1. Beyond the Swords
1.1 Comments on AI
1.2 Beyond the Swords is easier for Ancient Games.
1.3 Deity AI Advantage
1.4 My Niche
1.5 Setting
2. Introduction
2.1 Overall Game Strategy
2.2 Overall Military Strategy
2.3 Early Expansion Strategy
2.4 Other Important Factors
3. Basic Strategy
3.1 Phase I: Turtle Until WW is 0
3.2 Phase II Offense
4. Tactics
5. Sample


1. Beyond the Swords

3v3 ancient Teamer games are the most online games (Not sure why? That’s before the swords, not beyond the swords), so we may as well practice with Deity AI.

It turns out SP (Single Player) is quite different from MP (Multiple Player) in this era; nevertheless, this guide can still help you playing online significantly.

This is my eighth, and hopefully the last Deity Guide (Actually, the 9th Deity Guide is already in planning phase). There are a few tactics, which are specific to this Era. As usual, a large amount of files will be available for download.

1.1 Comments on AI

First of all, a few comments on the new Deity AI (Beyond the Swords).

(1) The Deity AI in this version is more human-like; in particular, it is more Ladder-like.

So what is the Ladder?
Ladder is a group of players with a distinct style. The Ladder game is generally 120 turns and set with 2-city elimination, i.e. you are out of a game if you loose 2 cities.

A normal player, by turn 120, would already have maze, crossbow, pike, and knight. For the Ladder player, very often they barely have Longbow.

This is very hilarious; you would say, what kind of fools are advancing tech so slow?

Not so fast. What are your pikes and knights good for, if you are dead?

Generally speaking, 10 turns before the game ends, you will face a stack of 30-units attacking force. With two-city elimination, unless you are prepared, 10 advanced units (maze, crossbow, pike, and knights) will not stop a 30-unit low-tech stack (horse archer, elephants, cat, axe and spear).

The counter strategy is, of course, very simple; the Ladder players are so busy in slaving units that you can easily get Oracle. Research monarchy ASAP and get oracle, timing it right and get Feudalism. This is so-called Feudalism slingshot.

10 LongBows, a few cats for the enemy stack, and a few advanced units (such as knight) can easily stop a 30-unit stack.

(2) Deity AI is still suicidal.

A human player would generally not attack a city of 10 LowBows with a stack of 10 horse archers and 10 axes. AI would and lose the entire stack.

(3) Deity AI researches much slower in this version.

In all earlier versions, I found it is impossible to keep up Research with Deity AI; in this version, because the Deity AI is so "ladder'"-like, I found it is possible for my team to keep up Research with the Deity team.


1.2 Beyond the Swords is easier for Ancient Games.

I found in this version (Beyond the Swords), defeating Deity AI is much easier than earlier version for two reasons:

(1) Advanced Start

The default advanced start is enough to produce 4 cities and a warrior. Deity AI will generally use the money for two size-3 cities, several workers, and other units and several land improvements.

By getting four cities from beginning, you have resolved one of the most difficult tasks: fast early expansion.

(2) Deity AI is "Ladder"-like, which makes them not so crazy in advancing tech. I can actually keep up with them in tech. When the time comes to attack, our team will lead in tech.

1.3 Deity AI Advantage

Deity AI has the following advantages:

· Technologies cost less (40 – 50 % less?).
· Building and Units cost less (40 – 50 % less?).
· Happiness costs less (40 – 50 %?).
· Inflation, city, and civic upkeep, upgrade cost less (40 – 50 %?).
· Health costs less (40 – 50 %?).
· Cities grow faster (40 – 50 % less food? (Deity AI takes 7 food growth the first size and it will take you 14)).

When you team up with Deity AI, you will need to take full advantage of your teammate, especially:

· Technologies cost less (40 % less?).
· Building and Units cost less (40 % less?).
· Inflation, city, and civic upkeep, upgrade cost less (40%?).

1.4 My Niche

Well, as many Deity Guides have shown before, some balance has to be found:

(1) Select a supporting position instead of a front position.

Front position is significantly harder than a supporting position so we will settle in the supporting position in this guide.

(2) Advanced Start

1.5 Setting

Difficulty: Deity
Speed: Quick
World Size: Small
Map: Inland Sea
Sea Level: High
Era: Ancient (if you look backward, ancient is indeed beyond the swords)
Leader: Random * **
Teaming: 3v3

* Spiritual Leaders are not necessary, but can be nice because many civics are required and no anarchy will help.

The production civics:

Slavery
Organized Religion (+25% + priests production).

Feudalism will cause a switch:
Vassalage.

Civil Service will cause a switch:
Bureaucracy (50% capital).

This will be followed by unit production:
Theocracy (+2 EP).

