Once again, missing the point.
A. Failure to get friends? You start off in the UK's sphere, meaning you cannot get any allies other than the UK. And half of the time, the UK will ally itself to the Turk, so you cannot even attack (since the game treats this as attacking your sphere leader indirectly). Furthermore, any ally you get will *not* help you. If you had read my posts or tried playing as Greece, you would know that they will only enforce their own demands. Even the UK or even France (who might pull you out of the UK's sphere), will take a poor piece of land in the other side of the world and ignore your demands. Not to mention the UK won't even send any land forces. The real problem here, and the one you seem to be ignoring, is that in 1836, Greece
already had strong friends. Another indication might be the fact that the three available Greek parties at the start of the game are named after the 3 Greatest Powers (French/British/Russian Faction).
B. As I already mentioned, the problem here isn't that the Great Powers hated the ottomans. They protected them directly or indirectly as they had an interest in keeping the balance of power in the Balkans.
However, just because Russia helped the Ottomans in the Oriental Crisis, that doesn't mean they would ever help them fight the Greeks. And since we're throwing in wikipedia links, I might as well link this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_War_of_Independence
Following years of negotiation, three Great Powers, Russia, the United Kingdom and France, decided to intervene in the conflict and each nation sent a navy to Greece. Following news that combined Ottoman–Egyptian fleets were going to attack the Greek island of Hydra, the allied fleet intercepted the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet at Navarino. Following a week long standoff, a battle began which resulted in the destruction of the Ottoman–Egyptian fleet. With the help of a French expeditionary force, the Greeks drove the Turks out of the Peloponnese and proceeded to the captured part of Central Greece by 1828. As a result of years of negotiation, Greece was finally recognized as an independent nation in May 1832.
That's 4 years before the start date. That's not to say that they always fully supported the greeks vs the turks, as pointed out here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_(1919–1922)
In any case, it's not that simple. I understand that this is a game and it cannot represent how unstable alliances were in real life, but some things just don't make sense. What about Mexico and the states allying, only for this alliance to be broken right after the war, in order for the states to claim texas for themselves? Even in game terms this is silly. The point is, there are pre-existing conditions that should be factored in when alliances are made and there also future conditions that will almost certainly lead two parties at war, both conditions sort of make these kind of alliances 'ridiculous'.