When to build libraries?

Apologies if this is another dumb post from yours truly, but I'm getting confused.

I'm playing at King (or trying to!) and finding some of the posted replies are just confusing. I read through Tabarnak's 4-city Tradition opener some time back and it sounded great; but what I find in my games is just not recognisable as what I read.
For instance, I've gleaned that I should have 4 cities a.s.a.p., national college at the latest by T65, sell all luxuries to AI and buy settlers, build a bunch of crossbowmen, resist 1st war then go crush attacker etc. etc. but what actually happens is that after only a few turns barbarians are all over me, I try and kill off camps (and of course as soon as I'm attacking one camp I get barbs coming from oppposite direction, libraries take 20+ turns in new cities and in any case I'm building archers/crossbowmen; and as for following up after initial DOW assault, when I tried that in last game Genghis just produced another enormous army from stage left and creamed me.

What I've actually been doing is founding 2 or maybe 3 cities and only building another much later if I get the chance. I tend to stay defensive until I'm pretty sure I can capture target city/beat army, then go for it. As for selling luxuries to the AI for enough gold for settlers - I'm sure you can do that at Deity but they sure as hell won't pay anything like that at King! In fact they usually don't have much money, but they do have lots of units.

In short (?) I haven't had 4 cities and built the NC under T110 as far as I can remember, and mostly only 3 cities. So am I misunderstanding and doing something fundementally wrong? Clearly I'm still learning after getting into bad habits at Prince and below - please feel free to be as specific (and candid) as you like in replies. Sorry it's so long a post BTW.

Difficult to say without a save game but are you getting your worker out fast enough and improving those nearby luxuries early enough to sell them to AI's for first settlers, libraries in new cities etc.

Its kinda hard to get 4 + 4 and still have a good turn number on the NC. I don't bother. I get 2+2 and then get the extra cities shortly thereafter. This approach allows for more offense and or defense as needed -- usually don't need defense unless you bust out 3 or 4 quick cities. Then they want to attack you.

You are certainly right on one point - the timeframe set is for Deity, not for King, because as you correctly point out AI doesn't have as much money on King (something that most Deity players have simply forgotten).

Don't forget, though, that the goal of those guides is to show you how to beat an opponent who is meant to get a SV at ~T260-280 (Deity, Pangea) or ~T300 (Continents). I admit I don't have any experience on King, but if I interpolate my experience from other levels I would say that you have an opponent with SV ~T370 (at best for AI), which means that you can certainly afford to get a bit later compared to the Deity timeframe.

What is more important is to have a good place for a 4th city - if you do then go and grab it and don't worry. If you don't you can do with 3 cities for a while - just rush to NC as fast as your situation allows. For me, one important issue is that, if I build a 4th city before NC, I have the gold to also rush the Library (early wars have their good parts as well).

I posted in another thread my remarks on the effect of lower difficulty and different map types to the early trade (and the fast SV). In general, I will repeat here that my view is that there is no such thing as "homogeneous" timeframe - for many reasons. If at King (Pangea) you have your 4th city set by T80 and your NC by T100 I am sure you will crash AI without any problem. In Continents you might even get a bit later and still win comfortably.

Library in my capital: It's a high priority to build.
Typically after Shrine, Worker, and Granary. (Note that I'll get free Monuments from Tradition)

The one in my second city: Cash rushed shortly after city founded to allow the capital to start National College (even if that new city is only size 1; NC should always be built fast)

Ones in my third & fourth cities: Basically after everything cheaper than a Library has been built. Or if I get 400 gold after founding that fourth city, cash rushed.

Thanks for some useful replies.
Given that so much emphasis is placed on getting first worker out, and given how vulnerable they are, are other players turning off barbarians?

Walter R said:

Thanks for some useful replies.
Given that so much emphasis is placed on getting first worker out, and given how vulnerable they are, are other players turning off barbarians?

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Generally not. Have your warrior protect your workers from barbarians. Barbarians should definitely not be overwhelming you unless you play with raging barbs on.

Unresolved said:

Generally not. Have your warrior protect your workers from barbarians. Barbarians should definitely not be overwhelming you unless you play with raging barbs on.

Click to expand...

In G&K & Vanilla I played with raging barbs on all the time; it was rare for me to run into issues. Its the AI that has problems.

Now in my first few games of BNW I'm going to turn ragging barbs off (and just play normal barbs) but that has to do with cargo ships until I get feel of what exactly is needed to defend the routes against the barbs.

I generally wait to build a library in my cities until they will be at least size 4 by the time it is completed. After building Monument and Granary, this is usually the case unless it's a desert/tundra town.

Trust your experience, tabarnak's guide was written for "another" game.

I assume tabarnaks guide used to be valid some time/patches ago. BNW changed a lot altogether. Library in the capital is important for the research, (libaries in the other cities are important for the NC to be built). If you want the NC as fast as possible either build no or only one other city, you can prebuild the settlers though, place them and place them but don't settle yet, only after the NC is finished settle.

On King it could be possible to build the Great Library and choose philosophy as the free tech and start building NC right afterwards.