Scythe but With House Rules

We changed Scythe's rules so that there's more combat! But is this new gameplay balanced? Would Stonemaier Games approve? After all, the mechs and minis probably shouldn't be fighting this much, but why let Saxony have all the fun? Now everyone's win condition and strategy can involve them getting an unlimited amount of combat and objective stars. Plus, we've also figured out creative ways to use this board game's existing pieces and components. And don't worry, the euro foundations of the action boards and non random fighting remains the same, but that's subject to change for our next tabletop house rule video...
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Banjo Kazooie - Treasure Trove Cove
#boardgames #tabletop #scythe

[@NikoTeaJay]

Interesting. Would be fun to see more house rule stuff.

[@evandercaldwell9993]

Indeed!! I love people being creative with a hobby that is supposed to induce creativity!!

[@garylangford6755]

Shows how hard game design is. One fix creates 3 new issues...

[@Possi_ball]

Just check the Rivals module from the Fenris expansion that plays with the "War" star track. You basically put your stars as bounty on other players and you have to beat them to put the on the track. Also there are no "put out 8 workers" star and such on the War star track. Also remember there are people who are tired of constant fighting on a game that lasts for hours, just saying 😛.

[@JasonRedeemed]

Have you guys tried the Rise of Fenris expansion? There are some modules in there that might give you what you're looking for...

[@paintballinrn]

randomly ran into you guys and love it. I like this style of video and smart showing the aftermath of your house rules. hope to see more like this.

[@Shelfside]

cheers man, glad ya dug it :D -Ashton

[@chimster1234]

10:00 Public objectives! GENIUS!

[@froilanflores3884]

Already in rise of fenris

[@nactra2685]

Proper competitive scythe: Auction negative points penalties for the right to a seat (think rusviet is op, try winning now that you have -30points at the start of the game) - all tournaments use this Only house rule i use: If wind gambit: airships move for free when you bolster instead of move but cannot move normally Other: always fully randomize setup including start places and modular board

[@AndrewDayMortgage]

Totally awesome episode. I love house ruling games.

[@tenyenlark]

Very fun video! I like the experimenting--it shakes up cool games and gives a fun insight into a) the game's design and b) what a Daniel/Ashton designed game might look like haha

[@jericosha2842]

I love this. Your channel is great and stuff like this is encouraging.

[@DrHopeSickNotes]

Really fun to watch, I'm right there with you with the motivation for this, I love the look of Scythe and despite rating it average (5/10) I still play it just because it's a cool universe to hang out in with your mates. If you hardly want to alter the rules yet you want more combat and more encounters - you could give the winner of combat an encounter card? Symbolising the spoils of war. You could also get rid of the popularity penalty in combat too. Sure these aren't going to fix the game but it won't drastically swing it either - and may just make combat more of a core strategy! Anyway great video and look forward to the next iteration!

[@vlowolvtake1797]

OMG! I saw you on Actualol too! So excited to see you here too! Any chance of UK/US collab??? The differences in boardgame culture maybe interesting! Like the video "ameritrash vs euro games".

[@DrHopeSickNotes]

@@vlowolvtake1797 yes that was me! I'm a big fan of Actualol and Shelfside - so yeh that would be pretty funny!

[@sebastienvivas9319]

Love the creative ideas!

[@AdamJorgensen]

It's interesting to see that some games like Scythe seem to get worse the more a group plays them (Due to the various balance issues and so forth)...I guess I should feel happy about only playing it 2 or 3 times XD

[@atomicall]

I’ve played it like 10 times and I agree. Every time I have kept playing it i kept getting more and more bored with it

[@kobable124]

for my group is completely the opposite, you learn people's tactics so you want to counterplay them

[@davidt4233]

Rise of Fenris would address all your convernce and then some. Scythe is a great game. Fenris makes it much better.

[@ferver-san]

I too do have issues with Scythe,mainly faction balance but i enjoy it well enough for what it is.It will never be in my top 20 but also i don't want it to become a full combat game. There is Kemet and also a myriad other dudes on a map games for that experience. With that said i generally like houserules and i would like to see more similar videos with other games.

[@eliashartmark1522]

More content like this please. Great stuff!

