[R&F] Civ of the Week: Greece

[Sylfea]

I favor Gorgo over Pericles, but reading this thread makes me want to try him again. I play marathon speed, so the extra culture from Gorgo's early warfare is really noticeable to me there.

Gotta love the hills start bias and Acropolis, as elaborated by others. I've never really tried Hoplite warfare.

 

[Disgustipated]

So my culture jumped from 32.5 to 33.3 after becoming Suzerain of Kabul. So I'm wondering why I didn't get 5% (of what I'm assuming is my previous culture). 5% should have put me at 34.12 culture. For the record I'm on turn 123 of an epic speed game the year 950 BC. So I'm not exactly sure how this 5% is calculated.

For a civic like Defensive Tactics (which I'm currently researching) with a base cost of 262, I go from researching it in 8.06 turns to researching it in 7.87 turns. I'm not exactly overwhelmed. But my culture isn't very high, and I didn't have the greatest places to build my wonder Temple of Artemis, so I couldn't put my Acropolis next to it. I only have 2 Acropolis at the moment, neither has amphitheaters yet.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I favor Gorgo over Pericles, but reading this thread makes me want to try him again. I play marathon speed, so the extra culture from Gorgo's early warfare is really noticeable to me there.

Gotta love the hills start bias and Acropolis, as elaborated by others. I've never really tried Hoplite warfare.

I would wager that Gorgo would be considerably better on the marathon speed whereas Pericles perhaps moreso with online. You can move about without much time passing relative to culture/tech tree and kill camp after camp of barbarians netting you allot of culture. Sounds like a pretty good idea actually, maybe I should give it a try.

EDIT: I'm theorizing that would make Gorgo best at the early game with marathon speed and Pericles best for late game with Online speed.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Ah, maybe I shouldn't have run that many theater projects.



Also I did something unimaginably terrible and miscounted the tiles for Colosseum. As a result it's the worst one ever, covering only 2 cities.

I managed to manage to snag Goddess of the Harvest by running the faith card in the wildcard slot as well as quickly settling a new city on the incense. It was an isolated start, but the barbs sure helped with culture. Good thing that was the only plantation resource, since I didn't bother with irrigation for a while. Then there weren't many hills on my landmass so that sucked but you can build Acropolis so easily it hardly matters. Bought a great general just because I could early on though he does give the Art of War.

Also is that a bug for the tile the crossbow is on? It's out of range for the Petra. And why do my districts give culture?

This was the start (Emperor/Fractal/Normal)

 

[Disgustipated]

Listening to Alexander the Great by Iron Maiden during my Pericles session today. Doesn't quite fit, but somewhat in the same ballpark. Would be more appropriate during the Macedon civ of the week. And a few beers at that during this session.

The weird thing about Hoplites to me is when you are attacking into a hex you still get the +10 even though the hex you are attacking into has no adjacent Hoplite. Only the hex you attacked from. It's kind of funny using the Hoplite as an offensive unit. But my Hoplite rush worked well enough (just ask Hojo). But honestly, swordsmen are much better at attacking cities. The difference was night and day. I wouldn't mind that if Hoplites were actually good at defense. Bring back Civ2 style offense and defense Firaxis! *crickets chirp*. Seriously, it's weird having a defensive unit that's not good at defense particularly and using him for offense. Offense and defense numbers were better at this.

A post above seemed to say Greece really wasn't a particularly special civ, but I disagree. Any civ that causes you to play a different way is interesting in my opinion. And Pericles is causing me to play differently than I normally play. This is good. I actually used Containment policy card with Diplomatic League as my scout is discovering city-states on the other continent. One envoy is generating 3 envoys. Pretty sweet. I've never actually used Containment in any of my games until now. Maybe it was my mistake not realizing how awesome Containment really is. But playing Pericles has shown me how great this policy card is. This is pretty cool to me.

