Though I have had Civ4 ever since it was released, it has been sitting on my shelf collecting dirt. Until recently a few days after patch 1.52 was released, Julius Caesar came to me in a dream begging me to command his praetorians on grand conquest. I told him that I’m not really interested. The city maintenance cost would tie me up in the ancient age forever. If I can’t assimilate new cities and Great Wonders, what else can I do? Burn them down? I have no choice to spill the enemy blood on the battlefield, but burning down their home cities and killing innocent civilians is a crime against humanity and everything I believe in. Therefore, I have no desire of taming this world. I waked up and for some reason decided to give Civ4 another chance. Therefore, I came up with this strategy to save all cities.
- My civ: Roman
- Level: Deity (lower level means easier, of course)
- Map type: Random Standard “Pangaea” World (smaller map size means easier, of course)
- Climate: Temperate
- Optional check boxes: No barbarian, No city razing, and No cheating. Default settings for the rest. (After you have won your first Deity game, you can move up a level by turning on barbarian setting)
- Epic or Marathon game speed
- Minimum of 4 AI players. My favorite adversaries are Spain, Russia, Egypt, England, and America.
- Game version: Patch 1.52 or later
Before I begin, there are a few things you need to know. This is a step by step introduction guide written for those who have never won nor attempted a Deity game. This may not be an optimal guide or a best Deity strategy, but it’s a guarantee to score you a Deity win. You are not just simply winning a Deity game, but win it with a really big score too. 
- Step #1: Building your first city
I recommend building Rome right on the spot. The map generator god has been working hard to ensure a balance starting position for everyone. To move the settler away from the given starting position is not recommended. Since the Roman starting out with Fishing and Mining, 100% research on Bronze Working immediately and set to build a warrior in Rome.
- Step #2: Use your starting warrior to explore the world, to meet the tribal villages and other civilizations. Don’t expect to learn any new tech from goodie huts, but once in a while you may get lucky with something. The most important task here is to map the shape of the world and study the boundary of the AI players.
- Step #3: Rome has finished building a warrior. Set to build a barracks while waiting for your city to grow to at least size 2. After it has growth to size 2, set to build a worker on top of building a barracks. Basically, you delay the production of the barracks and focus on building a worker. Btw, send your second warrior to explore the surrounding a little bit then call him back before Rome about to grow to size 4.
- Step #4: If Rome finish building the worker before you discover Bronze Working, have your worker to Mine a near by hill (once Rome has grown to size 4, these hills will come in handy). There is nothing else the worker can do at the moment.
- Step #5: You should discover Bronze Working about now. Set to search for The Wheel next. Road is very important. At this point, Rome should still be building a barracks (assuming that it has already finished the worker; if not, it’s still building your first worker at this point).
- Step #6: Once your city has grown to size 3, chop more forests to rush at least 3 more workers and 2 settlers. When chopping down the forests, I usually chop the furthest ones first. I recommend chopping the forests near the AI border first.
- Step #7: Place your second city wisely. Whenever possible, place your second city to block off AI access to your unclaimed land. Set your second city to build a barracks and allow it to grow.
- Step #8: You should discover The Wheel by now. Set research for Iron Working next. You may also want to adjust the slider slightly to keep your research at maximum with your income at zero or slightly on the negative size if you still have money to cover it.
- Step #9: If you don’t have bronze within your boundary, use one of your standing by settler and have your workers focus on hooking up bronze. If you already have bronze and there is gold or silver resource near by, build your third city there. I usually will hold off building my third city for as long as I can. I want to allocate as much money to search for Iron Working. If you see Ivory and Furs, just ignore them. You really don’t have time to search for hunting anyway.
- Step #10: It will take a long time to finish up Iron Working. In the mean time, allow Rome to grow into size 4 then have it producing more axemans. Also have your people work the tile that yield the most gold so that you can research Iron Working faster.
Tip: Did you know that you can pre-chop the forests. For example, at the Marathon speed, it takes 8 turns to chop a forest; if I don’t really need the shield right way, I would chop each forest for 6 turns, then move on to the next. This mean, when it time to come back finishing the job, my worker would need only 1 more turns to finish chopping them.
- Step #11: After hooking up bronze, if your first and second cities haven’t yet finished their barracks, chop some forests to finish them, and then start building some Axemans. Note, take your time with the axemans; try not expanding too fast or you would slow down your research on Iron Working. You may want to go easy on the chopping for while. Now, may be a good time to do some pre-chopping the forests.
