The 4 rules of Wonder addiction

Ision didn't advocate abstinence from build the GLib to win at Deity. (Incidentally, go look at SGOTM12 - admittedly a contrived set-up in terms of cities built but I think you'll find that in that game not one single team built or used the GLib to gain a significant number of techs.)

What he is doing is slotting another piece into the "what can I do to improve my game?" puzzle often posed by new players.

At some point, those new players will get to a point where they are confident that they can play the game on their own terms at a level that they are comfortable with. Wonders such as the GLib, Pyramids, etc. are understood not just as being a fun toy, but as a means to an end. An investment that must be properly thought out before committing to it. At which point the player has learned their lesson, and this article has served its purpose. The player now moves on to play Civ how they wish, and the GLib or whatever other Wonders they choose to build become a part of the overall strategy that they employ to win by their chosen VC - rather than "ooh I can build the GLib it gives me loads of techs omgfh I MUST HAVE IT IT WILL BE MINE!11!!!"
 
. . . . Currently, I have a game almost surely a few turns away from my first victory on Deity . . . . . . . .
:woohoo: Congratulations! :woohoo:

How in the world will NOT building wonders get newbies to understand ReXing better? Wouldn't an article on settler and worker factories work better? Wouldn't screenshots from the retirement replay of games with settler factories vs. those without work better? I simply don't see how abstaining from building wonders helps with understanding ReX better, as players who don't build wonders might just train units or build temples and such instead of settlers and workers.
The problem is that new players often build Great Wonders at the expense of REXing. (Obviously not a concern for OCC games.)
. . . . You will have your 20k city building wonders during the ReX phase of the game... and that slows down your expansion.

If a new player can pull off a successful REX and build the Great Wonders, that's a different story. If you pull some of the old "help a noobie out" threads, I think that what you'll see is that players posting those threads frequently have one or two cities that have been building wonders, but they suffer from: (1) too few workers; (2) too small of an empire; and (3) too small of a military. Even if you don't plan to war early, having enough military to defend oneself tends to be useful.

How will not building wonders help them? By teaching them how opportunity cost works in Civ. IMO, part of the problem stems from the fact that these new players don't really understand how all the pieces of the puzzle (shield cost, unit support, improvement upkeep, research, luxes & the benefits of each) fit together. What I tried to make clear in my last post & I apologize if I did not, is that once a player puts those pieces together, then you start adding wonders into the mix.

Articles on Settlers and worker factories? They're already there.
Cracker's Opening Plays Site
Tutorial: Babylon's Deity Settlers
Spotting Settler Factories

Yes, players might "just train units or build temples and such instead of settlers and workers." But building military is part of that equation. Let them lose a few settlers or have a few towns sacked and they'll quit doing that. Temples vs. Military, that's a different debate, IMO.


. . . . Ision should have at least confined his comments to players who NEVER, EVER, EVER want to play the 20k game. The same goes for SirPleb. For "wonder fixation" I suggest playing the 20k game and forget other victory conditions. Don't fight it... use it.
I disagree. I would simply submit that players winning 20K games, already understand both the value of wonders and the various costs involved in building them.

At Emperor and below it at least seems not. In some Emperor-level games though, one might even argue that it works out better, since you can run high-deficit research in the high middle ages after Education. Maybe not though. Still, at Deity and Sid, and perahps Demi-God, it certainly does have significant benefits.
I'm not disputing the value of the GLib. I know that it's especially valuable at higher levels and for culture games. I think that new players need to understand how to function without it.


While there may be some DG/Deity/Sid games played and won without the GLib, I can't think of a single one that I've read where getting it (either by building or conquest) was not in the game plan.
This contradicts Ision's assertion that
Having said that, had I not been a victim of 'wonder fixation' as a newbie I would have become a better player FAR faster. My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months - my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.
I don't see how my statement contradicts Ision's at all.

I don't think miss Moonsinger captured or had plans to capture the Great Library in her 80k game... at least she doesn't say anything about it in her write-up, and shows us some of her excellent trades.
You may be right. So Sid-level can be beaten without the GLib. But just because Moonsinger can do it, doesn't mean that new players need to build every AA wonder at the expense of REX.

For which victory condition?
To keep up in tech. It's very handy for culture, though.

Aabraxan said:
I don't think this is aimed at Deity Noobs.
I have to disagree. Ision says:
My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months – my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.

