How do you get the GL on Deity?

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Stalker0

Baller Magnus
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Dec 31, 2005
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So feeling pretty frustrated at the moment. I tried playing Poland on Deity, had a great camp start and got hunt with Stonehenge....so my science got a bump from an early council.

With Poland culture wasn't an issue, just needed to get to GL and build it. I beelined directly to it, no deviation.

GL went on Turn 58, I wasn't even close.

Hey its Deity, I get the AI is amazing, but I honestly do not know how I could have gone any faster. A more science heavy civ wouldn't have the culture. The only thing I can think of is maybe combining Beauty with a left side tradition play...but I don't know if it will get me the Great Engineer quick enough.

I recognize getting the GL takes a herculean commitment...but I'm actually not even sure what that commitment would be at the moment?
 
Ok so I reran the map and tried the Beauty + GE strat.

This time because I went Tradition instead of Progress it was my science that was the bottleneck, but I got the tech on Turn 62, and managed the GL on Turn 63. I wonder if the AI that got it last time on 58 did the same thing, since I took Beauty this time they weren't able to manage it.

The issue with a rush this fast is....there aren't really any great techs to take. Fishing was my best option, so its debatable whether this rush is really ever worth it, but I was able to make it happen so that's good.
 
Stalker0 said:
So feeling pretty frustrated at the moment. I tried playing Poland on Deity, had a great camp start and got hunt with Stonehenge....so my science got a bump from an early council.

With Poland culture wasn't an issue, just needed to get to GL and build it. I beelined directly to it, no deviation.

GL went on Turn 58, I wasn't even close.

Hey its Deity, I get the AI is amazing, but I honestly do not know how I could have gone any faster. A more science heavy civ wouldn't have the culture. The only thing I can think of is maybe combining Beauty with a left side tradition play...but I don't know if it will get me the Great Engineer quick enough.

I recognize getting the GL takes a herculean commitment...but I'm actually not even sure what that commitment would be at the moment?
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I don't think there is any way to consistently build it before turn 58. However, 58 seems early to me (even for a Deity AI).

The GL is probably one of my least commonly built wonders. If I get it it's usually just because I happen to have a great engineer and I happen to have writing and it isn't built yet. The overall better strategy is to go for the hanging gardens IMO, because the AI usually builds it later (on Deity it's much more common for an AI to take writing before mathematics) and it's overall a better wonder in my opinion. I don't think it's a balance issue though.
 
You just can't always get it on Deity. The AI gets numerical bonuses and if it has a good start and happens to beeline the GL (or any early wonder), you're just not gonna get it. The AI doesn't do this all that often for any particular wonder, however, so you'll find in other games the GL is quite obtainable.
 
zeofig said:
You just can't always get it on Deity. The AI gets numerical bonuses and if it has a good start and happens to beeline the GL (or any early wonder), you're just not gonna get it. The AI doesn't do this all that often for any particular wonder, however, so you'll find in other games the GL is quite obtainable.
Click to expand...

I guess then the better question to ask the vets is....considering how much you invest in a wonder, if it truly is a "gamble" (aka you really can't tell if an AI is just going to snipe it)....then our early wonders worth going on Deity? Or is it better to take a safe, tried and true route instead of the gamble?
 
Stalker0 said:
I guess then the better question to ask the vets is....considering how much you invest in a wonder, if it truly is a "gamble" (aka you really can't tell if an AI is just going to snipe it)....then our early wonders worth going on Deity? Or is it better to take a safe, tried and true route instead of the gamble?
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If you've already met an AI who has the tech and necessary social policies, I think it's too risky to build (engineer can still work though).

Stonehenge + Temple of Artemis/Mausoleum of Hali + Hanging Gardens is somewhat consistent/safe path for a civ with early game bonuses who takes Goddess of Beauty/Tradition (use your engineer on the second wonder). Watch out for Ethiopia in particular as he likes to snipe Hanging Gardens. I'd say you get all 3 like 75%~ of the time (and you can recover from missing one, the culture compensation is actually pretty good in the very early game).

If I don't do that strategy I usually skip ancient era wonders but try to get 1 per era after that.
 
Yeah I don't think you can beeline for GL and get it in 100% of games no matter what you do. It is the safest in terms of knowing if players have the tech as it is the only one you can check without even meeting people.

I guess maybe the celt thing is the best way you might be able to get it before t58 with the right CS near you.
 
