Editors Note:
This was originally writen for a gaming page forum, but Mike has kindly sent an updated copy with some changes.

Hi everyone, I'm Mike. Fritz asked me to post some strategies that I used in the beta tournament. Keep in mind that these are only guide lines and shouldn't be taken as the only way to play the game. I am a pretty good player, but this is one of the strategies that works for me. You may find through playing experience that what I say doesn't work for you. I'll start off by telling you the strategies that have the most weight in my game, advancing through the ages as quickly as possible. These strategies come from a random map, default resources, default starting age, multiplayer game playing a powerful late game civ. i.e. greeks, yamato.

1. At the very start of the game there are 3 villagers and a town center. I always make as many villagers asap with the food I'm given at the beginning. I have 1 of the villagers build 2 houses, 1 explore, and the other one either chops wood (if a tree is close to the town center) or explores as well. As soon as you find a forest, build a storage pit near it and start chopping. I bring 3 villagers to chop wood. The others you have either explore for berries, or harvest berries if you've already found them. Keep recruiting (for lack of a better word) villagers and send them to find/harvest those berries. When you get enough wood, build a granary by the berries. This will significantly increase the speed at which you get food. I continue recruiting villagers until I have 12-16. If you want 16, you'll have to build another house somewhere along the way. I usually stop at 12 villagers and have the rest filled by fishing ships. The next step is to build a dock if playing a water map (costal, inland, islands) and there's water w/ fish nearby. If there isn't water nearby, recruit another villager and have him go look for water. I split my 12 villagers up 7 food, and 5 wood. It's really nice to find water with fish, because usually the berries are gone before you can build farms. (require tool age and a market place) So, if you have fishing ships, they continue getting you food. Before you advance to the tool age, build a barracks and maybe a few clubmen. If you're playing on a large map with 3 or fewer players, you probably can skip them. Same with huge map and 4 or fewer.

2. Once to the tool age, build a market and stable asap. Chances are, you have 400 food or so when you get there. Recruit villagers, put a few more on wood, but put most of them on farms. Have 1 villager to a farm (they only produce 1 unit of food at a time) and build the farms in a square around the granary. If you run out of room, build them around the town center. Once you have 8-10 farms, provided you have fishing ships as well, stop recruiting villagers. At the same time after the stable is build, recruit a scout. Have him locate gold, stone, and any water crossings if they aren't already found. After you're done finding the above things, try to locate your enemies. I usually don't research any technology until I have started researching the bronze age. (800 food) If the enemy scout has already found you, I'd build a small force of clubbers/axemen. The scout probably saw that you didn't have much of an army and is sending units to kill you. When you have started researching the bronze age, have 2 of your lumberjacks build a storage pit by the gold you've found and start mining it. When you hit the bronze age, recruit villagers like mad. I stop around 20-25. Have everyone you can spare gold mine. If you're enemy has attacked, have a few stone mine too. Research technology, build an academy, a siege workshop, and if you have a good wood reserve a temple as well. Now it's your call. If you are significantly ahead of your opponents tech-wise, build up an army of hoplites, cavalry, and a few stone throwers and go beat on him/her. If they aren't far behind, concentrate on advancing to the iron age and getting those all powerful phalanxes/centurions, cataphracs, catapults, and ballistas. When you feel you have a good army, go attack.

Hope I have been of some help, and remember, this is only helpful if you play a powerful bronze age/iron age civ. If you play a good tool age civ, you need to build up an army quick and kill your enemies right away.

Mike Peterson