I'll include a couple of screenshots. This may help newer players, experienced players may not get anything out of this. Sometimes playing this game I get into a rut and do the same thing or similar things every game. And this game has helped this somewhat. That's a good thing. One screenshot is aggressive envoys before discovering the other continent. The other is after discovering some city states and using Containment with some of my saved envoys. The point is to illustrate ways to utilize Pericles abilities. In many games I don't care about Suzerains that much unless it's a particular bonus I care for. Now I want as many as possible. Although it's not worth it to compete for Yerevan in my opinion. The AI is in love with Yeravan.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[GT_OKEZ]

For beginners Id say play Gorgo over Peri. Why? Because Gorgo's ULA gives a stronger early game (flat culture for the early Civics is nice) just be prepared to initiate some action even if you have to Dow CSs or a softy Civ just to farm culture. Peri requires more long term planning and his ULA doesn't really have an effect till later once he has some good base culture. Realistically expect a 15% culture bonus since its quite hard on deity to keep more than 3 CSs. Still 15% scaling in the late game is great and overshadows Gorgo in terms of raw culture output.Basically Gorgo is better early but Peri can eventually outscale her (or anyone really) in the later game culture yields.
The Acropolis envoy synergizes with Peri more than Gorgo but its a great perk for either leader especially with Amani.
With Greece I always try to get a city with Acropolis adjacent to City-Center and Government Plaza AND adjacent to Oracle. Oracle and Acropolis require hills without strategic resources on them like Iron. Its a little tricky but the combo is so good.

 

[Disgustipated]

Well... This game was unexpected. And that is a good thing. This is my earliest victory ever. Seriously.

Could I have won this early with other warlike civilizations? Of course. But I tend to draw out my conquest victories out to see more modern military units.

1635 is my victory year which is my earliest (not including time victories used for just achievements or other achievement victories). As I said, there have been games I could have won earlier just by conquering everyone. But often you have to have certain map setups to do that. This isn't necessarily easy with continents setting.

How do I rate them? I would be dishonest to rate Gorgo above Pericles at this point. I have no choice but to rate Pericles as an A+ at this point. I really need to play Gorgo at this point to compare. I've played Gorgo twice before, but I'm better at the game now. I wrote down a couple of benchmarks to compare Gorgo and Pericles (I will use same game settings), but due to my drinking I only remembered to write down two. Civil Service: Turn 138, mass media turn 273. Granted I did things in a weird order to try to avoid hard researching too many civics, but my culture was so high I had no choice but to hard research many. I sometimes do civil service and Mass Media earlier or later.

Conclusion: Pericles is superior if you put forth the effort to get the full benefit from him. I give him an A+

I'll include my save. I got lazy at the end, many unimproved tiles. Only 2 National parks. I could have got an earlier victory if I really pushed hard. Kongo got hurt early by Aztecs which would normally be my main opposition culturally.

Seriously AI, where were you? I sometimes think King level is easier than Prince. I'm beginning to think the game has become easier with the recent patch. No challenge whatsoever. Even after 6 dark beers (at over 5% alcohol). Too docile of AI. No one declared on me. I could only form alliance with Nubia due to early warmongering, but they were too far at this point for trade route and arsenal of democracy.

Spoiler :

 

[Onii-chan]

Oh lol, I wasn't even participating in this but I just so happened to play as Pericles in a game over the last couple days. I tried playing with the expanded city states mod and having a somewhat disproportionally high amount of CS compared to the map size (think it was like 20 CS and 8 civs on a large fractal map) so there was plenty of Suzerain fun to be had both in terms of all the modded CS own funky abilities and all the culture it gave me back from Pericles' ability. Was a pretty passive game overall but fun enough. I was pretty isolated in a corner of the map so there were no wars coming my way all game, but there was a ton of fighting over in the center of the continent. Egypt was doing well all game after having eliminated the Cree early on (before I even made contact with them) but then suddenly lost their capital to America towards the end unexpectedly

For whatever reason the map was absolutely stacked with a million Sponge resources though... not sure what that was about

Ending screenshot just for good measure I guess


PS: In case that wasn't obvious from the pic, yes I was actually able to get Earth Goddess as a pantheon even though Scythia was in the game... and they definitely got their pantheon first as usual so they actually let me have it for free, don't think I've ever seen that happen before

 

[Victoria]

I find Pericles underwhelming gameplay wise and appearance wise .... As Greece I grit my teeth and change from Pericles the Cultural to Pericles the Cutthroat.

Agreed, he looks like a nob with that helmet. Lets be clear though, he's more than cutthroat, he's also worth being a warmonger for.