First of all, the Deity Noobs (or most of them, I suspect) have completed the learning curve to Monarch. The trip from Monarch to Deity usually comes after Chieftain to Monarch.

Second, take a look at the whole paragraph:
Let me start by saying that I DO build wonders, and I think they are a wonderful part of this game. They create variety and lead to a myriad of different strategies. Having said that, had I not been a victim of 'wonder fixation' as a newbie I would have become a better player FAR faster. My learning curve to Monarch would have been reduced by months - my first Deity victory would not have taken over a dozen failed attempts.
(Emphasis supplied).

I think the point is to learn to manage the game without having to rely on one "indispensable" wonder.
. . . . No... simply put, making building the Great Library off limits for Deity players doesn't make much sense... esepcially for Deity noobs. The four skills you mentioned I more or less learned from playing lots of 20k games, where I built tons of wonders. Those skills help a lot for a Deity attempt, in my opinion.
OK, but, again, you already have the basic management skills necessary to get to that level.
 
I guess that I am puzzled by the view that building Wonders is bad. They are part of the game, yet a fair number of people argue that they should not be used. In my view, that is like saying bombers are a part of the game, but you should never use them, or cutting down forests for a shield boost is part of the game, but you should never do that. They are there, I will use them.

As for racing to get to Deity level. so what? I could not care less if I NEVER play at Deity level, and I probably will not. I play for fun, which some of the posters seem to have forgotten in their bludgeoning of me over the head to play in the same way that they do, or in a very similar way. I enjoy playing with the Wonders, tweaking their specs, changing what they do, making them into what I would view as a more accurate portrayal of their effects.

For those of you who do not like to build Wonders, and think that no human player should build them, I have a simple proposal. PUT YOUR EFFORTS WHERE YOUR POSTS ARE AND ELIMINATE THEM FROM THE GAME, TOTALLY. NO WONDERS FOR ANYONE. No Great Library, no Statue of Zeus, no Theory of Evolution, no Hoover Dam, no Manhattan Project, no Apollo Project. NOTHING. Then see how much fun the game is to play. Otherwise, quit telling people how they should play. You want to tell me how you play, that is fine.

DO NOT TELL ME HOW I SHOULD PLAY.

Timerover, don't take this the wrong way. I preface everything I say with "I think it's great that you have fun playing the game you play, and frankly, if playing a different way is more fun for you, you SHOULD do that."

That said... I frequently (and by frequently, I mean like 90% of your posts heading in this direction) see you post something similar to your second paragraph above.

You tweak the wonders, change the effects of buildings, and so on. That's great. But at the point you are making all of those changes, in my opinion, you aren't playing Civ. You're playing "Timerover's variant game based on the Civ structure". For which none of us have a reference, and for which, quite honestly, the "normal" conventions of the game probably don't apply. Just as your discussions of your variants, from a purely strategic perspective, are meaningless when discussing out of the box Civ.

I fully encourage you to start www.timeroversvariationsofcivfanatics.com though. Again, I'm glad you enjoy it. Someday, perhaps I'll ask for some of your variants and try them out. But, purely from a strategic perspective, you're talking about a different game entirely. And it's really, really annoying.
 
Timerover,

You probably should qualify *all* your comments by saying that you play modded games a lot. I wouldn't put like DWetzel and say you aren't playing civ... but you play a different sort of civ in general, so your comments come as less relevant and the analyses you make don't quite have the same force, since you think of a different sort of civ. More power to you for creating and playing your own games... but keep in mind you play your own sort of game.

Aabraxan,

If you can't think of a single demi-god/deity/sid player who doesn't capture or build the GLB, then it at least appears that the most common strategy for beating those levels involves the GLB... it doesn't come as off-limits... it works more like a core strategy for many, if not most players. This sort of suggests that for one's first civ game, knowing how to build the GLB works out as best... especially since capturing a Deity-level AI town doesn't work out as so simple as capturing a Monarch-level AI town. Consequently, one actually slows oneself down in a transition to Deity if one ignores the GLB as Ision suggested. Since we have a suggestion, not an actual implication, we don't have a contradiction exactly... but it comes close to such.

How will not building wonders help them? By teaching them how opportunity cost works in Civ. IMO, part of the problem stems from the fact that these new players don't really understand how all the pieces of the puzzle (shield cost, unit support, improvement upkeep, research, luxes & the benefits of each) fit together. What I tried to make clear in my last post & I apologize if I did not, is that once a player puts those pieces together, then you start adding wonders into the mix.

