Greece a top tier civ? I think not

[ArcaneSeraph]

i guess it's only clear to smarter folks. to clarify:

over 80 turns you're spending 250 less gold with greece than with siam
spending the 250 extra gold with siam, over those 80 turns to maintain the same ally status amounts to 250 gold / 80 turns = 3.125 gpt.

Except the obvious error that 80 turns is not the same thing as 90 turns so you have to compare it on a per turn basis.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

No, his math is exactly right. It will cost greece 4 gpt to stay allied with a city state. If anything, he is overestimating Greece's UA because if you let influence drop below 60 you still get some benefits.

But under 60 Greece gets those same benefits for twice as long. So how is that overestimating anything?

When analyzing things you have to be fair to both sides. Most of this math presents Greece's benefits under poor conditions and presents other civs, like Russia or Arabia, in very positive conditions.

I'm not saying Greece is amazing and these other civs suck. All I am saying is that if a proposition is true, it should not need embelishment.

 

[vexing]

Except the obvious error that 80 turns is not the same thing as 90 turns so you have to compare it on a per turn basis.

you never know when to give up do you? doing an analysis for 80 turns is completely valid. regardless let's pretend you can buy the 10 more turns for 100 gold (a bad deal), even then 350 / 90 turns is still less than 4 gpt.

in martin's analysis, the limit as number of turns approaches infinity for greece is simply the gold cost / turns worth of influence gained / 2. his analysis used 500 / 65 / 2 = 3.85 gpt. those numbers are all reasonable approximations.

 

[Martin Alvito]

When analyzing things you have to be fair to both sides. Most of this math presents Greece's benefits under poor conditions and presents other civs, like Russia or Arabia, in very positive conditions.

How am I presenting Greece in poor conditions? I think it's very safe to say that if you're maintaining friends status with a CS, you screwed up pretty badly. The only possible exception I can think of is Siam with a Cultural early in the game, and even that's questionable now.

How am I unfairly skewing the math in Russia or Arabia's favor? It's pretty rare that I take back low numbers on a strategic or luxury trade from a hostile AI. It definitely happens if I have a lot of something, especially a specific luxury, but like any sane player I prioritize making high sales over "bad" deals.

On Deity the AIs just don't run out of . On lower difficulties they tend to start running dry around turn 80 or so, but it's usually still possible to get maximum dollar for luxuries and strategics from broke AIs if you're creative and use them to substitute for things like the payment you'd have to make to balance an RA.

 

[ShahJahanII]

that's funny. his math is correct, it's slightly favoring greece more than it should be if you're paying for the initial ally.

siam: 500 gold to 70 influence, 10 turns later 500 for 70 turns
ally 80 turns for 1000 gold

greece, 500 gold to 70 influence, 20 turns later 250 for 70 turns.
ally 90 turns for 750 gold

250 gold less, and 90 vs 80 turns. it's pretty clearly less than 4 gpt.

Greece obviously get a discount, just not as much as he said.

 

[_hero_]

Who has the cash to ally with 24 city states? That takes 12,000 gold, with another 6,000 gold about 10 turn later. If you have 18,000 gold than 84 gpt is not that relevant. Who said anything about late game? Russia should have an extra ~30gpt for the entire game, which is more valuable. 20gpt does more early than it 84 does late. It takes 23 turns to buy a nuclear missile with 84 gpt. It takes It takes ~15 to buy a LS. Plus, when you go to war with civs you previously traded with they will have strategic resource penalty, which is valuable.

Well first of all, I have allied 24 city states on Diety before but it was an abnormally lucky game. Not all of those alliances were formed simply by buying them off and not all of that influence is earned with gold and you know that. Completing a mission like building a wonder or connecting a trade route for a CS can give enough influence to keep Greece Allied for a very long time twice as long as any other civ in fact.

Second of all, I also didn't mention that civs won't trade for strategic resources that they don't "need". You can't get the full amount of GPT for horses from civs that have a surplus of horses and I have found in many of my games that civs reach a point of surplus long before the unit goes obsolete, so to claim that Russia has an extra 30 gpt "for the entire game" is entirely baseless and counterfactual. My points were intentionally ignoring the very subjective values of events throughout the course of the game because such an analysis can't be simplified to a thread post and frankly the data to support it is lacking. I also left out the actual benefit of the city state that Greece is gaining, which is important because as Greece you will almost automatically have a larger then average # of CS allies or you aren't playing right.

