Norse vs Greek balance

[zespri]

Because this balance has never been an issue for others, I'm  thinking that "I'm doing it wrong".
I understand that Norse has weaker military but more powerful mythological and tokens but somehow in my games because I'm constantly have to build Norse military in greater numbers to compensate for their weakness I never really get around to accumulating enough resource for their mythological or tokens. Every turn I have to spend actions on baracks and pork and stone etc so I never have time to build up diamonds, incense, moonstone etc.

The way I balance them is that I just start wasting actions for the Greek, because they are too strong. Sometimes I use Greek actions to help Norse (land tiles, tokens "first human to  pick up") but that's about it.

How do YOU balance against early game bias towards Greek?

[Lee]

I usually put down a Seer for the norse during setup, so if the greek start pushing in I can drop a valkyrie (or better an elf). Of course on hard and up this can really snowball. Ideally you just have fewer Greek buildings producing military.

[Mánagarmr]

ANUBIS! ANUBIS! ANUBIS!

(I'm sorry, I'm a bit of an Anubis fan. I don't care he's neither greek nor norse.)

[Misery]

I usually put down a Seer for the norse during setup, so if the greek start pushing in I can drop a valkyrie (or better an elf). Of course on hard and up this can really snowball. Ideally you just have fewer Greek buildings producing military.

Yeah, this one can help quite a bit.  One or two seers dropped during the setup phase can go a long way.

But for the early Greek push, I'll often use things like the Unit Up action or even something like Singasteinn to buff up the Norse a bit.    I generally keep both sides with equal military buildings though, and then do alot of micromanagement of battles.   Doing something like dropping a ruins tile near the Norse base can be helpful as well, aside from it's AP cost.

[orzelek]

I was using two things to balance:
- Norse always a bit more military buildings than Greeks
- Norse with 1 lvl higher units than Greeks

It worked quite well and for rest cases mythologicals were the balancing factor.

[solosol]

I found that restraining horses to greek (at least in the first moments) makes things a bit easier for balancing. Those greek horsemen are really a pain, specially in the first moments. This can be a problem to get some myths later, so eventually I'll place greek ranches when both economies and militaries are more or less balanced. I doubt this will be usefull in harder difficulties.

I'm still testing the starting setup, but buillding (as it is free) a seer, a diamond, and a defense Tower on each faction seems to be a good strategy for early access to myths/tokens, while having  some defense. Adding a pottery, a jewelry and a moonstone (total 6 actions, still 3 left), and the eco is almost ready from the beggining (at least, for the more expensive bildings). A stone mason and a rock is a must in each new town...but as they are cheap to build, they might wait to the second turn....Then, I focus in starting some military and new towns. Again, only in easy difficulties.

[xoseph]

ANUBIS! ANUBIS! ANUBIS!

(I'm sorry, I'm a bit of an Anubis fan. I don't care he's neither greek nor norse.)

Must we wait for the expansion?

[LordGek]

ANUBIS! ANUBIS! ANUBIS!

(I'm sorry, I'm a bit of an Anubis fan. I don't care he's neither greek nor norse.)

Heck yeah!  Hopefully the Egyptians will be a faction in some future expansion.  If nothing else I'd love to see the kind of chaos an indirect skirmish between Set and Loki could bring.