I can deal with Runaways BUT NOT runaway GREECE!

So Ive been playing Deity for awhile and recently have been playing on EPIC. All has been well and even a Runaway Shaka or Japan or Iroquios is no issue (tactically take away his CS Allies with Spies, Bribe em into wars, cripple them here and there.

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BUT recently Im just dying due to Greece. Its turn 240 on EPIC and hes the first to hit Ideoology Autocracy. But turn 300 when I get industrialization and get to Order as Poland - the guy has 77 tourism SEVENTY SEVEN!

He's taken all the city states except for 4 (two ive consistently spent gold on to keep as allies for happiness reasons).

The guy has over 100+ influence with all city states and have 370 GPT and 16,000 Gold. He slowly banned luxuries and then Embargoed my chief ally Venice!

No gold... and If I want to trade Ive got ot trade with HIM! More ideological unhappiness...

Aside from ranting I just wanted to ask how the heck does the code work for greece? He seems to make MAD money, culture, military, dominate the map, and destroy his neighbors (killed the AZTECS EARLY) and even make tons of great works.

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So some specific questions:

How much tourism do ppl make before ideology? I get somewhere around 8 tourism a turn before Im picking.

How to influence? I had trade routes and open borders with a ton of civs but did that around 250 ish. Maybe I should boost with a Diplomat? I usually put my faith into pagodas and science (jesuit) or plant great prophets - maybe should I spread my religion to one or two neighbors (alll three were religious)

8 tourism a turn is pitiful. Invade a nearby neighbor just to make some more tourism?

I wish I could play a game without greece because that AI coding has destroyed any balance the game has.

Greece is the only AI who seems to spend his gold on city-states, so every game they snowball out of control thanks to having so many city-states so early, whereas all the other AI slowly acquire them almost randomly.

So this makes greece strictly better than every other AI. If you're next to him, crippling him early is great. Just make 3-4 archers, 2 warriors, then park yourself near a flatland city and just wait for the flow or workers to come. You can also worker-bait his units out of his city and just kill a unit every turn for a while.
The AI is monstrously stupid so they will often send workers and settlers right by you while at war, so while you do this you might be able to kill 5-6 units, take a settler and take 2-3 workers.
That usually is enough to set an AI back 20-30 turns compared to the other ones. You might even be able to take a city and raze it, who knows. This is a great fun strategy against some guys like America, Iroquoi, Rome or Greece who are insanely expansive, but don't build large early armies like Shaka or Attila.

GKShaman said:

How much tourism do ppl make before ideology? I get somewhere around 8 tourism a turn before Im picking.

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Depends on the game. On Deity, probably not a lot. Maybe like 10. You really don't start to make any tourism before archaology / hotels etc.

GKShaman said:

How to influence? I had trade routes and open borders with a ton of civs but did that around 250 ish. Maybe I should boost with a Diplomat? I usually put my faith into pagodas and science (jesuit) or plant great prophets - maybe should I spread my religion to one or two neighbors (alll three were religious)

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Trade route is +25% I believe
Open border, 25% ( or 20 I don't remember )
If they have your religion, I think it's 40%?
50% boost to your capital if you have passed world religion in congress

This means you have to spread your religion to as many AIs as possible, as quickly as possible. Generally on Deity that's a lost cause because the only thing the AI cares about is wasting faith on missionaries and prophets and spamming the map at random. So you usually have to brute-force world religion in congress after you have all the city-states ( which is usually impossible when Greece is in the game because he's got like 200 influence with every CS lol ).

Some tenents in order boost tourism to other order civs. I think you get 40% or so, but it's hard to make the AI have your ideology on Deity, they just pick whatever you don't pick. They almost never pick freedom either, they hate freedom. Usually they will pick order, then autocracy, then the losers pick freedom lol.

You also get a boost if you have a diplomat in a capital and they have a different ideology than you.

GKShaman said:

8 tourism a turn is pitiful. Invade a nearby neighbor just to make some more tourism?

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Invading is bad because it removes all your tourism bonuses ( open borders, trade routes, diplomats).
It's only good to kill he culture leader if he's way ahead, or to take a monster tourism city ( which is basically kind of the same as that's probably the capital of the culture spammer ).

You have to make sure to win world's fair too, if you ever propose it.
Also good to steal the cultured city-states to prevent the AI from getting it.

Anyway if you have jesuit education, that means you're wasting policies into piety for some reason, and not rushing to rationalism /aesthetics. Piety is useless for tourism, unless you play at lower difficulties and do Sacred Sites city-spam.

I hate it when Greece is in one of my games.

It immediately puts me in a bad mood.

Destroy Greece if he gets ahead in that way.
Taking his capital is not enough because the city states will stay allied with him even if he only has one 2-population city in the arctic somewhere.

Ouch - yeah you will have to try to win the space race or conquer him (that will be very difficult with all those citystates) so yeah science and space race it.

GKShaman said:

I wish I could play a game without greece because that AI coding has destroyed any balance the game has.

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I believe Really Advanced Setup mod allows you to do this.

Mahasona said:

I believe Really Advanced Setup mod allows you to do this.

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Before you do anything that rash I'd firstly me more proactive in handling Greece.

Pay him to declare war on multiple civs (give him a warmonger penalty so no civs will be friends with him). That means he can't get Research Agreements...

If that still isn't enough to weaken him then you should take the Freedom Ideology and get the Treaty Organisation Policy. Send your trade routes to Citystates and maybe sink a couple policies in Patronage and start building up influence so you can prevent him from winning a diplomatic game.