Edit: There are also ways to "exploit" the game by paying off AIs to declare war on CSs to the point where they get permanent war and then you get free influence for fighting the AI and this exploit is doubly effective with Greece.

 

[_hero_]

How am I presenting Greece in poor conditions? I think it's very safe to say that if you're maintaining friends status with a CS, you screwed up pretty badly. The only possible exception I can think of is Siam with a Cultural early in the game, and even that's questionable now.

How am I unfairly skewing the math in Russia or Arabia's favor? It's pretty rare that I take back low numbers on a strategic or luxury trade from a hostile AI. It definitely happens if I have a lot of something, especially a specific luxury, but like any sane player I prioritize making high sales over "bad" deals.

On Deity the AIs just don't run out of . On lower difficulties they tend to start running dry around turn 80 or so, but it's usually still possible to get maximum dollar for luxuries and strategics from broke AIs if you're creative and use them to substitute for things like the payment you'd have to make to balance an RA.

Remember that the AIs won't buy Russia's strategic resources unless they are running low, too. Maybe you're experiences have been different then mine, but I have on countless occasions lost my ability to sell off Iron or Horses simply because everyone left in the game got "what they needed" and no longer demanded any driving the value of my horses/Iron to 0.

 

[Martin Alvito]

If there are enough AIs in the game (eg: standard map), it's rare that you can't find an AI that wants more strategics until pretty late in the game. Juggling things so that there's always a taker and something positive that you can take back is definitely something of an art form.

AI hostility is a more significant problem, but I rarely play Deity as a Domination game because I find making decisions over dozens of units per turn pretty tedious. If you're going the fire and blood route, there are plenty of more attractive options than Greece. Those may not compare as well directly in output, but that isn't a big deal because the / equation starts skewing hard in the direction of once you take away Research Agreements as an option. AIs that hate you won't sign RAs, and everyone will hate you once you start knocking cities over.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

you never know when to give up do you? doing an analysis for 80 turns is completely valid. regardless let's pretend you can buy the 10 more turns for 100 gold (a bad deal), even then 350 / 90 turns is still less than 4 gpt.

I don't understand why you always get so aggresive all the time. I pointed out that you can't really compare a 80 turn Siam bonus to a 90 turn Greece bonus as it cuts off a good portion of the entire bonus of being Greece. It's like saying Persia's GAs are no better than anyone else's if you just analyze the first 8 turns.

In truth it is exactly as Martin stated. It's somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 GPT savings depending on how much influence you can buy per gold. If you assume 70, it's more than 4. If you assume 65, it's less.

In fact another thing to consider is that Greece, by paying 250 gold instead of 500 to maintain the alliance is actually somewhat more inefficient. The 250 does not always purchase half the influence of the 500. So that hurts greece a bit too. Therefore Greece might be saving .5GPT less or so.

How am I presenting Greece in poor conditions? I think it's very safe to say that if you're maintaining friends status with a CS, you screwed up pretty badly. The only possible exception I can think of is Siam with a Cultural early in the game, and even that's questionable now.

Sorry. I was quoting Hasire and thus was referring to his math which, as _hero_ just pointed out, isn't exactly realistic. Yours is fine.

 

[_hero_]

Basically, it boils down to this. On a raw number standpoint, lots of civs are going to come ahead of Greece, but the difference is that Greece is going to be competitive on any map with CSs.

Examples:

Songhai- Great unless you're on an island map, then you lost the barb bonus and it becomes much harder to find cities to raise.

Iroquois- Great until the forests start running out and if you aren't set up for an early war their Mohawks quickly go to waste. Get a start bias that just gives you a small forest to one side of your capital that leads to the corner of the continent or map? Well that sucks, you've got grassland in every other direction.

I could go on, but I think the point is that no one would rationally argue that Greece is dominant from a raw number standpoint in ideal circumstances, but they are a safe bet that is going to be competitive on any map that includes city states. The other civs will dominate, or they will struggle mightily or require a re-roll of the map.