A short burst of Great Person production will follow, causing the switch to the following and then switch back to the original civics:
Cast System
Pacifism

Happiness becomes a problem:
Nationalism (+2 for barrack)

Get Cost Under Control
State Property

And finally at the Deity level, the civic for Happiness is:
Police State (-25% WW)

If you do not choose it, then group your switch together:

Representation (From pyramid) and Organized Religion
Feudalism Switch (may or may not keep slavery)
Police State, Bureaucracy (50% capital), Theocracy (+2 EP)
Forget about great person production (Pacifism)
Nationalism (+2 for barrack)
Emancipation, State Property
Time the financial switches with one of the above


** Expansive Leaders
In the good old days, the expansive leader can be very powerful and here is why:

Marble: 3p/turn
Forest hill: 3p/turn
Expansive for workers: =50%.

So if you park on Marble with a Forest hill nearby, you can get 9p/turn for workers from the first turn (Which, I have to say, is crazy).

It will take 5 turns to get the first worker out, with 5*9 - 40 = 5 left over;
Through chopping, you get the second worker in four turns, with 4 * 9 + 5 (leftover) + 13 (chop) - 40 = 14 left over; and
You will get a third worker in 3 turns, with 3 * 9 + 14 - 40 = 1p left over.

This is super, 3 workers in 12 turns. The three workers, in turn, can chop a settler in 4 – 5 turns.

Well, times have changed; the new game significantly reduced the “Expansive” power to a degree that they are no longer necessary.

2. Introduction
2.1 Overall Game Strategy

This is my 8th Deity Guide and I can not emphasize this enough: Deity game is a strategic game of Happiness.

The game is not about military strategy, not about research strategy. The happiness and happiness alone decides what you do and what you do not. This is very different from Noble online game. Fail to control the War Weariness (WW), it can easily reach above 20, which terminates your game with your defeat.

WW can be reduced to 0 as follows:

Police State: -25% (all cities)
Jail: -25% (in that city)
Mount Rushmore: -50% (all cities)
Total: -100%

So this determines what you do in the entire game:

(1) First of all, you need to grab the Pyramid, which opens Police State. By the time of Bureaucracy, WW is above 6 and it is time to switch from Representation to Police State.

If you failed to obtain Pyramid, restart the game.

(2) Religion is a priority; if you failed to grab the three early religions, try Code of Law and Theocracy.

(3) Constitution For Jail is a high priority.

(4) Fascism for Mount Rushmore is a priority.

(5) Drama for Global Theater is a priority.


2.2 Overall Military Strategy

Phase I of the game is very, very long. It will last until you reach this point:

Police State: -25% (all cities)
Jail: -25% (in that city)
Mount Rushmore: -50% (all cities)
Total: -100%

Which reduces WW to 0. Try not to lose too many units in this phase; otherwise, WW grows like crazy.

Phase II is nothing but attacking, which you do not have any WW from losing units.

Phase I military strategy, therefore, is simple “turtle”:

Longbow (high priority than cat, horse, and elephants)
Muskets (high priority than knight, pike)
Rifle
Infantry
Machine guns

Your will produce units in four major waves:

(a) The initial wave consists of chariots, archers, spears. All of these units will be gifted when updates are available;
(b) The second wave consists of mostly longbows;
(c) The third wave consists of muskets. When rifles are available, all longbows and muskets are upgraded. When infantry are available, all units are upgraded again.
(d) Attack force.

In additional you should have two cities continuously pump up “cheap” units for your teammates.

There will be a very long gap from third wave of unit production to the fourth wave unit production, where you can catch up research and tech up your building.


2.3 Early Expansion Strategy

The online game has very standard research path:

(a) Growth Research (90%)
Bronze
Animal
Archer
Religion

(b) Choking Research (5%)
Archer (choking units, often with archer as UU)
Bronze
Animal
Religion

(c) Four Chariots Rush research (5%)
Animal
Bronze
Archer
Religion

This is obvious: the priority of the early game is the following order:

Food for growth
Production (hill, chopping, slavery)
Gold

Gold is the last priority; which basically dictates the above research order.

The advanced start significantly altered the above pictures. With advanced start, you start with 4 cities and 1 warrior. This significantly enhances your chance of wining in the long run; but in the short run, it eliminates the Choking strategy and the Rush strategy and forces you to focus on:

Food for growth
Gold
Production (hill, chopping, slavery)

i.e the Advanced Start has altered the early game priorities.

There are several major considerations on the early game:

(1) Worker
By the “1.5 rule”, you will need 6 workers for the four cities. While workers are important, chopping and slavery comes a bit late for the first round of 4 workers, which are already produced by the time bronze is available; especially if you do not have mining and start with expansive leaders.

(2) Support 4 cities
Supporting four size-1 cities from the start redirects the focus from production to gold. This instantly changes the priority order:

Food for growth
Gold
Production (hill, chopping, slavery)

Which in turn changes the Research order. Archer provides good initial defense. Initial Research order is:

Archer
Animal
Religion
Need Cottages now?
Bronze

Here:
Archer provides the early defense;
Animal plays the same old rule;
Religion: remember the Deity game is a game of Happiness?


2.4 Other Important Factors

(1) Slavery and Chopping

Slavery and Chopping are the key to early production. Granary reduces the cost of slavery by half, so you should get a granary per city right after workers and culture expansion. City must be growing all the time, i.e. workers and settlers must be produced with leftover hammer, unless there is 1 turn left for the settlers or worker.

