On the mainland of Greece, known as the Peloponnesus, the Myceneans would emerge around 2000 B.C. They were in fact the people who could be properly considered to be the Greeks we know today, as they were the people who actually use the Greek language. They invaded Greece and displaced the original inhabitants who were probably related to the Minoans, around 3000 B.C. Their culture was much different then the Minoans. They stressed military excellence, while the Minoans hardly have a military establishment to speak of. Their society was also highly hierarchical with powerful Kings ruling its subjects. The Myceneans at first traded with the Minoans and integrated a lot of its culture into that of Greece. However around 1200 B.C. the Myceneans invaded the Minoan empire, after it was devastated by a powerful earthquake putting an end to the Minoan civilization. The Myceneans civilization itself would also come to an end around 1150 B.C. Rebellions and internal wars would destroy all the Mycenean cities. The most famous war which the Myceneans would be known for was the Trojan Wars, which was immortalized by the Greek poet Homer in "The Illiad" and "The Odyssey", centuries later during the 7th century B.C. Some of these cities where reoccupied but on a much smaller scale, and in fact written language was lost during this period. After the fall of the Mycenean Empire, it would usher in what is known as the "Dark Ages" of Greek civilization. The Myceneans would however form the cultural consciousness of the Greek civilization.

During the "Greek Dark Age", the Dorians invaded from their homeland in Macedonia and moved south all the way into Crete and even Asian Minor or modern day Turkey. They would best be known for establishing the city-state of Sparta. The period of cultural and population stagnation would last until the 8th century B.C. when the ports of Argos and Corinth began to emerge. Trade resumed in the region, and as a result the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet. This period would mark the Classical Period of ancient Greece, which saw the rise of the City states and a cultural renaissance for which much of ancient Greece is known for. For example the tradition of friendly athletic competition between states in the Olympic games was created so that the rival Greeks states could meet in peace under a period of truce. The Greeks would also be the first to drill their troops to march in order, and enter a battle in formation.

The Greeks also began to establish colonies all around the Southern Mediterranean to the Black Sea. More then 150 colonies would be established between 750 B.C. to 500 B.C., and in particular Southern Italy and Sicily. The two most powerful of the Greek city-states that would emerge were Athens and Sparta. Athens was the largest and based their society on class levels based on wealth. While the Spartans based their society on a ruling military elite over Serfs serving aristocratic land owners.

By the 5th century B.C. the Greeks came to the attention of the Persian Empire. The Persians under Cyrus the Great invaded in 490 B.C. as a reprisal for Greek raids onto Asia minor. The Persians were defeated at Marathon by a Greek force that was half their numbers, but the superior armor and phalanx tactics used by the Greeks routed the Persians. Then in 481 B.C. the Persians under Xerxes invaded with a force of 100,000 men intent on conquering all of Greece. The Greeks formed the Hellenic League, which included Sparta, while some Greek States defected to the Persian side. The Persian would in fact defeat all of the land forces the Greeks threw at them and even sacked Athens. However, the Greeks destroyed the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis. The Persians retreated hastily from this defeat, and the next year saw another Greek victory at the Battle of Paltaia ending the threat of a Persian invasion of Greece for good.

After the Persian invasions the Spartans withdrew from the alliance and Athens reformed the remaining city-states into the Delian League. As a result Athens became rich off the tributes that it demanded from its member states. In this period Athens reached its greatest political and cultural heights. Pericles who lived from 495 B.C. to 429 B.C. became known as the greatest statesmen of ancient Greece. The Athenians would go on to develop the democratic system of government under his rule. He also commissioned the building of the Parthenon on the Acropolis. The philosophical schools of Socrates and Plato were established. Great poets, like Sophocles also produced much of the classical works for which the Greeks are known for during this golden age of Athenian cultural flowering. However the wealth and influence of the Athenians also caused the jealousy and resentment of the other Greek city-states. Setting forth the Great Peloponnesian War that began in 431 B.C. with the Spartans finally emerging as victors in 404 B.C. when they finally, with the help from the Persians, destroyed the Athenian fleet for which they depended on for trade and sustenance. The Spartans dominated the Greek States for a brief period, but they proved incompetent at ruling such a large empire. Various city-states, with financial aid and meddling from Persia would alternately rise to prominence and take control of the Empire for short periods of time for the next half century.

