Gorgo has always been the alternate civ I played, and have played her a lot. You just need to know the tricks of the trade.
The hoplites are damn early, great for era points but you need two of them which is fine really. The just cannot leave each other’s side.
So with Gorgo it is rush to bronze working then make a decision. If you have a close enemy then hoplites are great because they chew through a 25-30 wall with a Ram done early. Now you get chop value for spears you can get them extremely early. The secret is to make sure there are archers and scouts that can be shot at by the city walls, then the hoplites are left alone. They help your early city defence as well as benefitting from Oligarchy, shame a GG does not help them.
Yes there are a lot of warriors around so you promote one of your pair to be anti melee and the other to be anti cav. The melee one does surprisingly well with the double support promo of the anti cav unit. The AI will happily attack you.
Having Tomyris next door to you is never nice but keeping the hoplites in good rough works, just be defensive and let them come to you, with Tomyris it is the horse archers that are a pain but the hoplites eat horsemen.
As time moves on, because they have taken cities they will normally have 2 promos each and while the promotion to halberds does not give much benefit the promo’s do really help.
The really nice thing about them is the immersive side. 2-4 hoplites are useless by themselves but with archer support and the odd chariot they feel like an army and are a pleasure to play
Now with pike and shot they do survive better and pushing them to anti tank early like the AI is rather OP.
They are vulnerable and so playing more defensive and in rough does ruffle my tabletop pedigree but works.
Other game you build one purely for era points and/or CS quest but Gorgo’s other values are good.
I have found the culture gains are just not great beyond T50 but are great to push an early Oligarchy. And that is that extra +4. If you think a hoplite is useless vs a swordsman, look at the right promotion tree.
One of the strongest things now is the envoys from theatres. CS are such a strong part of a game. Gorgo is great but certainly plays second fiddle to Pericles.