Greece a top tier civ? I think not

[Hasire]

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

Yes, but my point was that Greece's UA is not as good as 4 gpt per city state ally. Beside the fact the other civs can steal your city states, you don't have to pay and if you don't you don't loose the whole bonus.

 

[Hasire]

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.

You can gain influence from barb camps and natural wonders but only if you are already allies or at least friends. You can probably get two allies a game with worker+encampment. Two is probably too high as only at most 10 CS will be in reach. Second, if this is a huge map than you should have no problem finding a market for your resources. 30 gpt is reasonable for a 5-7 city game. As Russia, you could have even more city state allies than greece because of your increased gold if you choose.

30 GPT is reasonable. In one game as russia, I had 60 salable horses. Obviously the GPT you have from the ability will fluctuate, but horses will last a long time. I believe the AI still buys horses until tanks.

 

[Vo01985]

You can get barb camps quests even if you are Neutral 0/30. You do not need to be allied for that.

 

[Hasire]

I know. I was not clear about that. One barb camp doesn't get you allies either.

 

[ButSam]

I think Greece is one of the more flexible civs (although I think Babylon is the most flexible). That may explain why so many people like Greece, they can adapt their play style to any one of the victory conditions and still do pretty well. Some civs are a lot better for a certain victory type...but Greece is one of the civs that can pursue any of them with their UA giving them a noticeable boost.

 

[Hasire]

Yeah, but flexible=/=good. It is generally the best strategy to pick a win condition form turn one and got for that.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

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?

Yeah I understand your position. I often play with house rules and avoid using certain features (like gold borrowing followed by instant DoWs, starving settler production bug, courthouse bug) that I consider kind of cheap.

If a feature is there but takes something away from my enjoyment of the game then I skip it. So you aren't crazy... or if you are then I'm crazy too

Yes, but my point was that Greece's UA is not as good as 4 gpt per city state ally. Beside the fact the other civs can steal your city states, you don't have to pay and if you don't you don't loose the whole bonus.

I agree that it is quite difficult to say that greece's UA is somehow equivalent to a 4 GPT bonus. Not to take anything away from Matrin's math, but as you pointed out and others there's a lot more to it than just that. You can lose a CS ally, it can be killed, you can get allies through quests, etc.

Also I think we'd all agree that having extra gold from a bonus like Russia's is more useful than just saving even the same amount of gold from Greece's bonus. Russia can do anything it wants with its gold... Greece is forced to do 1 thing.

My basic thoughts are that Greece is an okay civ that's kind of all around balanced but it pales in comparison to quite a few civs. In 2 months the whole thing might be flipped around with another patch or expansion

 

[Aspon]

have not done the math but 4 gold per turn is big if you have ten plus city state allies I usually play a large map and try to buy out as many maritime and culture states as possible 20 city states can be 80 gold per turn by that math.

thats pretty big.

if your playing a city state strat you will have a lot more then one city state ally.

I only scan read your post and did not double check the math.

However I am assuming you conclude 4 gold per turn per city state.

thats pretty big if your playing a city state strat.

 

[Martin Alvito]

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?

Actually, selling strategics is perfectly sensible on both sides of the trade. AIs that have surplus copies won't buy them; AIs that have no desire to build the associated units won't buy them.

The luxuries are another matter entirely.

I agree that it is quite difficult to say that greece's UA is somehow equivalent to a 4 GPT bonus. Not to take anything away from Matrin's math, but as you pointed out and others there's a lot more to it than just that. You can lose a CS ally, it can be killed, you can get allies through quests, etc.

Yeah, the point of the exercise was simply to show that at best that's the most you can derive from the bonus. When you compare the Greece UA to other civs' abilities, it comes up short both in terms of raw power and due to low flexibility resulting from the requirement of a city-state-centric strategy.

Greece looks pretty because you can take Patronage and basically fire-and-forget on a city-state. That isn't an option with anyone else, and so it feels really powerful. Unfortunately, if you get under the hood and look at what you actually get out of the UA against what you could be getting with another civ in an identical situation, Greece's UA starts to look very weak.

have not done the math but 4 gold per turn is big if you have ten plus city state allies I usually play a large map and try to buy out as many maritime and culture states as possible 20 city states can be 80 gold per turn by that math.

As already noted, if you have enough to throw around to get that many allies and your enemies don't have enough to compete with you for the favor of those allies, then you already won. You just haven't spent enough time on that particular game to generate a win condition yet. Discussing the power of a strategy or ability under those conditions is like discussing chess strategy when you're already up a rook, which boils down to: "Force exchanges whenever possible and don't do anything really stupid." It's trivial.

What you should care about is what's going on during the period in time when you haven't generated a winning position yet.

 

[Hasire]

No, I was saying that renewing a city state Ally is not an absolute expense means that greece's UA is worse. It is relatively insignificant compares to other people stealing your CS allies.

 

[vexing]

Actually, selling strategics is perfectly sensible on both sides of the trade. AIs that have surplus copies won't buy them; AIs that have no desire to build the associated units won't buy them.

