The Greek people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Pericles, under whom their colors are light blue and white; and Gorgo, under whom their colors are dark red and light blue.
The Greeks' civilization ability is Plato's Republic, which grants an additional 
Wildcard policy slot in any government. Their unique unit is the Hoplite (which replaces the Spearman), and their unique 
District is the Acropolis (which replaces the Theater Square).
Strategy[]
Starting bias: Tier 3 towards Hills (except Snow Hills)
Greece benefits from one of the game's most versatile abilities in Plato's Republic, a strong unique district in the Acropolis, and masses of 
Culture through peace or war from Pericles and Gorgo's leader abilities. The Hoplite may be something of a lackluster unique unit, but Greece can get itself off to a strong start nonetheless and catapult itself to a Cultural or Diplomatic Victory.
Plato's Republic[]
This ability is one of the strongest in the entire game. A Wildcard slot from the very beginning is an invaluable resource, and one that scales into the late game remarkably well. Simply being able to slot God King and Urban Planning at the same time is a great boon to crucial early turns, and pretty much guarantees Greece a fast pantheon. This transitions seamlessly into the ability to slot Revelation before researching Political Philosophy, which gives Greece a strong lead in the race to claim a Great Prophet. Combined with its enormous Culture output which allows it to race to crucial religious civics such as Reformed Church, Greece is a surprisingly strong religious civilization. However, their lack of any direct bonuses to 
Faith generation hampers them a bit. Perhaps consider picking beliefs such as Lay Ministry or World Church for a boost to your Culture before a dedicated religious civilization comes along and supplants your fledgling religion.
This extra Wildcard policy slot can help both leaders in different ways. Pericles may want to slot in a Diplomatic policy card to generate more 
Envoy, while Gorgo might want to slot in a Military policy card to gain an extra +1 
Combat Strength for her units.
As stated before, this ability has a multitude of uses, and this strategy is one among many. Use the Wildcard slot however you see fit.
Thermopylae (Gorgo)[]
Earn 
Culture from kills[]
Gorgo can (temporarily) ignore Monuments and build units to take down barbarians instead. Barbarian hunting will activate the 
Eureka for Bronze Working and Military Tradition, which will unlock Strategos (+2 
Great General points per turn), Encampments, and Hoplites. With these, Greece is well equipped to engage in some early conflict and amass a sizable cultural lead. Keep in mind that although Gorgo is encouraged to go to war, Greece has very few direct bonuses toward a Domination Victory. Your fights are, at this point, for the express purpose of gaining Culture, and your goal is to kill as many units as you can (unless you have a problematic neighbor you're looking to knock down a peg, in which case it is a good idea to capture some cities).
Bonus Combat Strength from Military Policies slotted[]
As Gorgo, your units will always be receiving a small combat strength bonus (unless you adopt Classical Republic as your government). In the early game, use your spare culture from kills to beeline for Political Philosophy so that you can unlock Oligarchy for the extra 
Military policy slot. In the middle game, Monarchy or Theocracy should be your choice of government. Monarchy should be preferred due to the two Wildcard slots that can allow you to slot additional Military Policies, but Theocracy can be useful in the case of a Religious Victory. In the late game, you should absolutely research Totalitarianism and adopt Fascism as your government for the four extra Military policy slots. Combined with Fascism's initial bonus to combat strength and the three Wildcard slots (two from Fascism, plus one from Greece's ability), all of your units will have up to +11 Combat Strength, which can be a large incentive to go for a late-game Domination Victory. In Gathering Storm, if you need to pick an Information Era government, then preferably research Venture Politics so that you can adopt Corporate Libertarianism as your government for the three Military policy slots and six Wildcard slots. However, if you are purely searching for Combat Strength and unit production, you may want to keep Fascism in order to avoid losing 
Science. Going for Castles or Printing can also be useful so that you can build the Alhambra for the extra Military policy slot, or the Forbidden City for the extra Wildcard policy slot.
Surrounded by Glory (Pericles)[]
Pericles' bonuses kick in later. Until then, it's possible to go for Mysticism and pick up either of the wildcard policies as a back-up route, or rush Political Philosophy and start focusing on city-states early. Should you rush, building the Apadana sets you up for even more Envoys if you get any wonders later. You should also try to get Kilwa Kisiwani for the increased city-state bonuses. Afterwards, it's a race against other civs to grab Envoys and Suzerainties. Building as many Acropoli as possible is key, for each one built grants one Envoy upon completion. Since Acropoli are already very easy to get high adjacency yields of Culture, many of them along with the Envoys they make allowing Suzerain status with many city-states will allow Pericles to gain truly astounding amounts of Culture!
