Sid and winning the race to the GL

[dwarrior]

Been having a lot of trouble winning the race to GL on Sid. DG and Diety I always can get it first, but Sid it's darn hard! I start with Alphabet (using Iroq's lately) and start on writing right away and go to Lit next and always time it so my capital is full size ( have workers join city when needed) and enough land worked to max production by the time I have Lit but I still lose out! They even beat me to getting Lit last time by 5 turns. This puts me way way behind in techs and then I'm forced to sit back and pray i dont get attacked while I build up my economy and slowly catch up on techs. Somewhere around the time I get calvary I can start to expand my land. So basically just wondering if anyone's got a trick to beat these darn AI's to Lit and the GL. I usually play on pangea's which is probably part of the problem, maybe have to switch to continents so they don't trade so much to each otehr.

[Theoden]

You should probably use a pre-build strategy. It means that the city you want to build the GL should start on something equally large (pyramids, palace) before you know literature, then switch the moment you know it and, if you've timed it right, finish it the same turn as you discover literature.

[dwarrior]

well that hasn't worked too well because the AI always completes those before i get Lit.

[Tomoyo]

On Sid, the wonder cascade will almost never take the GL, so with a Palace prebuild, dedicating an early city to start that early, beelining to Lit, and some luck will get you the GL.

[killercane]

Are you playing with AIs that start without Alphabet?

[Steve2000]

And don't trade alphabet or writing to anyone until you have literature.

[dwarrior]

normally just do random AI's, feels like I'm cheating if I hand select opponents to go in my favor.

[killercane]

I can see your difficulty if on pangea-random opponents-no prebuild (Iro). Changing at least two out of the those three variables will greatly help.

[vmxa]

The way to get the GL is to start with alpha and get the wonder city up to size 10 or better. Get workers to mine as many tiles as you can and still feed them. Then add workers in as you get closer to learning Lit.

You do not have to get lit for free as the AI does not often go on to it for some time. Often you donot have any prebuild as you use the capitol and do not have masonry. I often only have a 3 turn prebuild. The size makes up for it along with the head start on lit.

You are hoping to see the cascade kill any prebuilds or them to switch to Great Wall or even HG.

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Yes, Philo isn't needed. But I somehow have troubles with Iros as well to grab it. France/Carthage, India and Byz/England are easier for some reason. Talking about Archipelago maps, and seperated continents only, of course.
On Pangea/ 60% water Cont, I'd prolly not even try it. Chances are high the AI Civs are all in the MA, and then the GLib usually falls to the Sun Tzu or Knights Templar cascade. It's just the gap between the other AA wonders, and the early medieval ones that make the GLib doable on water maps.

If you prefer vmxa's strategy to join lots of workers, or dedicate a city early on (if you know Masonry), is about the same IMHO.
If you sart the pb too early, though, you may end with another wonder - I managed to build the MoM before a couple of times.

Still, the nice thing about Sid is that the game is by no means in the bag with the GLib. Unless you use the elevator trick/exploit.

[Drakan]

I also failed twice getting it on huge pangaea with 60% water and 15 random civs.

But I succeeded on my first try with the Dutch on huge Sid archipiélago with 15 random civs.

The water makes all the difference.