Corinth is too OP

[Robur Velvetclaw]

Personally, I think that Corinth is too powerful. Don't get me wrong. I like Corinth. As fascinating as its history was (it was cut short and obscured to us no thanks to the Romans), I have to admit that Corinth, compared to Athens and Sparta, is just waaaaaaay too easy.

From the get go, Corinth can simply generate resources out of thin air, especially since the infrastructure for your growth is already laid down, unlike the case for Sparta or for Athens. Having all 3 primary tier techs researched, as well as a lot for building ships means that you can insta-build your city in no time.

Whereas Athens and Sparta have to wait for many turns before they can get Seamanship for ships, Corinth can simply just power through by importing slaves to work the city like crazy. More slaves means faster economic growth, which in turn means a faster build time.

This means that no matter what your limitiations re your army creation or infrastructure creation time, Corinth, unlike Athens or Sparta can choose between diplomacy/commerce or aggression. It's a play style that is far easier than that of either Athens or Sparta where you have to confine yourself to either this approach or the other.

Add the ludicrous number of traders that Corinth can generate, and you can simply annex, ally or bully the whole of Greece into submission in no time (I ended my last Corinth run on normal difficulty, bottomless holds, and about a dozen traders which I had simply forgotten to use -- I was now concentrating heavily on my military infrastructure like nobody's business), and had conquered 3 or so cities using military means.

By the time the Scythians arrived, I had unified all Greece, or had formed strategic alliances with Macedon that allowed me to simply turn my envoys into armies right away.

By the time the Huns emerged, Greece was pretty much under me, and I had the Aphrodite statue cranking out gold straight away.

To add insult to injury, I was now buying over cities after raiding them for resources. I would send in one general to seize the city's goods, then buy it over with impunity, meaning that I had sacrificed my generals for resources straight away.

[mamypokong]

Totally agree . Once I figured out how to play Corinth properly (as you have already posted), it was by far the easiest of the three polis and well fun to play.

[Robur Velvetclaw]

Originally posted by mamypokong:

Totally agree . Once I figured out how to play Corinth properly (as you have already posted), it was by far the easiest of the three polis and well fun to play.

Just make sure you don't try to make the same mistake as Corinth did - resisting the Romans, lol.
Either way, Corinth is a developmental economist's wet dream come true.

[mamypokong]

Speaking of Romans, it would be awesome if Clarus Victoria makes a game based on the Romans! (I realise we already have a butt-ton of Rome based games, but still)

[tdavisradlab]

I still don't get why Corinth is overpowered.

[Robur Velvetclaw]

Originally posted by tdavisradlab:

I still don't get why Corinth is overpowered.

Because ..... Corinth can supercharge its economy from the get go by trading with other states for what it does not have. A patent game with Corinth means first importing slaves, and more slaves until you max your pop out - even if you must go into debt - at which your economy will then begin to snowball unless you do something wrong. Like NOT upgrading your pop cap / agriculture infrastructure fast enough to avoid mortality creep. Pop growth for Athens and Sparta is slower than that of Corinth because you cannot do this early on in the game. You need to first research Seamanship and even then, I have discovered that Athens and Sparta generate traders far too slowly for trade to be of any use.

[tdavisradlab]

Still don't see it. The only time I found importing slaves was great was at the very beginning(you basically have to). Otherwise you don't really get enough. Maybe you can write a guide.

[Robur Velvetclaw]

Originally posted by tdavisradlab:

Still don't see it. The only time I found importing slaves was great was at the very beginning(you basically have to). Otherwise you don't really get enough. Maybe you can write a guide.

Would that I would, but generally I don't have to. Simply picking up any uni-level textbook on developmental economics will teach you all you need to know how to play Corinth

Expect nothing from me until I have wrapped my head around Sparta and Athens next.

[tdavisradlab]

I'm starting to get it. Don't worry about gold. Just go into debt and use the one debt to pay off the other debt. Just avoid getting into debt four times.

[Robur Velvetclaw]

Originally posted by tdavisradlab:

I'm starting to get it. Don't worry about gold. Just go into debt and use the one debt to pay off the other debt. Just avoid getting into debt four times.

Yup :)
As long as the debts pay off you will win :D
The pop/culture debts are good because the percentages don't really affect you much if you are buying slaves and/or culture to buy more revenue.

[tdavisradlab]

Okay yeah I played Corinth on Hard and it was pretty easy as long as you were willing to go into debt. But Sparta on Hard I needed to save scum on everything: envoys(gold is pretty valuable to keep you army growing and not go into debt and lose army strength), generals(with aggressive scumming you could probably get infinite generals but I did not have the patience for that), scouts(free culture that accelerates growth).

So I don't think Corinth is so much overpowered but I think Sparta and Athens are too luck/scum dependent. Although scumming with Sparta I wonder how even faster I could go with scumming on Corinth as I could avoid debt with envoy scumming and get free culture with scout scumming.

[Robur Velvetclaw]

With Athens and Sparta, debt is dangerous due to one glaring issue - your economy is extremely limited in the early stages of the game as is repayment. The fact that you can't spam traders unlike Corinth only makes things worse because you run the risk of overproducing this or that non-Wealth based resource, only to end up insolvent. Corinth as I mentioned earlier already has a port, and an obscene number of traders, so it is actually easier to repay those debts. Just go into debt early on, grab as many slaves as you can producing gold, then hand the gold back. Don't worry about lower pop and culture growth because you can simply buy those outright.

If I l had Corinthian trader spawning rates for both Athens and Sparta, I would be able to supercharge my economy very quickly. I have found the developmental game for both Athens and Sparta super challenging to say the least.

[👁]

The first trial with Corinth stumped me until I figured out I could buy settlers and invest all my people into the shipyard and market.

[👁]

Originally posted by tdavisradlab:

Okay yeah I played Corinth on Hard and it was pretty easy as long as you were willing to go into debt. But Sparta on Hard I needed to save scum on everything: envoys(gold is pretty valuable to keep you army growing and not go into debt and lose army strength), generals(with aggressive scumming you could probably get infinite generals but I did not have the patience for that), scouts(free culture that accelerates growth).

So I don't think Corinth is so much overpowered but I think Sparta and Athens are too luck/scum dependent. Although scumming with Sparta I wonder how even faster I could go with scumming on Corinth as I could avoid debt with envoy scumming and get free culture with scout scumming.

I did Sparta on Hard earlier and was really sad I didn't get a higher rating because I passed every trial. The Population Limit is way too restrictive imho.

[Doomed World]

Originally posted by 🤡:

The first trial with Corinth stumped me until I figured out I could buy settlers and invest all my people into the shipyard and market.

Wait how you buy settlers?

[Robur Velvetclaw]

Originally posted by Doomed World:

Wait how you buy settlers?

Trade resources with whichever city that has a premium on Settlers (slaves), then tinker with the sliders in the city to get them to do whatever you want them to do. If you keep boosting your agriculture, you can then start founding colonies fairly quickly.