Greece

[LifeOfBrian]

Playing on Deity... I really miss the old Alexander being a pain in the ass in my games.

 

[Favorius]

In one of my recent games, Washington was steamrolling on Alexander in classical-medieval era.

 

[ohhaimark]

I guess I'll try to bring a seemingly dead horse back to life by kicking it.

I think Greece needs a small buff. Hoplites don't really have much in comparison to other unique units. The x2 or .5 influence restore / decay is limited in use. The former encourages constant tribute demands early game instead of allying resulting in no cb bonus at that point. Late game, diplo civs like Austria and even non diplo civs make Greece's UA laughable.

The Acropolis is fine for the early game but really does fall off.

I think that before the Acropolis change, Greece even though disposed to war, could still generate decent amounts of culture from the raw amounts killing units gave. Now it seems that Greece struggles to stay afloat.

I would propose any of the following to be implemented. I think any can improve Greece's game enough where they will be relevant but not overpowered:

Influence with city states doesn't decay during war.

Hoplites being given an additional promotion on creation. Phalanx doesn't really compare to other ancient UU abilities (faith generation, jungle and mountain movement / combat bonuses, 2x heal etc.). I think Hoplites should also receive either a further bonus against mounted and ranged units, or have the phalanx bonuses increased. The combat bonuses from city state allies is not usually around at this point in the game (unless a city state is far enough away you don't demand tribute).
great generals are nice but I don't think it is enough.

Acropolis is reverted to previous culture in all cities per kill OR additional culture is given on city capture.

Historically, Alexander adopted the culture of those he successfully defeated (Persia, Egypt, Anatolian tribes etc.). I think it makes sense in the context for him to gain additional culture on capture as well.

If looking to another period in time, the Delian league, Athens was pretty good at bullying its neighbors after they banded together to defeat the invading Persian empire. A small and synchronized buff could be granting either great general points (making generation fast enough where hoplite generation is a decent ability) or additional primary yields from demanding tribute.

 

[pineappledan]

Discipline only gives +5% CS and +5% for having an adjacent unit. ie. it is binary, on/off, max of 5%.

Compare to Encirclement, which gives +10% Per adjacent friendly unit (and +10 HP on kills). ie, max of 60%

Discipline could definitely stand to be buffed.

EDIT:
And I guess I'll just keep beating this other dead horse too. Acropolis gives 25 locally on kill AND 5 globally to each acropolis, for an absolute minimum of 30 on kill. And yet, we have some people complaining it's not enough.

the Terracotta World Wonder gives 10 locally on kill, less than a third. What gives?

 

[ohhaimark]

Discipline only gives +5% CS and +5% for having an adjacent unit. ie. it is binary, on/off, max of 5%.

Compare to Encirclement, which gives +10% Per adjacent friendly unit (and +10 HP on kills). ie, max of 60%

Discipline could definitely stand to be buffed.

EDIT:
And I guess I'll just keep beating this other dead horse too. Acropolis gives 25 locally on kill AND 5 globally to each acropolis, for an absolute minimum of 30 on kill. And yet, we have some people complaining it's not enough.

the Terracotta World Wonder gives 10 locally on kill, less than a third. What gives?

Maybe I'm just spoiled from the previous version of the acropolis. But I like to think Greece is supposed to be one of the more versatile warmongering civs. Of course your game plan revolves around war, but compared to the civs that go for straight domination (Sweden, Zulu, Mongolia) Greece's domination game feels lackluster. To me at least, Greece's former high culture output plus the acropolis's writing bonus allowed them to explore artistry instead of statecraft.

I guess my gripes just come from believing Greece is a civ that uses warmongering to explore decent culture and diplomatic situations rather than a straight warmonger

 

[pineappledan]

I think Acropolis' culture is in a fine spot. I am saying that Terracotta is very low. I think Terracotta could be increased to 40 on kill and still not be considered broken, but I would go for 25-30 ideally.

I don't consider Greece that flexible. They are a warmonger that wants to go statecraft. Diplo is already a victory path that is best facilitated by going wide, so diplomacy and warmongering both feed into each other. The two major flavors on Greece are pretty strongly self-reinforced, so I struggle to even call it a hybrid civ. Siam is much the same, though they lean on the diplomacy aspect harder than the warmonger aspect.

 

[ohhaimark]

I think Acropolis' culture is in a fine spot. I am saying that Terracotta is very low. I think Terracotta could be increased to 40 on kill and still not be considered broken, but I would go for 25-30 ideally.