If there are enough AIs in the game (eg: standard map), it's rare that you can't find an AI that wants more strategics until pretty late in the game. Juggling things so that there's always a taker and something positive that you can take back is definitely something of an art form.

This works when AIs aren't actively conquering each other, but if you are dealing with something like a standard size continents map, it is entirely possible to end up with just 1-2 trading partners until the Caravels show up and if said partners don't want your resources you're screwed from an economic standpoint.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

This works when AIs aren't actively conquering each other, but if you are dealing with something like a standard size continents map, it is entirely possible to end up with just 1-2 trading partners until the Caravels show up and if said partners don't want your resources you're screwed from an economic standpoint.

And as Hasire was talking about 30GPT extra... that requires you to be trading 40 strategics (20 extra). That does not usually happen on a standard continents map. You usually won't get that many until quite far in the game (unless you've gone on a conquering spree and hence have fewer trading partners) and it's unlikely there are enoguh civs without those strategics to actually want them.

A more reasonable value might be 15 GPT extra... which is equivalent to lets be conservative and say 5 CS allies of greece. So goldwise it's not too bad. The problem is, and this is the reason why greece really isn't a top civ, is because spending gold on CSes isn't the most optimal use of gold. RAs are. As long as RAs remain overpowered, greece will be a relatively weak civ. If RA costs were more proportional to their benefits, greece's standing would improve.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Basically, it boils down to this. On a raw number standpoint, lots of civs are going to come ahead of Greece, but the difference is that Greece is going to be competitive on any map with CSs.

I think it's generally recognized that settings alter the normal civ pecking order. For instance, Arabia is the OCC civ because you know you're going to have luxuries in quantity, but not such quantities that you're going to run out of targets to sell them to. You also know that you're not going to be running around burning cities down or otherwise engaging in behavior that upsets the AI.

The problem with Greece is that there's somebody better for just about any combination of settings and win condition that you can dream up. Your argument appears to be that Greece is a good civ because you can spin them up on a random map type and expect them to at least be decent. That's a pretty narrow range of settings and a pretty low expectation.

The problem is, and this is the reason why greece really isn't a top civ, is because spending gold on CSes isn't the most optimal use of gold. RAs are. As long as RAs remain overpowered, greece will be a relatively weak civ. If RA costs were more proportional to their benefits, greece's standing would improve.

There's definitely truth to this. City-states have taken several nerfs since the game's inception. The original Maritimes were completely insane. I recall being one of the earliest RA proponents, and even I wasn't literally throwing every red cent into them like we do in virtually every peaceful game now.

Arguably, RAs are even stronger now. They're much weaker early game tools, but they absolutely shred the tree if you know what you're doing and raw keeps getting weaker and weaker as the devs increase late game tech costs.

 

[_hero_]

I

The problem with Greece is that there's somebody better for just about any combination of settings and win condition that you can dream up. Your argument appears to be that Greece is a good civ because you can spin them up on a random map type and expect them to at least be decent. That's a pretty narrow range of settings and a pretty low expectation.

I guess the point is that Greece is dependable. If someone puts a challenge to me "I'm going to make a map and tell you nothing about it or the settings and you have to win it on Diety and all you get to pick is your civ," Greece will be one of my first choices. They are good enough to compete. Now if you ask me to go into a game where I get to pick exactly what I want to do ahead of time then Greece will only even be an option on a CS-centric strategy. So in a debate about the "best civ" you have to put the condition on it of relativity. No civ is the best in every circumstance, and on average of all circumstances Greece comes out near the top.

If you asked "who's the best civ on an Island map" you'd get much different results then "who's the best civ on pangea." Asking "who's the best civ" without a condition means to me at least that you have to consider all circumstances not just ideal ones.

 

[Martin Alvito]

No civ is the best in every circumstance, and on average of all circumstances Greece comes out near the top.

I'd argue that Babylon, France, Siam and China are all demonstrably better choices regardless of the settings. All are at least as good for peaceful play or conquest, and substantially better at at least one aspect of one of those styles of play.

To me, that's pretty persuasive evidence that Greece is not a top tier civ.