The turmoil of the early 4th century B.C. was finally settled when Phillip II of Macedonia emerged, and conquered the whole of Greece by 338 B.C., his son Alexander would succeed him after he was assassinated in 336 B.C. Alexander the Great, as he would be known was a brilliant soldier, and received his formal education from the Aristotle. Alexander lived only thirteen years after he took the throne from his father but had a greater impact on western civilization then any other man of the ancient world. He would continue his father's plans for conquest all the way to India. Along the way, he would conquer the cities along eastern Mediterranean and Turkish coast, to deprive Persia of its ports, then defeating them all together in 331 B.C. at the Battle of Guagamela where the Persians, under King Darius, had 100,000 troops at his disposal. He then went on to capture Mesopotamia and Egypt and made himself Pharaoh of the Egyptians. He also established the city of Alexandria, which would become the learning center of the ancient world for the next millenium. He also encouraged his men to take wives from the local population, and kept the local administration in tact to legitimize his rule. Alexander would die at the age of 33 under mysterious circumstances in Babylon on his way back from the conquest of India.

The Macedonian success was in part because of military innovations that was put in place by Alexander's father. They extended their spears to over 12 feet (4 meters) in length, and make it pointed at both ends (to finish of troops they overran). They also carried the sarissa (a slashing sword), which was used for close combat and were unarmored except the front ranks of the Phalanx. This allowed the soldiers to fight longer with out tiring. However the Macedonians used these soldiers mostly to hold the enemy in place, while their cavalry, known as the "Companions", fighting in a wedge formation would flank the enemy infantry. While allied cavalry fighting in a rhomboid formation protected Alexander's flank. Light infantry and artillery units would round out the Macedonian army. Indeed they were first army to employ a combined arms approach to warfare in a systematic way.

After Alexander's death, a twenty-year power struggle ensued, that saw his empire divided among his successors. During this period City-states began to be supplanted by nation states as alliances between them solidified, and as the successors conquered each other's territories. Greek culture began to intermingle with the cultures of the near east as these Greek Kings ruled over the Empire Alexander left behind. The two most notable offshoots were the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, and the Seleucid dynasty in Persia. The democratic traditions of ancient Greece however did not take hold in these conquered lands and indeed even the Greeks themselves more or less abandoned it as power hungry kings seized centralized control to keep their large states intact. As a result of the economic hardships caused by the constant conflicts between these now rival nations, a door opened up for a new power to emerge, this would be Rome, who would later incorporate the Greek Kingdoms into its own Empire.

The Romans had began to expand and come into conflict over the various colonies that the Greeks has established around the Mediterranean since the 4th century B.C. With the establishment of the successor Kingdoms, it would begin a 250-year effort on part of the Romans to incorporate the Greeks into the Roman Empire. Using the excuse that the Macedonians were in alliance with Carthage, Rome's archenemy. The Romans "liberated" all of the territories that Macedonia held outside of their own homeland, and put them under a Roman protectorate in 197 B.C. during the second Punic War. Macedonia was itself incorporated as a Roman province in 146 B.C. and by 31 B.C. all Greek states were thoroughly under Roman control. Despite being conquered by the Romans, the Greeks in fact influence the Roman culture greatly. Greek gods were recast in Roman terms, Greek art, architecture and science were to be enthusiastically adopted by the Romans. Particularly while under the rule of Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian. Roman rule saw Greece grow under a period of peace and prosperity, indeed some Greek citizens of the Roman Empire rose to a high status, in 143 A.D. an Athenian by the name of Herodes Atticus rose to become Consul of Rome.

In the first century A.D. the Greeks began to learn of the teachings of Christ. His apostles began to preach Christianity to the Greeks. These early Christians Greeks began to incorporate those teachings with Greek philosophy, establishing Greece as the seat of Gentile Christianity. By the 4th century A.D. Rome under Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. It was also at this time that the Empire became divided into the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. This move was an attempt to make dealing with barbarian incursions more manageable. In 330 B.C. Emperor Constantine moved the capitol of the empire to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. The western empire would be ruled by one of his generals based in Rome.

However by the 6th century A.D. with the capitol now in the east, and the inability of the western empire to stem the flow of barbarian invaders, the power of the former Roman Empire became firmly held by now a Greek Byzantine Empire. Emperor Justinian I ruled the Byzantine Empire from 527 A.D to 565 A.D. He attempted to re-conquer territory lost during the Empire's disintegration, he managed to reincorporate most of the territory around the Mediterranean coast. He also instituted administrative and legal reforms that would become the cornerstone of jurisprudence in Europe. His conquest however drain the Empire's fortunes and between 565 A.D to 867 A.D. the Byzantine Empire was reduced to barely more then Turkey and parts of the Italian peninsula. In 867 A.D. a Macedonian dynasty took the throne of the Byzantine Empire. They managed to again retake much of their lost territory and drove Muslim pirates from the Aegean sea, allowing Byzantine trade to resume unimpeded. This period saw a period of economic growth and a cultural renaissance. The Byzantines also began to spread Christianity to the Bulgarians, Serbs and then the Russians. After the Macedonian dynasty the Byzantines again began to decline. From the East the Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert. From the west, European powers began to make incursions into Greece, culminating in the sack of Constantinople by the marauding armies of the 4th Crusade in 1204 A.D. Little by little the Byzantine Empire was stripped away until only Constantinople held out. But the final blow came in 1453 A.D. when the Ottoman Turks under Mehmed the Conqueror, took the city after a lengthy siege. However Constantinople would be the center of a great Mediterranean empire again, but this time renamed Istanbul when the Turks moved their capitol to the city.

