Normally Scythe is played by multiple players, but I like to play solo. With that in mind, they created the Automata deck where you play against a faction and each card will tell you what this Automa does during this turn. This game has resource management, area control, and engine building. The Automa is designed by Morten Monrad Pedersen with help from David Studley and Lines J. Hutter.
This blog entry is for those that know how to play Scythe. I am explaining the Automa rules and how to play solo in Scythe.
You set up your faction like you normally do. But a Automa follows simple rules.He does not do the following:
- Does not have recruits, structures or upgrades
- Its popularity stay at 10 and does not change
- It doesn't collect resources off the map
- Doesn't pay for actions
- Does not use tunnels
- Doesn't use the mech abilities on the faction mat
- Has no player mat
- Treats lakes as normal hexes and even cross rivers after after a specific point on their star tracker is reached
- It also places its stars differently
Below is a typical card from the Automa deck. At the start, you play the Side I on the card. Start from the start where in the Move Action Line it will tell you using symbols, which Automa unit moves and whether it attacks or just moves.
Next down is the Automa Gains LIne. It is what resources or money the Automa collects. In this case, it collects 2 gold even though it doesn't use it.
After that is the Player Recruit Bonus Line, this is where the player gets its recruit bonus if they have the recruit for that symbol.
And then there is a big star. This tells whether the Automa proceeds on the Star tracker or not. Here is has an X and does not progress on the star tracker.
This is an example of a Star Tracker. This is where you choose the difficulty of the Automa from Easy to Hard. As you can see, each turn the Automa may progress along this Star Tracker. At first, it can't cross rivers, but then after the 4 turn, it starts to. Eventually when it reaches II, the Automa deck is flipped and the Automa becomes more aggressive.
Eventually it starts to collect stars. When it collects its 6th Star the Automa wins unless you collect 6 stars before the Star Tracker runs out. So it is a race against time.
Movement by the Automa is different. The card tells you which Automa unit moves and if it attacks or just moves without attacking. Unlike the player who can only move one hex at a time, an Automa unit can move more than one hex only because its units need to be in an adjacent hex.
So a strategy against the Automa is to be aggressive and expand as fast as you can and get the mechs out to protect your units once it goes the the II phase. Also get as much recruits as you can since the Automa card will have which recruit you can use during the Automa turn.
This is a solid Automa deck that can make the game interesting for us solo players.