- Step #12: Finally, you have discovered Iron Working. Your research quota has been met. The Wheel and Iron Working are the only two techs that you really need. From now on, you can research any tech you like, and I won’t talk about research no more. However, I do recommend searching for Mysticism next. Btw, I almost forget…whenever possible, adopt slavery to save 1 gold per turn.
- Step #13: Hooking up iron and start chopping all the surrounding forests for rushing as many praetorians as fast as you can. If you don’t have iron within your boundary (this is rarely happened), use your third settler for this task (or start a new game). In the worst case, use your axemans to get some iron. This rarely happen because irons are plentiful on a “temperate” world. At this point, you should have around 3 cities. If you have to build a fourth city in order to hook up iron, it’s ok. I usually just build two cities and save a settler to build the third city after I discover iron.
- Step #14: Once you have around a dozen praetorians under your command, pick your nearest victim. By now, one of the AI has already built the Great Pyramid. Hit F9 to see who has the Great Pyramid. If your nearest civ has it, then that is your first target. If not, that will be your second target. Therefore, always plan your path toward the Great Pyramid.
- Step #15: Declare war and start eliminating your nearest civ. Unless they have axemans (they rarely do at this point), you should conquer them without any problem. I usually have a couple axemans escorting my praetorians, just in case. My axeman usually get Strength and Shock promotion while my praetorians always get City Raider and Strength promotion. Those silly archers won’t stand a chance against your praetorians with at least Raider I promotion. Since you will be keeping all conquered city, you will run into a negative income pretty soon now. Don’t panic! Since you get at least 100 gold for each city you capture, you can afford to run on negative income for awhile. You should set your research to 0% now. Chances are, you haven’t yet discovered Mysticism, but that’s ok. Like I said before, you need only The Wheel and Iron Working to tame the world.
- Step #15: If your citizens complain, ignore them. If your enemy begs for peace, ignore them. Keeps the war going until they are eliminated? In the mean time, continue to rush more praetorians by chopping down the forests. If you run out of your own forests, move to the new recently captured city forests. Don’t bother rushing the barracks any more. I’m sure there are plenty of easy target out there for your troop promotion.
- Step #16: You should have successfully conquered at least a half dozen cities by now and have control of the Great Pyramid. Here comes my ultimate secret weapon: Start a revolution right away and put your government in Anarchy for as long as you can. Always chose a combination of options that would yield the longest period of time in Anarchy. I usually spend at least 3 turns in anarchy each time. Note: there is a minimum of 4 turns between each revolution. If you spend 3 turns in anarchy, you will have to spend 1 normal turn before you can start another revolution. In the mean time, keep on chopping your forests and keep on capturing new cities. The more cities you capture, the more time you will get to spend in anarchy. Soon, you will find out that you will have to spend at least 5 turns minimum in anarchy which is perfect (this mean you can start another revolution immediately right after your government emerges from anarchy). The bad news is that you don’t earn any money, culture, and production during anarchy. The good news is that you don’t loss any money either. Best of all, all the shield you gain from chopping the forests will stack up on the building queue which means you just need to spend at least 1 turn every now and then in order to mass producing new units.
- Step #17: That’s it! Isn’t that easy? You should have no problem eliminate all of the other civs on the planet and win by either conquests or domination. Note: I haven’t yet seen a lot of axemans, but if you do, remember to run for cover. Unless they are desperately defending their cities, leave them alone. Just fortify your troops on the hills and wait for them to come to you. Other than axeman, there is no other units that can really withstand the charge of your praetorians. You should be ruling the world long before the next age.
If you play this game on a dual map, you should earn a score of at least 120,000 points, at least 130,000 points for a tiny map, at least 200,000 points for a small map, at least 250,000 points for a standard map, and at least 300,000 points for a large map. I haven’t yet tried it on a huge map. Congrats! Now, you can tell all your friends that you have won a Deity game. It’s really that simple. I have never lost a game using this tactic. My current high HOF score for a standard map is over 280,000 points. If you happens to beat it, please remember to submit it to the CivFanatics HoF. Last but not least, I do seriously hope for world peace.
(Apr 15, 2006) Note for Patch 1.61:
In patch 1.61, there is a 5 turns wait at the end of each the anarchy period. Therefore, perpetual anarchy may not possible. The number of production gain from chopping the forests has also been reduced; therefore, an early rush is now some what less effective.