The Greeks!

[Tehhiv]

Played my first game as Greece over the last couple days and loved them. Their UA mixed with Patronage seems too be godlike. I never had to battle with happiness, or luxury/strategic resources. Does any one else play them? Especially on higher difficulties. (I was playing king). Are there any strategies or things I should focus on with them. They seem too be balanced enough too go for any victory type.

 

[sufficiency]

IMO there is no point to play Greece when you can play Siam, but that's mostly because how broken pledge + ascetics is. Greece does have some interesting perks though.

 

[Ra's Head]

The Greek UA is good, and obviously strong when combined with patronage. I think it is harder to outbid the AI on city states on higher difficulties, so that it is not quite as effective there. The other thing is that their UUs are a little underwhelming to me. The hoplite is ok, but comes earlier than I typically war (my fault not theirs) and the horsemen replacement is a horse unit which means they are bad at taking cities. Most early war focuses on composite bows anyway, so I feel these units are largely unneeded.

On the other hand, Siam has a strong UU and UB, plus a UA that increases the bonuses from city states. Using the Aesthetics policy and pledging to protect gives friendship with all city states, so any civ can get easy friendships. Overall, I agree with sufficiency on this, but Greece can be fun to play and at King and below can ally every CS and laugh at everyone else. Still, once you go Naresuan's Elephant, you never go back.

 

[Gucumatz]

The Companion Cavalry unit is amazing. I would rate it as better than Siam's UU easily. 5 movement, a ton of extra strength, great general promotions, just leads to you being able to mow down any range based units. And if you neglect to build knights you can spam a couple of those with using only a little production and still clear out Siamese elephants with no issue at all using pillaging and tactics to supplement.

The Hoplite is pretty much trash though

 

[tetley]

You use Greek UU's to war early before their CS ability begins to kick in. And you demand tribute early: you recover the influence back quickly.

I just finished a Greek game on a large map with 4 Militaristic allies + Order. That's a free unit every turn. It's like you set out for a diplomatic victory and end up with a total domination. And the power of having CS' fight on your side in wars instead of the other is not to be understated. Siam does not outdo Greece for militaristic allies or on the number of allies in general.

 

[Light Cleric]

Siam and Greece manage the city-states(and everything else) differently, because Siam gets the increased food/culture/faith while Greece is better at maintaining more allies. They're also broken with Papal Primacy + the Patronage opener because their influence will never freaking decay; incidentally that's why I think Papal Primacy should be reworked, it's either very very abusive or not useful at all.

Also, I would certainly not put the Companion Cav over Siam's UU(Stampy). Stampy has a whopping 25 strength at a point in the game where the whole things that can stand up to them are Pikes/Muskets/fortified Longswords, not to mention the +50% bonus vs mounted to just crush other Knights. It's more defensive than offensive(although it can do that okay too), and it's a real monster on defense. Unless you're playing a civ that matches up very well(Spain in particular is awesome) you're in for some pain, especially if the AI grabbed something like Himeji Castle.

 

[tetley]

I don't think Papal+Patronage is broken. If influence decays at zero vs. 0.25, it's not a big difference. And if you get some ungodly influence like 431/60 instead of 235/60, that's not a big difference either.

Those elephants are good, but not flat out broken, because of their movement. If you have a bonus vs. mounted but you are slower than them--pikes are already that.

 

[Light Cleric]

I don't think Papal+Patronage is broken. If influence decays at zero vs. 0.25, it's not a big difference. And if you get some ungodly influence like 431/60 instead of 235/60, that's not a big difference either.

Those elephants are good, but not flat out broken, because of their movement. If you have a bonus vs. mounted but you are slower than them--pikes are already that.

They have 3 movement instead of 2 and have 37.5 strength(more than a Rifle/Cavalry) vs mounted units instead of a Pike's 24; that is a HUUUUUGE difference. Like, "absolutely crushing a Knight instead of chipping at it" huge.

Actually what I really wish would get changed with Patronage is the final 2 policies, they're pretty bad. 90% of the time Educated Elite just messes up whatever plan you were going for.

 

[tetley]

It's strange, but I actually did not go up the Patronage tree my last game as Greeks. I didn't need -25% influence decay, I didn't need to give gold gifts; and even if I did, I didn't need to give MORE, because it didn't decay. Didn't need +20 to resting point, either. In theory, one would think you could multiply Patronage bonuses by all the city-states Greece has, but in practice, that was not my experience. That game I actually found Order better: multiplying 4 militaristic allies by 2x the unit gifts was quite the kicker.