Grassland Farm said:
This is the second thread where I read about "check if other players have the tech"... But how do you guys do that?
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There are a few different ways, one is just to visually look at the map. What kind of units do they have out in the world. If the AI all of a sudden upgrade or have a lot of new units out. You know they have that tech. If you have spies you can see what they are building or what buildings they have in their city.
Secondly you can go to the tech screen and look at the cost of the techs. The more civs that have it the lower the cost will be to research it. So when CivX enters a new era first -- you go to the tech screen and check all the tech costs for that era and see if one is lower then the others of the starting techs for that era. If you find one that is lower then the others that is the tech they entered on. If all the techs cost the same they entered the era by researching all the techs in the last era.
 
I don't ever go for it, it's never worth the deviation to my otherwise gameplan, also, I'd rather focus on, ToE, Halicarnasus or Hanging Hardens if I had to choose on which to spend my GE
 
Stalker0 said:
I guess then the better question to ask the vets is....considering how much you invest in a wonder, if it truly is a "gamble" (aka you really can't tell if an AI is just going to snipe it)....then our early wonders worth going on Deity? Or is it better to take a safe, tried and true route instead of the gamble?
Click to expand...

Yeah it's a difficult question, which of course has existed since Civ 1. I don't think the wonder "system" is really ideal, since a lot of fun strats become terribly inconsistent against high-level AI. But it could be worse.
 
The "gamble" is worth it imo for a few select wonders, which may vary from game to game (settings, civ, goals, etc). There are a few universal once that are always good tho. That said I think part of the gamble-problem is that if you fail the runner-up prize (or whatever we should call it) is so abysmal. Usually translating into a few turns of culture. I guess it would be less of an issue if it was somewhat more substantial, that said it can't be that good that you almost build things that you want to fail just cause the runner-up prize is great. But something more then some pitiful turn extra of two of culture would probably be in place -- ideas: extra production; after all the work can get repurposed, some great artist/writer/musician points or perhaps a discount on your next wonder?
 
stii said:
You can also do writing without even meeting them as in the demo screen players are 0% literacy until they research it so if you are first in literacy you know no one else has writing and therefore can build GL.
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Wouldn't it still show you in first if there is a tie?
 
Two thoughts, one on GL specifically, one on wonder fail balance. First, I can't imagine going for GL unless I could get a strong tech for free. I'd at least want to finish sailing on the same turn as the wonder to get Drama & Poetry. Otherwise, you're just not getting many free beakers and I don't know why you'd want this wonder considering the opportunity cost. As Poland the best thing about GL in a vacuum would be slingshoting into Parthenon or Oracle before the AI unlocks those techs, but this may simply not be possible on Deity. If you just pop fishing, is that worth it? Second, I think it would be neat if wonderfailing invested the most related building. This would be the free building for wonders that have one, and a similar building could be designated for other wonders (maybe even a building you haven't unlocked yet would be fine?). I don't want the rebate for failing a wonder to be anywhere near as good as getting the wonder, but it would be nice if it were more related to the wonder than pure culture is. Besides, there's no realism in getting free culture from failing to build a wonder.
 
Melchizedek said:
Wouldn't it still show you in first if there is a tie?
Click to expand...

Once you get writing you get a percentage that is roughly how many techs each player has. So on deity you will never be first once they have it because they will always be ahead on techs.
 
Looking at my Deity games there is a huge correlation between which AI is the top AI and who gets the GL, usually they get Parthenon too and end up ahead in culture and science for basically all game. So I think making the GL any stronger would make Deity balance worse.

Most people don't play on Deity and it seems like the GL is a fine option on other difficulties. I have built it before on Deity, sometimes you get a game with no AI who rushed writing for example. I've been playing games with just 6 AI just to make the late game go faster, and it makes all wonders a lot more obtainable compared to playing with 8.

If playing Venice it's easier too, and you already have good reason to rush writing. You can also target it if playing a one city challenge, or like mentioned above if you play Celts and tribute CS it's pretty easy to get (Aztec and a few other civs could do this as well).

Melchizedek said:
First, I can't imagine going for GL unless I could get a strong tech for free. I'd at least want to finish sailing on the same turn as the wonder to get Drama & Poetry.
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I think getting sailing or mathematics would be the most common outcomes, and they are good enough. Drama and Poetry is quite greedy.
 
Deity is plain mean and you might just not get to have a wonder without both a great start and luck :D

On Emperor I manage to build GL quite consistently if I'm going for it.

Side note: AI having writing is easy to check in particular because you can see if they can establish embassies.
 
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