City Festivals

In times of peace, you won't find BP. Also cities that are too far from the frontlines are going to be less useful in combat, especially in the attack.
The only thing your soldiers can do is play around with themselves in city festivals.
The more cities you get, the cultural points you need to unlock more slots. Of course, your army comes first, then you run city festivals, get a new slot and conquest a city. Anyway, it's much more fun fight in wars than be a simmer.

Dodging Sea Storm with CS

How many times did you lose CS for Sea Storm?
It can be very frustating lose your CS, because all your attacks will be for nothing, only info for the enemy. But there's a way, you can explore the mechanics of this game. Let's read the description  of the spell:

Description - Poseidon rises and beats the ships with furious waves. It is not a good day for seafarers. Destroys 10-30% of the enemy's naval units (can only be used on an incoming attack).

This spell don't affect transport boats neither land units , and it is based on the population count not the number of naval units.

All you have to do is to send a certain amount of naval units(not including TS or FTS), the amount should be before the 10% or after the 30% gap.

Examples:

1LS + 1CS = 10 + 170 = 180pop
Sea Storm casted. It will destroy nothing. But,
1CS= 170/180 = 94%
1LS = 10/180 = 6%
I attacked myself and the spell brokes the rule. It ended destroying 1LS...

2LS + 1CS = 10 + 170 = 190pop
Sea Storm casted. It will probablly destroy 2LS.
1CS= 170/190 = 89,47%
1LS = 20/190 = 10,53%
 Let's move on.

39LS + 1CS = 390 + 170 = 560pop
Sea Storm casted.
1CS= 170/560 = 30,36%
1LS = 390/560 =  69,64%
That's the maximum you can get from above.

154LS + 1CS = 1540 + 170 = 1710pop
Sea Storm casted.
1CS = 170/1710 = 9,94%
154LS = 1540/1710 = 90,06%
That's the minimum you can get from below.

Well, you'll never send a CS with so few LS(people can split birs and easily destroy it), neither with so many LS(players can snipe with DLU), neither with the risk of the Sea Storm. Then, the best amount of LS you should send is 39.

Splitting

This defensive strategic won't give you many BP, but it's the best to sink CS.
The idea consists in sending enough amounts of birs that can destroy all the LS that escort the CS.
Of course, if you know the enemy don't have many LS, then you can just stack birs and sink all his OLU, but when the attack firepower surpass yours, splitting is the best option.

Splitting is similar to snipinng, the main difference is that your precision is higher. because you only have to click one button:Support.

Sinking the CS:

• Identify the CS, cast wisdom and see how many LS the player has;
• If it's possible cast Sea Storm and negative spells;
• Go to the simulator and find out how many birs are enough to kill the LS;
• Don't forget to put the premius and the luck 30%(to the enemy).
• 11 sec before the CS arrives, send support as fast as you can. You can do this until 9 seconds after the attack;
• The more birs cities you have, the more attempts you have.

The standard number of LS is 39 for a "magical reason". Then groups of 70 birs can deal with the LSs.

Worst Scenario

In the second of the CS, there are LS nukes and OLU nukes, which means the CS was the last attack to be launched. This is never happend to me, but in this case sniping and stacking are the best options. Of course, most of the players you'll face won't know how to snipe or split.

Full war city

This type of city is designed to increase the population for the war. You'll usually put ~ 3500 of your population in the army and the city will end up with 8796 points. The basic configuration is:

• Senate 15
• Production Camps level 30
• Farm 45
• Warehouse 35
• Barracks 15
• Temple 5
• Market 15
• Harbor 10
• Academy 30
• City Wall 1
• Cave 10
• Thermal Baths 

I beleive you already know what technologies are good or bad for each type of city. By the way,

you can adjust the building according to your preferences.

The first focus would be on the Senate to the lv 24, then farm to 45, thermal baths and the rest. If the city is an OLU, then put the academy in lv 28 as fast as possible. The last building you will finish will be the production camps and the warehouse. At this point, a 7000 points OLU city would be ready for war and a 6000 points naval city would also be ready for war.
Your main way to obtain resources is trading with yourself and farming cities.

What's the point in building a city like that?
The main drawback is that you'll spend more time to build your army and they'll suffer more with Z'rage and Sea Storm. But if you manage to "dodge" the spells then the attack will hit hard and probably clean all the DLU of the city and birs in a single attack. Also it will take more time to run city festivals.
Basically, you pay for a lower production of resources in change of a stronger army. You may find better have max resources, but you'll have more units to attack and defend with this strategy. You're going to gain only 90 population having level 30 production camps, but if you count this number in 20 cities, the "additional population" is 1800 both for defense and offense. That's just my humble opinion.

I'm sure that your army win wars, not your points.

Infiltration

This strategy consists in infiltrating the core of the enemy.
There you can do whatever you want to do, but there are two things you can perform well:
Build a full OLU city, or a OLU city with CS.
As you are in the same island of the reds, you can check thier harbors every time with small groups of slingers for example.
Probably you'll be attacked by everybody, so stacking units in the city is essencial. Birs or DLU, if you have a wall lv 15 or higher.
For these reasons many alliances like to fill their islands, even if the city has low points or it's just an anchor, ready to be colonized.

Simming

Simming is often see as a bad thing in the grepolis forums. I also agree with them, but if used strategic simming can be really good for your alliance.

Strategy

You will only build defensive troops: DLU if you're not active or birs if you're active.
All your cities are DLU or birs cities. Then, you'll put all your production camps in the max level, because you can't farm.
Pros: You don't have to worry about attacking and timing attacks. You can support all your teammates and defend your cities at the same time.
Cons: You can be a target for the enemies. Most of your cultural points will come from City Festivals.