Refining the Greeks

[TyShine]

I used the Greeks today. Moved my settler, got 7 cities early and a horsearmy. Took another guys settler with wandering warrior and he quits.

My advice to how to use the Greeks? Remember they arent very good so be on top of your game. As far as actual advice. Mounter irrigation as democracy can help you get there fast, and its never a good idea to let the other guy have it late. If you want units in your cities then consider warriors as they are 10 hammers and pikeman wont stop horsearmies unless you are lucky. Half cost libraries are ok, but use them sparingly. More cities are generally the answer, but limited space or dye then why not.

Just stick to the basics, aggression and expansion.

[dukeblue1987]

I used the Greeks today. Moved my settler, got 7 cities early and a horsearmy. Took another guys settler with wandering warrior and he quits.

My advice to how to use the Greeks? Remember they arent very good so be on top of your game. As far as actual advice. Mounter irrigation as democracy can help you get there fast, and its never a good idea to let the other guy have it late. If you want units in your cities then consider warriors as they are 10 hammers and pikeman wont stop horsearmies unless you are lucky. Half cost libraries are ok, but use them sparingly. More cities are generally the answer, but limited space or dye then why not.

Just stick to the basics, aggression and expansion.

Good advice.

The one thing I do like about the 1/2 cost library..... If you're closing in on the 105/turn threshold you can plop down a pop 4 dye city and rush a library in it. That is an extra 33?/turn. I wouldn't try to use more than 2 libraries though, as you start to make your cities very one dimensional. Switching to gold or hammers seems like a waste if it has a library.

[Maniac76]

I played a games yesterday Vs Doc (a player in the civ chat rooms on ps3) fairly decent player. His Romans Vs my Greeks. AI was Zulu, Spain and Arabs.

I didn't settler walk (I need more practice to master this) but did manage to get a walk in on the Zulu. The demo really helps here. They (the zulu) could have walked back into the city, but due to democracy they didn't !!

I was growing Athens from 2,400 BC but lost a turn due to anorchy. So then got my 100g city then went for irr.

Got there first then went for col and went from 3 to 7 cities fast. Left Athens as was. Sset up 2 build cities (1 with workshop and the other with oak) then went for Knights. Build 6 / 7 knight armies and took out the Spanish (3 cities) and stole 2 sets of settlers. Built a vet galleon fleet and loaded of 4 KAs as a suprise force which I sent to land behind his lines.

I had around 12 or so cities around 300 AD and was now way past 14 techs (more like 18/ 19) so built 2 cheap libraries elsewhere as well. He saw my knights coming from Spain (3 KAs) and rushed gunpowder and a rifleman army. Rome was teching hard and was only 3 / 4 tech behind, but had no build. He had prepared for the head on rush but not my other (vet galleon fleet one). I land take 2 cities in 2 turns then he quits.

So Vs a decent (ish) player in H2H the Greeks did very well due to taking an early AI cap because of democracy.

The more I have played with teh Greeks the weaker they feel. I never have the over powered feeling I sometimes get with Spanish or India, and I have played way more games as the Greeks.

WHat the Greeks do well is be stream lined. Maybe I have run the course with them after all. The more I try and look for better ways to play them I seem to hit a blank. I was luky because he left me alone and he didn't take out teh AI's early.

Im starting te think that the only way to stand a decent chance against a good player would be to settler walk and make sure I got an early cap.

Thanks

[dukeblue1987]

I didn't settler walk (I need more practice to master this) but did manage to get a walk in on the Zulu. The demo really helps here. They (the zulu) could have walked back into the city, but due to democracy they didn't !!

Thanks

If you went to anarchy the turn you walked in... you're very lucky it didnt freeze.

[MadDjinn]

ahh.. .I go away and you guys start beating up on the greeks

@ Duke: My mongol play is far superior to your greek play, so that's not even a fair comparison, especially in that game. (it was Infiltration keshiks that took the cap, so 12 v 15 which happens from time to time)

Yeah, the greeks can feel like your stuck waiting for the other guy to do something and you just need a bit more time. But, it's not always that way.

Yeah, Greeks play much better in FFA than they do in H2H. Does that make them worse? no. H2H is not the end all be all of games. Are they a good choice in H2H? well, there are enough H2H specialist civs out there that you shouldn't need to choose them. Do those same civs do as well in FFA? Not really. So are they worse? No.

Greeks go for the mid-long game. Most of you who are frustrated with them go for the short game; or expect the short game determines the long game. Sometimes it does, most times it doesn't. You can take 3 caps with horses and think you've basically won. A greek wanders in with cat/pike armies not long after that and you've got nothing to counter it and can then lose all of that hard work.

