Rushing the Great Library

I play on Prince and I like to rush the Great Library? Can anyone give me any tips on how to get it? I just played a game as Netherlands and I had it stolen from me with 11 turns left to go.

My build order was this Scout > Monument > Worker > Great Library

Should I forgo the worker and go straight for the Great Library?

You shouldn't because it's a terrible wonder.

If you really want it I would probably skip the Monument, get the worker, go Pottery -> Writing -> Mining. Use the worker to chop down forests.

But really you shouldn't build the Great Library.

Why is it a terrible wonder?

The Great Library is an excellent wonder and losing the race to it on Prince is rare. So the question is, did you really go about it in the most efficient manner?

Did your Worker improve the right tiles, in the right order?
Could you have bought a better tile?
Could you have bought a Worker instead of building one?
Or could you have bought a second Worker?
Did you research Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working?
Did your capital grow fast enough so you could work more tiles? For instance, building a Granary first might actually allow you to finish the wonder earlier.

A good Prince tactic is this: monument, granary, great library. As the difficult gets harder this may not be the best seeing as AI usually get early wonders quicker on emproer and above

ackoman said:

Why is it a terrible wonder?

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It's hotly contested. The bonus is relatively minor and you have to rush it.

Sure, it works on Prince. Anything works on Prince.


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Where are your settlers in that build order? If you are doing a nice 3-4 city Prince tradition start, you need 3-4 cities! Start the great library after that, when your population is at 5-6 and you have mines built. It'll only take you 11 turns to build the darn great library then. Prince should give you until turn 60 to build the great library, unless egypt is in the game, then maybe it'll be gone by turn 55. More than enough time to found three cities, build 3-4 workers, and fix your land so you have enough production to build the thing.

The great library is absolutely critical on Prince, it's 3 science, a free library, and a free tech. King its a risk, and Emperor and above it is absolutely a death trap that will only end in Shaka's impi's arriving 20 turns later with your only defense being a scout. Ok I am exaggerating a little here but still, the difficulty is what makes it the trap and not its effects.

GL is only even remotely a good build if you take Philosophy as your free tech and even then, earlier NC doesn't guarantee faster Education, which is far more important than early NC. Give me ToA over GL any day.

ackoman said:

Why is it a terrible wonder?

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Since no one answered you really, here's why.

Your early game goals are to expand to claim the best city spots, build infrastructure in your expansions and capital and to get the national college in a reasonable timeframe (usually <T100.)

The GL plan forgoes ALL of that in order for you to build an early 1 city NC. This is inferior for many reasons. First of all, the science bonus you get scales with your raw science. 50% extra science on 16 science isn't exactly game breaking. Yeah, you run thru techs fast, but what does that get you? Your build queue is still backed up and is limited by the production you put out. You can't build temples before you build shrines, for example.

The other main reason is that your first priority in the game should be to get your new cities settled. It's as simple as claiming your spots before the AI claims them. In addition, settling your cities 30 turns earlier means they all have 30 turns to grow, which will undoubtedly build you a better empire than waiting until T50-60 to get your expansions out.

It's not so much that the GL is a bad wonder, it's that it's cost is too high, even if you do manage to build it. One free tech and a library which should take no more than 5ish turns in your capital when you're done building settlers is just not worth losing out on all the city space, infrastructure and growth you're giving up.

It's a noob trap, that's all. It seems like a good wonder. It's just bad compared to what you want to do with it. If it came at Education, it would be an amazing wonder, but it doesn't. It comes when you really want to be doing other things with your empire.

Might be worth mentioning that its a 'slightly' better wonder for Korea (bonus science from UA) and France (bonus fro UA mid to late game), but still risky, even for those two.

The problem with the Great Library isn't so much that it's bad as that it's overrated. Despite the weaknesses that Chum explains, the Great Library is a top priority wonder for both AIs and newer players, and while it's well worth building in the abstract, it's rarely, if ever, worth committing to heavily enough enough to beat a player/AI who treats it as their highest early game priority.

This is just a matter of semantics.

