Great Library and Scientific Trait

[Eclectic99]

Played a game intending to go strong on techs and be a peaceful builder, so played Greece, Monarch, Civ3. Went all out for techs. Got Great Library. Then went completely through to when Education cancelled out Great library without getting even one free tech from Great Library. Complete waste of shields. Apparently I was always in the lead on techs. Any one else have similar experience? Do you not build Great Library if you are playing scientific trait and getting techs on your own?

Also, I couldn't get AI to give me diddley for my techs. Got offers like Territory Map and 6 gold for Mathematics. Others here talk about wheeling and dealing in techs and making the big bucks. How can I get in on that next time?

 

[Unregister]

The Great Library is a really good wonder, even if you are ahead in techs. You see, it keeps other people from getting the free techs. The didn't offer that much for the techs because
1) they may not have had much to give
2) they were close to getting the techs themselves
3) they could get them cheaper elsewhere
4) they don't like you

 

[Moulton]

Did you look at the F4 screen, and compare what you had in tech's with them? When I get the GL, I slow down my tech and save the gold. AI seems to go for Education and Navigation... so I go for Military tradition, and let them give me the others.

I hiave also looked at their production from time to time... save a game, and go to the embassy to examine every city... the AI will likely be spending every available shield on research, and have nothing left to buy. In the late game, when cities get bigger, and population control gets harder, you can often get big gold for tech and lux.

 

[greynite1]

I always play the Americans myself a NON Scientific civ. I am also a huge fan of the cultural component of the game and enjoy maximizing all my cities output potentials and beating the computer to every wonder I can. Thats where the Great library comes in handy. what I do is I build the great library then go straight for better governments and monarchy so i can get the hanging Gardens then build that in the primary wonder city. Then I bust it to get to republic and switch governments before the age ends because without being a religious civ you have a large period of unrest in which you are loosing production like a mofo. Make sure your not at war or not building a wonder when you switch. Then once you are switch your stuff immediately back over to either military units if your threatened or improvements and wonders if you are golden. The Great Library as has already been stated isn't built to GET you the other wonders its only meant to make sure that you stay caught up to the other civs.

Make sure you maintain your lead over them and stay at least 4-5 techs ahead of them and you will never have a problem. Be sure to always update your defense forces as soon as you are able cause I have had instances in which every AI player declared war and trade embargoed me in the same turn. I assume they got pissed at me getting all the wonders after they had put so much effort into it.

 

[satchel]

Originally posted by Eclectic99
Do you not build Great Library if you are playing scientific trait and getting techs on your own?

I play scientific trait (Monarch level) and still find the GL very useful. The keys for me are to make sure I have contact with the most advanced civilizations, and turn research almost all the way down when I complete the GL. What the GL allows me to do is build up a nice juicy cash reserve while not falling behind in tech.

Of course, this means that when education rolls around I do not have a tech lead; I just have tech parity with the top two civs. It's no problem though, because with the cash reserve I built up it's easy to build a tech lead from there, and I usually have one by the early industrial age.

All of the above does not depend upon whether I am playing a scientific civ, although the scientific civ does allow me to build up a lot of wealth when I hit the industrial age because Nationalism is usually the free tech and AI civs pay a huge mint for Nationalism.

 

[Clown2TheLeft]

Not for nothing, but what did you have your science set at? I drop it to 0 if I have the GL, maybe--if I'm feeling particularly empathetic with the peasants of the Ottoman empire--I bump up the entertainment slider by 10%. Build up the treasury for upgrades. Once I start building Sun Tzu's, I bring the science back up and beeline for gunpowder, try to pick up Leo's while I'm at it...

Later!

--The Clown to the Left

 

[Eclectic99]

thanks all for a very good discussion. Yes, I see that I should have set my science down to zero after I got the Great Library and used gold to better advantage. For example, there were no luxuries at all in my territory...I could have bought some and saved some unhappiness.

 

[TheNiceOne]

And it's of course very nice to have built up this great amount of cash, regardless of whether you want to get a tech lead or a military power.

If you want a tech lead, then you should have enough money to get libraries and universities in all your important cities within a few turns after education.

If you want to go conquest, then the money shoould be enough to upgrade all your horsmen to knights (and you built lots of horsmen for this, didn't you?).

 

[Sir Clive]

Originally posted by Moulton
Did you look at the F4 screen, and compare what you had in tech's with them? When I get the GL, I slow down my tech and save the gold. AI seems to go for Education and Navigation... so I go for Military tradition, and let them give me the others.

How do you tell from the F4 screen (or elsewhere) which techs the AI civs have ? I can't find this anywhere . The only way I can find out which techs they have is to go into diplomacy and then do a 'Never mind'. This generally seems to hack them off since I don't want to trade anything with them. This is always causing me problems since I obviously don't want to be researching the same a the AI since I then have nothing to trade with them.

 

[Sir Clive]

Originally posted by Moulton
Did you look at the F4 screen, and compare what you had in tech's with them? When I get the GL, I slow down my tech and save the gold. AI seems to go for Education and Navigation... so I go for Military tradition, and let them give me the others.

How do you do this ? - I don't seem to be able to find out what my AI opponents are researching or what they have already researched without going into the Diplomacy screen . F4 doesn't seem to tell me . Using Diplomacy normally results in me hacking them off since (as I don't want to trade anything) I have to exit with 'Never mind'.

 

[Sir Clive]

Apologies for the double post - thought I been disconnected before it had gone through first time round

 

[newbiebad]

Well... I'm not sure if its 100% accurate but its pretty darn close. alexman figured out a good way to guess what tech the AI will research. The link to it is

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?threadid=45559