Slavery to maximum, i.e. slavery all the time, as soon as possible; provided they do not interfere with your gold production before currency; at that point, you can gold from your teammate.

(2) Currency and Monarchy

After initial Research:

Archer
Animal
Religion
Need Cottages now?
Bronze
Writing

It is time to consider currency for getting money from your teammate to speed up the Research and Feudalism slingshot. However, between the pyramid and feudalism slingshot, go for pyramid. Feudalism slingshot is nothing compared with Police State.

(3) Unit Production

There are two types of unit production, units to be used by you and units to be gifted. Since you are in the back, you will not need your own units until longbows; therefore, all of your early units will be gifted.

The gifted units are:

Chariots (to be upgraded to horse by AI)
Pike (to be upgraded to rifle by AI)
Elephants and Knight (to be upgraded to cavalry by AI)

It is very, very, very important here; you must produce the largest amount of cheap units for your Deity AI partner; they, in turn, will upgrade the chariots to horses and rush.

As far as your own units are concerned, you will initially need 11 units on each side (22 units total); including 7 longbows, 2 spears, 1 cat, and 1 horse archer.

(4) Early Research

Based on your situation, these are the Early Research items:

Math
Currency
Monarch
Feudalism (slingshot?)
Horse
Construction
Calendar

Which emphasize longbow over cats.

3. Basic Strategy

The tactics used will be in the next chapter. This chapter will focus on strategy.

The strategy has only two phases:

Turtle
Attack.

Phase I of the game is long, which is start until you reach this point:

Police State: -25% (all cities)
Jail: -25% (in that city)
Mount Rushmore: -50% (all cities)
Total: -100%

Which reduces WW to 0. Try not to lose too many units in this phase; otherwise, WW goes up like crazy.

Phase II is nothing but attacking, which you do not have any WW from losing units.


3.1 Phase I: Turtle Until WW is 0

(1) 4 cities and 6 workers.

The objective of the initial expansion is to get 4 cities and 6 workers (1.5 ratio).

The default Advanced Start will provide 4 cities and a warrior. If you use expansive leader and can manage 4 hammers from the start, you can start producing workers immediately.

The objective of this phase:

· Get 4 cities and 6 workers
· All cities have Religion
· All teammates have iron, elephants, and horses, and you have at least one horse.
· Build Cottages


(2) Early Research Path.

Archer
Animal
Religion
Need Cottages now?
Bronze
Writing

(3) Produce units for front player

Produce archers and spears for both of your front players. Simply park them in cities and do nothing else. You will gift archer when longbows are available and gift spears when pikes are available.

(4) Continuing research

Currency – use AI support your economy and research
Monarch - happiness
Feudalism – start producing your own units (gift all your archer to teammates for cheap upgrade)
Calendar – money for research
Horse – teammates upgrade
Math – for construction
Construction - elephants

(5) Continuing Initial Expansion

Your initial 4 cities require 6 workers. The worker to city ratio is 1.5 at minimum.

After the initial placement, as soon as you have currency (get gold from your teammate) and you can produce enough gold; expand to fill all land available to you. Chop two settlers is a common trick.

(6) Building Order.

Culture expansion
Granary (use slavery)
Barracks (use slavery)
Happiness filers (warriors)
Missionaries
Cheap units

Note:
The warriors are Happiness fillers. Each city gets a warrior before size 4.

Vassalage provides the initial unit promotion. Soon after that, Theocracy will provide the unit promotion for the rest of the game. Produce enough priests before switching, including the anticipation of new cities.

(7) Your Defense Force

As far as your own units are concerned, you will need 11 units on each sides (22 units total); including 7 longbows, 2 spears, 1 cat, 1 horse archer. As a back player, very often you have neither horse nor elephants.

Once you have an adequate defense force, simply replaced lost units. Now, you can tech up your cities and catch up research with your opponents.

Catapults: when the enemy stack attacks your city, use your collateral damage units on the stack before it attacks.

Longbows: do nothing except switching cities when necessary.

(8) Roads.

All of your citizens should work on the improved tiles now. As soon as all citizens work on improved tiles, take 2 workers out to build roads to both fronts. These two workers will remain at the front for the rest of the game.

(9) Build Pyramid and switch to Representation first, then to Police state.

(10) Middle Game Happiness: Theater

It is long way away to reduce WW to 0. As a result, the capital with a global theater does not have the Happiness problem; this makes Drama a high priority.

Your cities will grow initially; then it becomes unhappy. You will slowly bring it down with food deficit and do whatever necessary to maintain the city at size 6 to 9 above. This is why Pyramids is paramount here, which it opens both Police States and Representation early.

Build 6 theaters and 1 global theater in your capital. You should plan your capital in such a way it will use all 20 tiles. The other national Wonder in the capital will be National Park much later. It is very common for me to grow my capital to size 30 (That’s right, thirty) in Deity games.