I certainly don't think you need to understand all that to win a 20k game on Monarch or below. I simply don't know how many 20k games, OCC or many cities, I won where I didn't trade for a single technology or trade away a single technology. I certainly didn't understand research for those games. I know I also won 2 emperor 20k games where I didn't trade tech either. In almost all those games I didn't have much military either. I've even I've won a 20k game on Monarch where I didn't have freshwater near my capital... well technically I launched the spaceship, but in 2 or 3 turns I could have cultural victory in that one.

I think going for the 20k game actually accelerates one's learning curve to Monarch, because then one almost surely starts thinking about building the highest culture wonders in one city.. and it actively encourages one to check the civilopedia for information about shield costs and cultural value of wonders, what they do, how they trigger golden ages, as well for culturally and shield cost information for city improvements. A newbie also learns that the Babylonians have cheaper temples than the Germans, and wonders why... oh... it's that religious thing. But, why would you check the civilopedia for wonder information if you won't build them? Why would you check the civilopedia information on city improvements like temples and cathedrals and banks, if you plan to mostly build military and conquer? You wouldn't. Also, the 20k game encourages you to use the luxury slider, since even a newbie can figure out that you'll probably end up with fewer shields in that one city if you use an entertainer or tax collector. Additionally, the 20k game teaches you about corruption, since if you try to build a 20k city in your non-core, the newbie will wonder why it takes so darn long... and might actually look at the city display screen trying to figure it out.
 
One further semi-relevant point there: in a 20k game... at least you're confining building all those wonders to one city (hopefully). Which leaves a few other cities with no wonders to build... and thus, hopefully, SOMETHING else to do. ;)
 
I fully believe you Chamnix and that you do it well. But, how many other players do so at those levels?

In a 20k game confining building wonders to one city in the middle ages doesn't make sense. You want to build Leo's and Sun Tzu's to kill the wonder cascades.
 
. . . .
Aabraxan,

If you can't think of a single demi-god/deity/sid player who doesn't capture or build the GLB, then it at least appears that the most common strategy for beating those levels involves the GLB... it doesn't come as off-limits...
The Great Library is very rarely part of my strategy in demi-god or deity games.
Well, now that Chamnix has spoke up, I guess I do know of one high-level player who doesn't use the GLib as a critical part of strategy.

With that said, I still disagree with your analysis. I don't think this article is really aimed at DG & above players and I still think it more helpful for new players to learn to play without the GWs. It's far too easy to let the GLib or other Wonder become a crutch.
 
I fully believe you Chamnix and that you do it well. But, how many other players do so at those levels?

I think that when players first move up to those levels (possibly when players first move up to almost any level?), they are fairly likely to rely on the Great Library to get their first couple wins, but as their game keeps improving, they start to manage without it. I think that most players who play on demigod or deity regularly probably do so without going for the Great Library (variants like AW excepted).

The problem with relying on one wonder like that is what if you don't get it? I have seen posts in these forums from players saying they restart games if they don't get the Great Library. If your goal is to beat a level consistently (and I'm not saying that is or should be everyone's goal), then I think you have to be able to do it without one particular wonder - there's just too much that can go wrong if your game is based solely on that.
 
Dwetzel, Doug.Lefelhocz, I played straight, unmodified Vanilla Civ3 on my various Macs, and did not enjoy it very much. I found the time it took for workers to make an improvement ridiculous, resource bonuses slightly better than nothing, and unit combat rating bordering on or utterly ludicrous. Ancient galleys damaging and in one case, sinking, an ironclad! I have designed a very detailed naval miniatures game, using the original Rules for the War Game: 1898 edition, by Fred Jane, originator of Jane's Fighting Ships, which hopefully you have heard of, Fighting Ships, not the War Game. I am not that naive to assume that of computer game players. If I had an ancient galley appear in the game, and damage, much less sink, an Victorian-Period Ironclad, not only would I be laughed out of a convention, but even the Fantasy War Gaming guys would be wondering what I was smoking or popping when I did the rules. I will not even get into the rest of the naval units or the land units. I also grew very tired of dealing with AI demands, and continual attacks, being basically a builder by game style.