[@Shelfside]

glad ya enjoyed it, cheers! -Ashton

[@jacobjslee]

9:10 I like your combat idea. It sounds cool. Ultimately, I think I would go back to the cube tower to resolve combat. I first tried it in Wallenstein and I would implement the cube tower into more games if possible. Power on track plus units plus combat cards = cubes in the tower. It's not completely deterministic and it is full of the "drama" that you said combat was lacking. My favourite idea you suggested is the stars on the encounter spots. I love the encounter cards and want to see more of them in the game. Great video!

[@benjoslin3782]

I have wanted to create and alternate rule set that turns Scythe into a Troops-on-a-Map or Dice-Chucker type game, but I lack experience with those types of games and game design in general. I agree with your love for the components and while I adore regular Scythe, I wish there were more ways to utilize the components. It's just so beautiful.

[@shortydancer]

I can’t help but jam out to the Banjo Kazooie theme.

[@evandercaldwell9993]

I LOVE content like this!!! I REALLY wonder why there aren't more videos like this on youtube!! I also invented house rules for certain board games I have, intending on designing my own as well!! Carry on Gentlemen, You Guys Are Phenomenal, Living Life-Hacks, Glitches In The Matrix, You Guys Rock!! 😉💪🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@Shelfside]

ahaha thanks! We actually have house rules for Eldritch, and ANOTHER set of house rules for Scythe we'd like to share one day! -Ashton

[@duranbarnett8587]

Really really excited to see more of these! I 100% agree with how you guys feel about Scythe vanilla. While I don't own it (my friends do) I've always felt it never lived up to expectations and the faction + bottom board combos always felt weird. I ended up buying My Little Scythe for my daughter and that is a waaaay more satisfying game.

[@dannyp4174]

If variants of gameplay is what you are looking for, play "the rise of fenris". It's full of modules that change the gameplay.

[@georgekaminaris5269]

I agree with all your points in this video and the scythe review. But honestly you should get the rise of fenris expansion. It has many many modules and you can definetly tune the game to make it way more combat oriented in an organic way! Would highly recomend it. Besides modules it has some components that gives it a looooot of replayability !

[@janbonne]

It was a good experiment!

[@evandercaldwell9993]

I always watch ALL THE COMMERCIALS IN FULL LENGTH!!!! Support Content Creators!!!

[@Shelfside]

Appreciate the sentiment! But honestly it's not that big of a deal haha. Liking the video, commenting, and watching the entire video makes a much bigger difference because then it's more highly prioritized in the algorithm and promoted in people's sidebars, which does a whole lot more cause it grows the channel! -Daniel

[@aspiringhobbit4397]

I recently tried making Scythe's combat more TI-like by giving mechs sustain damage and having players spend combat power to roll dice in combat. It made fights less predictable, but players remained pretty combat-averse until the late game. I think you're right about the game's core being super resistant to de-euro-fying, but I'm glad people are giving it a shot. Now I want to try mixing in some of your ideas.

[@Shelfside]

I wanted to avoid using dice because ideally the new rules just utilize what's in the box. That way I can play it with anyone's copy of scythe if it ever comes up lol -Daniel

[@2ceBorn]

Be careful. Jamey will sneak into you house in the middle of the night and still his game back. Seriously though, I think this was a cool video concept. I also think Jamey likes very particular kinds of games that mostly force everyone to play fairly isolated. I’m not really into his approach. I still think Scythe is fun from time to time.

[@2ceBorn]

*steal

[@gabriellorenzo6589]

dat thumbnail so compelling

[@jrhawk0032]

I have played a lot online and probably 20 to 30 or so games in person as well as the Fenris campaign 3 player. Once I watched several you Tube videos from the best playes I now have good openings for every faction combo. My things to test fix balance issues (not adding more combat): Remove 2 2s from the game, remove these: objectives Common Man, Stockpile and Permanent Foothold. Put an encounter on the farms for Albion and Togowa if they are in the game. Drop the pop tack to 16 total, 12 for tier 3 and 6 for tier 2. Give Albion 3 combat cards and Togowa 3 power. Rusviet cant do back to back moves. Crimea has to spend 1 power to spend cards as resources. These are not all my ideas, but they are all worth trying to balance the game. Otherwise you have to either draft or bid end game coins to try to balance the game.

[@kacperwadyka8047]

Great video! I'd say that you could bring out more combat in game even by applying the #2 rule - everyone's Saxony. Just give Saxony a different bonus. Though I'm not sure if in that case everybody wouldn't just straight up go for fights, ignoring other objectives 🤔 That being said... MAKE MORE TI4 CONTENT, PLZ!!! 😭I hold my breath every time you guys mention TI.

