An Agressive Greek Strategy
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While I don't think we are the pennacle of strategies here, I think a lot of the convential strategies have been posted. So now in the coming weeks I'll try to post some of the more off-beat strategies that I use and have found mostly while using secondary accounts. Some have been more consistent than others, but some are more boutique and randomly present themeselves as the best or even an viable option.
An Agressive Greek Strategy
Start: Start w/ courthouse in Athens
Ancient: Knowledge of Democracy
Medieval: More Great People
Industrial: Half-priced libraries
Modern: More Great People
Intro:
Rushing early with the Greeks is usually not the way to go. For the most part, a passive fast paced teching strategy with Athens being a very powerful city is a more sound way to use the Greeks. Once you have learned to do this, particularly using strategies already spelled out by Morte and Swedish Chef, you might want to have a few more options with the Greeks for when things aren't going your way, or if you want to mix it up a little bit. Attacking your opponet early yields an element of surprise with the Greeks that people won't see coming, but is not advisable every time. If you play the same player over and over again, you can be sure that he'll be savvy to your impending rush. But it is still a good change of pace to use from time to time with the Greeks.
Horserushing
*Only use sparingly*
You can effectively horserush with the Greeks because you have Democracy from the start, which gives you extra sceince. Basically, you can save a turn researching Horseback Riding with them because two workers on 2 sea equals 6 science. This turn is eventually lost because to attack another civ, you'll have to change governments, thus losing a turn to Anarchy. But this comes later down the road, so it is still one turn quicker than most civs.
I still recommend kicking out 1 or two warriors with hammers for the first five turns, so you can start amassing gold. After you get your warriors, then set two workers to horseback riding and get HBR by 3100BC. Then set both of your workers to forests and start working on the horsemen.
Your warriors will hopefully provide you with at least 30-50 gold in those first ten turns so you'll be able to have your first horsemen. You should have your army between 2700BC-2500BC, depending on how much gold you can acculate with your warriors and horsemen. Then proceed with a normal horserush. Make sure you don't eliminate a player while you are in Anarchy, because the game sometimes freezes or locks up when this happens.
Knight Rushing
This can be particularly effective, most notably when you have hills next to your capital, or if you have hills or oak by one of your 2nd cities.
-Build two warriors for 5 turns
- Grow for 10 turns in Athens to 4 pop (if you need defenses before 2500BC, play smart, get your hops and go from there).
- get your 100 gold if you can
- You need production to make this more effective, preferably in Athens, if you have several hills next to your cap. You want to get Construction first.
- Tech Order:
Alphabet
Iron Working
Masonary
Construction
Irrigation (if you can get it first)
Writing
Code of Laws
Monarchy
Feudalism
Religion
- After you get Alphabet, build a library in Athens, this should put you in the tech lead, since you'll be able to tech 24 beakers in Athens really early.
- Try to expand out to at least 3-5 cities, hopefully getting a prodcution city that you can build a barracks in, or if Athens doesn't have hills by it, then hopefully you can settle another city that does have hills, and get the free workshop there.
- Tech up to Feudalism, you should be able to get there in the late BC everytime.
- Start spamming knights, taking out the weaker civs first, or if in H2H, just beeline for the human opponnet.
- Tech Religion after Feudalism, switch to Fundamentalism after you get it, have all your cities on production or gold (if you got currency first), and hopefully you'll have a few knights armies before the BC is done.
-Staying below 14 techs is very key, since it costs 75 gold to rush a knight in the medieval, while it costs 100 gold to rush it in the Industrial.
With this strategy, I'll almost always have 2-5 knight armies by 0 AD. If people press you, it will be slower. But people usually don't get in your way because they don't think they'll be able to take your hopilites, so you should be able to do just about whatever you want in your games. This strategy can work really really well if you have a lot of hills by Athens. I've had 3 vet knight armies by 700BC with Fundamentalism once, which is just about as quick as you can do this with any civ.
Catapults
Much like the knight strategy, you want to get high early production to make this work.
Tech Order
Alphabet
Masonary
Construction
Writing
Mathematics
Navigation
Currency
If you can get the free workshop, this works really well. You'll probably want Galleons to make the Catapult rush faster. But with the extra production from free workshops/oak, you should be able to get catapults to the enemy in the BC while they still have archers. If you can get Religion in a timely manner and stay below 14 techs for the lower rushing costs, then that would work better.
Closing Remarks
Again, this type of rushing is not to be used often with the Greeks, but can be useful. I like to be more agressive when there are more hills by Athens, and if I am aggressive, typically I'll go for the knights rush. The knigh rush is more sound because you're setting yourself up with a decent start if your rush fails. If the horserush fails, you've wasted a lot of turns. If the catapult rush doesn't work, you're not too bad off, but still you could've been tech up to better stuff. With the knight rush, you are still picking up techs that you normally would, but maybe you'll just be a few turns behind where you are with more passive Greek strategies due to extra time being spent on production and rushing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While I don't think we are the pennacle of strategies here, I think a lot of the convential strategies have been posted. So now in the coming weeks I'll try to post some of the more off-beat strategies that I use and have found mostly while using secondary accounts. Some have been more consistent than others, but some are more boutique and randomly present themeselves as the best or even an viable option.
