walletta
King
Being no expert at this business I do not offer this as a strategy article but just the sum of my recent experience playing the Greeks at this level.
As usual, I rig the starting set up to suit my tastes and augment the prospects of success. I am playing small continental against hand-picked opponents America and Egypt (invariably assigned to my continent) and Persia, The Ottomans and Babylon who fight things out on the other one. None of these start the game with alphabet which means:
1 I have a healthy head start in the race to the slingshot, and
2 I can launch a curragh as soon as I settle beside the seaside, thus making early contact with the other three civs
Play in the ancient age thus involves Rexing, the slingshot and setting sail for distant shores. I should have mentioned that I reload at the start until I get at least a river start. Bash out a few Hoplites as the AI does not like taking them on. I have found no problem at all avoiding an early GA.
The Greeks almost always hit the Middle Ages with a tech lead, then the others tend to catch up a bit. It does;t really make a huge difference which end of the tech tree you research, you should still have your nose in front by the Industrial age when my standard sequence is:
Steam power (to get the rail network up and running ASAP
Industrialisation (to build factories and coal plants in the core)
then bee line for Scientific Method to build the Theory of Evolution.
After that it's a race to build the UN (needs Fission) some bribery and corruption and - bosh - you become secretary general.
This method entails practically no fighting at all, just building and trading. In my most recent game America declared on the Greeks fairly early but Egypt proved willing to fight on my side, suitably bribed. That made a more or less permanent friend out of Egypt and permanently weakened the Americans, who were subsequently divided up between us leaving me with about 35% pop against a similar amount for Persia on the other continent.
There is always the chance that a super power will emerge on the other continent so for better play I should probably really do more intervening over there, supplying stuff to the weaklings and so forth but usually it's not necessary.
Anyway, that's the Walletta approach, obviously aided by some of the dirty tricks learned from the masters here when aiming for higher levels (micro-management etc)
Question (for those who read this far): is there a way to determine which free tech you get at the start of each era?
As usual, I rig the starting set up to suit my tastes and augment the prospects of success. I am playing small continental against hand-picked opponents America and Egypt (invariably assigned to my continent) and Persia, The Ottomans and Babylon who fight things out on the other one. None of these start the game with alphabet which means:
1 I have a healthy head start in the race to the slingshot, and
2 I can launch a curragh as soon as I settle beside the seaside, thus making early contact with the other three civs
Play in the ancient age thus involves Rexing, the slingshot and setting sail for distant shores. I should have mentioned that I reload at the start until I get at least a river start. Bash out a few Hoplites as the AI does not like taking them on. I have found no problem at all avoiding an early GA.
The Greeks almost always hit the Middle Ages with a tech lead, then the others tend to catch up a bit. It does;t really make a huge difference which end of the tech tree you research, you should still have your nose in front by the Industrial age when my standard sequence is:
Steam power (to get the rail network up and running ASAP
Industrialisation (to build factories and coal plants in the core)
then bee line for Scientific Method to build the Theory of Evolution.
After that it's a race to build the UN (needs Fission) some bribery and corruption and - bosh - you become secretary general.
This method entails practically no fighting at all, just building and trading. In my most recent game America declared on the Greeks fairly early but Egypt proved willing to fight on my side, suitably bribed. That made a more or less permanent friend out of Egypt and permanently weakened the Americans, who were subsequently divided up between us leaving me with about 35% pop against a similar amount for Persia on the other continent.
There is always the chance that a super power will emerge on the other continent so for better play I should probably really do more intervening over there, supplying stuff to the weaklings and so forth but usually it's not necessary.
Anyway, that's the Walletta approach, obviously aided by some of the dirty tricks learned from the masters here when aiming for higher levels (micro-management etc)
Question (for those who read this far): is there a way to determine which free tech you get at the start of each era?
. So convince yourself that you really want to get Engineering. Hype yourself about all the advantages of planting forests on Grassland and Plains and imagine that river crossing is your most immediate need. Do this so that even you believe and you will not get Engineering. The only downside is that you have to be genuinely let down still...
