Impossible to win without Great Library?

I play with my friend sometimes and at the start we always both try to build GL and he is always first. I loose these rounds I was trying to build it and then I feel a great disproportion between us and I am even worse than computer players then. After that he build Pyramides first and I can do nothing but rage.
Isn't that stupid that simple Great Library determines the whole game?

You can win the game without building a single wonder the whole game at any difficulty level. I would extend this for national wonders, but NC is so important (but still I'm sure you can manage a win without it).

If you have AIs in the game the GL needs to be rushed, so while your opponent builds the GL, you can build two settlers, and while he has a 1 city "empire" and is working towards expanding, you have already expanded and can build troops to conquer his territory.

claudiupb said:

I would extend this for national wonders, but NC is so important (but still I'm sure you can manage a win without it).

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It most certainly is possible. NC is the best way to jump-start science early on in the game, but any kind of strong growth still keeps you competitive. Later on, NC is merely another "Observatory", and you never need those to win either.

I'm nit-picking here. NC is always a good focus, but I've gotten plenty of mid to late 200 science wins with extremely late NC's. Late as in getting around to it at the same time as public schools late. Said games were accompanied by strong horizontal growth though, and that is extremely map dependent. 9 out of 10 times, quick NC is the best choice

Anyway, that is off-topic. The reply to this post is short and easy though: GL is a newb trap.

I think there is more going on here than just losing the great library. If you want to kick this person's butt without going to war and literally kicking their butt, you need to build infrastructure quick so you can get your cities to a high population while they are messing around with a great library. The quickest path to victory includes the following in any order:

1. Build two scouts and get pottery as your first tech.
2. Build a granary and a worker, and a shrine if you need it.
3. Find a city state, get right next to their worker with your scout, declare war on it by moving on to the worker's tile, then click the city state and make peace. Do this only once as it will make all city states mad if you do it any more.
4. Build 2-3 settlers, and get them to build cities within 4-8 tiles of your capital. Preferably in a circle around it, but make it strategic.
5. Improve every resource you can, and wait until each city becomes population 5 before you build roads or they will waste money.
6. Build caravans after other cities build granaries, and use them to send food to the capital. Cargo ships are better, but you will need to keep pirates away or they will get them. Food via caravan is beyond important.
7. Keep an eye on happiness, and grow that capital as big as you possibly can.
8. Go tradition, only tradition, all the way until its complete.
9. Prioritize techs for resources, then construction, then education and finally acoustics. Open Rationalism and fill it until you get an ideology.
10. Get libraries in all cities and build national college, 4 cities is all you need so don't build any more unless you can't contain yourself.
11. Save up as much money as possible, and buy as many universities as possible on the same turn you research education. Do the same thing for Scientific Theory, and Industrialism.
12. If Gold is a problem, save it all for industrialism. You want to buy a factory in half your cities the same turn you get it so you are first to the ideology of your choice. Ideologies are amazing and help immensely.
13. Go down and grab Chemistry and Fertilizer, then head north again to Plastics as soon as possible and buy all the research labs.
14. Win peacefully, without a shot being fired, either through culture, diplo, science, or time. Or use the insane Technology advantage you now have to squish everyone flat. Either way, your cities should now all be close to 15 and capital at around 25, and you can pretty much do whatever you want, whenever you want.

I left a lot of things out, because this is just a bare skeleton skin and bones backbone to any victory condition, but it covers the basics of an easy Civ V victory. If you do these things, you will win. Its only a matter of how long it takes and how you want to do it.

The problem isn't so much NOT building Great Library but instead is the failed attempt at it (which would also have happen if you picked any other early wonder to build and failed)

The fail gold from Great Library from 1 hammer before completion doesn't even pay enough cash to rush a regular library, so you end up way behind.

If instead you hadn't attempted to build the Great Library but had built the regular library, you'd have gotten that built way before he completed the Great Library and so the turn before would likely have been a tech and a half ahead of him. (Against a dumb AI that would mean you were even with the AI that succeeded; against a human, you are an expensive late Classical tech behind him but either an early Classical or two late Ancient techs ahead.)

Don't rush wonders and you can't get screwed like that. You lose because you wasted hammers and got very little in return. If you spent that time making settlers and workers you will easily be able to beat your friend who gets GL.