I don't consider Greece that flexible. They are a warmonger that wants to go statecraft. Diplo is already a victory path that is best facilitated by going wide, so diplomacy and warmongering both feed into each other. The two major flavors on Greece are pretty strongly self-reinforced, so I struggle to even call it a hybrid civ. Siam is much the same, though they lean on the diplomacy aspect harder than the warmonger aspect.

Do you consider Greece's diplomatic game strong overall? I think early game tribute is one of the strongest, but they get out competed until getting the third autocracy tenant- which is highly reliant on their military. I see Greece as a hybrid because it seems that neither are built to be strong enough on their own, but it also seems very hard to synergize them against higher difficulty AI who force you to focus one.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Greece AI has been consistently very bad in my games.

 

[chicorbeef]

Acropolis gives 25 locally on kill AND 5 globally to each acropolis

IIRC, it's +5 border growth globally, not Culture.

 

[pineappledan]

Right, I forgot CULTURE_LOCAL /=CULTURE

Point still stands tho, terracotta is still 2/5 the culture yields, even ignoring the global border growth

EDIT: I can also report that Greece has been either lowest or second-lowest in my last 2 games, one of which was 12-20-1. England and Vienna gobbled up all the city states, Greece became a minor city-state himself, he couldn’t effectively threaten anyone or get ahead in classical.

I definitely think doubling discipline to 10/10. I also wonder if changing the bonus from 25 culture in 1 city/5 border growth in all cities to 10 in 1 city and 5 culture in all cities. Ie. 15 in main city on kills and 5 in all other cities.

 

[Crag Hack]

EDIT: I can also report that Greece has been either lowest or second-lowest in my last 2 games

I can second that. I was playing Greece today and my score is second to lowest. Abandon game.

I couldn't do any wars early game. Rough terrain with mountains and chokepoints everywhere and difficult terrain overall to wage early wars.

So I emphasized instead diplomacy with city states. Got a few CS allies initially but once the others started spamming their emissaries, I lost very easy all allies. Some CS had ridiculous alliances of over 600 points....because so many Civs bid each other over in emissary wars.



In essence, the reduced influence degradation is all wiped out and totally useless. In a 43 Civ game the amount of emissaries spammed by the Civs is so high that I can't even make a single CS ally. Can't catch up to so many Civs spamming emissaries ever. What good it is for me that influence degrades slower provided every 5 turns someone pops an emissary and sends the influence up to the skies erasing all my advance. It is so bad that hey if you wish give Greece zero influence degradation. Guess what, the effect will be the same useless.

Greece's specialty is basically useless and loses the potency extremely fast as early as Medieval.

So with difficult terrain preventing me to use the strong hoplites very early, and with a mostly useless Civ trait, my score always remained at the bottom second to last. In Renaissance era and I just feel to abandon game and no point to lose further hours in it.

I have had victories with Greece but at this case went very badly. You really need early rush with Greece and good map rng for that. As for the diplo, forget it, it is weak Civ specialty as explained above.

 

[Drakle]

I can second that. I was playing Greece today and my score is second to lowest. Abandon game.

I couldn't do any wars early game. Rough terrain with mountains and chokepoints everywhere and difficult terrain overall to wage early wars.

So I emphasized instead diplomacy with city states. Got a few CS allies initially but once the others started spamming their emissaries, I lost very easy all allies. Some CS had ridiculous alliances of over 600 points....because so many Civs bid each other over in emissary wars.

In essence, the reduced influence degradation is all wiped out and totally useless. In a 43 Civ game the amount of emissaries spammed by the Civs is so high that I can't even make a single CS ally. Can't catch up to so many Civs spamming emissaries ever. What good it is for me that influence degrades slower provided every 5 turns someone pops an emissary and sends the influence up to the skies erasing all my advance. It is so bad that hey if you wish give Greece zero influence degradation. Guess what, the effect will be the same useless.

Greece's specialty is basically useless and loses the potency extremely fast as early as Medieval.

So with difficult terrain preventing me to use the strong hoplites very early, and with a mostly useless Civ trait, my score always remained at the bottom second to last. In Renaissance era and I just feel to abandon game and no point to lose further hours in it.

I have had victories with Greece but at this case went very badly. You really need early rush with Greece and good map rng for that. As for the diplo, forget it, it is weak Civ specialty as explained above.

The mod is balanced around a Standard number of civs, not 43. The normal ratio for games is something like 2 city states to 1 civ, not the reverse.

And the main part of Greece's UA is the military boost from alliances, not getting alliances. Germany doesn't really have any boost to getting alliances, but it is still a core part of its kit.