Note, I teach history using gaming every summer for 3 weeks, one of the requirements for game use is that it promotes long-range thinking, keeping focused on your objectives, and in some cases, building a strong economic base to eventually wage war if needed. I modify the rules in those games to a greater or lessor degree to achieve the desired class goals. As these are HUMAN PLAYERS for all sides, anyone who continually attacks very rapidly finds their team the target of every other team in the game, and vanishes rather quickly. The Civilization 3 computer game style of attacking early and often would not be terribly successful.

When playing the un-modified computer game, I built Wonders, mainly to get some sort of an edge on the AI, after also going to archipelago maps, to give me time to build things. The editor that I did have on the Mac, from MacSoft, was and is the most unstable piece of software that I have ever used on the Mac, and rarely gave me the same map set-up with respect to any modification twice. I could hit the save button three times, changing the save title every time and get three different situations, including having no Bronze Working, desert with no resource and 0 movement cost, ships that could not load, carriers that could not activate planes, Wonders that did nothing, etc. The main use for the editor was seeing how maps and starting positions were laid out. Based on the headaches from all of this, I QUIT PLAYING CIV3 AS A VERY POORLY DESIGNED GAME IN SOME RESPECTS AND ONE THAT WAS NO FUN TO PLAY AT ALL. If I had tried to follow Ision strategy, I would have terminated playing Civ3 MUCH SOONER.

After finally getting a Windows Box, bordering on abomination for a Mac user, and multiple copies of Civ3 Complete for both Mac and Windows, and the Civilization Chronicles, I started editing the game. I now enjoy playing it. I have yet to obtain a single tech from the AI, however, and do not even worry about that, figuring that I will do all of my own research.

I notice that much of your comments have to do with either getting techs from the AI or taking Wonders that they build. It would appear that the idea of doing your own research is not very well liked by the purists of the game. You play it that way, fine. I will not. I understand that makes me an extremely poor player by your standards, just as I view you as extremely poor players by my standards. You do not like my comments, tough. You do not like me modding the game, tough. Civ3 is a good game, marred by some hideous unit combat ratings, ludicrous times for completion, a biased and bizarre RNG, an extremely simplistic corruption model, and a real overkill of a pollution model. You want to play it that way, go ahead. I will not. I will encourage other players not to put up with the headaches, and thereby increase their enjoyment of the game. Considering that the Creation and Customization Sub-forum has the most viewers at any given time, I would say that a lot of people do not play the pure, unmodified Civ3 that you are so zealously pushing.

DWetzel, I will make very sure that I continue to offend your sensibilities and continue to post on the forums.
 
I do like your comments timerover... I just wish it came out as clearer that you play mostly modded games when you start talking about civ III. I probably would think you a much better player, in the fullest sense of the word, than many of the regular civ III upper-level players around here. You use your creativity to make the game better for you to play... and I consider that part of playing the game in the fullest sense of the word. Some people don't do that and simply won't dream of it.
 
A voice from the past chiming in here :)

It is great to see the activity on threads like this and that CivIII is still being explored!

I'm chiming in here because I think there are a number of posts which are at a tangent to Ision's original post. For those talking about Ision's advice and the merits of building wonders at Deity, please reread the core advice in Ision's post:

"My advice is simple: do not build a single wonder until you have mastered Regent level."

I'd like to add my voice to the comments made recently by eldar and Aabraxan ( :thumbsup: )

The beauty of Ision's post is that the advice is simple. Yes he could have said things like "study REX techniques", "study trading articles", etc. But that is not simple advice. His advice is a very useful one liner for the relatively new player who wants to move to more difficult levels and has the simple question "what should I do differently?"

By not building wonders the player will be forced to learn other techniques to win, and will then be able to bring more skills to bear at higher levels.

Ision correctly identifies The Great Library as being the #1 "off limits" wonder for the player who wants to advance levels. The reason for not building this wonder is that not having it encourages a player to improve a number of important skills. Skills such as savvy trading, carefully targeted and managed research, tradeoffs in construction (libraries), and learning to get ahead in tech or to play from behind. All of these are skills which are invaluable at the highest difficulty levels and which will be learned at a much slower rate by a player who relies on the Great Library. Without mastering these skills a player won't have a chance at even more advanced techniques such as controlling the overall tech pace of a game.

