Great Library gives the whole tech tree?

Zefyrinus

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The weirdest thing just happened to me. I was playing a scenario I had made, where I had made the Great Library never go obsolete. I was one turn away from researching synthetic fibres when I captured an enemy city which had the Great Library in it. The next turn I got synthetic fibres as I was supposed to. Then it said "We have acquired <some tech> from the Chinese and the Maya". After that it said "Sire, our think-tanks have mastered the secrets of <some other tech>", then "We have acquired <some tech> from the Chinese and the Maya"... And so it went on and on until I had gotten all remaining techs. It must've been at least 6 or 8 techs or something that I got at once. Is this a known bug?
 
No bug. If you snap up the Great Library, and it's not obsolete yet, it provides you with any tech that is known by at least two other civs that you know. That can be two techs, but it can also be dozens of techs.
 
No bug. If you snap up the Great Library, and it's not obsolete yet, it provides you with any tech that is known by at least two other civs that you know. That can be two techs, but it can also be dozens of techs.

Huh, I thought it was two techs that are already known by at least two other civs! Well, then the Great Library is a lot more useful than I had thought. I had also made it place a library in every city on the continent. Maybe that's too much...?
 
Related question:

Say I research everything I can up to education (including the southern route, which allows me to get to Military Trad and cavalry), but set the research slider to zero for a few dozen turns while building up a nice horde of cavs and a fat stack of gold. Meanwhile, the AI continue researching and in all likelyhood get at least to astronomy, press, banking, and maybe even physics.

Then I take said cavalry horde and capture Babylon, which built the GLib some time ago.

Will I inherit the techs known to the AI civs past education? (ie, astronomy, physics, et al?) I would swear I've captured the Glib around the time of education in past games, and it will say "We have discovered education!" then "Education has rendered the Glib obsolete", followed by at least one window that told me we stole "invention" or some other tech from the AI. Is it just moving down the tech tree (top to bottom) or will it allow me to 'discover' anything and everything known by two civs at the time of its capture?

And then what if I gift it to some backwater civ that I've been friends with, maybe fighting against others alongside, who is still stuck in the AA or way-early MA? Will they catch up to everyone else like me?
 
Short answer: yes, you will. The GLib will give you any techs satisfying The Great Library Rule (known to 2 civs known to you) up until the turn on which you learn Education. IIRC, somewhere around here I downloaded a save from a Sid or Deity level game in which the human player captures the GLib and is then launched from Pre-Education into the Modern Age.
 
I did a test on that in SGOTM 09 Smurkz. That was PTW, Monarch level. It is referenced in that thread, but I forget where it is. Recently (last three months or so) I found it and posted the direct link on someone's thread, but I don't remember which thread it was.
 
Here's a thread for you capnvonbron http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=81424 DWetzel got a bunch of tech from the Great Library in a COTM with the Celts on Deity not too long ago.

Hehe. That game.

I don't recommend that as a general strategy. As a one-time thing it can sure be fun though! (It's much better if you're actually MAKING a bunch of money while having research off, of course.)
 
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