 

[Light Cleric]

Well, it depends on your difficulty level too I guess, because the AI is much more likely to fling gold at city-states or pull insane B.S. coups as you go up to Immortal+ so you actually have to fight for them. Of course on the other hand the AI is also much more deranged and likely to just murder city-states straight up.

The main benefit I found in Patronage as Greece has been Scholasticism. It's also not an either/or proposition with Order because they're two full eras apart; of course, by the time I can get a third policy into Order, the game has been pretty much decided anyway.

It's hardly a mandatory tree, of course, I mostly find it very handy to make Hostile city-states that much more manageable on top of the UA and to make my less frequent gifts that much more effective.

 

[tetley]

Even when the AI's flinging gold at them, the only SP that helps is the gold one. -25% decay and +20 resting point don't help. I do consider Patronage either/or because I'm going down Tradition path, followed by Rationalism. No time to do that and Patronage as well. Scholasticism is most definitely helpful, but I was already going down the Rationalism path, so....

I don't think the 2X units from Order would have decided the game, but it certainly helped take out a runaway. Before that, I still had 4 militaristics--that's still a lot, 2X or no 2X. I took down the little guys first. Then with 2X I faced the runaway straight up--I deadlocked him in war. And I didn't care if I lost units, because they were free anyway. Faith purchased GE's and GS', finished Rationalism, rushed Hubble, Giant Death Robots, dead.

 

[Light Cleric]

Again, they're in different eras. You can work up to Scholasticism a bit and then work on Rationalism. It also means you don't have to worry about screwing your policy timing with pre-Reinessance policies. You can get silly BPT with Free Thought + Secularism + Scholasticism

-25% decay does help out in a way because when an AI throws gold/finishes a quest, you have less net ground to make up, but I wouldn't open Patronage JUST for that as Greece.

And yeah, all my games have been WELL decided before Giant Death Robots start coming out idk when's the last time I actually used one.

 

[tetley]

My game probably would have normally been decided, with the runaway. The 4 militaristics un-decided it.

 

[sufficiency]

Siam and Greece manage the city-states(and everything else) differently, because Siam gets the increased food/culture/faith while Greece is better at maintaining more allies. They're also broken with Papal Primacy + the Patronage opener because their influence will never freaking decay; incidentally that's why I think Papal Primacy should be reworked, it's either very very abusive or not useful at all.

Also, I would certainly not put the Companion Cav over Siam's UU(Stampy). Stampy has a whopping 25 strength at a point in the game where the whole things that can stand up to them are Pikes/Muskets/fortified Longswords, not to mention the +50% bonus vs mounted to just crush other Knights. It's more defensive than offensive(although it can do that okay too), and it's a real monster on defense. Unless you're playing a civ that matches up very well(Spain in particular is awesome) you're in for some pain, especially if the AI grabbed something like Himeji Castle.

Papal Primacy is utterly useless on Greece, because with Patronage opener, Greek UA, and dominate religion (regardless of founder belief), influence does not decay at all. You can keep a CS as your ally forever until the introduction of spies (even so, vote rigging can only hurt your influence so much).

 

[Light Cleric]

Papal Primacy is utterly useless on Greece, because with Patronage opener, Greek UA, and dominate religion (regardless of founder belief), influence does not decay at all. You can keep a CS as your ally forever until the introduction of spies (even so, vote rigging can only hurt your influence so much).

I thought that didn't work for Hostile CSes so primal was there to keep them as friends guaranteed, but if I'm wrong then whoops.

I never take PP anyway, Ceremonial Burial and Tithe and even Interfaith Dialogue are so much better.

 

[JanghanHong]

I think Greece might be the only civ with a hidden UA.

You can tresspass city-states all you want, even when you aren't friends, the influence will never decay. You can use city-states to hide and heal your scout if the area is extra barby.

 

[kirbdog]

The UA is great. The UUs are kinda crap on quick settings, average at best on standard, but could be kinda godly on epic or marathon, where they could win you more than one early war.

 

[JanghanHong]

The UA is great. The UUs are kinda crap on quick settings, average at best on standard, but could be kinda godly on epic or marathon, where they could win you more than one early war.

Isn't there an achievement for domination victory as Alexander before 350AD? Recreating Alexander's conquest on marathon or epic setting would be super fun on a real world map.

 

[budweiser]

Isn't there an achievement for domination victory as Alexander before 350AD? Recreating Alexander's conquest on marathon or epic setting would be super fun on a real world map.

Yes, and in vanilla he was OP with his horses. He gets overlooked now in G&K, perceived as nerfed.