Thought on balance of The Great Library?

JamesNinelives

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I feel like whoever gets it has a bigger advantage than building other wonders in the same era. At the moment it feels a bit like whoever gets the Great Library is guaranteed to then also get the Parthenon (or the Oracle).

It also seems like it's always the first wonder to be built in the Classical Era, and it would be nice if the 'rush this tech' strategies were more versatile. Not that the other wonders at that point aren't good - they all are. It's just that the Great Library seems... that little bit better.

Even modifying it so that it wasn't so laser-focused might help. I'm thinking this might be useful in terms of having fewer runaways hopping from one wonder to another, or leaping ahead of everyone else in terms of tech.

I don't know if this is actually a good idea. I didn't sleep much last night so my judgement might be a bit off. It's cool that writing and knowledge and science are all highly valued. Tell me what you think.
 
In my opinion the Great Library is overall a rather weak wonder and rushing writing is generally unappealing for various reasons. Rushing the Parthenon is a high risk but very high reward strategy. If the GL's only purpose is to be a middle man for actual treasures like Oracle, that doesn't strike me as too strong. If your goal is a science victory, Mausoleum of Hali is worth a lot more science over the course of a game, the Hanging Gardens gives way more Great Scientist points.
 
writing is generally unappealing for various reasons.

Writing is actually a good early Classical tech on big maps, where it's often impractical to find territory of a civ you met by scouting and the embassy is the best way to complete the CS quests for the science boosts. Often when I research writing the cavalcade of CS quests I get for it is more than the cost of writing was.

WRT the Great Library, the AI seems to fixate on it a lot more than your average wonder and it seems nearly impossible to build on higher difficulty, even compared to other Wonders, so I don't have a good feel for it.
 
The biggest strength is probably if you go full greed and for example bulb sailing to go for a very early oracle and that the tech allows building libraries.
I dont feel that it is as strong as before for warmongers due to moving catapults to the bottom (it lines up for a mathematics bulb which was a good warmonger strat).
While its nice to take away from the AI and its definitely not bad I feel there are other wonders and/or techpaths that now can be higher in priority.
 
The great library is overrated by the AI, so getting it in high difficulties is so hard I just don't bother, even when playing the civs that benefit most from it. It's not actually unbalanced from a power perspective, and if anything the fact that certain AIs dive straight for it means it tends to be a suboptimal play on Deity. Rushing Writing is already a huge cost, so if you don't get it you tend to have problems.
 
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I agree you can use the great libary if you can time it good enough to get you a quick jump on oracle, but beside that, as a warmonger or if you are surrounded by them, your only option is to use it to get quick combosite bowmen, but beside that, it can be more disadvantage. Especially, if you get beaten to it, your start will probably set quite back. And as an authority using warmonger, you have other techs you need and if you conquer after the imperion social policy, you can catch up easily if you make good wars. I have to agree, there are other wonders which are more up to the topic to be overpowered, I personaly think that getting the Great Wall is only unneccesarry, if you are isolated, surrounded by peacemongers or you have terrain that you can defend easily and you dont plan to go to war. If you are aiming for domination victory, you should probarly make it a key goal, because fighting against it and having it active for quite awhile, it is just a pain, especially in wars which are fought in the first phase around the border ...
 
Hmm. Thanks for your feedback everyone. I guess I'm talking about not my experiences playing with it, but that it seems that whichever AI builds it seems to shoot ahead in techs (and potentially become a runaway).

As a human I agree that's it really hard to get because the AIs tend to rush for it. Maybe if the AIs valued other wonders more (or it less) that would make gameplay more interesting?

I tend to never build the wonder because the fact other people rush to get it game be the impression that's OP (and that my victory would might feel less meaningful if I did).

I don't know. I almost never rush techs myself . So I kind of feel like if I'm ever in a position to actually build the thing before one of the AIs then I'm garuanteed to have a tech lead the rest of the game and I may as well have already won or something.

I like the point people have made about the costs of neglecting the other parts of the tech tree, particularly the units that unlock there. A lot of the feelings I have about things in VP may come from either my experiences with earlier versions of the mod, or even from my time playing Civ B&W before that.

Hearing your thoughts on the subject I actually kind of want to go for the Great Library one time and see how it affects my gameplay. I doubt I could achieve that on my current difficulty though. Maybe I just want the AIs strategy to feel more varied/unpredictable. Sometimes it feels like I'm only able to build wonders because I can predict which one will be grabbed first.

Hope this isn't too rambly. Thanks again for your thoughts on the subject.
 
