Civ: Scythians

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

[Guest]

On 03/03/2026 at 2:33 PM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Horseman with the axe looking a lot like Persian Hyrcanian cavalry.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, Deicide4u said:

Horseman with the axe looking a lot like Persian Hyrcanian cavalry.

Yeah, basically. lol. They use the same actors. I'll continue to make them more unique. The main issue is Scythian-specific props. 

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

 

 

[Thalatta]

On 23/03/2026 at 12:30 AM, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Yeah, basically. lol. They use the same actors. I'll continue to make them more unique. The main issue is Scythian-specific props. 

Well, Persians did use Scythian battle axes, or sagaris, so they would look similar, just not like that AI image, but way more slender:

Here some discussion about it (and more representations): https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/blog/detail/the-scythian-sagaris-single-or-double-bladed-axe.

 

But I'm not sure where the idea of Hyrcanian Cavalry using the sagaris comes from, Herodotus states in his Histories that the "Hyrcanians were armed like the Persians", which coincides with https://alexander-the-great.org/warfare/hyrcanian-cavalry ("they typically used light armor, spears, and bows"), but maybe I've just not found the source from where this comes from.

On the other hand (if a name different from "Scythian" wants to be used for some unit), Herodotus mentions that the Saka (closely related to the Scythians) did use the sagaris: "The Scaran (sic) Scythians had about their heads caps which were carried up to a point and set upright and stiff; and they wore trousers, and carried native bows and daggers, and besides this axes of the kind called sagaris. These were called Amyrgian Sacans, being in fact Scythians; for the Persians call all the Scythians Sacans".

 

And, something interesting that some could have noticed in my first link: many representations show these warriors being women, the idea being that the Amazons were inspired by mounted female Scythian (and Saka, among others) warriors. According to Diodoros Siculus, "at that time the Sacae were ruled by a woman named Zarina, who was devoted to warfare and was in daring and efficiency by far the foremost of the women of the Sacae. Now this people, in general, have courageous women who share with their husbands the dangers of war". The archaeological evidence seems to support the existence of Scythian (and similar) female warriors, I think this being one of the clearest cases to increase their representation in this respect (if this has not been mentioned already in the 15 pages of this topic that indeed I have not read).

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Saka/Massagetae

 

Western Scythians/"Royal Scythians"

 

 

Tomyris

[Thalatta]

Something to improve should be that the Scythian bow is more characteristically curvy: