This section is for those who never attempted playing this scenario on Deity difficulty, this is the best place for some basic information to lay out in the open.

Most important thing to remember: however you learned to play the game, you will need to adjust your way of thinking about the game in order to succeed here. The key is to get ahead of the AI.

I read most of the succesful guides and comments on the internet in order to prepare and I noticed people having various strategies to get ahead. I will list some of them as they will be used in this guide:

• start as Egypt on Historical map with marble tile on coast. Move your settler to the tile and set your city there to have the marble bonus of reducing time of building wonders - pretty common strategy
  
• ignore everything, go full military and conquer civilizations with wonders
  
• spam early scouts and get your hands on as much ancient ruins as you can to greatly boost your start and go from there
  
• play any civ on any map with consistent focus on ideal start and go from there

AI is brutally ahead here and taking every possible advantage makes or breaks the game

My goal to beat this scenario was to achieve consistency, so I decided to go the route pointed out by most guides: to play with Egypt on Historical map and settle the capital on coastal marble tile. It took some rerolls to get the tile and once I got it, I went and settled my city.

Now which wonders to go for?

There are four sets of wonders: cultural, scientific, economic and military. To consistently win this scenario you need 5 wonders built, which means starting with Oracle and then aim for two of the sets of wonders or mix of wonders. On Deity difficulty you can consistently exclude getting any of the science wonders and you need to be able to get both military wonders. It simplifies the stakes as science wonders upfront are not going to be your focus and racking up XP for military wonders isn't that difficult as I will point out later

Depending on your approach, you need to aim for as many economic and culture wonders as you can. In guides I read, some people were able to succesfully get one or two of the culture wonders on Deity, depending on various openings with other civs and maps, but as an Egypt on Historical map I decided to go for strictly economic and military wonders

My strategy was simple: immediately start building Oracle, slowly build up gold per turn by trading gold for GPT with any civ currently having the more GPT than other civs, after building the Oracle focus on growth to ramp up the production and build some military units to safely attack barbs and city states.

This strategy resulted in a failure, the screenshot of which you can see in the first section. What went wrong?

• my production was constantly sabotaged by barbarians invading my food tiles and depopulating my capital - taking ancient ruins that gave population were being wasted away
  
• as such the focus on growing the capital was really stalling the game as workers - and even settlers - were being held back until any military unit was produced (and all possible gold being traded away for GPT meant depending on production only)
  
• military units sitting idle with workers were not being used in race against time with AI

It's worth mentioning that online guides, even in this scenario, debated over the tradition/liberty social policy trees more useful in this scenario and my first failed attempts I went with full tradition, hoping the stady growth will let me take a shot at culture wonder or two in case I get one economic wonder taken by AI (I was unable to secure Temple of Artemis each attempt).

In one of the seemingly more succesful playthroughs I was able to settle 3 cities, coastal marble capital and two low production cities near the Nile with three workers constantly improving tiles with luxury resources. It was futile as these cities were useless in terms of production and were not able to build population up due to constant barbarian raids

All in all, honesty I don't feel competent to resolve the debate here, but for me switching to liberty later on was more helpful and I will elaborate on that in next sections. However I want to note here, I believe it is equally possible toi go with tradition in this strategy and win

Worst thing by that point: I didn't really know what I was doing wrong or how to fix it.

After several failed attempts I decided to reroll my initial marble start save for another marble start but now with extra food tile, just to speed up growth. It's worth mentioning that my first marble start save was filled with silver luxury tiles, very neat to have around capital as they provided both production and gold to speed things up, my second marble start save I rolled, instead of silver I rolled sheep, giving me two priduction and one food per tile with this resource.

It is worth mentioning here, because as it turned out it was the game changing improvement that allowed me to win the scenario in my second attempt. No guide before was pointing out how crucial it is to have specific set of luxury resources to your advantage (apart from marble) and as it turns out, this is the most important thing about this scenario.

This scenario is break neck race against time and improving tiles is essentially optional, you need to get production and food ASAP as it will not be gained through buildings in cities or improving tiles. Sheep tiles are perfectly balanced with 1 food 2 production and 2 food 2 production after improving and settling the city with 3 or more tiles in range does not hold the city back in case of barbarian invasion.

I also noticed and was able to implement some other strategies:

• starting with liberty social policy saves you prioduction of one worker and one settler fairly early: with two cities and one worker, the other workers being taken from city states later on, you have everything to win the game
  
• citizen management is more efficient by setting general foicus, not locking tiles. When city is in danger of barbarians or at the very beginning of the game, better to leave it as default, later on change to gold focus (depending on tiles) and production focus when building wonders
  
• in order to switch citizen focus in cities without the danger of starving the cities, it is mandatory to build granary in both cities
  
• it is possible to build two scouts at the very beginning before starting the Oracle and still get the wonder - it;s worth to try your luck to get as much ancient ruins as you can, it translates to advantage and you will need it
  
• at the very beginning of the game, city states are weak, if you leave your warrior fortified in city state, you can easily rack up around 100 XP very early and maybe a worker on top of that - just remember to pull your warrior out when city state units and barbarian units start to appear more often

All these experiences helped me to form the strategy to consistently win this scenario.

• play Egipt on Historical map, settle on marble on coastal tile and pay attention to luxuries around your starting position, as indicated above, the preferred option are sheep
  
• while you move your settler to coast (to the right), move your warrior in the opposite direction (to the left), along the coastline. Pick every ancient ruin on the way until you get to Cyrene city state - this is the perfect place to sit your warrior by the city, fortify and declare war. Heal instantly on each promotion and keep him there as long as he can stay alive, it;s not importan in the long run if he does, his sole role is to rack up at least 75 XP this way
  
• build a scout or two and send them east to discover city states for gold, Oracle immadietely after
  
• social policy tree: liberty, beginning with settler then worker, then production
  
• citizen management: default
  
• each gold you get trade for GPT, each possible turn and pay special attention to take it from greece and hitties as they will race you dor the collossus economy wonder; be careful as hitties may declare the war on you later on which will terminate all GPT deals, it's good to diversify just in case
  
• nothing is off the table when it comes to getting GPT: sell open borders, sell luxuries, happiness is worth less than GPT
  
• your second city should be settled right below the closest city state - Sharunen, Second coastal city with good production may offset the production of wonders later on and procides good spot to attack units of this city state (and any incoming barbarians) from the safety of your own teritorry
  
• don't declare the war on Sharunen too early or too late, you will need to feel the right moment so you can be consistently attacked with enemy waves often enough to rack up XP and still managable - if you miss the right moment, enemy may overwhelm your second city
  
• production: scouts, Oracle, war chariot, granary, war chariots until the end of the game, if not building wonders; you can add few spearmen or warriors to tank heavier enemy waves, but never to attack
  
• your gameplay is watching over GPT trades in the first half of the game and manage military units in the second half - there is no rush
  
• after building Temple of Artemis you don't need to worry if persia or sumer overtake you in GPT, even by double the amount - the are unlikely to build the colossus, always try to keep GPT of greece and hitties below yours for that purpose
  
• once granaries are built, change the citizen focus to production (situational - on gold)
  
• lastly: if you happen to finish liberty policy tree, take great engineer - speeding up the production of the last wonder may be deciding factor in winning or losing the game

Using this strategy may not be the most exciting way to achieve this win, but it is consistent enoufh to replicate and succesfully attempt the challenge. I hope this guide was helpful. I am open to any suggestions and feedback as some of the things I learned online, some of them I discovered and I am wawre that I may not know more useful tips in this scenario.

Fingers crossed for your future succesfull attempts!