This isn't a stretch to think of it that way, since we all somewhat agree that Indian medieval legion rushes, Arab cat presses and Spanish Galleon/legion rushes are great. They land after the horse rush is over, so somehow they survived and did it. Why not the greeks?

What it really comes down to is this: Where did you settle Athens? did you try to choose a tech vs. dom. city location? Did you settle by 3-4 hills to go aggressive? Did you settle by whales/dye/etc to go passive with the 2nd city being a production spot?

Anarchy isn't really an issue. Say you're making 20 beakers/turn not in Dem. One turn anarchy loses you 20 beakers. After the switch you're into 30 beakers/turn. After 2 turns you made up for the 20 beakers. Don't switch to anarchy if you really really need something produced right now.

And then there's the all important switch to anarchy on turn 2 before you settle on turn 3+ as then the anarchy affects nothing if you're cap hunting.

anywhom... greeks vs. top players? Yeah. But you have to change your thought patterns to make them shine. Yes, the relative gold gains is very important for them if you go passive. Which is why they're better at FFA, since the gold on the map is generally spread out more.

We had that FFA tourney with all top players + me being greeks. Had I managed a few basics (like chokes) then I'm very sure thrasher would not have gotten away with the win so easily.

[MorteEterna]

You have all got to see my greeks

I still have no problems and reading greeks strategies I think and could say.. Ok, you can start using greeks, win some games, but you are far from what you should do.

Going for hills + construction for example in my opinion is usless. There are better things to do, like teching. And going for catapults + galleons could be a good idea, easy to do since you get a lot of overflow.

I usually take capitals with warriors, so there is no need to horse rush. Just defend, get few cities, defend them, and who cares about those horsemen trying to press.

[dukeblue1987]

ahh.. .I go away and you guys start beating up on the greeks

@ Duke: My mongol play is far superior to your greek play, so that's not even a fair comparison, especially in that game. (it was Infiltration keshiks that took the cap, so 12 v 15 which happens from time to time)

Yeah, the greeks can feel like your stuck waiting for the other guy to do something and you just need a bit more time. But, it's not always that way.

Yeah, Greeks play much better in FFA than they do in H2H. Does that make them worse? no. H2H is not the end all be all of games. Are they a good choice in H2H? well, there are enough H2H specialist civs out there that you shouldn't need to choose them. Do those same civs do as well in FFA? Not really. So are they worse? No.

Greeks go for the mid-long game. Most of you who are frustrated with them go for the short game; or expect the short game determines the long game. Sometimes it does, most times it doesn't. You can take 3 caps with horses and think you've basically won. A greek wanders in with cat/pike armies not long after that and you've got nothing to counter it and can then lose all of that hard work.

This isn't a stretch to think of it that way, since we all somewhat agree that Indian medieval legion rushes, Arab cat presses and Spanish Galleon/legion rushes are great. They land after the horse rush is over, so somehow they survived and did it. Why not the greeks?

What it really comes down to is this: Where did you settle Athens? did you try to choose a tech vs. dom. city location? Did you settle by 3-4 hills to go aggressive? Did you settle by whales/dye/etc to go passive with the 2nd city being a production spot?

Anarchy isn't really an issue. Say you're making 20 beakers/turn not in Dem. One turn anarchy loses you 20 beakers. After the switch you're into 30 beakers/turn. After 2 turns you made up for the 20 beakers. Don't switch to anarchy if you really really need something produced right now.

And then there's the all important switch to anarchy on turn 2 before you settle on turn 3+ as then the anarchy affects nothing if you're cap hunting.

anywhom... greeks vs. top players? Yeah. But you have to change your thought patterns to make them shine. Yes, the relative gold gains is very important for them if you go passive. Which is why they're better at FFA, since the gold on the map is generally spread out more.

We had that FFA tourney with all top players + me being greeks. Had I managed a few basics (like chokes) then I'm very sure thrasher would not have gotten away with the win so easily.

First off, that Greek/Mongol game was a perfect example of what happens when you give up the map. You expand everywhere and have bombers before 0. Obviously you had a good game, but any civ will have bombers between 0-500AD in the hands of an elite player with little pressure.

The Greeks can't get multiple cat/knight armies before 500BC very reliably. By then, the game is probably already lost. You might take 1-2 cities, but at that point the other person should be making around 50g per turn which is plenty to rush a few legion armies and a couple archers.

Also, I've repeated several times that the Greeks are a good FFA civ. They just suck at H2H against good players.

[Pedal2Metal]

We had that FFA tourney with all top players + me being greeks. Had I managed a few basics (like chokes) then I'm very sure thrasher would not have gotten away with the win so easily.

