Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2012
- Messages
- 2,272
This has been mentioned in various strategy guides, but I think it's worth making the point outside of any one guide. Caravans = awesome on Deity.
I did some number-crunching last night, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but here's my conclusion. It doesn't matter that you can't get the GL on Deity. You wouldn't want it anyway.
The Great Library is awesome at Emperor or below, and *ok* at Immortal, but not really all that great on Deity since BNW came out.
And, the good news is, on Emperor or below, you can get the GL.... if you only go for it when conditions are right. I'll elaborate on how to ensure you get the GL on Emperor or below at the end.
For now, let's talk about why you don't want it on Deity.
The Great Library costs 185 hammers on Standard. It yields:
* one free tech
* 3beakers/turn
* 1 Great Scientist point/turn
* Two great works of writing slots
* A maintenance-free library
In the best case scenario, you research Calendar while building the GL, and you use the free tech to open Philosophy (175 beakers)... the most expensive tech you could realistically get so early.
So the GL yields, at most, 175 beakers + 3 beakers/turn and costs 185 hammers. What else could you get for 185 hammers so early in the tech tree?
Answer: Two caravans. (150 hammers)
Two caravans on Deity yield (on average) 4+4=8 beakers/turn in the early game, and a whole lot of gold.
At 8 beakers per turn, 2 caravans yield more tech after 40 turns than the GL.
(175 + 4*30 = 295.... (4*2)*30 = 320)
Caravans start to diminish in tech yield over time, but the impact of 3 beakers/turn is negligible by the time caravans peter out. And this assumes you focus on tech! (I'll get back to this)
Also, for 225 hammers you get a library + 2 caravans... now you're outperforming the GL even faster, and the gold from the caravans more than makes up for the cost of the library. (This is all a slight oversimplification, because you get the effects of the three builds staggered over time, but it's close enough)
On Immortal, you get more like 5 beakers/turn for 2 caravans, so the GL ends up being roughly the same as 2 caravans + library. So it's a toss-up. On Emperor or below, the AI won't be out-teching you long enough for caravans to help. So, on the levels that you can *reliably* get the GL, it's worth getting. Kind of.
The conclusion you should draw here is that caravans on Deity are VERY important.
Now, to be fair, the Great Library gives you something more than just beakers. If you're willing to pay the opportunity cost, you can put out the National College by turn 55, and the advantage of a very early National College at the lowest build cost (1 city) is somewhat significant. It could shave 10% off the time it takes to get Education, and that translates to at least 10% off your victory turn, imho. And it's not unrecoverable... you can rush-buy a settler and have it ready to plant when NC finishes, and build 2 more settlers... all very risky without military units, but feasible...
However, you have to really hamstring yourself to focus exclusively on tech like that. You can't build units, or a monument, or a granary, or a settler, or a worker. If the only thing you've produced by turn 50 is 1 scout, 1 worker, the GL and the NC, you're screwed on faith, culture, growth, scouting, expo and defense. One barbarian can ruin your day.
In other words, the GL is at best a high-risk proposition even if you're 100% assured of getting it. (Unless you're the Shoshone, in which case you can reliably get the GL 100% of the time even on Immortal, 50% of the time on Deity, and still have a nice pantheon, culture output and capital, but I digress)
Caravans allow you can shoot up any of the early tech trees pretty fast without building a library. Sure, you still should get Universities ASAP, but it makes it much more feasible to to go down the other tech paths a bit first. You can get Optics, Currency or Ironworking before Philosophy, and still catch up to the AI.
If you're still 100% set on going for the GL, these rules help. Don't go for the Great Library unless you think most of the following apply to you:
1) You're the Shoshone or Egypt
2) You have at least one 3-food tile + two 2-food/1-hammer tiles in the first two tiers
3) You settled your capital on Marble and got Masonry through a tech ruin
4) You got Writing OR Pottery OR Mining from a tech ruin
5) You immediately started building GL as soon as you teched Writing.
6) You have multiple forest tiles in the first two tiers and a stolen worker chopping forest by turn 26
7) You have a stolen worker building mines/farms by turn 15
8) You built a worker right after your first scout
9) You got a culture ruin and chose Tradition and Aristocracy
10) You got a faith ruin and chose Monument to the Gods
11) You settled on a hill
Just to be clear, NONE of the above is as important as the worker steal + worker build and having Mining before you start building the GL.
Having two workers by turn 20 is way more effective than +15% to Wonders or any of the other stuff.
And then there's playing as the Shoshone... if you follow these guidelines, you can get the GL virtually every time on Immortal or Below, and 50% on Deity with them.
However! For Deity, the worker steal must be early! Your number one priority is to get that worker home by turn 17. The GL typically goes on turn 32 on Deity, sometimes as early as turn 25. A worker steal on turn 6 gets you the GL by turn 29. A worker steal on turn 17 gets you the GL on turn ~33. The GL will pop by turn 32 at least 80% of the time. So, you need to get that worker home EARLY.
Ruin priority order: Tech, population, culture, faith. If you get less than 4 or didn't get Mining, Writing or Pottery as a free tech, don't start building the GL... just play as normal.
And, of course, you're not going to win when it goes on turn 26 unless you got two of Mining, Writing and Pottery as free techs, AND a really awesome start position. You can reduce the chance of this happening a tiny bit by being at war with someone who has Writing. Stealing the worker will slow down your neighbor, and being at War will make him shift priorities... and if you're lucky, he's the one who would have gotten it super-early... hey, it's a 15% chance. ;-)
But, the good news is, the Shoshone are so OP that even if you miss the GL with them you still have an awesome start.
