Scythia Grand Campaign Episode 4: Woe to the Conquered

[@nivegnal1525]

As always great episode, awesome story telling and interesting ideas. Very unique perspective on religion coming from Rathnacuda, would be an amazing thing to watch grow and transform through each generation. I'm personnaly hoping it develops the idea of Man above the divine, or nature and the divine both subject to Man. Wich would make awesome cultural developements especially during the industrial revolution

[@sergeantsalamander]

Thank you! As for Rathnacuda, you're right- he's potentially laying the foundations for a very unique religious zeitgeist going forward. Only time will tell if this is going to have a lasting effect on Scythia, or perhaps, even a lasting effect on world religion as a whole.

[@adammisner971]

would be fucking amazing honestly. Scythia redefining gods as property. sending inspectors not for heretics but for believers into vassal states. A reverse inquisition lol

[@yusepe566]

I have been binge watching all your series recently and I must say early on Scythia seems like the most "Evil" all of the rest early civilizations you have played, mostly because of its ruler for sure. I know it is still too early to say but I would love to see a complete 180 change and have Scithya being the first "good" aligned faction at the end of the game from all the rest of factions you have done up until now. Now I have a question for you from MADSO, Romania, the Volkreich and Avarignia and Zeritherma which faction would you consider aligned to good in terms of morals and which one to bad the most. I know a divide of good and bad is dumb from you stories which I love for being so complex but I am interested to see your opinion.

[@sergeantsalamander]

Interesting analysis, and I'm glad you appreciate my stories! I always like to leave that decision of good or evil up to each individual viewer, based on what they prioritize most, morally speaking. Avarignia provided a genuinely amazing life to its people, free of crime and want, combined with incredible technological innovation that bordered on magic towards the end, but did so as an apartheid state in conjunction with the genocide of millions. The Volksreich elevated the economic and material wellbeing of peasants and workers across Europe, but did so via a crushing totalitarian state obsessed with its utopian ideology that cannibalized centuries worth of culture and slaughtered untold scores of random, innocent civilians. Vannonia brought economic prosperity, technological development, and an unprecedented level of basic civil rights to the world as the leader of the MADSO coalition, but also constructed a terrifying global secret police apparatus designed to keep the people content with drastic inequality and demoralized with consumerism. To remain a neutral storyteller I won't reveal my answer here, lol. Maybe sometime in the future, though!

[@evropaheart]

the avarignians did nothing wrong

[@TheOGSpartanNinja]

I am genuinely concerned for Scythia now. The Selekids are so massive, unless a coalition is rallied against them or divine intervention causes it to splinter, it will forever be a threat to all surrounding realms. Interesting route Wrath is taking in his worship. I’m left wondering what repercussions the Greek world would face should he manage to take Olympus. Is this strangeness just of him, or will his children follow in his footsteps? I can only imagine the chaos that will follow his death given how many children he has sired. Blood shall be spilled on that day. Edit: Selekids, not Seljuks

[@christopherfilip6949]

One small correction, those are the Seleukids, the Diadochi of the former empire of Alexnader, the Turkic Slejuks won't come until more than a thousand years later

[@TheOGSpartanNinja]

@@christopherfilip6949 whoops, fixed that, thank you

[@sergeantsalamander]

Things have definitely gotten very interesting very quickly, lol. Fascinating how one man can change the course of a nation's history in a little less than a lifetime. We'll see if his madness was destined from his birth, or if his insanity was fostered in the ashes of the war he was born into. As for the Selukids, the best chance the Scythians have is that there's a civil war which gives them ample time to strike.

[@swordsnspearguy5945]

What is it with mad kings involving god's in their madness

[@sergeantsalamander]

I personally think because they aspire to be gods themselves. They aspire to their thrones.

[@adammisner971]

I believe in you rath! you'll have poseidon one day!

[@sergeantsalamander]

Gotta admire his tenacity, lmao

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

So I’m kind of confused by the identity of the Scythians here. The Scythian Kingdom of the past they are yearning for only stretched down from the eastern Pontic-Caspian steppe into like modern Azerbaijan and Armenia, and indeed you mentioned that in episode one. However in this episode you mentioned it having once stretched to the Himalayas. Are they referring to the maximum range of all of the Scytho-Siberian cultures? Do they have a cultural memory of it having been one political entity at some point rather than various interrelated groups that had a steppe lifestyle and typically spoke Eastern Iranian languages?

[@TheOGSpartanNinja]

Pretty sure you nailed it with the cultural memory thing here.

[@sergeantsalamander]

Just like SpartanNinja said, you nailed it on the cultural memory point!