(11) Middle Game Research:

. Civil Service and Machinery
. Great Person for Theology
. Guild for Knights
. Nationalism for Nationhood (Happiness)
. Constitution for Jail (Happiness)
. Rifle and Cavalry
. Grenadier /Chemistry

(12) Muskets

Produce 5 – 10 muskets on each front. This will be the last wave of units you produce before the offense phase. Once you have adequate defense force, simply replaced lost units. Now, you can tech up your cities and catch up research with your opponents.

(13) Killing without losing Your Units

It is very important that you do not lose many units for two reasons:
(a) Deity AI out produces you, so you cannot keep up;
(b) WW increases faster if you lose units.

But, you do not have to lose units. There are a few things you have to do:

(a) Take as many workers as necessary to build roads in every square in the front city and cut down all trees;
(b) AI will send a large amount of pillaging units. Resist the temptation to fight with them. Have your teammate take care of them;
(c) When the enemy pillaging units are injured, take them out with your knights and then retreat your knight back to the city;
(d) When the enemy stack attacks your city, use your collateral damage units on the stack before it attacks.

Therefore, the only time you lose units are when you are attacked inside a city. Unless the attack stack has a 2 to 1 ratio against you, then you will not lose many units.

(14) Cash Support from Teammates

Deity AI has many advantages, including;
· Inflation, city and civic upkeep, upgrade cost less (40%?).
· City grows faster (40% less food? (Deity AI takes 7 food growth the first size).

As a result, they have gold left over; take the gold to increase your Research rate.

(15) Happiness

All cities need Happiness buildings.

Religion building
Theater

Ideally, get two Religions so you have +2 Happiness

(16) Unhappy Cities

Even with Representation, Police State, and Jail, WW starts with 1, 2, 3, 4... eventually it will reach above 10. Controlling WW is a must. There are a few things you will need to do:

Gradually bring the city down 6 with –1 food deficit.
Build Happiness buildings
Do not put +2 Happiness buildings in the capital.
Do not lose units so WW will grow slower.

(17) Maintaining the Roads

Your front city roads will be pillaged by AI; repair them as soon as possible.

(18) Heroic Epic

Build Heroic Epic in the city with the best production, except the capital, which will have Global Theater and National Park.

(19) Opportunities

When you hold the line, your teammates are preparing offense. From time to time, there will be opportunities when with your cooperation, you and your teammate can take down a few cities; make sure you take these opportunities.

You should not initiate offense during this phase because of WW.

(20) Happiness Building.

Your most serious problem in this phase is not that you do not have enough units, but how you manage the production of both units and Happiness:

You need to find time to produce:

+1 Happiness Religious building (first religion)
+1 Happiness Religious building (second religion)
Representation (+2 for 4 cities)
Coliseum
Switch to nationhood (+2 for barrack)
Market
+2 Happiness Religious buildings (first religion)
+2 Happiness Religious buildings (second religion)
5 Theaters + Global Theater


This should keep up the unhappiness and keep the city constant size at 10.

(21) Unit Upgrade

When rifles are available, all longbows and muskets are upgraded. When infantry are available, all units are upgraded again. Your will produce units in four major waves:

· The initial wave consists of chariots, archer, spear. All of these units will be gifted when updates are available;
· The second wave consists of mostly longbows;
· The third wave consists of muskets. Attack force.

In addition, you should have two cities continuously pump up “cheap” units for your teammates.

There will be a very long gap between the third wave of unit production to the fourth wave unit production, where you can catch up research and tech up your building.

3.2 Phase II Offense

You main Attack will consist of 40 units on one side, which include all of the defense units upgraded from longbows. All of the defense units on the other front will be the attack force on the other front. Cooperate the attack in both fronts with your teammates. All cities turn to unit production and happiness are no longer issue with exception of 1 or 2, which is either tech up or produce research/gold. In all of your cities, you have 20 happiness points. Food and health are now stopping you from growing.

4. Tactics

1. Size-30 Capital

Have National Park and Global Theater in the capital city. Once these two wonders are in place, everything will be converted into farms. All mines are converted into windmills for extra food. This is a typical OCC strategy so please refer OCC guides in this forum.

2. Killing Without Losing

Let your teammate take care of the pillaging units; you only take care of the leftover.

3. How to Control WW

WW can be reduced to 0 as follows:

Police State: -25% (all cities)
Jail: -25% (in that city)
Mount Rushmore: -50% (all cities)
Total: -100%

4. Placement of the Cities

Stop your teammate from expanding toward you. In the end, both of them will have much larger land than you.

5. Mobility is the Key to Success

Mobility offers protection to your forces after the fight and allows you to retrieve all injured units and therefore save them.

Initially, any units outside the cities will not have a long life. This means, initially, you should fight within your culture boundary. Build roads everywhere, in every square!!!

6. Take Forest Hill

Chop out your own Forest Hill and take over opponent’s Forest Hill.

7. Keep Captured Cities

Do not destroy captured cities; AI will always build it back. Give the city to your AI partner.

8. City Management

If you do not want to manage each of your cities every turn, manage them at least every third turn. The city is constantly getting unhappy. The cities keep focused on production and ignore food. I have to constantly redirect working tiles so the city is not starving.

9. Attack with Overwhelming Force

Do not attack unless you have enough units (40 units).