Later in the game, you should make it a point to discover Totalitarianism. Even if you do not plan on adopting Fascism as your government, you'll get the Gunboat Diplomacy policy card, which will speed up your influence generation and make it easier for you to maintain your Suzerain status with city-states. In Gathering Storm, however, this policy card is unlocked with Ideology and you won't need to go out of your way.
Hoplite[]
Through numerous buffs, both directly and indirectly, Hoplites went from being one of the worst unique units in the game to one of the best early game units. Its high Combat Strength, cheap cost and lack of a strategic resource requirement means a rush with Hoplites can be deadly.
First of all, it gains 10 Combat Strength if it is next to another Hoplite, which is a strong and easy-to-satisfy bonus. This bonus will put Hoplites at 38 Combat Strength, only 2 Combat Strength lower than a Swordsman (considering that Swordsmen gain 5 Combat Strength when fighting anti-cavalry units). However, the fact that each Swordsman costs 20 
Iron with almost 1.5 times the 
Production cost of a Hoplite means an army of Hoplites can always beat out Swordsmen just because of sheer number and the speed at which you can train these units.
The minor buff to Hoplite's base Combat Strength (from 25 to 28), together with buffs towards anti-cavalry units, and the long list of nerfs to Swordsman and melee units in general mean now Hoplites can stand above pretty much any early game unit. Do take caution if your neighbors are either Maya, Vietnam, or Gaul, however: Maya has the Hul'che whose 
Ranged Strength almost rivals a Crossbowman, Vietnam is a highly defensive civilization with huge Combat Strength and 
Movement bonuses when you fight in their territory, and Gaul can almost instantly unlock Man-At-Arms at the same time Hoplites are available. If you are taking on these civilizations, train more Hoplites than normal, bolster their strength further with Oligarchy (which can raise the maximum Combat Strength of a Hoplite to 42, and if you play as Gorgo and slot in 4 Military cards, this Combat Strength can reach 46). Now that's power.
Acropolis[]
The Acropolis is a clear frontrunner for the title of "best piece of unique infrastructure in the game." This district is simple enough for even new players to handle properly, yet can grant a huge amount of Culture very early on, allowing Greece under either leader to reliably unlock civics at an unmatched speed.
In terms of gaining a high adjacency bonus, the Acropolis is the polar opposite of the standard Theater Square. The Acropolis gains +1 Culture per adjacent District, and +1 additional Culture (+2 Culture in total) if next to a City Center. Note that Acropoli must be built on Hills, which isn't that restrictive, but is something you should bear in mind when choosing places to settle. Since it isn't possible for an Acropolis to be adjacent to more than one City Center, it is also worth turning your attention to the Government Plaza and Entertainment Complex. The Acropolis earns 2 Culture when next to the Government Plaza and a whopping 3 Culture when next to an Entertainment Complex. Similar to how you position the Hansa cluster in the middle of 2 or 3 cities, or how you build a District cluster as Japan, you can try to find a location that is surrounded by Hills for the Government Plaza or an Entertainment Complex, and then try to put as many Acropoli as possible around it. This is theoretically possible with a Water Park as well, but the Entertainment Complex is unlocked much sooner and the Water Park's placement requirements make this extremely troublesome.
Two wonders that you should consider building early on as Greece are the Oracle and Colosseum. Building the Oracle boosts Drama and Poetry, the civic that unlocks the Acropolis, and in conjunction with Pingala and his Grants title, it will give large bonuses to all three kinds of 
Great People the district can generate. Since you want to build an early Entertainment Complex and surround it with many Acropoli and cities, it is convenient to try to build the Colosseum.
In addition to the Culture, each Acropolis awards 1 Envoy when completed. This is particularly useful for Pericles, whose leader ability functions best when he becomes the Suzerain of many city-states. Also, each Suzerainty grants 1 
Diplomatic Favor per turn, which allows Greece to be competitive for a Diplomatic Victory.
Victory Types[]
Greece's most reliable victory path is Cultural, with numerous advantages toward it from their unique bonuses and infrastructure; Diplomatic also makes effective use of their extra Envoy generation and especially Pericles' emphasis on Suzerainty. However, a Diplomatic Victory is somewhat difficult for Gorgo because of her inherent trait of accelerated 
Grievance decay. Gorgo is better used for a Domination Victory, though you may often unintentionally turn your warfare into the foundation for a Cultural Victory because of the massive bonuses from fighting. As stated above, Greece has a strong advantage towards founding a religion, but very little in the way of propagating it. Finally, their weakest victory path is Science, for which Greece has no substantial bonus aside from an extra policy slot for Rationalism or the like.
Counter Strategy[]
Greece can be an annoying opponent; their civ ability cannot be taken away from them, and the Hoplite is now a genuinely strong unit if trained in numbers. The leader abilities, however, are easier to counter.
Gorgo's leader ability only converts to a Culture yield if she can kill units, so focus on protecting your stronger units in particular (as the yield is based on the strength of the killed unit). You'll also be able to sneakily find out information about her simply by selecting one of your units and then hovering over one of hers (they don't even need to be near each other) - the number of Military policies she's running will be shown as a Combat Strength bonus! If this is low, she may not be on a war footing, and if it's high, she's missing out on other policy card bonuses.
Pericles, meanwhile, has a snowballing bonus reliant on claiming Suzerain status over city-states. You can compete with him for these (perhaps saving your energy for those with particularly valuable or synergistic Suzerain bonuses), or you can straight-up capture and potentially raze them! The latter is a particularly appealing option for Frederick Barbarossa, but any civ with early military advantages can consider it. In particular, Scythia and Mongolia will find it easier to launch their early cavalry rushes into city-states allied to Pericles than directly into his Hoplite army!
Civilopedia entry[]
The Classical (often termed the Hellenic) Age of Greece begins with the death of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC and ends with the assassination of Phillip II of Macedonia in 336 BC. It is fitting that the period is defined by the deaths of great men, for it was a bloody time – marked by two extended wars, the decline of influential city-states, the rise of Macedonian hegemony. But those 174 years also saw Greece lay the foundations for Western civilization: the beginnings of empiricism, artistic aesthetics, political structures, literary forms and most of what constitutes culture. So it was an age of contrasts, and an iconic period and place in world history.
The Greeks coined the term polis (which has been misused ever since) to denote their city-states; traditionally the term was used for the classic Athenian-style political unit – a central city dominating much smaller nearby towns and villages. But the term can also describe a grouping of allied smaller towns with no all-powerful central city, closer to the organization of Sparta. And that difference explains a lot about the history of classical Greece. There were four city-states more influential than the many others – Corinth, Thebes, Athens and Sparta. Each polis was a sovereign political entity, answerable only to its own citizens. Although the citizens of the city-states shared a common language, history and culture (Greek, of course), that did not stop them from bickering among themselves constantly and going to war with one-another as the mood took them. The Greeks might band together to face a common enemy, but such alliances were quickly abandoned when the immediate crisis was over and they could get back to slaughtering each other.
It all starts with the death of Peisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, in 512 BC. Having had enough of tyrants (note, the term did not have the modern pejorative sense), the Athenian nobles requested help from Sparta in overthrowing his son Hippias. The Spartan king Cleomenes tried to install a Spartan-style oligarchy to rule, but was trumped by the Athenian Cleisthenes who instituted a series of reforms that established an isonomic democracy where all citizens (save women and slaves, of course) have the same rights under law. Thus democracy came into civilization, and things just haven’t been the same since. The Spartans attacked Athens, seeking to restore their puppets, but the newly liberated citizens defended their city with great tenacity, and the frustrated Spartans were forced to withdraw. Thus began a rivalry between the two that would last for centuries.
The rivalry was quickly put on hold when a greater threat manifested itself … the Persians. From the 8th Century BC on, Greek colonists had been building cities in Ionia (the coast of Asia Minor). But by the mid-6th Century BC, these had all come under the dominion of the Persian Empire. In 499, these rose against their “oppressors” in the so-called Ionian Revolt; Athens and a few other Aegean city-states were intemperate enough to send military support to their fellow Greeks. Didn’t work. The allies were soundly defeated at the Battle of Lade in 494; then, in retaliation, the Persians marched through Macedonia and Thrace, pillaging everything, and sent a fleet through the Aegean, sinking everything. In 490 Darius the Great landed a Persian host (somewhere between 20,000 and 100,000 soldiers) in Attica intending to take Athens. They were met by a pitiful force of 9000 Athenians and 1000 Plataeans, who nevertheless stunned the Persians at Marathon. The victory bought the Greeks a decade to get ready for the next stage.
Not that they did much with the time except squabble among themselves. In 480 BC, the Persian Xerxes I launched another attack on Greece, this time personally leading some 300,000 troops onto the peninsula. The huge force rapidly overwhelmed the Greek cities in their path and marched inexorably towards Athens, supplied by sea from the equally large Persian fleet. After being briefly delayed by a small force of stubborn Spartans (only 300, so they say) along with 1100 Thespians and Thebans (whom nobody remembers) at the narrow pass of Thermopylae in September, Xerxes marched into Attica, taking and burning Athens, which had been evacuated.
Meanwhile, the Athenian-led coalition fleet of 271 galleys and triremes sallied to meet the Persians’ 800-some ships at the Straits of Artemisium. The day-long battle was a draw, but the Greeks could ill-afford the losses and, after hearing of the action at Thermopylae, valorously withdrew to the anchorage at Salamis. Xerxes, looking for a knock-out blow to force these stiff-necked Greeks to give up, rashly sent his fleet into the straits there. In the confined waters, the sheer number of Persian ships was a hindrance rather than a boon, and the superior Greek seamanship carried the day. (According to Herodotus, the lopsided casualty figures were the result of the fact that most of the Persians couldn’t swim, whereas the Greeks could make it to shore.)
Fearing being cut off in such a horrid place, and already short of food and supplies that couldn’t arrive by sea, Xerxes began a staged withdrawal towards the Hellespont. In 479 an allied force under the Spartan Pausanias defeated a sizeable Persian force left behind to “finish the Greeks.” The Athenian-led navy finished off the Persian fleet at Mycale, and then captured the Ionian Greek city of Byzantium the next year. Enrolling the island city-states into the Delian League (so named because its treasury was located on the sacred isle of Delos … though not for long), the Athenians swept the Persians from the Aegean. Sparta’s hoplites, having concluded that the war was over – as it was – went home.
With peace (or at least a facsimile), the Greeks settled down to create culture and civilization. Greek playwrights defined drama and comedy. Pericles plundered the Delian League treasury to build the Parthenon and other wonders. Sculptors Phidias and Myron and Polycletus brought marble, stone and bronze to life. Philosophers and sophists such as Socrates and Aristotle pondered the meaning of life and everything else in the Lyceum and libraries (and sometimes in the streets). Herodotus and Thucydides began recording “history.” Pythagoras and Eudoxus laid the foundations for Western mathematics. Religion was formalized, and the law codified. Hippocrates practiced medicine in Athens. And everything got written down, even those childhood fairy tales of Aesop’s. Who knows what else the Greeks may have accomplished … if they hadn’t started killing each other again.
Thucydides wrote the whole sordid affair down, so the world has a pretty good idea of what happened during the Peloponnesian Wars, a protracted struggle between the Athenian-led (putting it in the best light) Delian League and the Sparta-dominated Peloponnesian League. Even those city-states that tried to stay out of it – like Milos, which declined Athens’ offer to join the Delian League and was given the choice to either pay Athens taxes to be spared or be destroyed – ended up on the battlefield. The inconclusive First Peloponnesian War, begun in 460 BC ended in 445 with the Thirty-Years Peace, a treaty between Sparta and Athens that delineated their spheres of “influence.”
But each League tended to intrude on the affairs of the other, and soon enough, in 431 BC, they were at it once more. After a lot of marching about and bloodshed for a decade, the two sides agreed to the Peace of Nicias, the so-called “Fifty-Years Peace.” Didn’t last. More marching about, more bloodshed, lots of pillaging. Finally, in 415 Athens committed everything to a massive invasion of Syracuse in Sicily, a Greek colony of Corinth. It was a disaster, with the entire force utterly destroyed by 413. Meanwhile, the Persians were supporting rebellions against Athens’ high-handed ways on the Aegean islands. The final blow came in 405 when the Spartan admiral and 180 Peloponnesian League ships destroyed the new Athenian fleet at Aegospotami. Athens surrendered the following year, and Sparta reigned supreme in Greece.