But honestly, swordsmen are much better at attacking cities

agree 100% but just to play devils advocate here you get hoplites earlier and without the need for Iron and they give a +4 era score in a position allowing both ancient and classical era points. They are great against mounted early also. As I said, having played them a lot I settle on getting 2 hoplites and promo each up a different tree path which if they both survive gives quite a unique duo unit that provides great fun if you enjoy tactical play, not about the effectiveness but the pleasure of using the duo unit is refreshing. Sadly normally one get shot up because you have to push the promo's to get best value...the upgrade to pike is little strength difference but allows the two to part company... the upgrade to pike n shot is great because they are then heavily promoted and these promo's in fact make them quite scary. One of those things you have to play rather than listen to what I say.

Conclusion: Pericles is superior if you put forth the effort to get the full benefit from him. I give him an A+

100% and this is key. Peri is all about CS rather than culture. From T1 you are assessing CS, scouting them out working on their quests, using Amani, planning for spies, planning for freeing them or using the flip trick to kill enemy envoys. I will play Peri warlike because the benefits of getting to those CS are great.

@Victoria Good point about liberating CSs for the envoys. .

I call it envoy flipping, because that's really what you are doing

 

[kb27787]

100% and this is key. Peri is all about CS rather than culture. From T1 you are assessing CS, scouting them out working on their quests, using Amani, planning for spies, planning for freeing them or using the flip trick to kill enemy envoys. I will play Peri warlike because the benefits of getting to those CS are great.


I call it envoy flipping, because that's really what you are doing

I get ridiculously annoyed when AI does that to me... (DoW, wait for flip because they are in a dark age, attack and liberate again... all the while I'm halfway across the world... all my envoys are gone and somehow the people of the CS have collective amnesia and start hailing their former enemy as suzerain for liberating them).
Dear Firaxis, please make rebelled CS automatically return to CS status (with envoys equal to when it was first conquered) instead of being stuck in free city mode.

As for ppl saying Pericles is better than Gorgo, I dunno about that, but even if you have the luckiest start of your life and get 3 CS suzerain early game (and somehow they survive) it's a measly +15% culture at most. You can compare it to Korea who just needs to slot governers equal to the number of her cities and the bonus cannot so easily be taken from her.

Gorgo on the other hand... t2-3 finds spearman barb... ~t7 spearman barb dead by warrior, code of laws finished (15 culture cost which usually take 10+ turns for other civs, but for her, one spearman will finish it) and slot god king... t20+ pantheon up (much better chance than Pericles of getting either earth goddess or goddess of the harvest). Barb invasion? No need for 3 charge builder... hard culture into agoge. Attacked early by AI and hard to recover from not being able to go early settler/builder? You are (in my opinion, sometimes more than) equally compensated by getting the governors much earlier when your archers get kills.

By the way, it is not hard to get 1000+ culture/turn with Greece (if you just want to get the numbers for show.. but even if I don't slot any +culture cards because civics tree is finished, I routinely get around~500-700 by the endgame around industrial era), even without extensive conquering. I feel Pericles' bonus is meant to be strong endgame ("if" your CS survive--which is a big "if"), but for Greece the bonus is overkill (I have social media AND globalization... what else do I want that culture for?).

 

[Victoria]

it's a measly +15% culture at most.

Pericles is about pushing to globalization, it's the only civ that can hit it in a sensible time. Then you also get 10% science per suze.
Its a scary snowball endgame yes, Gorgo tails off before then, gets a fast rush but as I said a lot of it is wasted on inspirations that could have been gotten. If Gorgo's death culture was truly good later then the rough rider would be more useful but fair enough, I've argued my case.

Dear Firaxis, please make rebelled CS automatically return to CS status (with envoys equal to when it was first conquered) instead of being stuck in free city mode.

Dear Firaxis, please do not allow a civ that conquers a CS to gain any value out of liberating it.... and also un-nerf England please

 

[Rosty K]

And why do my districts give culture?

You must be a suzerain of Nan Madol, which gives culture to districts on the coast.

Also is that a bug for the tile the crossbow is on? It's out of range for the Petra.

Why is it out of range? If it belongs to the same city as Petra, it's fine.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

If you want a longer explaination and narrative I have included one in a spoiler link.

Spoiler Narrative :

I started a game with Disgustipated’s save file, but became frustrated with it due to the choke points of a civ I was attempting to conquer. I threw up my hands and started a deity game, thinking it might be less vexing. The phrase out of the frying pan and into the fire comes to mind.

The map spawn was kind, and my plans peaceful. After the opening survival gamut, I began building Theatre Square after Theatre Square in nearly every city. After the TS was built, I’d go either campus or commercial hub. This worked well. For a while.