Do not attack when AI still has Mobile Offensive Forces; once you see his offensive force, run and don’t fight.

10. Culture Bomb

AI has not yet learned this trick, so this is not an issue.

(11) Save a research turn (You are just missing a bit for completion a tech next turn)

If you do this repeatedly, it will really add up in a long run.

There are three science accelerations (for 1 turn only):

(a) All cities switch to science production for 1 turn;

(b) If not enough, in addition to all cities switch to science production for 1 turn, enough populations turn into scientists for 1 turn so that you will not loose population;

(c) If not enough, in addition to all cities switch to science production for 1 turn, all population in all cities turn into scientist for 1 turn so that you will loose 1 population in every cities (but no more than 1). This can be justified if Deity AI has tank and you need anti tank.

This is something that works exceptionally well with spiritual civs for swithing to cast system.


(12) Production follows "2 turn" rule.

The production cities should follow the "2 turn" rule: produce a unit every 2 turns. This rule will guide your city productions throughout the 350-turn game.

Axe and spear (ancient) cost 23P, so your city productions (all city) need to be 12P. Crossbow (40P) and maze (46P) require your city production to be 23. ... Infantry (80P) requires your production to be 40P. ...

If your production cities are falling behind, it is the time to tech up your cities or switch civs. In Rocky setting, this should not be problem; otherwise, use the power of '"State Property + Workshop":
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169213

Example
Axe/spear Era
requirements: 12P
Size 5
City 2F1P
Rice 6F0P
Hill 1 1F3P
Hill 2 0F4P
Cow 3F3P
Cottage 1F1P2C
Total 13F12P2C

Longbow (33P)
requirements: 17P
The same city grow to size 7:
City 2F1P
Rice 6F0P
Hill 1 1F3P
Hill 2 0F4P
Cow 3F3P
Cottage 1F1P2C
Farm 3F1C
Hill 0F4P
Base 16P
Organized religion 4P
Total 16F20P3C

Crossbow (40P)/maze (46P)
requirements: 23P
The same city grow to size 8:
City 2F1P
Rice 6F0P
Hill 1 1F3P
Hill 2 0F4P
Cow 3F3P
Cottage 1F1P2C
Farm 3F1C
Hill 0F4P
Farm 2F1P
base 17P
Organized religion 4P
Forge 4P
Total 18F25P


(13) Pyramid

It is better for your deity AI teammate to build pyramid. Your job is to provide him with Stone if he does not have it, i.e road to him, settle close to stone. Do similar thing for Oracle with marble.

(14) Growing Cities after WW
Once WW problem is resolved, city need to grow. The following actions are required:

(a) Cottages with less than four golds need to be convereted into farms (+1F).
(b) Mines without special resources need to be converted into wind mills (+1F).

These actions should add two population for now and more later.
Interesting reading:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=237717

(15) The golden age
One of the best way to use a great guy.

(16) Know your enemy.
Deity AI definitely has preference in units; they prefer double/multiple movement units; so you can produce units accordingly, such as spear, pike, rifle, and anti tank.

17 Science
This is one of the most documented topics in this forum:

(a) Library ==> 2 scientist ==> great scientist ==> academy;
(b) Something slingshot (Oracle);
(c) liberalism;
(d) Sicence production;
(e) turn population into scientist;
(f) cast system + Pacifism + creative + 5 to 7 scientists in a city rush;
(g) save a turn whenever you can: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + ... can add up.
...

(18) Settlement
The most important factor in founding a city, in long run, is food. The next most important factor is river; River opens many options in BTS. This is a long game and prepare the top three cities to be size 30, size 20, size 20.

Don't move your initial settler to a plain-marble-hill to loose rice/corn/cow, ...

(19) Slavery
Everything that has a begining must have an end; so slavery must have an end.

Do:
Use slavery as often as possible.
Workers and settlers are the exponential growth units so use slavery;
Granuary reduces the cost by half; so get it via slavery.
Slavery away unhappy population.

Don't:
(a) Do not slavery away any 6-yield tile.
(b) Once a production city reached "2 turn" status, stop using slavery and start using the power of production.

(20) Pattern recognition in producition cities.

This topic is so huge that it deserves its own thread. I will create the thread someday when I collect enough data. Basically, when you look at a city, you know in advance what kind of units production you will get.

There are things that's obvious, which do not require pattern recognition; but it is those cases that are less obvious that require pattern recognition rules.


It is a matrix, the column index ia:

1 turn/unit city

2 turn/unit city

3 turns/unit city

4 turns/unit city

The row index is

Axe/spear (23P) Longbow (33P) Maze (46P) .....


Each cell will have a long list.