Infrastructure is king over wonders. I would rather have 4 early cities and workers than any wonders any day of the week.

You don't need Great Library and the AI tends to favor it anyway. On higher difficulties they start with Writing so there's a fair chance you can't get it even if you tried.

You don't need any wonder, but some of them are pretty boss (even if others are not so boss).

You don't lose any time at all if you conquor the city that built the wonder, though of course the AI will hate you forever for taking one capital in 1000 BC even in 1996.

Getting gold off of fail gold can be a rip off sometimes when purchasing because you get the same amount of fail gold from wonders while purchase gold is a lot more than the hammer cost when producing any other non wonder product that's purchasable.
For example,
300 fail hammers = 300 fail gold
while
a 40 hammer archer costs 180 gold.

Possible exceptions:
- research maintenance when there's a difference per turn
- paying city states that are in need in gold for city state alliance

Matthew. said:

GL is a newb trap.

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It may sound crass to some, but this is totally true. It's too early and if you need it to win, you'll never improve your game by building it.

@OP: I just uploaded a video early of an amazing start I had. I took small advantages and turned them into larger ones. I didn't see who built the GL, but I can tell you that they're not going to beat me. Punish your friend for pursuing GL by working on anything but GL.

If you keep failing wonders you'll be in a worst situation than not even attempting them.

Try stuff you have a chance to get. If you want Pyramids or GL and you know he'll always go GL first then go Pyramids first unless your start is better.

And once you fail something don't try something available to everybody else... my girlfriend always rages when she does something like that:
Try GL, miss
then try Stonehenge, miss
then try Toa, miss
The guy that you lost to also has the opportunity to build the stuff that is on the same era. And everybody else may even have already started it !

Snipe wonders, don't just mindlessly attempt them.

The best way to improve your skill in Civ5 is to play one game and decide beforehand to go completely 'cold turkey' on World Wonders - none means none!
Play at a difficulty level around King or Emperor and focus instead on expanding and building infrastructure. You'll get a feel for how all these Wonders are less important than you first realise and you'll learn to utilise more reliable methods of expansion (i.e. placing earlier cities and getting your improvements up earlier.

tabupl said:

Isn't that stupid that simple Great Library determines the whole game?

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I'd venture to say that probably every game ever won at Deity level has been won without building the Great Library. I doubt that it is possible for the human player to beat the AI to building it at Deity -- it usually seems to go between about turn 25 and turn 30.

mbbcam said:

I'd venture to say that probably every game ever won at Deity level has been won without building the Great Library.

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Nope, it is possible but not worth. It require getting writing from ruins, steal workers and chopping forest near cap (and also DOW everyone on sight could be useful).

Ok, so I have a question about epansion then. Mostly when I play with AI I have just 2 cities, sometimes 3. Why is it good to build 4 cities early in game?

Build Pyras instead GL.

It's good to have 4 cities if you want to avail full tradition. But you can win with 1, 2 or 3 cities.

Optimal quick victories are mainly based on a 4 cities tradition.

IronfighterXXX said:

It require getting writing from ruins

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I'd forgotten about that possibility. But as you say, it's not worth it even if you did have that much luck.

Why is it good to build 4 cities early in game?

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Some respected strategies are actually based on three cities, like this one:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=523371

You don't want to go for the GL in any situation, imo. I've never built it or tried for it.

tabupl said:

Ok, so I have a question about epansion then. Mostly when I play with AI I have just 2 cities, sometimes 3. Why is it good to build 4 cities early in game?

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Tradition has two tenets that affect four cities: One of them gives you 4 free culture buildings like a monument, and the other gives you 4 free aquaducts. 4 Cities are easy to manage, and you can create a strategic ring around your capital if possible this way or line them all on the coast for fast cargo ship growth. Just make sure you keep a strong navy or they'll all be captured by frigates in the late mid-game. You want them all founded before education though, so they have the most chance to grow big and strong. And keep them close together, so they are easy to defend.

It's easier to have a higher empire wide population with more cities than with a few high population cities, but having high population cities also means its easier to build single items faster. So 3-4 cities is the sweet spot to max out happiness and growth quickly in the first 100-200 turns. High population means more science, and more science means quicker victory, so getting the highest empire wide population possible is key to winning quickly.

Tradition is also better because you can buy engineers late game. Liberty only gets you one great person once.