Maybe. I watched that game. If I recall, Thrasher was 1st, P2M2 was 2nd (Aztecs), Headless was third (English) & MadDjinn was last (Greeks). Now it wasn't your best effort & chokes weren't all that easy to come by with the Aztecs running around & forcing you to go to the islands.

Greeks need to be left alone is the moral of the story imo. I would very much like to see Morte play a few games with them though as I'd like to play them better & I think a tournament format with him as Greeks against top players would be instructive for the rest of us.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

[MorteEterna]

Maybe. I watched that game. If I recall, Thrasher was 1st, P2M2 was 2nd (Aztecs), Headless was third (English) & MadDjinn was last (Greeks). Now it wasn't your best effort & chokes weren't all that easy to come by with the Aztecs running around & forcing you to go to the islands.

Greeks need to be left alone is the moral of the story imo. I would very much like to see Morte play a few games with them though as I'd like to play them better & I think a tournament format with him as Greeks against top players would be instructive for the rest of us.

best regards,
Pedal2Metal

I would like to do that kind of tournament, so that would be easy for me to find some players to play with.

If you start it and put some rules, I'll try to do something, Greeks only for me, all civs for others.

[GrizzleyTigers4]

I would like to do that kind of tournament, so that would be easy for me to find some players to play with.

If you start it and put some rules, I'll try to do something, Greeks only for me, all civs for others.

Well Morte already has the Greeks in the ICL so there is no need for another tournament just so Morte can use the Greeks. BTW....are you planning on playing your ICL matches Morte?

[MorteEterna]

Well Morte already has the Greeks in the ICL so there is no need for another tournament just so Morte can use the Greeks. BTW....are you planning on playing your ICL matches Morte?

I can't find these players online, and can't connect to ElTrasher, so it's even worse.

However just playing 1 match every some weeks isn't going to prove anything.

[dukeblue1987]

I can't find these players online, and can't connect to ElTrasher, so it's even worse.

However just playing 1 match every some weeks isn't going to prove anything.

The extreme time difference makes it pretty hard to find Morte online....

[MorteEterna]

The extreme time difference makes it pretty hard to find Morte online....

That was a bad thing for me since I couldn't find many top players online. Top players mean a lot of ranks earnt

However, I could play now if you want. However, it's really hard, true.

[dukeblue1987]

That was a bad thing for me since I couldn't find many top players online. Top players mean a lot of ranks earnt

However, I could play now if you want. However, it's really hard, true.

This is the problem, I have work then class for the next 8 hours most days

And when I play, you are sleeping or at class.

[MorteEterna]

This is the problem, I have work then class for the next 8 hours most days

And when I play, you are sleeping or at class.

Uhm, hard to play I think. Maybe on week-ends but it's hard to sacrifice week-ends for some games

[Zefelius]

Now that I got my frosting account in the top 10, I can concentrate on my other one (marshmallowmesh) to practice with the Greeks and follow up on my promise to see if their basic style can be refined. In part I wrote this thread to challenge the usual paradigm of playing them by saying that the early library approach isn't necessarily the best, although most players out there still rely on this in the majority of their games. Some players questioned me as to whether this meant giving up the distinctive boni associated with the Greeks, and I replied that it wasn't an either/or proposition: either you expand like other civs or play it super minimilist with two cities on the way to Irrig (from which, I believe, one generally uses the extra pop to expand from city #2). I argued that there was a middle ground in which you can expand somewhat but also use Athens to significant effect.

To make this argument work, it was necessary to draw from other people's insights, such as being aggressive with the Greeks early on, changing from demo to despotism, and a bunch of other ideas already expressed in this thread. All I tried to do was steal these ideas from everyone else and then add one more of my own concerning the delayed library approach---so this strat is kind of new, but also kind of not new.

So now I'll spend a few weeks refining it to see if the whole idea was lousy or not. I already played one game tonight, and went aggressive early, but the other guy quit too early to really test anything substantial in the middle part of the game. But it did confirm for me that the opening has at least two options: aggressive or passive. I think the early library option goes well with the passive opening, which for me arises when you're trapped early on. If your opponent is an average player, this means you can sail to islands and explore there if the enemy (such as a Zulu rusher) has already got to you. In this case you'd build the library as soon as you can as a kind of hail mary.

But in my game tonight going aggressive was better. In this scenario, although tonight's game didn't proceed far enough to make more observations, I think the delayed library is optimal. Since everyone agrees here that good players slow each other down, I don't see the reason why growth in Athens has to start in 3500 if you're already putting pressure on the enemy. That by definition should mean that you're buying yourself time in terms of grabbing more gold, conquering caps, and claiming geography.