I am listing a few less-obvious item for 3-turns/Axe cell, i.e. you will produce an axe/spear every three turns.


size 1 city: 1 x corn tile (6F)
size 2 city: 1 x flood plain (4F) 1 x cow (3F3P)
size 3 city: 2 x flood plains(4F), 1 hill (3P1F)
size 4 city: 3 x farm tiles (3F), 1 hill (3P1F)

Here is Math (assuming granuary, city tile is 2F1P):

size 1 city: 1 x corn tile (6F)
turn____food____size _____production
0 _____ 0/14 _____ 1 _____ 0/23
1 _____ 6/14 _____ 1 _____ 1/23
2 _____ 12/14 ____ 1 _____ 2/23
3 _____ 18/14 ____ 1 _____ 3/23
3 _____ (4+7)/16 ____ 2 _____ 3/23 (slave)
3 _____ (4+7)/14 ___ 1 _____ 23/23 (axe)

4 _____ 17/14 ____ 1 _____ 1/23
4 _____ (3+7)/16 ____ 2 _____ 1/23
5 _____ (16)/16 ____ 2 _____ 2/23
5 _____ 8/18 ____ 3 _____ 2/23
6 _____ 14/18 ____ 3 _____ 3/23 (slave)
....


size 2 city: 1 x flood plain (4F) 1 x cow (3F3P)
tototal food = 2 + 4 + 3 - 4 = 5
total production = 1 + 3 = 4
turn____food____size _____production
0 _____ 0/16 _____ 2 _____ 0/23
1 _____ 5/16 _____ 2 _____ 4/23
2 _____ 10/16 ____ 2 _____ 8/23
3 _____ 15/16 ____ 2 _____ 12/23
4 _____ 20/16 ____ 2 _____ 16/23
4 _____ (4+8)/18 ____ 3 _____ 16/23 (slave)
4 _____ 12/16 ___ 2 _____ 36/23 (axe)

5 _____ 17/16 ____ 2 _____ (4+13)/23
5 _____ (1+8)/18 ____ 3_____ 13/23 (slave)
5 _____ 9/16 ____ 2 _____ 33/23
6 _____ 14/16 ____ 2 _____ (4+10)/23 (axe)

....


size 4 city: 3 x farm tiles (3F), 1 hill (3P1F)

tototal food = 2 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 - 8 = 4
total production = 1 + 3 = 4

turn____food____size _____production
0 _____ 10/20 _____ 4 _____ 0/23
1 _____ 14/20 _____ 4 _____ 4/23
2 _____ 18/20 ____ 4 _____ 8/23
3 _____ 22/20 ____ 4 _____ 12/23
3 _____ (10+2)/22 ____ 5 _____ 12/23 (slave)
3 _____ (12)/20 ___ 4 _____ 32/23 (axe)

4 _____ 16/20 ____ 4 _____ (4+9)/23
5 _____ 20/20 ____ 4 _____ 17/23
5 _____ 10/22 ____ 5 _____ 17/23 (slave)
5 _____ 10/20 ____ 4 _____ 37/23 (axe)

6 _____ 14/20 ____ 4 _____ (4+14)/23

....



5. Sample

Here is an example of Deity Domination Victory.

Rest of the files:

Q. Do you use forts? Do you use aircraft?

Also, is there a role for Ironworks, or why not IW in the capital?

Yes, forts for more aircrafts.

National Wonder Strategy is a big topic by itself. National Wonder Planning obviously depends on your playing styles. He is mine:

National Wonder Strategy

I. The objective of capital is to grow it to size 25 – 30, i.e. a typical OCC strategy.

Additional deity domination victory examples can be found here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=199655

II. The next 4 – 5 cities are:

4 cities:
GPF
2 production cities
Science + Commerce city

5 cities:
GPF
2 production cities
1 Science city
1 Commerce city

III. National Wonders

Forbidden Palace: (Merchant) Reduces maintenance in nearby cities

Globe Theatre: (Artist) No unhappiness from this city. Can turn 3 citizens into artist

National Park: No health problem from this city.

Moai Status: Water tile + 1P.

Hermitage: (Artist) +100% culture in this city

Heroic Epic: (Artist) +100% military unit production in this city

Ironworks: (Engineer) +50% hammer with Coal. +50% hammer with Iron. Can turn 3 citizens into Engineer

Mt. Rushmore: (Artist) -25% War unhappiness from all cities

National Epic: (Artist) +100% Great People birth rate in this city

Oxford University: (Scientist) +100% research in this city. Can turn 3 citizens into Scientist

Red Cross: (Scientist) Free Medic I promotion for units built in this city

Scotland Yard: (Scientist)

Wall Street: (Merchant) +100% gold in this city

West Point: (Engineer) New units receive +4 experience points

IV Placement:

Science city should have:
Oxford University +100% (Nation Wonder)

Commerce City should have:
Wall Street National Wonder 100%

GPF city should have:
National Epic: (Artist) +100% Great People birth rate in this city

Production City should have:

Moai Status: Water tile + 1P.
Heroic Epic: (Artist) +100% military unit production in this city
Ironworks: (Engineer) +50% hammer with Coal. +50% hammer with Iron. Can turn 3 citizens into Engineer
Mt. Rushmore: (Artist) -25% War unhappiness from all cities

V. Comments

Now the question is the Production-City National-Wonder placement:

Moai Status: Available really early
Heroic Epic: War, War, War, grab it ASAP
Mt. Rushmore: Highest priority as soon as it is available
Ironworks: (Engineer): ???