 

[Crag Hack]

The mod is balanced around a Standard number of civs, not 43. The normal ratio for games is something like 2 city states to 1 civ, not the reverse.

And the main part of Greece's UA is the military boost from alliances, not getting alliances. Germany doesn't really have any boost to getting alliances, but it is still a core part of its kit.

Agreed. It is easy to get early alliances, maybe 2. That gives you extra 10% combat strength. With a strong hoplite this is ideal for early rush on your neighbour. Fantastic.

But if the map rng is bad for wars, good luck. The opportunity window is small. As soon as pikemen are discovered, the hoplite advantage disappears. If you get late to rush your neighbour. Further the AI will start spamming emissaries and even the allies will disappear later.

In my game everything went bad. The terrain, the neighbours (Morocco is a emissary and GD spammer). Plus I made bad decision. I delayed researching settlers tech so late that I had to produce excess warriors. I delayed settlers tech because was rushing for Roman Forum. Guess what. Somebody got the wonder before me. From here everything went downhill and I got stuck at the bottom of the score list.

 

[Crag Hack]

Basically my mistake was to treat Greece as major diplo strategy. Wrong wrong wrong. Greece is major warmonger strategy. Early warmonger. Once you secure 2 capitals ideally, you can ease off on warmongering later and pursue diplo victory. But early on is warmongering is a must, hopefully aided but 2-3 CS alliances.

 

[tothePAIN]

Can we change Greece's usual policy tree from tradition to authority? I think Greece is ideally Authority / Statecraft / Imperialism / Autocracy. But the AI usually goes tradition. Current hoplites are buffed enough to make for a very strong push in the early game. It should be taken advantage of.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Basically my mistake was to treat Greece as major diplo strategy. Wrong wrong wrong. Greece is major warmonger strategy. Early warmonger. Once you secure 2 capitals ideally, you can ease off on warmongering later and pursue diplo victory. But early on is warmongering is a must, hopefully aided but 2-3 CS alliances.

Can we change Greece's usual policy tree from tradition to authority? I think Greece is ideally Authority / Statecraft / Imperialism / Autocracy. But the AI usually goes tradition. Current hoplites are buffed enough to make for a very strong push in the early game. It should be taken advantage of.

I had a really solid diplo win (turn 365) on Emperor recently with Greece: standard / continents / tradition / statecraft / industry / order

I played aggressive and rushed Zeus since I had copper monopoly, but only ever took 2 capitals - I wiped my neighboring authority America out completely as he was constantly bullying my allied CS, but it wasn't until medieval that I had any war, eventually moving in with my buffed pikemen. I then battled multiple wars through rough terrain on my southern border against Ethiopia while his Mehal Sefari were online (I did have 3/4UC mod, and the Klepht was a crucial unit to my success). Ethiopia had a tangible tech / policy / religion lead for a large part of the game, so it was a slog, but once I broke though it was just a matter of holding off the rest of the field and securing safety for my CS while waiting for global hegemony.

Tradition starts are still definitely viable with Alexander under certain conditions, but the AI would probably be best suited to use him aggressively with authority in most situations.

 

[tothePAIN]

I agree that tradition starts are viable - the AI just isn't aggressive enough with him while it has hoplites.

 

[randomnub]

Greece has one of the earliest UU, an offensive one. A classical UB, that gives yields on kill and little else. Its UA is about getting higher %CS from early lucky alliances or mid-late game, after it helps recovering influence loss from early tribute spam. If this kit doesn't scream Authority I don't know what other civ should follow the warmonger path You can have a successful game following any path but that's not playing your strengths. On deity Greece AI defaults to Tradition and that should be corrected imho. Also slighty off topic Shoshone default to Authority but then play as Progress so the AI default picks could be looked at

 

[kiwimaster]

Given how long it takes to get 5 allies for the cap at 25% combat bonus, does anybody else feel like it should maybe have a slightly higher cap like 35% (same 5%/ally ratio) to better serve warmongering potential in the late game? I feel like Greece just drops off too hard in power even from the medieval. In starts where my nearest neighbors have a lot of hills and chokepoints and my hoplite rush fails, I feel like there's not enough in Greece's toolkit that lets me stage a comeback. I mostly play on Immortal though, so maybe it's just my lack of skill, I dunno.

 

[Rekk]

The Hoplite Discipline promotion states:

+10% Combat Strength. +15% Combat Strength per Adjacent Friendly Unit

In actuality, the Hoplite gains +15% CS if it's adjacent to any adjacent friendly unit. It does not scale.

What needs to change? The tooltip or the promotion?