From there you can decide when it is best to start growing, and I think it will depend upon how quickly you get a cap or your 100 gold settler or both. I'll have to elaborate this later on, but for the moment my thinking is that if you get both a cap and your 100 gold in decent time, you can proceed growing for the library fairly quickly, in the 2000s I'd say. This is because you can get two more settlers from those two other cities. But otherwise you may need to grow Athens for a settler before proceeding to grow it for the library. This is one controversial part of the strat, which I hope to show is viable in the coming weeks.

If anyone would like to play me in Player Matches, I'd be happy to improve this strat and thereby refine it in the context of great competition---which will help create a better learning experience as opposed to matching up against noobs in rank.

Elaborations will be posted in comment #2 above in this thread, and are subject to lots and lots of changes as more data rolls in!!

[MorteEterna]

I could tell I've seen good players with every civ, I mean for example one good with spain, one good with england, etc...

BUT! I haven't seen yet one player in all my game experience that can use them

At the moment, I think in a 1v1 match as the greeks I would win most of these games. However, I don't understand why people avoid my tips etc..

Aggression by using warriors (no horsemen needed), expand to about 4 cities as fast as possible, switch to demo and get all the technologies you need.

As the greeks, I've almost beat mawpak (sorry if the name is wrong) using the Americans. I did some mistakes but considering there are worse players playing in ranked, it could mean getting a lot of wins.

You don't need many cities, maybe 8 and do everything you need.

[Legatus]

I stink with the Greeks. I even have a hard time in single player using them. Multiplayer, naturally, hasn't gone well either.

From reading this and this about a recent MP game with them, the key really is controlling Democracy instead of letting it control you. Well, at least for me it is; too many times I allow myself to fall into a "dummy tech" playing style with Democracy, only to have things fall on my face because others caught up.

I, personally, need to use it as a situational advantage. I need to utilize in the same way I utilize when I obtain it early as another civ, be it taking over Greece or via a trade.

[Mawpawk]

I could tell I've seen good players with every civ, I mean for example one good with spain, one good with england, etc...

BUT! I haven't seen yet one player in all my game experience that can use them

At the moment, I think in a 1v1 match as the greeks I would win most of these games. However, I don't understand why people avoid my tips etc..

Aggression by using warriors (no horsemen needed), expand to about 4 cities as fast as possible, switch to demo and get all the technologies you need.

As the greeks, I've almost beat mawpak (sorry if the name is wrong) using the Americans. I did some mistakes but considering there are worse players playing in ranked, it could mean getting a lot of wins.

You don't need many cities, maybe 8 and do everything you need.

if i had been any other civ your greeks would have killed me for sure, the warrior army and hopilite combo is great, i tried for the first time going depsoitism on second turn and really had no clue what and when to change governments ( think i was playing mike,)his spanish out played me because i was trying 2 use republic then demo then republic then demo ,i get a feeling there is no need for republic if your greek?until modern?

bounding diddys pretty gd with greeks,faasamoa21boms is a greek veteran but not the greatest, grizz;s early greek game is hard but it ended there so im not sure the long term)
im not blowing your trumpet morte but from what i seen you do your the best greek player iv met so far, just based on me playing america and seeing your greek city landscapes and tech ability and attack/defense skills, and yes you probly had 8 or so cities 2 my 20ish

[Zefelius]

Mawpawk and I had a couple of games where I used the Greeks tonight. I need to use them much more to get the right city and tech counts, but in both of our games it wouldn't have mattered much. In the first I had lots of gold and an early KT knight to win, and in the second he had the AW GW (his English) plus 7C for the win. Even without the artifacts his play was solid in both games. He also asked for diplomacy after the GW in the second game, which is smart---as he knows I would have jumped all over him!

But I'm excited to play more games with them. I think Morte is on the right path with expansion, but I still want to keep tinkering with them to see if there are some good techniques for balancing the variables.

[Zefelius]

Lost to a Chinese player last night who wanted to fight the mid-game kind of fight (as opposed to expanding a lot and shooting for Industrialization, etc.). This made me realize that even in games in which you begin with an aggressive tilt, you may want to revert back to the prototypical early library model if your opponent is hiding behind AAs with moderate expansion. It will be slower than the usual model as you put it off due to being initially aggressive, but imo you should still be able to sustain a reasonable attack with galleons/cats/knights as your opponent didn't expand sufficiently and you can probably still pick up either a workshop or the free market.

In any case, it's a judgement call. In last night's game there are some other things I could have done differently, but nevertheless I've included this option in my slowly expanding Greek Choose Your Own Adventure section above in comment #2.

Definitely when I come back from Montreal I'll play almost nothing but Greeks, reread all the comments above from everyone, and hopefully have an interesting and flexible Greek strategy completed in December.