In deity game, health, like happiness, is very hard to come by. There are several trade-off that have to be considered carefully.

(1) Production vs. population
(2) Gold vs. population

Factory (-2H), Coal Power (-2H), Research Park (-2H) and IronWork (-2H) all can cause population reduction. So there is a trade off even between factory and population.

This is why in long, it is important to found cities alone river, which opens many alternatives without health cost.

Later, the environmentalism is nice, but at a huge cost of gold vs State Property, another trade off to consider.

Finally to your question, when finally I managed heath problem with public transportation, hospital, and supermarket, the war is over.

Even without factory and iron work, I can pump out a tank every 2 turns in top 5 cities. So Ironworks seems to play less role in this version, unless health is not an issue.

The following is written by MrGameTheory; the points he made are so good that I have share it with you:

******************* From MrGameTheory ************************

Memorize, or practice or whatever, but you need to know everything I post here like the back of your hand.

1) Know your Enemy ------- Begin to get a grasp of how certain players play, do they expand like hell or like to rush with 1 city. If you know how a person plays you know how to counter it. Start keeping track of the people you encounter.

2) Scout --------- I dont go and build 900 units because they are good units. I love to expand and get cities and workers and tec and not stop expanding and not worry about military. The trick is you need to scout as far away from your culture as possible so you know what units are coming toward you. Keep track of your opponent and if you know what they are sending than you can build the perfect counter. If their power is getting extremely high, than fly in their base with 1 of those scouts and see what all the commotion is about and see what they are building and start building those units. I say this assuming you are playing defensive. Due to the fact that 50% of games come down to points I love to keep expanding so I maximize my gold, mfg, and population so when I need it I can build what I need really fast.

3) A good Offense is the best defense --------- Its impossible to defend all of your cities equally, and your not going to be able to focus on what matters if you are thinking about defense in that manner. You need to approach this video game like anything in life. Identify your enemy and their location and bring units to them and have them focus on their own land. For every unit you have in their land thats .5-1 unit they must leave in their land to defend. While your in their land disrupt their production of cities and maximize your production and seize this moment. If you are destroying their production its not a good time to go and stop sending units all together, make sure they are f**ked and gradually build than have 1 city focus on making just units and the other deal with expansion and go on from there.

4) Play Defensive Until you can handle a Superior offensive ---------- This is not a contradiction of the above if you look at whats being said. My general plan for teamers is that I build a huge population mfg and gold and I let me opponent slave the nuts outta their land and not expand. If they dont kill me than I magically have an enormous empire and send everything to them and due to the fact they didn't expand they are f**ked. its easier to defend than it is to offend in the sense that you can utilize roads and build the counters of units in your land. In massive teamers of lets say 3v3 or 4v4 or 5v5 inland sea or Pangaea or something, identify the player who is in the least harm and the other 4 players should focus on military and staying alive. The other team will just all build military. You let the back row person expand like crazy and just focus on getting population and gold and than it switches and magically the back row person can do some damage, this strat works better obviously once it is mastered.

5) Expand to food - When you place your cities dont just keep the strategic resources and food resource sin mind. UNDERSTAND THAT GRASS IS THE KEY TO BEING A PRO. You want to plant cities around grass and water and you want to build a many cities as possible, dont spread your cities far apart so they have 20 squares to themselves because in the end your not going to be hitting 20 population your going to be hitting populations around 8 or so and its important to over lap your cities so they are sharing the same resources. There is nothing wrong with using food resources to get a population in a city to 9 and than take that food resource and have another city use it to get larger also and the original city using the food will just grow off the grass. Remember that even though a city does add maintenance you have to keep in mind the extra points you get and the production you get out of the city and thats what really matters. It is better to settle 2 cities next to 12 squares of grass than 1 city in 12 squares of grass.

6) Slavery is the most important Civic --------- Slavery is the most important civic in civ 4 and you need to utilize this civ as often as possible. If you have a city that is just on grass and is very minimal, you will find that you can easily slave an axe man every 3 turns with just 3 farms and 1 mountain in a city. This is very important and few people realize this. This is why i am very dangerous and generally have the highest population in a game. I slave like crazy and even though I get some unhappiness its worth it especially if you build lots of warriors in your cities before hooking iron or copper. Remember people, if your not using iron or copper trade it to someone else for them to use and you build lots of warriors in your cities so you can cover the happiness you are going to need. Never use a 40 hammer unit for city happiness in a back city when you could use a 10 hammer warrior and send the expansive units forward.

7) Read the charts ----------- Understand what your opponent is doing and what tecs they have. You need to check their power every 2 turns at the least and the same goes for gold, mfg, and population. Understand if you have a better empire than your opponent. if you are better across the board than its a good time to attack them because you have the advantage and further disrupting them helps guarantee your success and if you have everything better than them, than they have a very low chance of winning. If they have very high gold and you have very high mfg than you better be killing them very fast because soon they will have stronger units than you. if you have higher mfg and population than its also an indication to attack fast. In a cton if you see a players Culture jump up in the last 25 trurns than you have to realize they culture bombed you and if the points are close you better go kill them or something because your about to lose the point race to a culture bomb.