 

[vexing]

I don't understand why you always get so aggresive all the time. I pointed out that you can't really compare a 80 turn Siam bonus to a 90 turn Greece bonus as it cuts off a good portion of the entire bonus of being Greece. It's like saying Persia's GAs are no better than anyone else's if you just analyze the first 8 turns.

In truth it is exactly as Martin stated. It's somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 GPT savings depending on how much influence you can buy per gold. If you assume 70, it's more than 4. If you assume 65, it's less.

you consistently make false assertions and never admit to such. it strikes a nerve with me.
you disputed my less than 4 gpt statement with some faulty logic, i proved in my counter post that under the conditions i presented it is indeed less than 4 gpt.

as an example of your consistent wrongness, your final above quoted statement is reversing the way things work: the savings at 70 influence is 3.57, at 65 is 3.85. it really should be obvious that the more gold you have to spend, the greater the relative savings for greece.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

you consistently make false assertions and never admit to such. it strikes a nerve with me.
you disputed my less than 4 gpt statement with some faulty logic, i proved in my counter post that under the conditions i presented it is indeed less than 4 gpt.

as an example of your consistent wrongness, your final above quoted statement is reversing the way things work: the savings at 70 influence is 3.57, at 65 is 3.85. it really should be obvious that the more gold you have to spend, the greater the relative savings for greece.

You are correct. I inverted the numbers in my head and then wrote them down wrong. I made a mistake. Just as your original analysis had a mistake by not including 10 turns. The difference is that I'm willing to admit it.

The last time we had a discussion you trolled my posts for days until I started ignoring you. I guess I'll have to do it again.

Sorry to the mods and other readers. I won't respond to this guy again.

 

[vexing]

You are correct. I inverted the numbers in my head and then wrote them down wrong. I made a mistake. Just as your original analysis had a mistake by not including 10 turns. The difference is that I'm willing to admit it.

The last time we had a discussion you trolled my posts for days until I started ignoring you.

the 10 turns are inconsequential to my initial conclusion as i have proven, which is what you were disputing.

i'm sorry you consider having flaws in your logic pointed out as trolling.

 

[PasturedCow]

When the game first came out greece used to be a powerful civilization. It was just incredible. Now it's fallen from grace. I used to love greece back in Civ3 days. I wish it would come back to its more literary roots.

On an off topic. I've left forums before because people are being rude. It's just not a fun place to be. The medianXL forum is a good example for anybody who played that diablo 2 mod. Nobody could discuss anything because everyone would just fly off the handle, as my dad calls it.

This is a discussion forum. Insulting people is not an effective means of discussion. Parliments are a joke these days because they are just full of meaningless attacks back and forth. I've always thought that insulting people is just showing a lack of self-confidence.

I don't know who is right. I'm not a big math guy. Regardless it's far easier to side with calm than angry. Angry doesn't get you far in life.

Peace.

 

[ShahJahanII]

When the game first came out greece used to be a powerful civilization. It was just incredible. Now it's fallen from grace. I used to love greece back in Civ3 days. I wish it would come back to its more literary roots.

On an off topic. I've left forums before because people are being rude. It's just not a fun place to be. The medianXL forum is a good example for anybody who played that diablo 2 mod. Nobody could discuss anything because everyone would just fly off the handle, as my dad calls it.

This is a discussion forum. Insulting people is not an effective means of discussion. Parliments are a joke these days because they are just full of meaningless attacks back and forth. I've always thought that insulting people is just showing a lack of self-confidence.

I don't know who is right. I'm not a big math guy. Regardless it's far easier to side with calm than angry. Angry doesn't get you far in life.

Peace.

Lets not troll around.

 

[Becephalus]

Not to sound completely crazy, but doesn't doing things like selling strategics to other civs completely defeat the purpose of playing on deity? You would never make such a trade?

Why not just not exploit obvious game design/ai programming logic holes and play on a level where the AI handicap is less?

I guess I never understood a frame of mind that is like I want to take the base game give the AI a ton of bonuses, but then rake it over the coals with every exploit I can find. It just seems counter productive.

I think if people don't make deals they wouldn't make if they were in the AI's position they will find they have a lot more rewarding game experience.

just my $.02

As for the topic Greece is a decent Civ, not great. It used to be much stronger in the release version, maybe that is why it has an overly strong reputation?