The luxuries are another matter entirely.

that's a bit of an overstatement. strategics are definitely better than luxuries but there are still some major flaws in the logic: they'll buy up to like 6 extra copies for the same price, then their value goes to nothing. they won't necessarily use all/any of the strategics they've bought, or worse yet, they will and then declare war on you with a bunch of immediately penalized units. and although there is "outdated" logic, there is no reverse logic for resources they can't yet use. someone in medieval era will still happily pay you for oil or aluminum.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Yeah, the point of the exercise was simply to show that at best that's the most you can derive from the bonus. When you compare the Greece UA to other civs' abilities, it comes up short both in terms of raw power and due to low flexibility resulting from the requirement of a city-state-centric strategy.

Greece looks pretty because you can take Patronage and basically fire-and-forget on a city-state. That isn't an option with anyone else, and so it feels really powerful. Unfortunately, if you get under the hood and look at what you actually get out of the UA against what you could be getting with another civ in an identical situation, Greece's UA starts to look very weak.

Agreed. Also I believe it's safe to consider Greece's UA weaker if you take patronage which you should if you are going to be allying that many CS.

City states provide a player a lot of protection from AIs. Having early UUs also help in this fashion. So it is conceivable that these factors make it an easier civ to play when you first start in on the harder difficulties. That's my guess as to why it is considered top tier by some.

 

[Aspon]

but the thing is i have never when playing as greece bought them all out at once i get one then two and gradually climb to the point where its twenty.

 

[Martin Alvito]

that's a bit of an overstatement. strategics are definitely better than luxuries but there are still some major flaws in the logic: they'll buy up to like 6 extra copies for the same price, then their value goes to nothing. they won't necessarily use all/any of the strategics they've bought, or worse yet, they will and then declare war on you with a bunch of immediately penalized units. and although there is "outdated" logic, there is no reverse logic for resources they can't yet use. someone in medieval era will still happily pay you for oil or aluminum.

A {0,1} DV isn't exactly how I'd code the AI's willingness to buy strategics either.

I'd also like to see some code where it doesn't buy your strategics then attempt to declare on you with units built using your strategics...or at least tries to find a replacement source before it declares.

And yeah, selling backwards AIs Oil is pretty silly.

But by and large the AI's behavior towards strategics is reasonably sensible. The counterexamples are glaring because the AI is otherwise not an idiot about strategics, and because in principle they should be easy coding fixes.

 

[Ianwill93]

But Greece's UA does have value. I recently played a game with the spanish that showed me how nice patronage is. It felt like every other turn I was sinking money into my two annoying citystates. Having patronage/Greece can be the difference between an ally or a friend status. And that can mean getting social policies faster or growing larger than other civs. I, however, dont see how Greece as a whole could be among the best. Maybe better players could find out a way to maximize their potential with early citystate ally strategies. But the whole UU situation seems to put them out of contention.

 

[zuraffo]

Having patronage/Greece can be the difference between an ally or a friend status.

Actually, it just means the difference between having an ally for X turn or 2X turns, which is all about money, really. The problem with greece UA is, it saves money, instead of generating money. So if you find yourself in a game where CS is more or less irrelevant to your play (like you have a money poor start), your UA is useless.

But the whole UU situation seems to put them out of contention.

Greece UU is mediocre, but it's still stronger than its UA.

 

[Ianwill93]

It meant the difference for my game. I only had a few luxuries and i needed RAs over CS allies. With greece i wouldve had time for both. And the UUs go completely obsolete. They also have annoying upgrade paths. I like their UA alot more

 

[ColinTH]

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.

Very clever, I can see long term advantages with this strategy. How much gold does it cost to get the AI civ to declare war compared to the normal cost of becoming an Ally of said CS?

 

[shiren]

First I want to say I'm by no means an elite player. I've been playing Greece from day 1 and came back after a long break to test the new patch. I'm still able to beat Deity consistently using the same core strat I used before. I understand that the setting matters a lot, mostly I play conquest on crowded maps (large continents with 19 AI/28 CS), standard speed with default settings.

If there is one thing Greece can do better than any other civ is farm xp from CS (Mongols being the second best). By exploiting the UA, Greece can get elite units faster than anyone. My whole strat resolves around getting my units to level 5 as fast as possible. Without going into much details, basically, by exploting the Greece UA I usually have 2 swordsmen lvl 5 (march), 2 lvl 3 (medics) and 2 lvl 5 archers by turn 60 and 2 or 3 lvl 5 cats before turn 100. Ranged units with logistics/range and indirect fire, even archers, will give you complete control over the battlefield for a long time.

Maybe it's my playstyle, but as fas as conquest goes, I feel that a well balanced elite army beats mass-pretty much anything (specially fresh, not promoted units). While mass keshiks or whatever will give you a big advatage and allow you to go on a conquest spree, eventually unhappiness will become a issue and force your army to a halt. I would rather have an army composed of fully upgraded infantary/tanks/artillery when industrial age hits instead of a lot of fully upgraded tanks and a bunch of low level inf/art. When using other civs and focusing on science I'm able to get artillery faster than with Greece, but with Greece I'm able to get a fully promoted artillery (upgraded cannon) way faster.

I tried hardcore xp farming with other civs, and while it's quite doable, it just takes more effort/turns/units. No one can do it as fast and effectively as Greece.

 

[Becephalus]

Actually, selling strategics is perfectly sensible on both sides of the trade. AIs that have surplus copies won't buy them; AIs that have no desire to build the associated units won't buy them.

Describe to me the likelihood of a situation where a player would buy strategics from an AI? I think I have done it once in dozens of games.

Yet I see players do it to the AI constantly.