The Spartan hegemony did not work out quite the way Sparta’s kings envisioned the new world order should be. In fact, for the next half-century, various clashes between Sparta and Thebes, Sparta and Athens again, Sparta and Thebes again, Sparta and a resurrected Boeotian confederacy settled nothing. No one proved able to unite or dominate Greece. The details of deceit, betrayal, battle and massacre are all too tedious to relate; suffice to say that with the city-states of southern Greece weakened by decades of brutal warfare, the balance of power moved north, to Macedonia.
Around 359 BC, Phillip II assumed the leadership of Macedonia, before this an uncouth and barbaric fringe of the Greek world. Being an ambitious sort, Phillip’s Macedonian hoplites soon overran the nearby territories of Paeonia, Illyria, and Thrace, taking the latter’s largest port Amphipolis in 357. A year later, Phillip conquered the Athenian-protected port of Pydna. The great (and prophetic, as it turned out) orator Demosthenes began loudly encouraging the Athenians and others to vigorously fight against Macedonian expansion, to little avail until too late. In 338 BC Philip II led an army south, accompanied by his 16-year-old son, Alexander, who had already proven himself in battle, having led a small Macedonian army to crush a previous Thracian uprising. After dispatching several smaller forces, Philip thoroughly defeated the combined army of Athens, Corinth, Thebes, Megara, Chalcis, Achaea, Epidaurus and Troezen at the Battle of Chaeronea. It has been argued that Phillip’s victory here makes it the most decisive battle of the ancient world.
Be that as it may, Phillip now turned his attention on Sparta and its few allies, whom had stayed out of the campaign. He spent the next year ravaging Spartan lands, making peace with the Spartan allies that opposed him, and trying to reason with the Spartans. His efforts bore some fruit, for in the latter half of 337 BC he managed to forge the League of Corinth (named thus because his army was camped there), which guaranteed peace across the lands of the League and military assistance for Phillip against the hated Persians. Everyone signed … save Sparta. The League proceeded to elect Phillip II strategos (commander) for the invasion.
With Greece now, in effect, securely under the thumb of Macedonia, an advanced force was sent from the north into Asia Minor in 336 to open the war. Phillip was to follow with the allied Greeks, a much larger force capable of reaching the heart of Persia. But, instead of conquering the known world – he left that to his son to accomplish – Phillip was assassinated by one of his bodyguards during his daughter’s marriage festival. Alexander became king of Macedon, and de facto ruler of all Greece, at the age of 20. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Cities[]
Citizens[]
| Males | Females | Modern males | Modern females |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agapetos | Apollonia | Aristides | Alethea |
| Alcibiades | Chloe | Basil | Callista |
| Demokritos | Eudoxia | Demetri | Electra |
| Diogenes | Hypatia | Gregorios | Hera |
| Heracleitos | Kallisto | Herakles | Io |
| Hippolytos | Ligeia | Kristos | Marina |
| Nereus | Lysistrate | Matthias | Melina |
| Phaidros | Pelagia | Pavlos | Nike |
| Sosigenes | Sappho | Silvanos | Rhea |
| Zotikos | Xanthe | Vasilis | Thetis |
Trivia[]
- Prior to the release of Gathering Storm, Gorgo's secondary color was a light blue-gray.
- The Greek civilization's symbol is a capitalized omega (Ω), the 24th and final letter of the Greek alphabet.
- The Greek civilization ability is named after Plato's dramatic dialogue on philosophy and political theory.
- Civilization VI is the first time that Greece has not been led by Alexander III.
Gallery[]
.jpg "Acropolis closeup (Civ6).jpg (1.08 MB)")
Videos[]
Related achievements[]
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12 Olympians
Have 12 Policy Slots as Greece
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Oratorical Skills
Win a regular game as Pericles
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See also[]
- Greek in other games
| Civilization VI Civilizations [edit] |
|---|
American • Arabian • Australian1 • Aztec • Babylonian1 • Brazilian • Byzantine1 • Canadian  • Chinese • Cree  • Dutch • Egyptian • English • Ethiopian1 • French • Gallic1 • Georgian • German • Gran Colombian1 • Greek • Hungarian • Incan • Indian • Indonesian1 • Japanese • Khmer1 • Kongolese • Korean • Macedonian1 • Malian • Māori • Mapuche • Mayan1 • Mongolian • Norwegian • Nubian1 • Ottoman • Persian1 • Phoenician • Polish1 • Portuguese1 • Roman • Russian • Scottish • Scythian • Spanish • Sumerian • Swedish • Vietnamese1 • Zulu
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| 1 Requires DLC
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