Usually, I have been doing the standard 22-24 real villie builds, and getting stomped without being sufficiently walled. My current build is very map dependent, but for gig narrows (my fav), I have been tooling with 16-18 real vills and pump boats for the first minute of the tool transition. Once I hit Tool, I drop 3 stables, pop out 3 scouts, upgrade the armor and send them out. Simultaneously, I am generating more peons, doing the wall upgrade, and begin walling as soon as possible. As soon as possible, I generate some scout ships at each dock, no queueing, as I don't have enough resources. I no longer tool pass, as with only 16 peons and a sub-standard bronze military to look forward to, I find that I have to do a lot of fighting in Tool, hurt at least one opponent seriously (hopefully 2 opponents) and count on an ally Bronzing in time to take over the fighting.
Now, I click on Bronze at 16 or 17 (sometimes even later!) and prepare for the Iron jump (i.e., the seldom-mentioned Bronze pass) to get some ballistas and cats going, as well as getting 'remes out, which is all very realistic by the 23 minute mark. Of course, the problem is that you are running a substandard economy at this point and are playing catch up.
The main dilemma is that if I am not able to hurt the opponent enough, my team is done. If my ally does not do much in Bronze, my team is done. And if my ally gets in a world of hurt during my Iron jump, I can only supply some scout ships, (maybe galleys by the time they get there) or a handful of cav. In addition, I have no forward building happening and am very vulnerable to a single escorted ST until around the 19 minute mark. Basically, there are far too many ways for this to fail, many of which I have no control over.
What other strategies for Greece have people found successful, or equally important, unsuccessful? What alternatives are there?
Keep your stick on the ice.