Spoiler :

I managed to build the Colosseum and a few settlers before realizing I was not my usual rational/evidence based scientific self. Soon thereafter, my poets were treated to some material for their plays care of Alexander the Great. I was certain they would be writing tragedies, but somehow I managed to piece together 6 archers, get them to Argos, and repulse our war crazed Macedonian cousins! If not for the natural choke point of Argos, I would surely have been completely overrun.

Spoiler :

Rome declared, then Alexander declared but my crossbow corps readily repulsed their non-corps units with relative ease. This culture plan, somewhat miraculously, seemed to be working out rather well.

As one might expect, as I was playing a civ with bonuses from city states, the game had a complete dearth of them relative to what I was accustomed to with my standard Immortal level settings. Whether this was due to deity or some other variable, I am not certain. Late in the mid game (after amassing an appropriate number of envoys and hoping the early CS conquests were done) I decided to take matters into my own hands and explore! By turn 191 I found my 1st city state! Toronto.

Spoiler :

I immediately dumped some of my 27 envoys and became suzerain. That lit Palenque up, and I repeated, hoping that it too would bring another CS into view. But no such luck.

Spoiler :

By turn 209 I managed to piece together enough science to create an offshore oil rig for the one oil I had access to in my small Greek confederation of loosely aligned cities under the guidance of Pericles (as this was a peaceful game, I avoid use of the word empire). This was the precise moment, when our knight armies all upgraded to tank armies, that the long running war with Rome took a decidedly positive turn for we Greeks! It was payback time for the scoundrel, and pay he did. By turn 239 he had completely surrendered all of his campuses and commercial hubs to Greece. The efforts of Roman scientists and merchants would prove invaluable to our future contest to colonize Mars before the misguided Australians!

I managed to liberate 2 city states from the Romans, Kabul and Hattusa. Gilgamesh immediately captured Kabul (which I took back), but Hattusa remained free. By turn 226 it appeared that both the city states I had just found on turn 191 (and dumped a bunch of envoys into) would fall before German aggression. So off I went.

Spoiler :

While the cats away: I left a field cannon army to guard Hattusa on alert status to ward against losing my access to uranium (the strategic resource that allows my Modern Armor armies to heal). Apparently the alert did not kick off when Gilgamesh sieged and conquered Hattusa, as I found myself quite some ways off, and completely unable to heal. Somehow I managed to liberate Toronto before deciding to return to Hattusa, intent to remove Gilgamesh from the game.

This plan I had for a culture 1st game with Pericles, as opposed to science 1st, then culture, was turning out to be less fun than I had whimsically imagined. In fact it was becoming quite frustrating! I now found myself behind the preeminent late game production powerhouse (Australia) in an endgame space race. All I needed was one of the AI's to declared one of their crazy wars on him and it would be the end of me! Truth is, I'm not sure they didn't, I never checked, as there was nothing I could do about it anyway.

I narrowly won a science victory by selling off my great works of art and buying great people to expedite the space projects.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Conclusion (Preface): Well now I know. Whenever I want a competitive game with the AI, I can just build something other than campuses 1st. I mean, my field cannon and knight armies fighting non-corps Ai units was fun and all, at least at first. Right up to the time I realized I was behind in the space race.

My recollection of Pericles from the numerous Immortal games I’ve played with a science, science, and more science 1st, 1st, 1st before anything else, then a recommitment to science, after which maybe a theatre square or two once I’ve secured reasonable (ie. considerable) funding levels, is one of gallivanting about, liberating one city state after the next, snowballing into both a cultural (and more importantly) scientific juggernaut. This did not pan out with my quest for new and “fun” ways to play, ie. the Theatre Square 1st build sequence.


Conclusion (standard version): Build campuses 1st, lots of ‘em. Then build more. Conquer your neighbors. Enlist their scientists, liberate their city states. Make sure the AI will not reconquer your city states, ie. take the nearest AI out also, and liberate their CS as well. Rinse repeat. It will work out well for you and in the endgame you can have the unique Pericles civ ability of +5% culture for each CS suzerain status, +10% science for International Space Agency policy card. If you need another +10% culture per CS use the Collective Activism policy card. You won’t need it though, as the AI generally builds enough Theatre Squares to blow your science enabled AI appropriated culture per turn through the roof.

Conclusion (abbreviated): Build campuses and Commercial Hubs, forget Theatre Squares. The AI will build them for you. Take out your neighbors, liberate the city states they will have surely conquered. Rinse/repeat.