I think it goes without saying that Ision's advice doesn't apply to people focused on the 20K goal. There are probably other specialty cases where it doesn't apply. Ision started by saying "New and inexperienced players (chieftain to regent) make certain common errors." I think the vast majority of these players are not devoted to special case goals. They may already have a tendency toward warfare or building, or toward particular Civs. But they usually still want to learn to pursue multiple paths through the game (vs. say a strong focus on 1CC or 20K culture) and in that case Ision's advice is well worth taking.

BTW, though Ision said "Regent", please see my post at #18 in this thread. For players who do want to progress to higher difficulties, I suggest taking his advice farther than that.
 
I guess I do not understand why the Great Library is such a huge bugaboo for some people. I built it before I started modifying the game, but not with the expection of getting any free techs, more for the culture boost to expand my city borders faster. I play on huge to huge+ (larger than 160 x160) archipelago or continent maps, with no more that 4 to 6 civilizations as opponents. As such, depending on other civs for tech advances is a waste of time. I do all of my own research, with research slider at around 60%, entertainment at about 20% if I have a few luxuries, 30% in an emergency. I do not use CxxC or even CxxxxC spacing, preferring to try for optimum city location. Great Lighthouse is a must to boost exploration rate. Generally, I was ahead in tech by the time I discovered other civilizations. Trading for techs, I have had zero success with, including in games where I am in a locked alliance such as the WW2 in the Pacific scenario. Only way I could get techs traded in that was to play all the Allies in a hot seat game. Knights Templar gets built for the Crusaders, which make nice combat engineers. Other Wonders get built to keep citizens happy, so that I can keep a high level of research. I am curious as to how someone expects to win the Space Race without building the Apollo Project, but I guess that might be an exception to the rule, although from some of the posts, that is viewed as an undersirable way to win.

With respect to winning at very high levels, I have no interest whatsoever. I play for fun. I modify the game now, and am enjoying it far more. As for the blathering about Wonder Addiction and other types of addiction, I will ignore it, and no longer worry about commenting on it.
 
The beauty of Ision's post is that the advice is simple.

I disagree. His advice tells you what NOT to do. Simple advice tells you WHAT to do.

Ision started by saying "New and inexperienced players (chieftain to regent) make certain common errors." I think the vast majority of these players are not devoted to special case goals.

I would identify that as perhaps the greatest weakness of newbies. They don't overcome this weakness by not doing certain things, they overcome such a weakness by playing a few games with a certain goal in mind.

BTW, though Ision said "Regent", please see my post at #18 in this thread. For players who do want to progress to higher difficulties, I suggest taking his advice farther than that.

Well I can say from personal experience that I've now won demi-god and deity level games, having built the great library in all of them. So, your advice doesn't work as a requirement. The Great Library can certainly work as allowed and players can fairly easily advance levels if they learn things like ReX, worker management, etc. Still, that all doesn't work as all that necessary... or necessarily as all that helpful for advancing levels. One can advance to and beat Emperor level without trading a single tech ever, building a settler factory, having much military, or having 2 workers per city. I did it myself before I moved up to demi-god. In my first Emperor-level victory I won with 10 cities (no captures), and in my second I won with 5 (no captures). Again, I didn't trade a single tech, have a settler factory, or have all that much military either.

The 20k game gives you a special case goal perhaps more simply than any other victory condition: have your 20k city building a wonder as much as possible, max out its shield output, and have it build higher cultural wonders. Conquest games don't work quite so simply, nor diplomatic games, nor spaceship games, nor 100k games.
 
Dwetzel, Doug.Lefelhocz, I played straight, unmodified Vanilla Civ3 on my various Macs, and did not enjoy it very much.

(multiple paragraphs of tripe snipped)

DWetzel, I will make very sure that I continue to offend your sensibilities and continue to post on the forums.

First of all, relax. Please! :crazyeye: Don't worry, you won't offend my sensibilities. I am truly trying to be constructive here. So, truce? :)

You seem to have missed my point. So, let's be clear about what I am and am not saying.

1. I make no claims that you are a poor player of Civ. Honestly, I don't particularly care if you are or not. Either way, I have no evidence one way or the other.

2. I make no claims that you are playing an inferior game. I know that you feel that you are playing a superior game. And for you, you are certainly correct in that assertion. For the general public, you may also be correct--again, I have no evidence one way or the other.

