Impossible to win without Great Library?

[Tabarnak]

Start GL only if you have a strong cap. Wheat/deer tiles with multiple hill/forest tiles is a good start. Get pottery-writing with scout-monument-granary. Then start GL.

Expect to finish turn 24(quick speed) or below with such place. This should aware you that wonder 95% of time.

 

[Puhi]

Not to kick a dead horse.... but I've never built the GL, and I've won plenty of games in the short time I've been playing. What's killing you is trying to build it and failing.

I often don't try to build any ancient or classical wonders. When I do try, it's usually Hanging Gardens or Oracle. Both are doable if you focus on them. But to be honest, I never really miss building them if I don't.

 

[reddishrecue]

Great library I find useful when obtaining an early colossus by researching up to bronze working and then obtaining iron working as the free tech. Afterwards, I proceed to build to colossus and if there's good production, it would be done sooner than most other civilizations because how long it takes to research iron working in that era. However, I still doubt this would make GL a must when going for the win.

 

[phillipwyllie]

....If you have AIs in the game the GL needs to be rushed, so while your opponent builds the GL, you can build two settlers, and while he has a 1 city "empire" and is working towards expanding, you have already expanded and can build troops to conquer his territory.

You could just snipe his second and third settlers. You would remain friendly with the AI civs and teach your friend that the GL isn't his. He would be so far behind after that one oif the AI civs would probably take him out.
Another thing I'd do is pick the Huns. Your friend will expect war but Attila is 2 trick pony and the second trick is production from pastures.

 

[beetle]

I play with my friend sometimes and at the start we always both try to build GL and he is always first. I loose these rounds I was trying to build it and then I feel a great disproportion between us and I am even worse than computer players then. After that he build Pyramides first and I can do nothing but rage.

OP, I do not have experience with multiplayer, but I have read enough to know that it is very different than SP. But you are playing with a friend and filling in with AIs, which sounds like great fun, but not so much if one person is winning all the time.

What difficulty are you using for MP now? How many AIs? Would your friend be willing to bump up the difficulty level? How do you decide what civs to play? Would your friend let you pick? Or does that feel like too much of a handicap?

Clearly your friend has a better handle on certain game mechanics, and that is frustrating for you. But you have the help of this board, so that should level things! If you are going to give him some competition, you need to shake things up a bit.

The common theme in all the advise you have gotten so far is to be the position of having less problems with the AIs than your friend. Being able to handle the AIs is such an advantage that open games are almost all humans, zero AIs.

Ok, so I have a question about expansion then. Mostly when I play with AI I have just 2 cities, sometimes 3. Why is it good to build 4 cities early in game?

Not to be a jerk, but when you play at a difficulty level that is sufficiently challenging, this is the sort of question that has an obvious answer!

Say you and your friend both play at Prince, and his SP games are always higher score, shorter turns to VC, etc. No problem. You focus on surviving Emperor games. Then insist on Emperor for your MP games!

 

[Red Menace]

the Great Library is not needed to win, instead of the GL try something else if this person is reasonably predictable go for ToA or the oracle or none
i have played MP against someone of the same strategy he mostly plays Babylon and builds the GL

i win because like i said he is easily predictable

 

[ohu1111]

If you want to build wonders quickly choose Egypt for their 20% wonder bonus, then for your pantheon choose the 15% wonder bonus, and finally choose your tradition as liberty so you can pickup the wonder 15% bonus there. This will allow you to build wonders 50% faster than a Civ without wonder bonuses. Although, I would advise you to only build wonders that will help your towards your intended victory.

----ohu1111

 

[joncnunn]

If you want to build wonders quickly choose Egypt for their 20% wonder bonus, then for your pantheon choose the 15% wonder bonus, and finally choose your tradition as liberty so you can pickup the wonder 15% bonus there. This will allow you to build wonders 50% faster than a Civ without wonder bonuses. Although, I would advise you to only build wonders that will help your towards your intended victory.

----ohu1111

Overkill, and in fact the Shrine might slow you down for a wonder that early.

Marble also gives a wonder production bonus. This is so early you might have to found your city on it though even if you roll a start in which marble is in the area.

