The Greek Cities

[williamsiddell]

For anyone like me who purchased recently.

Greek Cities, hard, huge, no time limit, free camera.

Why Greeks? Because of the phalanx, central capital (why go through shifting your capital when you choose other races), large number of early ports combined with the colossus.
Why hard? Others too easy and I aint masochist enough for very hard.
Why huge? 240 size peasants useful to control growth and happiness, and as a boost to low populations.
Why free camera? Just because a limited camera irritates me.

Main strategy.
Early - squeeze as much cash as you can from your cities, middle - low tax to boost growth (I find, contrary to what you may think, that speeding population growth fills the coffers), late - don't overstretch your armies and consolidate before expanding, very late - money coming out of your ears, so concentrate on conquest and bribe like there is no tomorrow. If you choose fast conquest expect the AI to attack cities behind your lines (all tribes do it).

Cities:
Some cities have built-in unrest. Tylis, Themiskyra, Tanais, Tarsus, Petra, Bostra, Dumatha, Batavodurum, Bordesholm, Mogontacum, Damme, Vicus Gothi, Croton, Vicus Macromani and Domus Dulcis Domus are a pain. Boosting growth with slaves up to 2000 is reasonable in these cases and some can cope with a boost to 6000. But generally avoid boosting otherwise because you'll have to stuff them with garrison peasants. Be aware of high growth cities such as Patavium - NEVER boost those! I think a growth rate of 5% or more means the city will grow at a rate faster than you can build. I try to work out how many turns it will take til promotion, then add up the build turns of buildings I want to build in the city so that I can work out a strategy for not promoting until I have completed all buildings in the current level.

Example:

City with pop of 2300 and growth rate of 3% will grow at roughly 70 (3/100 x 2300) per turn. To reach 6000 with take many turns (roughly 50). Building will require about 15 turns. So this city is a candidate for boosting by either slaves (requiring the presence of a general) or peasants built in a nearby city whose population you wish to control.

Cities close to your capital are prime targets for slave boosting. They have low corruption or happiness issues so you should keep a few generals handy and aim to get them to 24000 as soon as sensible. Bear in mind growth slows rapidly with size.

Culture penalty:

Your priority on capturing a city should be to reduce this penalty ASAP. Each city will ignore one foreign building and the one I usually don't replace is the wall. Unfortunately Greeks can't upgrade paved roads so where they are already in place the wall must be improved. The Pyramids cancel Egyptian culture penalties in all cities.

Military buildings:

Are never worth upgrading because your front lines will have moved on before you see the benefit and the next city you take may well have better buildings. Deleting unneeded military buildings in a newly captured city is a necessity to reduce culture penalties.

Temples:

Athena is the default. Aphrodite is very useful in low growth cities near your capital, especially on islands (Kydonia and Rhodes benefit). As you near 24000 in those cities you should switch to Athena. The other two temples I never use and delete them where I find them. They penalise public order in return for a unit bonus (units need to stop in the city to gain the bonus) or boost income (some of this boost will be taken up by garrison units required to cover for the loss of public order Athena provides). In some Greek cities you will see temples that look like yours - but they aint! Delete them cos they won't upgrade. Finally, some foreign temples have very useful bonuses associated with units - take advantage then delete. Egyptian temple bonuses take full effect when you take the Pyramids.