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This article is mostly dedicated to those yet unfamiliar with playing in deity level. This is basically a defensive but secure strategy to give you the protection you need to keep from being destroyed, and eventually flourish.

Let us start with the number one thing that is required in deity level. Expansion. The easiest way to do this is first scout out the area early in the game. After building a good defensive unit in your capitol, build settlers. Send those settlers out to build a new city, but don't stop building them. Do this with the new city and continue expanding until you have a good size area secured. Now you must separate your inner cities from your outer ones. Inner cities are those that are surrounded on all sides by other cities.

Now we move on to what I call: Standard City Defense. Build 3 good defense units in all of your inner cities, while your outer ones are still building settlers. With 3 defense units, you will reap the advantages of martial law. Then build City Walls, then another settler to develop the city radius. Once your outer cities become inner ones, repeat the procedure. After you have Standard City Defense, the computer generally has a tough time trying to break in. If a city is in immediate danger build barracks, and sometimes a coastal fortress is necessary.

Once better defense units become available, immediately upgrade with 3 of the newer units. Disband the old ones, to build the units faster. Leo's Workshop will make this process much easier, and will save you a lot of precious time. Your civ should look pretty impressive now, and you should also be connecting all of your cities with roads, and later railroads. This is almost required if you are planning an invasion.

After building marketplaces and libraries, your tax/science rate should be doing pretty well. The best governments to choose are Democracy, Fundamentalism, or Communism. Once you have a steady cash flow, go through all your cities, or use the City Status screen, and buy anything under production that at least halfway finished. Fundamentalism is best for this, and you would be surprised on how large your cities get virtually overnight. Using this method, you could have a full-scale army in 3 to 4 turns.

One last thing I would like to share with you is how to quickly build wonders of the world. In one of your inner cities, preferably one with a high production, start on a wonder. Have all the surrounding cities build/buy caravans/freights, and use them to help build the wonder. Using railroads, you can have other cities join in the project. Usually this is the best way to beat the computer into building a wonder that they are working on.

You can catch me in the Test of Time forum if you have and questions, or you can email me.
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About the author: "Founder of the Council of Civgods in the Zone".

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