Scythe

Today's review is of the 2016 release, Scythe. For 1-5 players, it takes two hours.

Overview

In a steampunk-inspired version of Europe after the Great War, five factions vie for dominance. You will construct buildings, gain resources, build mechs, and perform other actions to expand your influence and earn stars (once one player has completed six, the game ends and is scored). You'll want to increase military power, popularity, resources, money, and territory to be successful. That's a lot . . . do you have what it takes to prevail?

In Scythe, each player gets a character, associated faction board (showing their faction and unique abilities) and action board (showing eight standard actions arranged in four columns of two each, but arranged differently on each—more on that below). Everyone gets mechs (placed on their faction board), workers, and cubes (placed on their action board). After setup (placing your character in its starting space and placing two workers in adjacent hexes), turn proceeds clockwise. 

game box showing contents; image from here

On your turn, you choose a column and take one or both actions, from top to bottom, in that column if you can. The actions simplified:

Top row (economic or movement):

• Move (move up to 2 units (worker, mech, or character) to an adjacent hex) or Gain (1 coin)
• Produce (gain resources from two territories containing workers)
• Resources are metal, oil, wood, food, and workers
• Bolster (increase military power and draw a combat card)
• Trade (pay 1 coin for any two resources or two popularity)

Bottom row:

• Upgrade (pay enough oil to improve your action board by moving a cube from a top action [increasing yield of that] and moving it to a bottom action [reducing the cost of that])
• Deploy (pay enough metal to build a mech, which is required to move over certain terrain and help fight battles)
• Build (pay enough wood to construct a building to unlock bonuses)
• Buildings are armory (helps military), mill (helps resource generation), mine (helps movement), and monument (helps popularity).
• Enlist (pay enough food to recruit personnel by moving a cylinder from your action to your faction board, gaining both an immediate bonus and an ongoing effect based on what adjacent players do)

On your next turn, you must choose a different column, so plan wisely! Efficiency is key; it's best if you can take both actions in the chosen column. And note: each action board has different action pairs per column (so one board might pair Move with Upgrade, while another pairs Move with Build). 

A word on combat: if your figure or mech enters a space with another player's character or mech, a battle ensues. Each player gets a combat dial, where they secretly choose a value (from 0 to 7) of combat power (which cannot exceed their current total), then secretly may add combat cards (from 2 to 5) based on how many plastic figures (character+mech(s)) they have in that space. Totals are revealed, combat power is reduced on that track based on what the player spent [which doesn't count combat cards], and the winner kicks the loser back to their starting space, gaining any resources they had in the combat hex.

A word on stars: you can earn up to six, but there are more ways to earn them:

• Complete all 6 Upgrades
• Deploy all 4 Mechs
• Build all 4 Structures
• Enlist all 4 Recruits
• Have all 8 Workers on the board
• Complete 1 Objective Card (a secret mission on a card given at the start of the game)
• Win a Combat (up to 2)
• Reach 18 Popularity 
• Reach 16 Power

After one player earns six, the game ends and victory points are tallied (a coin total, which is obtained by summing categories (stars, territories controlled, resources held, and structure bonus tiles), each of which is multiplied by a value determined by your popularity level. The highest wins!

You can watch how to play here.

Review

This game is currently ranked 26 overall on BoardGameGeek, a tremendously high ranking that hints at its popularity and quality. And I see why: the asymmetric factions are fun, the mechanics are tight, the nuances (like the action pairing) are intriguing and highly replayable. The art and theme are cool. I enjoyed it overall.

As with other asymmetric games, this is complex. There's a lot going on, it takes a long time, and it was very hard for me to track my own actions and everyone else's given different faction and action boards. I could 'micro-strategize' (plot out the next 2-3 turns) well enough, but the bigger picture and larger strategy was lost on me. The varying action boards are intriguing but inherently give some faction/action board combinations an unfair advantage [in fact, some pairings have been banned by the game designers as a result]. Though they have banned the most egregious examples, I believe there can still be some competitive imbalance from the start due to this factor. A few more plays could change (or confirm) my opinion. 

Overall, I would recommend it, but for a serious gaming crowd.

Rating: A-