Conclusion (one liner): Victoria is correct.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Why is it out of range? If it belongs to the same city as Petra, it's fine.

It actually can't work the tile. It's 4 away.

 

[Rosty K]

It actually can't work the tile. It's 4 away.

Doesn't matter, if the tile belongs to Petra city, Petra affects it. Well, you can't get them yields, but they're there, so they're shown.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Doesn't matter, if the tile belongs to Petra city, Petra affects it. Well, you can't get them yields, but they're there, so they're shown.

I know that. It's just completely useless and misleading.

 

[RealHuhn]

By turn 191 I found my 1st city state! Toronto.

I immediately dumped some of my 27 envoys and became suzerain.

This is pure CIV6 comedy gold

However, I disagree with all of your conclusions except maybe for the last one.

Conclusion (one liner): Victoria is correct.

 

[Morningcalm]

Agreed, he looks like a nob with that helmet. Lets be clear though, he's more than cutthroat, he's also worth being a warmonger for.
agree 100% but just to play devils advocate here you get hoplites earlier and without the need for Iron and they give a +4 era score in a position allowing both ancient and classical era points. They are great against mounted early also. As I said, having played them a lot I settle on getting 2 hoplites and promo each up a different tree path which if they both survive gives quite a unique duo unit that provides great fun if you enjoy tactical play, not about the effectiveness but the pleasure of using the duo unit is refreshing. Sadly normally one get shot up because you have to push the promo's to get best value...the upgrade to pike is little strength difference but allows the two to part company... the upgrade to pike n shot is great because they are then heavily promoted and these promo's in fact make them quite scary. One of those things you have to play rather than listen to what I say.

100% and this is key. Peri is all about CS rather than culture. From T1 you are assessing CS, scouting them out working on their quests, using Amani, planning for spies, planning for freeing them or using the flip trick to kill enemy envoys. I will play Peri warlike because the benefits of getting to those CS are great.

I call it envoy flipping, because that's really what you are doing

I do appreciate a fellow Pericles warmonger, and I'm glad you're one of the people who notes how silly Pericles looks.

As far as the strategy of saving envoys, sure, that makes sense for Pericles, but it's a bit of a sacrifice since you lose out on the chance to get those initial early bonuses (extra culture in the capital etc), unless you really have saved a lot via the Apadana for example. The problem with Pericles gameplay wise is that his cultural snowball is too late game. For the % to really be meaningful, you have to be suzerain of multiple citystates and those Greek cities you boost have to have a decent amount of culture to begin with. Heck, early game, given how often CSes are killed, Seondeok's nerfed Hwarang ability may even give more culture than Pericles' ability!

I agree that Gorgo's bonus can end up cancelling inspirations (and thus domestic culture), but oftentimes it can be useful if you're researching a civic you know you won't get the eureka for (many religious civics if you aren't going religious for example).

 

[RealHuhn]

I do appreciate a fellow Pericles warmonger, and I'm glad you're one of the people who notes how silly Pericles looks.

As far as the strategy of saving envoys, sure, that makes sense for Pericles, but it's a bit of a sacrifice since you lose out on the chance to get those initial early bonuses (extra culture in the capital etc), unless you really have saved a lot via the Apadana for example. The problem with Pericles gameplay wise is that his cultural snowball is too late game. For the % to really be meaningful, you have to be suzerain of multiple citystates and those Greek cities you boost have to have a decent amount of culture to begin with. Heck, early game, given how often CSes are killed, Seondeok's nerfed Hwarang ability may even give more culture than Pericles' ability!

I agree that Gorgo's bonus can end up cancelling inspirations (and thus domestic culture), but oftentimes it can be useful if you're researching a civic you know you won't get the eureka for (many religious civics if you aren't going religious for example).

But Greece can easily amass a high amount of culture per turn very early in the game, making 5% much better than probably even 20% would be for a civ like Korea. For example with the Oracle and those cheap theatre squares with high adjacencies, you get a ton of early great writers as well for even more culture. Sure, if you only build campuses with Pericles (like suggested above) and wonder why the 5% doesn't do much, then I don't know what to say anymore ^^

 

[Archon_Wing]

Also pretty sure capturing theater squares is harder as Greece as non hill ones get razed? Seems like you'd work it in reverse. Capture campuses and hubs, then add an Acropolis of your own.