3. I applaud you for taking what must have been a substantial time and effort on your part to make the game more enjoyable for you. I know I have done that with various tabletop games over the years (on, I would guess, a much smaller scale). I freely admit to not having the time, inclination, or expertise to do so with this game.

4. I DO claim that your repeated discussions of heavily modified versions of Civilization are counterproductive in cases where it is clear that the original poster:

a) has no knowledge of your modifications,
b) is clearly discussing unmodified Civ, and
c) is getting a number of replies which DO discuss the unmodified Civ game.

I'll try to give you a specific example, so we can be clear.

When discussing the Great Library, I believe (and please correct me if I am wrong; I am doing this from memory) you mentioned in some context the increase in your research rate from having it. Another poster questioned this, at which point it came out that you had modified the Great Library (for perfectly reasonable historical reasons which I stipulate to).

Now, the reason for my disappointment in this is that, for a newer player reading your response, they might be misled to believe that the Great Library actually provides benefits IN THEIR GAME beyond what happens in "out of the box" Civ. And then build the great library, and then wonder why their research rate isn't going up.

It doesn't specifically bother ME, because I've figured out that this is your modus operandi. But, in situations where people are asking about advice about "out of the box Civ", advice about the game that you play isn't necessarily relevant and could be harmful--and they would have no way of knowing the difference.

And that's all I'm saying. I'm not casting aspersions on your ability as a Civ player or on your game modifications. I'm just saying, be careful about how you're saying things, and if you are planning on giving advice, be careful to do it in the context in which the person is asking for it, okay?
 
Yeah... for most freshwater, coastal starts a newbie almost certainly can win a 20k game on Monarch with little trouble whatsoever. I seriously think most people could jump into Monarch level their very first game and win or at least come close enough that they'll win their second or third game... for a coastal start perhaps even without freshwater, if they read my Sumerian report. They'll start learning the trading system from this advice also. The best evidence I have perhaps consists of the games here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6982961#post6982961
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6978070

No doubt Bamspeedy probably has the best article to read in general for newbies, but warmongering and settler factories work out so much more complicated and time-consuming than a simple 20k game. The game should feel simple when one starts it I'd think, since there exists plenty in it to learn.
 
Yeah... for most freshwater, coastal starts a newbie almost certainly can win a 20k game on Monarch with little trouble whatsoever. I seriously think most people could jump into Monarch level their very first game and win or at least come close enough that they'll win their second or third game... for a coastal start perhaps even without freshwater, if they read my Sumerian report.

You know what, your ignorance and obstinance has gotten irritating. Ision's post was fantastic, simple advice that helped many players I'm sure, but myself in particular. I was wonder addicted and reading this article both helped stop that addiction and helped propel me upwards. I was having trouble getting past Warlord. And before you start in on I don't know what I'm talking about, I've been playing since 1993 with Civ I. I couldn't get to Regent until I focused more and the article on Wonders helped greatly with that focus.

Here's some simple advice - don't jump off any bridges, don't chew with your mouth open, and don't be so condescending.

And yes, even though it's a negative, those all qualify as simple.
 
Yeah... for most freshwater, coastal starts a newbie almost certainly can win a 20k game on Monarch with little trouble whatsoever. I seriously think most people could jump into Monarch level their very first game and win or at least come close enough that they'll win their second or third game

I think you either dramatically overestimate the ability of newbies or have a different definition of newbie than I do. I don't think I could have reached 20K before 2050 on any level when I was starting out.
 
Newbies would do well heeding SirPleb's advice, arguably the top-player in innovating strategical thinking in terms of C3. He showed us new unexplored paths: FoD, FoDe, GLE, Leader Farming etc..

Ision's article is right on target and full of common sense. The Great Library is the number one crutch that must be avoided at all costs by newbies because of the huge opportunity cost on the mid to lower levels. The GL will hamper your learning curve by months. Once you have mastered these levels with ease without recurring to the GL you are free to build it on the higher levels. It is common sense really and sound advise.

When I wrote my article on winning on Deity it's devised for deity noobs. I am the first one to admit that resorting to the GL may become a huge crutch that might prove immensely detrimental to your gameplay skills. On the higher levels there are no set paths, you are free to innovate as you please, just use whichever tool pleases you to pursue your goals. Ision was thinking only on beginners not advanced players when he wrote his excellent article, specially The Leap from Monarch to Emperor, another excellent article of his.

My 2 cents. ;)
 
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