Why are people saying that Siam has the advantage because Greece has to spend money? Greece can do city state quests too?
Because the reason people are saying Greece has an advantage is that Greece saves money that can be used on other things, by not having to maintain CS alliances/friendships with gold. This is where the mythical "2x alliances" figure comes from - it's the best-case scenario for Greece when both parties are only spending gold.
Every point of CS influence bought with quests reduces Greece's relative advantage further below that hypothetical optimum, because the costs incurred by non-Greeks to maintain CS alliances are lower.
If you're talking about the more culture/turn or faith/turn from city states helping you to further renew city states more, Greece gets to hold on to the ones it does get for twice as long, and also since Greece in the early game will often ally more city states they can compete with the extra bonus Siam receives simply by having a couple more city states allied/friends.
Except that Greece won't "ally more city states" in the early game except in the special case above - it's using the money Siam would use to maintain alliances to ally more of them than Siam would. Greece can't influence which CS quests come up, and there's no reason it's more likely to complete them than Siam.
Someone said that Siam's bonuses apply while friends too and Greece's doesn't. Hello? Greece's influence decay reduction doesn't only apply when allied you know.
It does, but anyone who's pledged protection and has the +20 influence boost from Patronage will permanently be at 30 influence, and hence friend status; it's not relevant that Greece's influence declines slowly when the lowest anyone's influence can sink will still keep you at friend status.
Additionally, the specific point I was making was about cases where you lose ally status above 60 influence due to competition from other civs - in practical terms it doesn't make a difference that for all those extra turns when you would have been friends anyway, your influence is declining half as fast, while in every one of those turns Siam is giving you a practical benefit.
Say you have 100 influence when you lose ally status - is it really likely you're going to go 70 turns without doing anything that, even by chance, gives you an influence boost with the CS?
This is not to mention that Greece's bonuses can stack with those of religion and patronage, giving you city states that never have your influence go down at all.
That's the case, but firstly people are still neglecting the point I've made several times, that natural influence decay is not a major reason for losing city-state alliances unless you're in a game with unusually passive AIs or are completely neglecting CSes yourself (no spies, no quests). Secondly, one of the Greek supporters argued against Siam on the dubious grounds that the civ's approach only worked with specific strategies - if you're going to criticise on the grounds of inflexibility, a Greek UA that can only be optimally utilised with both Patronage and a focus on religion with specific beliefs (and a need to ensure that your CSes aren't converted to other religions), means that you're much more constrained in terms of the way you play than Siam (which benefits from, but doesn't need, a religious focus).
I agree with GhostSalsa in that with Siam a tall tradition rationalism game is stronger, but Greece has the ability to choose non-optimal policy choices and do very well. Siam will get you a victory easier but Greece will be more fun.
With any civ you care to name, a "tall tradition rationalism game" is stronger. Siam gains nothing special compared with anyone else from that except free Wats - Siam's particularly powerful that way only because it has a particularly powerful UA (at least by vanilla standards). The thing I like most about Siam is that it's an "environmental" civ - it's not "sink-or-swim depending on what you find" like Spain (except in the unusual case where you only have mercantile CSes; sure), but the way you play in any given game and the optimal approach is going to be influenced heavily by the number, locations, and above all types of city-states in the landscape.
Just as an example, Greece always wants to go religion and get the CS-based religious benefits because its UA is suboptimal without them. As a civ with no religious advantages, it has to go through the usual routes to achieve this. Both whether Siam goes for a faith-based strategy and how it gets its religion if it does are going to vary - as for most civs - with whether they can use a faith-producing pantheon in their starting location, and also whether a faith CS is nearby. If the latter is the case, they have an immediate boost to their ability to produce faith, and so can deviate from the usual build order for founding a religion (they may not even need Stonehenge).
I checked the military city state bonus through testing, used Greece, Siam and a third civ with no benefits at all from city states
I allied a military CS on turn 1. In all three tests, it stated "a new unit gifted every 17 turns"
The first unit always appeared on turn 10, the second unit appeared on turn 26 for the standard civ, turn 28 for Greece and turn 27 for Siam.
What however was different: The unit gifted to Siam came with 10 exp. The first promotion for free, so I checked the CS - nope, no barracks built there yet. So I gave that CS a barracks to see what happens on the next gift. It came with 25 exp.
So that's Siam's bonus to militaristic CS, +10 exp upon unit gifting on top of barracks line starting exp.
Thanks for checking this - good to confirm there is a benefit.
, so here we go again