But if a wonder sets you back if you build it, it's an awful wonder. IMHO.

Aea said:

This is just a matter of semantics.

But if a wonder sets you back if you build it, it's an awful wonder. IMHO.

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Not necessarily. ToA is a great wonder, but you need to know which starts you have where you can reasonably pull it off. I would be more than happy to be set back to get the ToA. To get the GL? No way.

The GL used to be a lot better in the early editions of the game when it was possible to jump straight to Civil Service (I think it was? Maybe I'm wrong and it was some other tech, but it seems like you used to be able to slingshot straight to the Middle Ages.) But that was almost crazy broken, so they put some pre-req techs in there to prevent it.

Anyway, I agree with the anti-GL camp. Just consider it the "AI roulette wonder." One of the AIs will end up with it. It mind end up yours if you conquer that AI later, but the free tech is just never worth all the effort, and you'll lose the wonder anyway at higher difficulties.

And once in a while no one builds it, watch the city state quests if one asks you for it after you've got a bunch of other techs going you may have a good chance to get it especially if you have good production or some forests to chop. Getting it later can give you access to a nice tech you otherwise wouldn't reach for awhile and if you haven't built the library yet hopefully it will do you some good by then (I rarely build libraries in my capital before it reaches 6 population and most often 8). It's rare but nice when this happens.

Aea said:

This is just a matter of semantics.

But if a wonder sets you back if you build it, it's an awful wonder. IMHO.

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My point is that it's bad not because of its inherent properties but because of the context created by other players/AIs. If the AI prioritized it less heavily, or if you were playing a multiplayer game where everyone understood why it's overrated, the Great Library wouldn't require the same early game overcommitment, and it would become a situational choice rather than a trap choice.

Mattson2.0 said:

I play on Prince and I like to rush the Great Library? Can anyone give me any tips on how to get it? I just played a game as Netherlands and I had it stolen from me with 11 turns left to go.

My build order was this Scout > Monument > Worker > Great Library

Should I forgo the worker and go straight for the Great Library?

Click to expand...

You should look at your production squares. If you played as Netherlands you may have had a very marshy start so if you do not have much for production squares you will be too slow to build the early wonders.

About the worker. What most people do is to steal a worker from a city state. You can just make peace with them right after (some keep the war going and hope to steal the next worker) You should only declare war on one city state. If you declare war on more than one they will give you penalty)
Try to find captured workers and liberate those to keep for yourself.
About your build order: You should probably build more than one scout (depending on what map you are on). Getting to huts and exploring are worth it.
Also you should build a settler before building a wonder.

(and when moving up on difficulty the above advice about not building it is right on) It is nice to rush philosophy and to get the free tech and a library and the great scientist point but it is far from such and advantage as it seems to be when considering what you may be sacrificing to do that)

Chum said:

Not necessarily. ToA is a great wonder, but you need to know which starts you have where you can reasonably pull it off. I would be more than happy to be set back to get the ToA. To get the GL? No way.

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EVERY GAME, unless my neighbor builds it than I build units to take the precious. (it must be mine)

Best chance to get Wonders is to have some good bonus resources and/or a granary, I play on Emperor and I find wonders aren't CRAZY hard to get but some wheat and hills should be all you need, set city to production focus or lock the tiles yourself as long as its below 20 turns in the early game its okay to get one depending on how early it is.

once I had a salt start and got writing from a ruin right after getting pottery since I was researching mining it was amazing turn 8 writing, built the GL few times I've actually tried, this is like the Best of the best situation.

TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS.

The GL is viable (given the right circumstances) up to King, but it's not as strong as many other options. It won't teach you how to build a solid empire, and relying on it will prevent your skills from improving.

At some point it comes down to the above.

We can either give advice on how to faceroll the game at low difficulties, or we can give advice on how to build a solid empire at any difficulty.

If you just wanna wonder whore things up on low difficulties, knock yourself out. No one's gonna tell you how to play the game. But if you want to actually improve and have a good empire faster, then you've gotta accept that certain sacrifices have to be made, and those sacrifices usually include all of the early wonders.