An Agressive Greek Strategy
Start: Start w/ courthouse in Athens
Ancient: Knowledge of Democracy
Medieval: More Great People
Industrial: Half-priced libraries
Modern: More Great People
Intro:
Rushing early with the Greeks is usually not the way to go. For the most part, a passive fast paced teching strategy with Athens being a very powerful city is a more sound way to use the Greeks. Once you have learned to do this, particularly using strategies already spelled out by Morte and Swedish Chef, you might want to have a few more options with the Greeks for when things aren't going your way, or if you want to mix it up a little bit. Attacking your opponet early yields an element of surprise with the Greeks that people won't see coming, but is not advisable every time. If you play the same player over and over again, you can be sure that he'll be savvy to your impending rush. But it is still a good change of pace to use from time to time with the Greeks.
Horserushing
*Only use sparingly*
You can effectively horserush with the Greeks because you have Democracy from the start, which gives you extra sceince. Basically, you can save a turn researching Horseback Riding with them because two workers on 2 sea equals 6 science. This turn is eventually lost because to attack another civ, you'll have to change governments, thus losing a turn to Anarchy. But this comes later down the road, so it is still one turn quicker than most civs.
I still recommend kicking out 1 or two warriors with hammers for the first five turns, so you can start amassing gold. After you get your warriors, then set two workers to horseback riding and get HBR by 3100BC. Then set both of your workers to forests and start working on the horsemen.
Your warriors will hopefully provide you with at least 30-50 gold in those first ten turns so you'll be able to have your first horsemen. You should have your army between 2700BC-2500BC, depending on how much gold you can acculate with your warriors and horsemen. Then proceed with a normal horserush. Make sure you don't eliminate a player while you are in Anarchy, because the game sometimes freezes or locks up when this happens.
Knight Rushing
This can be particularly effective, most notably when you have hills next to your capital, or if you have hills or oak by one of your 2nd cities.
-Build two warriors for 5 turns
- Grow for 10 turns in Athens to 4 pop (if you need defenses before 2500BC, play smart, get your hops and go from there).
- get your 100 gold if you can
- You need production to make this more effective, preferably in Athens, if you have several hills next to your cap. You want to get Construction first.
- Tech Order:
Alphabet
Iron Working
Masonary
Construction
Irrigation (if you can get it first)
Writing
Code of Laws
Monarchy
Feudalism
Religion
- After you get Alphabet, build a library in Athens, this should put you in the tech lead, since you'll be able to tech 24 beakers in Athens really early.
- Try to expand out to at least 3-5 cities, hopefully getting a prodcution city that you can build a barracks in, or if Athens doesn't have hills by it, then hopefully you can settle another city that does have hills, and get the free workshop there.
- Tech up to Feudalism, you should be able to get there in the late BC everytime.
- Start spamming knights, taking out the weaker civs first, or if in H2H, just beeline for the human opponnet.
- Tech Religion after Feudalism, switch to Fundamentalism after you get it, have all your cities on production or gold (if you got currency first), and hopefully you'll have a few knights armies before the BC is done.
-Staying below 14 techs is very key, since it costs 75 gold to rush a knight in the medieval, while it costs 100 gold to rush it in the Industrial.
With this strategy, I'll almost always have 2-5 knight armies by 0 AD. If people press you, it will be slower. But people usually don't get in your way because they don't think they'll be able to take your hopilites, so you should be able to do just about whatever you want in your games. This strategy can work really really well if you have a lot of hills by Athens. I've had 3 vet knight armies by 700BC with Fundamentalism once, which is just about as quick as you can do this with any civ.
Catapults
Much like the knight strategy, you want to get high early production to make this work.
Tech Order
Alphabet
Masonary
Construction
Writing
Mathematics
Navigation
Currency
If you can get the free workshop, this works really well. You'll probably want Galleons to make the Catapult rush faster. But with the extra production from free workshops/oak, you should be able to get catapults to the enemy in the BC while they still have archers. If you can get Religion in a timely manner and stay below 14 techs for the lower rushing costs, then that would work better.
Closing Remarks
Again, this type of rushing is not to be used often with the Greeks, but can be useful. I like to be more agressive when there are more hills by Athens, and if I am aggressive, typically I'll go for the knights rush. The knigh rush is more sound because you're setting yourself up with a decent start if your rush fails. If the horserush fails, you've wasted a lot of turns. If the catapult rush doesn't work, you're not too bad off, but still you could've been tech up to better stuff. With the knight rush, you are still picking up techs that you normally would, but maybe you'll just be a few turns behind where you are with more passive Greek strategies due to extra time being spent on production and rushing.
