there's a workaround - use your early military strength to capture Holy Sites off other civs, and complement it with the Great Prophet Points of this Golden Age bonus. That'll make it much easier to secure a religion.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Don't manage to found a religion? Use this to convert Kurgan gold into Builders, Settlers or Traders, and get your development off to a strong start.

To Arms! (Dedication, Industrial to Information eras) - Exploit strength in numbers against enemy corps and armies, and you can enjoy some bonus era score. Remember individual units always gain era score when killing corps or armies, even if you're not taking this dedication.

To Arms! (Golden Age, Industrial to Information eras) - Faster unit production helps you create a vast army sooner.

Divine Spark - Considering you may be conquering Holy Sites rather than building them, it helps to have something to help you catch up in the religious race.

God of the Forge - Aids in producing Horseman, Saka Horse Archers, Siege Towers and other such useful units faster.

God of the Open Sky - Kurgans encourage you to settle near pasture-heavy land, so this pantheon adds more for you than most civs.

God of War - Scythia's unusually strong ability to slice through enemy units can make this pantheon a viable source of faith.


You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Missionary Zeal (Enhancer) - Chasing down enemy religious units to finish them off can be tricky. This belief makes it a fair bit easier.

Monastic Isolation (Enhancer) - If your attempts to heal up religious units via theological combat go badly wrong, this bonus ensures the damage to your religious pressure is minimised.

Tithe (Founder) or Church Property (Founder) - Scythia needs all the gold they can get early on, when double quantities of Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers are a huge drain on gold.

Warrior Monks (Follower) - Combine your military and religious strengths with this special military unit which has access to some powerful promotions!


Hattusa (Scientific) - If you get an unlucky start and lack nearby horses, being suzerain over Hattusa may be the only way to be able to train Horsemen.

Kabul (Militaristic) - The high frequency in which Scythian units engage in combat gives them a lot of experience. Kabul doubles that experience gain, meaning it won't take long until you can reach the really strong promotions like Expert Marksman (can attack twice) for Saka Horse Archers.

Stockholm (Scientific) - Offering a bonus similar to (but stronger than) the Divine Spark pantheon, Stockholm is greatly helpful when you're trying to found a religion.

Valletta (Militaristic) - If you haven't founded a religion, Valletta's suzerain bonus gives you a useful alternative way to spend faith: City Centre and Encampment buildings.

Yerevan (Religious) - If you constantly give Apostles the Debater promotion, you'll have a huge advantage in theological combat. The only thing you'll really need to worry about is the other civ declaring war on you.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - An area that's good for Kurgans will also be good for this wonder, helping you to create a particularly strong city.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - If you're crowding cities around a pasture-heavy area to maximise Kurgan yields, this wonder can be a powerful source of faith. The catch is the strict terrain requirement - it has to be built on desert hills. Requires the Nubia civilization pack.

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - Get your religion off to a great start. Either fill out your religious beliefs, or try to spread the faith further. Remember to try and use up all but one of your spread religion charges before you engage in theological combat to avoid a loss of religious pressure.

Terracotta Army (Classical era, Construction technology) - If you have time to build just one wonder, make it this one. Having every individual unit receive a free promotion synergises beautifully with Scythia's civ ability, ensuring you have both quantity and quality in your army.

Alhambra (Medieval era, Castles technology) - Scythia can make good use of a lot of military policy cards, so receiving an additional one will be very helpful.

Kotoko-In (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - Warrior Monks nicely combine your religious and military strengths, while the 20% faith boost can help you get a lot more faith out of a city with lots of Kurgan potential.


Classical Era

Marcus Lacinius Crassus (Great Merchant) - Any gold you can get early on will help with unit maintenance, while being able to annex a tile for free can help if there's a horse resource just outside of your borders.

Medieval Era

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - At first glance, a Eureka for Printing might not sound that impressive, but keep in mind that it's a prerequisite for Military Science (and therefore Cavalry), and that having the Eureka that way means you don't need to take a diversion to Education for it.

Atomic Era

Georgy Zhukov (Great General) - Improving flanking bonuses permanently is really helpful considering Scythia's reliance on large quantities of fast units.