[@ilprogetto2702]

OMG YES

[@Frankie-the-Tankie]

I would love to see you guys review Rise of Fenris from the campaign side or if you don't want to play all 8 games, bust it open and try out the new mods.

[@shadevox23]

Did he ever drop the next set of house rules

[@Shelfside]

Not yet I keep getting distracted by new projects -Daniel

[@matteobabbeostupideo]

How about having only one star of a kind per player (including some public objectives)? I bet that will make it more interactive... Or just give more points for hex control at the end of the game ... Or add Rise of Fenris modules...

[@EfrainRiveraJunior]

It's refreshing to see players wanting to like a game that they are not enjoying and watching how the fans of such games act mature in the comment section. I've expressed myself similarly with Agricola, but the fans want to mur(Beep!)r anyone who says the slightest negative thing about that game.

[@Shelfside]

cheers, was quite a journey for Scythe ahaha -Ashton

[@DarthNVious]

Iron Harvest

[@primusinterpares5767]

Great video. BTW try my little scythe

[@revimfadli4666]

1:13 or make rivers special fast travel routes for them

[@Shelfside]

That plus tunnels is probably a little too much haha -Daniel

[@froilanflores3884]

Why not just play the rise of fenris mod we're the objectives and achievement goals are oriented to combat? Also, to add, you guys clearly haven't played rise of fenris. The public objective is in one scenario.

[@werekill]

These house rules are definitely neat, but yeah, I'm surprised that they haven't tried the Fenris mods.

[@JohnBailey]

:cough: Kemet :P

[@Shelfside]

I do like me some kemet lol -Daniel

[@PickleTheHutt]

I won the only two games of Scythe I ever played by never leaving the region around my starting area and never getting in a fight. The second of those games I roughly tripled everyone else's score (I saw a plan 3-4 turns in advance that got me the final 3 stars in one turn with a maxed out popularity track). The only way anyone could have stopped me was to waste their actions to march all the way over to me. It wouldn't help them much at all and since I never fought, I had plenty of power to spare. The game looks great on the table but I will never play that boring mess of a beautiful game again. Before anyone says that I should play it differently, I say the game shouldn't allow the boring perfect information optimization strategy to dominate.

[@AdamJorgensen]

Sounds like your opponents really sucked with their engines if they weren't able to beat you despite you turtling...

[@jonahbradley7638]

The people you played were just bad

[@chimster1234]

To me, Stonemaire games lean more towards a carebear/multiplayersolo dynamic. Given their sales numbers, I'd be curious to know what the predominant sales demographic is..CUZ IT SURE AINT young twenty-something males. My wife and I are 50 so these type of games work for us but when I play a game with my daughter's boyfriend (aka 20-somethings), it's like 'crushing full ham take no prisoners make you cry like a little bitch' or they get bored. But man, do they ever get pissy when they lose! Lool

[@AlphaOmega124]

Rise of Fenris fixes most issues you have with the game.

[@saiksaikatai594]

Does this game still uses DOLLAR$ as a currency for a fictional eastern Europe setup in the 13th/14th century ? This was the immersion breaking element that made me distrust everything related to this game and to never get into it 😅

[@sirhc8927]

Still no Rising Sun review.

[@Shelfside]

ahahaha its still on the docks, trying to get Daniel to finish his backlog so he can help me! -Ashton

[@sirhc8927]

@@Shelfside at least one of you don’t “detest” it. Hopefully we get an informed review or I’m calling someone’s manager.

[@Shelfside]

@@sirhc8927 will be very informed don't worry :) -Ashton

[@chimster1234]

Love this game and its art but yep, it's too 'pleasant' for what it tries to come across as. But I play 2p with my wife and she loves it so I stuck it up. Happy wife happy life ..yadda yadda yadda

[@sirhc8927]

Scythe takes hours to play. And then a few hours after it’s finished to calculate the actual points. Make a house rule for just the points.

[@EngMadison]

It's like a 60-90 minute game. How are people dragging this game out so long?!

[@jericosha2842]

I'm a slow player, but dayum dawg.

[@chuckm1961]

Really fascinating how you complain about balance issues, then immediately (in rule #1) take the careful balancing in the original game regarding river walks and special powers and .... just make shit up. Huh? Making shit up that sounds fun to you ... is MORE balanced?