 

[Sclb]

Most of the time GL is gone on deity before you can get a pantheon anyway.

 

[lemonfreshness]

I never build the GL. The NC is always a better bet, and I've found building wonders is easier a few eras later, when my cities have good infrastructure and I funnel hammers to a wonder-building city with caravans.

 

[Sclb]

Most wonders before Renaissance era are difficult to get on deity and even some of the ones like LToP are really a gamble. Industrial and later should be pretty much doable if your tech pace is up to par. I think it's more effective to work hills tiles on wonder city (almost always capital) when you're building key wonders and just feed it with lots of food caravans. Unless the capital is production lacking in the first place, like the Assyrian DCL if you settle in place, then it makes for a difficult game.

 

[killmeplease]

yeah food has a much higher value than hammers
almost always its better to ferry food than hammers.

2 food supports 1 citizen who gives you 3+ hammers; also it makes city grow and gives you more citizens to work more tiles.

 

[ohu1111]

Overkill, and in fact the Shrine might slow you down for a wonder that early.

Marble also gives a wonder production bonus. This is so early you might have to found your city on it though even if you roll a start in which marble is in the area.

I totally agree with what your saying, wonders can be kinda of waste, but if you are going to build them you might as well build them fast. Plus, wonders often help you get great people and depending on what victory condition you are going for they may help a lot. Although, a good Civ player ignores wonders until his infrastructure is stable.

----ohu1111

 

[wayneb64]

yeah food has a much higher value than hammers
almost always its better to ferry food than hammers.

2 food supports 1 citizen who gives you 3+ hammers; also it makes city grow and gives you more citizens to work more tiles.

Only until you grow a city big enough to work all of the production tiles and/or guilds. Growth can be paused to shift to production which is sometimes more important.

 

[beetle]

Sadly, OP has not come back to this thread.

If the context is two human players on a standard size map, on a low difficulty with 6 AIs, and ruling out a zerg rush (just for the sake of argument), is not the OP premise fair?

If both humans rush GL, is not the race winner there at a huge advantage? (Which is why I advocate OP changing up the game. Let his friend loose GL to an AI while he plays conventionally.)

 

[Dushku]

If both humans rush GL, is not the race winner there at a huge advantage?

No. The other player can put those same hammers into Archers and then just take the city. Archers that will help him no matter who rushes what. Enjoy your free tech!

 

[Matthew.]

There is a rather huge opportunity cost for getting GL. I think even if it were 100% guaranteed (as in you won't get beat), you still want a heavy production city where you can crank it out quickly. This goes for most early game wonders, but the difference with GL is you need to start building it so quickly that you halt everything until it is finished.

At least with some other early game wonders, you can delay it enough to get out a settler or get up a granary and water mill, get out some kind of infrastructure.

Even if it were just two human players with 6 lower difficulty AI's, I can't imagine the GL player is at such an advantage that focusing on expanding and growth won't at least match it, if not beat it. Especially considering if they are rushing GL, they cannot really rush some other wonders as well without really sacrificing infrastructure, so other great wonders like Artemis, Hanging Gardens, potentially Stonehenge (if you want the GE point and help with faith), these should be up for grabs.

 

[beetle]

The other player can put those same hammers into Archers and then just take the city.

Right, which is why I asked that you rule out the zerg rush option. If GL was reliable feasible at Deity, I think players would beeline it.

 

[Dushku]

Right, which is why I asked that you rule out the zerg rush option. If GL was reliable feasible at Deity, I think players would beeline it.

My apologies, I missed that part.

I think we can test your theory though. You can reliably generate Settlers at 2 pop. Do you do it? Of course you don't. Spending that time growing your city and improving your tiles instead makes what you're doing during and after the generation of Settlers stronger and more reliable.

 

[zxcvbob]

Build the Temple of Artemis instead of GL; I'm pretty sure ToA will give you more science over the course if the game than GL does, it just does it indirectly.

If your capitol is not on a river or lake and if you opened Tradition, Hanging Gardens might be even better because of the free garden that you could not otherwise build. (it also gives you that garden a lot sooner than you could normally build it)