Although a war with Scythia is a frightening prospect, they do have some major weaknesses that you can exploit.


Scythia sweeps across the battlefield with a vast army, but the huge reliance on light cavalry produces three glaring weaknesses: a reliance on horse resources, vulnerability to anti-mounted and a below-average ability to capture cities.

If Scythia starts near you, denying them access to horses makes them far more manageable opponents. Saka Horse Archers can be fought effectively by practically anything while Horsemen typically need to be met with Spearmen.

If Scythia has access to Horses, make sure you have Bronze Working quickly. Spearmen are fairly cheap, can stand up reasonably well to Horsemen and do very well against Saka Horse Archers (even despite the fact the +10 anti-mounted bonus doesn't work against them). Unfortunately, their usual advantage - their relative cost-effectiveness - is eliminated thanks to Scythia's doubled production of light cavalry. The Echelon promotion can help, but that is cancelled out by the Caparison promotion light cavalry have.

What can help is ensuring Scythia's units attacks yours rather than the other way around. Fortify your Spearmen (they'll get a +6 strength bonus after a couple of turns) and it'll be harder for Scythia to kill your units. Make sure you rotate injured units with full-health ones so Scythia can't score kills.

Building city defences is a great idea. A walled city can be tricky for Scythia's Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers to take without siege support, even if surrounded. This can allow you time for a counter-attack.

Try to work towards Military Tactics if possible. Pikemen have more than enough strength to wipe the floor with Horsemen and Saka Horse Archers, meaning Scythia won't be too much trouble until the industrial era. By that point, Pike and Shot units will be around to help you handle their Cavalry, and AT Crews won't be too far away.

Scythia's emphasis on unit quantity will cost them a lot of gold in maintenance, a cost that can't be avoided by forming units into corps and armies. Consider pillaging Scythia's gold sources (Commercial Hubs, Harbours, Kurgans and/or Traders) to put extra pressure on their economy.


The important thing here is to make sure your wounded units are kept out of reach from Scythia. Keep rotating your units so your front lines always consist of full-health units. That way, you won't be on the receiving end of their +5 strength bonus, and they'll find it difficult to use their health-on-kills bonus.

When it comes to religious units, it's a good idea to keep your Apostles paired up when entering Scythian lands. That way, instead of Scythian Apostles and Inquisitors winning an attrition battle against you, you can spread your incoming damage between more than one unit. Remember to return them to a Holy Site you control to heal up, a tile owned by a city with Governor Moksha (the Cardinal) with the Laying on of Hands promotion present, or use up a Guru charge to heal them before you use the "spread religion" function again.


A computer-controlled Tomyris hates civs that declare surprise wars and declare war against civs they recently had a declaration of friendship or alliance with. She likes civs that are willing to keep long-term alliances.

Tomyris will get on well with peaceful civs, and even warmongers can get along with her to some extent if you remember to use casus belli when declaring war and minimise the number of cities you take while ensuring you liberate what you can.

Beware if you intend to backstab someone after your friendship or alliance expires with them. Not only will it trigger a betrayal emergency, but Tomyris will be particularly likely to join in with it due to the relations hit with her you'll have from the betrayal. During such an emergency, the target's units suffer a -2 strength penalty, while all the members gain a +1 movement bonus in the target's territory. That makes her speed and strength advantages even bigger than they are already!


Saka Horse Archers are very vulnerable in defence, and their low range means they're very prone to counter-attack after they fight. Pretty much any kind of unit can be effective against them, but perhaps the best method is a front line of Spearmen followed by a second line of Archers. The Spearmen can help deal with any incoming Horsemen, while the Archers outrange the Saka Horse Archers allowing you to deal damage without taking it.


Depriving Scythia of pasture-heavy lands can help set their future faith output back, but this requires a lot of effort on your part. Generally, if you're going to deprive them of any tiles, deprive them of horses so they can't train Horsemen and therefore their threat is greatly lessened.

When you're at war with Scythia, pillaging their Kurgans is a great idea. Aside from the fact you can't keep unique improvements when you take cities off other civs, and that it'll give you 25 faith, it deprives Scythia of a gold supply. Scythia's reliance on large quantities of units leaves their economy vulnerable.

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