But, of course, why go for the GL in the first place on Deity? :-D
I did some number-crunching last night, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but here's my conclusion. It doesn't matter that you can't get the GL on Deity. You wouldn't want it anyway.
The Great Library is awesome at Emperor or below, and *ok* at Immortal, but not really all that great on Deity since BNW came out.
And, the good news is, on Emperor or below, you can get the GL.... if you only go for it when conditions are right. I'll elaborate on how to ensure you get the GL on Emperor or below at the end.
For now, let's talk about why you don't want it on Deity.
The Great Library costs 185 hammers on Standard. It yields:
* one free tech
* 3beakers/turn
* 1 Great Scientist point/turn
* Two great works of writing slots
* A maintenance-free library
In the best case scenario, you research Calendar while building the GL, and you use the free tech to open Philosophy (175 beakers)... the most expensive tech you could realistically get so early.
So the GL yields, at most, 175 beakers + 3 beakers/turn and costs 185 hammers. What else could you get for 185 hammers so early in the tech tree?
Answer: Two caravans. (150 hammers)
Two caravans on Deity yield (on average) 4+4=8 beakers/turn in the early game, and a whole lot of gold.
At 8 beakers per turn, 2 caravans yield more tech after 40 turns than the GL.
(175 + 4*30 = 295.... (4*2)*30 = 320)
Caravans start to diminish in tech yield over time, but the impact of 3 beakers/turn is negligible by the time caravans peter out. And this assumes you focus on tech! (I'll get back to this)
Also, for 225 hammers you get a library + 2 caravans... now you're outperforming the GL even faster, and the gold from the caravans more than makes up for the cost of the library. (This is all a slight oversimplification, because you get the effects of the three builds staggered over time, but it's close enough)
On Immortal, you get more like 5 beakers/turn for 2 caravans, so the GL ends up being roughly the same as 2 caravans + library. So it's a toss-up. On Emperor or below, the AI won't be out-teching you long enough for caravans to help. So, on the levels that you can *reliably* get the GL, it's worth getting. Kind of.
The conclusion you should draw here is that caravans on Deity are VERY important.
Now, to be fair, the Great Library gives you something more than just beakers. If you're willing to pay the opportunity cost, you can put out the National College by turn 55, and the advantage of a very early National College at the lowest build cost (1 city) is somewhat significant. It could shave 10% off the time it takes to get Education, and that translates to at least 10% off your victory turn, imho. And it's not unrecoverable... you can rush-buy a settler and have it ready to plant when NC finishes, and build 2 more settlers... all very risky without military units, but feasible...
However, you have to really hamstring yourself to focus exclusively on tech like that. You can't build units, or a monument, or a granary, or a settler, or a worker. If the only thing you've produced by turn 50 is 1 scout, 1 worker, the GL and the NC, you're screwed on faith, culture, growth, scouting, expo and defense. One barbarian can ruin your day.
In other words, the GL is at best a high-risk proposition even if you're 100% assured of getting it. (Unless you're the Shoshone, in which case you can reliably get the GL 100% of the time even on Immortal, 50% of the time on Deity, and still have a nice pantheon, culture output and capital, but I digress)
Caravans allow you can shoot up any of the early tech trees pretty fast without building a library. Sure, you still should get Universities ASAP, but it makes it much more feasible to to go down the other tech paths a bit first. You can get Optics, Currency or Ironworking before Philosophy, and still catch up to the AI.
If you're still 100% set on going for the GL, these rules help. Don't go for the Great Library unless you think most of the following apply to you:
1) You're the Shoshone or Egypt
2) You have at least one 3-food tile + two 2-food/1-hammer tiles in the first two tiers
3) You settled your capital on Marble and got Masonry through a tech ruin
4) You got Writing OR Pottery OR Mining from a tech ruin
5) You immediately started building GL as soon as you teched Writing.
6) You have multiple forest tiles in the first two tiers and a stolen worker chopping forest by turn 26
7) You have a stolen worker building mines/farms by turn 15
8) You built a worker right after your first scout
9) You got a culture ruin and chose Tradition and Aristocracy
10) You got a faith ruin and chose Monument to the Gods
11) You settled on a hill
Just to be clear, NONE of the above is as important as the worker steal + worker build and having Mining before you start building the GL.
Having two workers by turn 20 is way more effective than +15% to Wonders or any of the other stuff.
And then there's playing as the Shoshone... if you follow these guidelines, you can get the GL virtually every time on Immortal or Below, and 50% on Deity with them.
However! For Deity, the worker steal must be early! Your number one priority is to get that worker home by turn 17. The GL typically goes on turn 32 on Deity, sometimes as early as turn 25. A worker steal on turn 6 gets you the GL by turn 29. A worker steal on turn 17 gets you the GL on turn ~33. The GL will pop by turn 32 at least 80% of the time. So, you need to get that worker home EARLY.
Ruin priority order: Tech, population, culture, faith. If you get less than 4 or didn't get Mining, Writing or Pottery as a free tech, don't start building the GL... just play as normal.
And, of course, you're not going to win when it goes on turn 26 unless you got two of Mining, Writing and Pottery as free techs, AND a really awesome start position. You can reduce the chance of this happening a tiny bit by being at war with someone who has Writing. Stealing the worker will slow down your neighbor, and being at War will make him shift priorities... and if you're lucky, he's the one who would have gotten it super-early... hey, it's a 15% chance. ;-)
But, the good news is, the Shoshone are so OP that even if you miss the GL with them you still have an awesome start.
But, of course, why go for the GL in the first place on Deity? :-D
