Hi everyone

I'm a bit stuck on the first city on Zeus; I need to get wine for a Hercules Hero Hall to slay the Hydra.

But I can't produce my own wine and none of the trading partners sell it.

All of the walkthroughs I've found say that wine will arrive as a gift from Calydon - but I only ever receive sculpture as a gift, never wine. They also suggest demanding wine from Eleusis, but I can't get this to work - I shower them with wood and drachmas to raise their opinion of me, but they always refuse my demand for wine and their opinion drops back to normal.

Can anyone offer some advice? Considering that I was a dab hand at Caesar III and Pharaoh back in the day I feel a bit stupid getting stuck on the first level of Zeus...

You can actually acquire wine by demanding it from a neighboring city. In order to do this you need that city's opinion of you being rather high (I can't remember the name of that level of opinion, sorry). You have to raise the level first by constantly sending them gifts and money BEFORE you send a demand. Do this over and over and over again. Do not try to demand wine on lower opinion levels as the neighbor will refuse and their opinion of you will plunge down. Without knowing the name of the necessary opinion just try sending a demand once in a while. Be patient :)

Aha... this did eventually work. After many many many tributes to Eleusis, they did finally give me some wine.

I never did get any from Calydon, only sculpture and occasionally fleece (which was weird as they were always asking me for fleece...).

Thanks for your help!