Founding your Empire

Conquering or founding other cities will help your original city to develop further. No city can become a great power on its own. You need to establish further cities - perhaps also on further islands - if you want to be able to create a large Hellenistic empire. In the following chapters, you learn how you can conquer and reliably absorb other cities into your empire.

Cultural value
In order to be able conquer other cities permanently, one must have a high cultural value in his/her own city. This makes it easier for the inhabitants of the conquered city to accept your domination. That is perhaps also the historic reason why Sparta never reached the size and attractive force of Athens.
The cultural level of a city can be found by clicking on the Agora building. It will indicate how many other Polis the city can influence.
There are four different events that raise the cultural value of a city: "Theater plays", "Olympic games", "Victory procession" and "City festival". They also have various requirements, most of which include having your academy developed to level 30. Each event also has a certain amount of time that it take. Some of the events take up to five days. As additional requirements City festivals and Theater plays require a certain amount of resources for each event. While Olympic games require a donation of 50 Gold. (Gold can be obtained either by acquiring a premium account or recruiting people.) For a Victory procession you must acquire 300 battle points.

Establish City
If you are not powerful or advanced enough to conquer a city by force you have the option of establishing a new one through colonization. While this can be helpful it means that the new city will start from scratch unlike the conquered cities that retain all buildings from their previous owner.

Conquer City
"Against danger it pays to be prepared" - Aesop

The third and final prerequisite for conquering or founding new cities is the building of a colonial ship. A colonial ship contains all the necessary resources and citizens to create a new community. It is important to remember that you should never send out a colony ship without providing it with sufficient military protection. You need a strong naval force to protect your colony ship en route to its destination, and a strong land army to protect your new citizens and maintain order once your ship arrives. Remember that the population of the city is not immediately happy to have you and your army there, and even if you already taken care of the majority of the city's military defenses, the militia and inherent city defenses can still revolt against you and make it difficult to capture or maintain your hold on the city if your army is not strong enough to subdue them. Your colonial troops require a certain amount of time in order to convince the original population of the city to defect to your empire and become your own. If the colonial troops survive this time without the hostile population revolting, the city changes over into your possession. Once this time has passed and your colonial troops have survived, you no longer have to fear any uprisings and can administer the city just as you do your original Polis.

Did you get conquered?
Did they take everything? Don't worry, in Grepolis this does not mean the end for you. If your city should be conquered you can start again and use the lessons you have learned to avoid any mistakes you may of made previously. Naturally we understand you would wish to remain with your original Alliance. Your new city will be placed in a position where the other players around you are of a similar game level to yourself and with the knowledge you have gained previously you have the possibility of this time becoming much more successful and powerful.

Related articles

• Battle System: General Info
• Agora
• Attack
• Support
• Attack/Support Command Cancellation