8) Understand the land, era, and settings you are playing ----------- If you are on islands realize that you are going to needs boats very quickly or your in huge trouble. If you are on OCC you need to realize that scouting is key and if its an ancient occ than you need lots of points because points are going to determine the winner 95% of the time. If its team battle ground ancient you need to get out units fast to hurt your opponent etc. Utilize forests and mountains as much as possible when in your enemies land. Look at the land of your opponent and look at the best possible locations to build new cities and be waiting next to those spots with units and as soon as they plant take that city. Dont build forges in a city when there is only 25 turns left in the game because you wont utilize the forge to its full capacity. Its important to not play a 125 turn game like a 400 turn game and vice versa. If its going to be a point war you need to identify its going to be a point war and plant cities earlier so they can get higher populations. In the beginning its better to get a nuts load of workers than gradually get cities because there is no point in having a city that isnt being worked by a worker unless you are just building culture in the city or need fast points.............

9) f**k with your opponent ------ Civ 4 and competition in life is not just about the game you are playing but the person playing the game. If you scare your opponent and intimidate that person you willr realize that you will have a whole new advantage you never realized. I for one have build a reputation that people fear to attack me out of a high probability that I will kill them or in teamers that there is a high probability they will lose their units in the attack. Its a psychological game. If I know I can punk a person around than I dont need to worry about defense even when they have more units......... Intimidate your opponent and play mind games with them, dont just call them a newb and sound like an annoying newb yourself, call them a newb after they make a hug mistake and you will help build a negative Neron in their brain linking you with failure with anger. Anger clouds peoples judgments and if they associate you with failure in themselves than whenever they play you it will be a self for filling prophecy that will make them continue to f**k up and make mistakes.............

10) Understand the game - You need to know what every tec gives, all units, and resources do. Listen its not just general strategy thats going to get you by in this game. you need to understand civ 4. You need to understand what tecs to go for in which era and you need to remember them. In an ancient start dont rush bronze working if you have no trees and lots of cows. Rush cows first and get a worker out fast to work those cows. In a ren era understand that calvary is the best unit to get fast but its possible to counter them with using 2 great scientists to rush education and printing press than using liberalism to get replaceable parts and only having to get rifling and gunpowder and magically you get rifles. You need to know which tecs which great people can get. You need to use a great scientist to get an academy in your best tec city if its a long game but if its a shorter game use it to buy a tec. You need to know the requirements for units and understand that if your opponent is going for certain tecs they are going to ned certain resources to build new units and cutting off those resources is important and those resources begin to act like a city to the defender which they have to protect just as much... Know the game and know the units or you will have a natural disadvantage.


LISTEN I DON'T EXPECT YOU TO RETAIN ALL THIS INFORMATION, ITS JUST IMPORTANT TO REREAD THIS AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE AND THE INFORMATION WILL BE SUBLIMINALLY RETAINED AND IT WILL BE EASIER TO PICK THIS STUFF UP GRADUALLY. I suggest remembering the commandments and than that will help recall the information..........

******************* From MrGameTheory ************************

BTS has changed the typical Ladder game somewhat. Generally speaking this is the tech order for All Ancient Battleground Teamers:

Mining (You almost always start with this, but every so often you dont)
Bronze Working
Animal Husbandry/Archery - Archery first only if enemies are very close
Agriculture/Hunting (in the case you do not start with it)
Mysticism (if you do not start with it - Needed for Stonehenge)
Iron Working
Meditation/Polytheism
Priesthood (for Oracle)
Pottery - Note: If someone has Marble Masonry before pottery or Priesthood

After this point There are 3 key techs:

Horseback Riding - Done first If your civs include Mongels or Carthage
Monarchy - If you didnt get with oracle this is critical in BTS for growth
Writing>Math>Construction - Ultimately you need catapults

After this point the tech path focus on 4 techs rechable in most Teamers:

Alphabet - Spies
Currency - So you dont go broke supporting your army
Feudalism - Longbows
Code of Laws - Caste System for artists

At this point most games are already over or have less than 30 turns to go and people just grab whatever the cheapest tech for the rest of the game. Only 5-10% of the game I play a team reaches Civil Service. Only seen maces once or twice.

Differences in BTS:

Getting Feudalism with Oracle pretty much impossible. Everyone builds as soon as they get Priesthood

All Great people are used to give a Golden Age. No one goes for Theology anymore.

Thank you for the comments and I agree with you. There are four differences:

(1) SP vs. MP (MP is unpredictable vs. SP is predictable);
(2) Deity vs. Noble (unhappy vs. happy);
(3) 350 turns vs 120 turns (long vs. short);
(4) Advanced Start vs. Standard Start (gold vs production).

These differences, in turn, will rearrange priorities. For example, using a Great people for Theology, very often, is your last chance to grab a religion in a deity game; so the next Great people can be used to give a Golden Age.

Yes, Feudalism slingshot is not possible for top online games. I suppose the adjustment is to get Monarchy, which is closer ro feudulism.