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As a last note, often when I have a semi-early Writing, going for an early Diplomat House (whatever the thing is called) is much lower variance than TLG and often it needs to be in the capital anyway. Going for TLG and missing and then needing to still build your Diplomat House and maybe even your normal Library in the capital after those missed turns feels extremely punishing.
 
Hmm. Thanks for your feedback everyone. I guess I'm talking about not my experiences playing with it, but that it seems that whichever AI builds it seems to shoot ahead in techs (and potentially become a runaway).

As a human I agree that's it really hard to get because the AIs tend to rush for it. Maybe if the AIs valued other wonders more (or it less) that would make gameplay more interesting?

I tend to never build the wonder because the fact other people rush to get it game be the impression that's OP (and that my victory would might feel less meaningful if I did).

I don't know. I almost never rush techs myself . So I kind of feel like if I'm ever in a position to actually build the thing before one of the AIs then I'm garuanteed to have a tech lead the rest of the game and I may as well have already won or something.

I like the point people have made about the costs of neglecting the other parts of the tech tree, particularly the units that unlock there. A lot of the feelings I have about things in VP may come from either my experiences with earlier versions of the mod, or even from my time playing Civ B&W before that.

Hearing your thoughts on the subject I actually kind of want to go for the Great Library one time and see how it affects my gameplay. I doubt I could achieve that on my current difficulty though. Maybe I just want the AIs strategy to feel more varied/unpredictable. Sometimes it feels like I'm only able to build wonders because I can predict which one will be grabbed first.

Hope this isn't too rambly. Thanks again for your thoughts on the subject.
I'll like to hear how it goes.
 
The other thing with the GL is that there is a strong tech rubberband through various mechanics (spies being the main one).

So being behind in tech isn’t permanent, I can normally catch up, versus another wonder benefit that will last me throughout the game.

Don’t get me wrong, GL is great, but I think that’s why it’s not as wrong as it looks at first glance.
 
Came very close to building the Great Library on Emperor difficulty just now. Catherine beat me to it by 1 turn! And with Authority of all things lol.

Spoiler Near miss :
20190926172942_1.jpg
 
Dont underestimate Authority, with 4 in it, it is + 4 production, more than Progress at that point and as Tradition, you must use the Engineer Slot to get the same amount of Production just from the social policies. And second, it is Russia, she gets a lot from Border Growth and that happens especially in the early game.

Btw, I always have the feeling, that those civs with Science advantages prefere to go for the Great Libary. The first to come to my mind are Ethopia, China and Russia, Poland likes to go for it too, just rushes writing and with its Free Era Social Policy, it can start beginning to build it before any other civ, in the most cases.
 
Yeah, I've often seen Arabia and Ethiopia build it. Russia is pretty decent in science too!

I was able to get it myself just now! I went Progress 1 and then tradition from there. Managed to build a couple of other wonder and found an early religion too, which I'm pretty happy with. It was a very different play from what I usually do (wide), but it was interesting :).

Spoiler Success :
20190926182049_1.jpg
 
Dont underestimate Authority, with 4 in it, it is + 4 production, more than Progress at that point and as Tradition, you must use the Engineer Slot to get the same amount of Production just from the social policies. And second, it is Russia, she gets a lot from Border Growth and that happens especially in the early game.

Btw, I always have the feeling, that those civs with Science advantages prefere to go for the Great Libary. The first to come to my mind are Ethopia, China and Russia, Poland likes to go for it too, just rushes writing and with its Free Era Social Policy, it can start beginning to build it before any other civ, in the most cases.
Why would Ethiopia want free techs? She already has free techs. More free techs is just more unhappiness with no time for capitalizing on it. I tend to do the opposite and delay councils since I'm keeping up in techs anyways.
 
Why would Ethiopia want free techs? She already has free techs. More free techs is just more unhappiness with no time for capitalizing on it. I tend to do the opposite and delay councils since I'm keeping up in techs anyways.

I don't know myself. Arabia tends to build lots of wonders, but Ethiopia just races ahead in tech, building wonders only occassionally. Granted they are good with religion too, so perhaps that helps them keep their people happy.
 
I don't know myself. Arabia tends to build lots of wonders, but Ethiopia just races ahead in tech, building wonders only occassionally. Granted they are good with religion too, so perhaps that helps them keep their people happy.

Ethiopia gets free techs on belief that is slightly misleading as it actually means one for belief, one for founding, one for enhancer and one for reformation.
It is a lot of techs in a relatively short window.
Decent timing of those free techs and in conjunction with oracle and/or great library and you have an ethiopia with a solid techlead from if not classic atleast medival well into renaissance.
 
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