Ottoman rule was based on a theocracy, with the Sultan exercising absolute power at the top over a strict social order based on which religion one belonged to. The Ottomans did not demand its subjects to convert to Islam, but non-Muslims were faced with many discriminatory practices. Marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims was forbidden, and in judicial disputes, the word of a Muslim would always be taken over that of non-Muslims. Most hated however was the forced conscription of male children from these non-Muslims families into the military, which were exacerbated when the Turks became to take heavy losses in battles against the Russians in the 18th century A.D. Some Greeks however achieved prominent positions by serving the Ottomans as diplomats or interpreters. Despite this the Ottoman's rule was overall corrupt and unjust. Thousands of Greek families would eventually leave the Ottoman Empire to seek better opportunity around the world, and beginning in the 18th century A.D. the Greeks began to rebel against Ottoman rule. So by 1821 A.D. after a famine swept through the Peloponnesus, a full-fledged war between Greek Separatists and the Ottomans broke out. With the intervention of the western European powers in particularly Britain, an independent Greek state was finally established in 1828 A.D.

The independent Greece at this point however was beset with economic woes as much of the fertile lands, and strategic ports it had in ancient times was not part of the Greek state of the early 19th century. The Greek monarchy faced several coups, and attempts at liberalization and modernization at the ladder part of the 19th century was stifled by crippling foreign debt. Just prior to the First World War, several wars broke out in the Balkans, Greece came out on top with territory that it had long sought to regain in order to restore its former territorial integrity. The most influential politician in Greece during the first half of the 20th century was Eleutherios Venizelos. He had negotiated a deal where by the Allies promised to cede the entirety of Turkey to Greece if they entered the war on their side. They did in fact join the Allies in fact by only after being blockaded and threatened with an attack, since the Greek Royal family was related to the Germany Monarchy, and was reluctant to take sides. However at the end of the War, when Venizelos was on his way back with the deal in hand, pro-monarchy factions attempted to assassinate him, and almost succeeded. His skills were mostly in external affairs and he had neglected domestic issue. The assassination attempt forced him into exile and instead Greece had to send military forces into Turkey to seize the territory. This however, caused the Allied powers to get nervous, and eventually withdraw financial support to Greece. The resulting disaster saw the deal crumble, and the Greek forces routed by the Turks with over 30,000 Greek civilians killed. During the Second World War, the Greek initially had some success in resisting the Axis forces but by 1941 A.D. was under occupation by the Axis. The Greeks suffered extensively under this period, with 100,000 dying from famine, and the Jews in the country were all but annihilated. The devastation of the Second World War was followed by a civil war. Political instability would also continued well into the 1970's. However it is more or less a stable democracy at present, and remains part of the NATO alliance, and a member of the European Union.

In the long game with a massive army, they are only slightly at a disadvantage compared to the French without the added support of cheaper, more effective generals and supply wagons. However, their research advantage should make up for this by allowing the Greeks to research more advanced forms of the corresponding units to compensate. It just means that the player using the Greeks needs to stay on top of their research developments in order to stay ahead of the game, and not just simply produce units, at least when facing the French. As far as massive army battles, the Greek player may do well to take a page out of Alexander the Great's "handbook". Their cavalry should indeed be used as a supplement to their heavy infantry to out flank their enemies. Their extra power is sure to deal a deadly blow to any army who is foolish enough to leave their flanks unprotected, and if met by cavalry defenders should be able to prevail and continue to support in a flanking attack. Not to beat the point to death, but a combined arms approach for the Greeks like anyone else should be the mainstay of any army meant to be a decisive force. So bring along a heavy dose of artillery, and light infantry and archery units. However Cavalry strong civs makes it an ideal civ where appropriate micro-management of the Cavalry could really make a battle go much more in favor of the good tactician.

• Heavy Cavalry Line