Being polite i would say your being less than constructive and wasting your time because you have nothing of interest to say.
The post you linked you didn't even reply in so he hasn't even wasted your time by being ignorant so you have no real reason at all for having this attitude.
While this question is mildly related to the original post considering the original post was obviously a frustration generated post where the OP was in the most part venting and this is a legitimate question post i think it is quite reasonable to draw a line under that past post and start afresh as we have moved on from simple venting on the part of the OP to asking a reasonable question to help/improve his gameplay.
Fluffball, it's nice that you're being helpful, but you seem to be misunderstanding something. More or less all of his threads are "frustration generated posts", as you put it. People post good advice on each and every thread he makes, but I wouldn't know whether he listens to any of it as he usually puts up another thread with a similar topic in a few days. I don't mind him doing so, I'm just saying that that's the case. At least he's being more polite now. Before he'd make demands like "Anyone from Firaxis here? Fix this." Yeah, because people from Firaxis are really going to be in this forum and are really going to fix your problem because you asked so nicely.
Regarding his latest issue, I believe I have something to contribute. Alex is definitely a pain and is usually regarded as one of the strongest AI opponents. This is not merely because of his UA and UUs. It's likely also because his AI personality flavors are more effective than most.
And yeah, my last game went a long way towards proving the "always start with the worst neighbors" perception people often have, as well as the "always start with the worst opponents for whatever victory condition you're planning to go for in that game" phenomenon. Specifically, I was trying to get the "Vote for Pedro" achievement. This required me to win a diplomatic victory as Brazil, which is most suited for cultural victories. I started the game, had a
terrible starting location - and saw that one of my neighbors was Alex.
Seriously, I wanted to cry for a moment. I thought of quitting and starting another game. Incredibly, Alex had also been also my neighbor in my last Brazil game, where I went cultural. It was really like a pattern. But then I decided to continue with it. I figured I'd just go for cultural again instead, and try for the achievement next game.
And you know what happened? I won. By diplomatic, not by cultural.
It wasn't by taking Alex out early. I considered it, but while he was my nearest neighbor to the south, he was still separated from me by a large gulf and mountains. I decided to just build up peacefully in the early game. Sure enough, the guy started strong as he usually does, settling several cities and then taking two more from Egypt. To make matters worse, Egypt settled their third city - which became their capital - in a city spot I'd been planning to get. And my other neighbor, the one who started within ten tiles of my capital, was Assyria. Lastly, Greece made a powerful super-religion that he somehow managed to spread to half the supercontinent. An unenviable start by any standard.
By the end of the game, I was far and away the most powerful civ in every single category, and was allied to every CS with influence points in the 200s-500s for every single one. Surprised even me actually, how well I did. Going back to where I left off, Greece's early conquests had caused everyone to denounce him. I did not, not yet. I continued building tall, and got several wonders while maintaining enough of a military to keep Greece and Assyria from declaring war. Fortunately Assyria focused on Mongolia and Greece focused on Egypt. Egypt founded another city, but Greece took that one too, making them even more disliked. Moving into the Renaissance, I took both Aesthetics and Patronage, so that both routes were open. I beat Greece to the Forbidden Palace, although Mongolia beat me (Brazil) to Chichen Itza, which was a blow. Rome founded the World Congress and not Greece, which was another good thing. Even so, Greece was allied with many CS, and the number was steadily rising. Greece would probably control the World Congress come the industrial or modern eras.
But I noticed that while Greece was powerful, his forces were overstretched. He'd started some other wars with Assyria and Mongolia in addition to Egypt. Most of his army was off trying to finish Egypt, and his capital was nearly undefended. This was the time to strike. I built up quite a lot of Crossbowmen and some other units. I moved most of my army to the border with his capital and declared war. It wasn't an easy fight. His city had around 60-70 defense already, so Crossbowmen only did around 10 damage with each shot. But I had a lot of units, and took my time arranging them out of city range so they could all move in on the same turn. Athens fell, and then he offered me three more cities in the peace deal, including a city taken from Egypt and a city taken from Mongolia. I razed two of them and liberated the Egyptian city.
That was the trick. Immediately, Greece was far less of a threat. Their new capital became Thebes, the former Egyptian capital. I overtook him in the number of CS allies, and began getting rid of his religion in the CS and in Athens. Even so, in this weakened state he still managed to be a viable contender and ally a few more CS. He declared war on Egypt
again and reconquered the Egyptian city I'd just given back to Egypt. Exactly what I wanted.
I declared war on Greece again, with industrial-era units this time. I made sure to ally all but one of his CS allies, through completing quests and paying gold, before starting the war. To lessen warmonger penalty, I had the city-state of Ormus take two Greek cities for me. Ormus had been allied to them until the turn the war started. Take that, Alex.
I left Alex with nothing but the former Egyptian city. Which Genghis eventually took from him, wiping him from the game. Bye-bye, Alex. With no real rivals remaining for CS, I then took Treaty Organization (one of my favorite tenets, really) and continued to solidify my hold on all the CS. The game continues on for a while after that, with my next main opponent after Greece was eliminated being my former friend Rome, which had also become pretty powerful on the other side of the world through conquering both Germany and America. But because this thread is about dealing with Greece, I won't go into that part. Brazil diplomatic victory - achieved. It is definitely possible to win a diplomatic victory with a civ that is not made for diplomatic victories (Brazil), against a civ that is made for diplomatic victories (Greece) and a civ that was conquering CS left and right (Mongolia). Almost forgot to mention that Genghis conquered a couple of CS, and declared war on two or three more. Since I was Freedom-mates with Genghis (oddly enough), and didn't feel like losing my only ally with Rome and Assyria both having picked Order, I had to pay him to make peace with those CS, which were all my allies. Then I paid him to go to war with Assyria too.
Tl;dr: Alex is indeed a pain to have in your game, and maybe even not just a pain but an existential threat to you if he's a neighbor. But he can be dealt with. If you're not going for a diplomatic victory, you can live with him and still win, like I did in the previous Brazil game I won culturally. If you plan to win diplomatically, then yes, you'll probably have to eliminate him. It doesn't necessarily have to be done early, also since his UUs are pretty strong. As you can see, it can be done by the Renaissance and still be successful. Fortunately, Alex likes to declare war on his unlucky nearest neighbor and take a city or two. This makes people dislike him. To lessen the warmonger penalty on your side when you go get him, you can leave him with one crappy city, which someone else will probably destroy for you. Good riddance. Whew, that was longer than I expected it to be.
