The Great Library - why all the fuss?

[Captain THC]

I don't see what all the fuss is over The Great Library being a 'must have' wonder. Granted, it is far more useful than, say, the Oracle, however if you're a good player you won't have much use for it. The fact that it goes obsolete rather quickly makes it even less appealing to me.

The only "must have" wonders to me are Smith's Trading Shop and Leonardo's Workshop. There are a lot of other really useful wonders, but those two rank the highest for me.

[Inverse Icarus]

the great library is overrated as far as i'm concerned as well.

it may save you a small amount of money early on, but it takes a city's production for many turns.

I'd rather have the equilivant of the GL's shields in horsemen.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Captain THC
I don't see what all the fuss is over The Great Library being a 'must have' wonder.

On the higher levels, it can be very expensive to keep up in techs. The Great Library can often garner several free techs, and leverage your Civ into the lead. It's not a "must have," but often very useful.

[Captain THC]

The best situation for it to be used, in my opinion, would be for a warmongorer - usually when you focus strongly on military in the early and mid stages of the game, you'll fall behind in science, so I can see it being of use in this case. Otherwise, I wouldn't go too all out to get it.

[Tiberius]

Having some free techs is not the only reason to build it:
- I build it to deny the opponents in having it
- it is also a cultural boost, along with some of the other early wonders; building temples and libraries as well, I sometimes have 5 or 6 times more culture than my opponents and I "eat" their cities like mad

[Sovereign]

Yiberius,

I never got ANY enemy cities turning over to me via culture.

NEVER.

Not in almost 1 year of Civ3 gameplay.


How do you do the culture "flipping" thing? I've had cities with 100 - 1000 culture or more next to an enemy city with 0 - 50 culture, for like 100 turns and no flipping.

What is up with that? Maybe my Civ3 CD and program doesn't have the culture "flip" option or ability.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Sovereign
What is up with that? Maybe my Civ3 CD and program doesn't have the culture "flip" option or ability.

Coracle would love to have your CD....

[Jaybe]

Culture flipping has to do more with your CIV's culture value than with the culture of your city next door. Read up on the thread on the subject (sorry, it's around here somewhere; I'm going back to bed).

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Sovereign

How do you do the culture "flipping" thing? I've had cities with 100 - 1000 culture or more next to an enemy city with 0 - 50 culture, for like 100 turns and no flipping.

Any city with full control of all 21 of its tiles is very unlikely to flip. That is why I sometimes force the issue by planting a city as close as I can. Most likely you are not creating the border overlaps that are needed to generate culture flips.

Build RIGHT next to the city you didn't like being plopped down near your borders. Not near it. As close as if possible. Build a temple. Rush it if you can. Build a library. The AI rarely pushes culture as a weapon. Any other cities that have borders with the target must also have their culture pushed. Then wait.

It won't always work but it often does. Early in the game you can even capture a city near their capital. If the AI starts pumping out culture than the borders may stiffen up so it works best against cultures without religion or science. If you are warmongering this is a waste of effort. Just take the bloody thing. However when I play a builder game I can half a dozen or more cities that way on a standard map. Sooner or later the AI will change its government and when they are in anarchy the chance of flipping goes up. Unless I am relgious civ I only make ONE government change. I go from Despot to Republic and stick with it.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Tassadar5000
Coracle would love to have your CD....

:lol

Originally posted by Sovereign
How do you do the culture "flipping" thing?

Well, basically Ethelred said it all.
Build your cities close to the AI's cities, build quickly temple and library, etc. But be aware, your total culture must be much higher than your opponent's culture! Some early wonders (Pyramids, Colossus, Oracle, Great Library) are very helpful for this strategy.
I usually play with the egyptians and start near the romans. They don't care much about culture and instead concentrate only on building cities and units. I try to put my cities between theirs, and as my culture rises and my borders grow, their cities become basically surrounded by my cultural borders.
Sometimes I have more roman cities than egyptian ones! They are basically building their cities for me

[notyoueither]

Back to the topic...

The War Monger has little use for it. 0 reasearch buys a lot of tech, the surrender of enemies with greater tech does more.

I'm not a War Monger. I usually play as a build-monger. I don't usually build it. I have no problem finding the lead in tech in the late Medeival, or early Industrial age.

[Arrian]

I love the Library, even though I often can do without it.

I usually warmonger, on Monarch level (for the most part). I like building it to prevent the AI from getting it, and depending on how my ancient wars have gone and how the rest of the world shapes up, I may even get some tech out of it. Sometimes, if I'm on a largish continent with several AIs, getting the library can result in a nice little tech rush that catches me up (while I've been hoarding cash and building my military). Other times, I am even in tech and can shut off science totally and use my boosted income to rushbuy improvements and such. All in all, I think it's a pretty useful Wonder.

There is a thread on this in the strat forum, btw... pretty much the same question, too.

-Arrian

[Galvatron]

Yup the trick is to deny your enemies to have it as with the GL even civs which are technologically behind at the moment may become a thread with this wonder. I agree with you that in most games the human player is the most advanced in the game so you might not get out much perhaps some techs in the beginning but I often build it for the purpose to stay on top and keep the others dump .

[Flinx]

Originally posted by Sovereign
How do you do the culture "flipping" thing? I've had cities with 100 - 1000 culture or more next to an enemy city with 0 - 50 culture, for like 100 turns and no flipping.

100-1000 culture You build too many units! As a peaceful pacifist defensive builder I often have many, many cities with 3000+ culture.

… But when 30 of your cities have built everything useful there is to build by the start of the modern era there is not much left to do but build modern armor in every city every 2-3 turns and take over the world.

[Lord Merciless]

Great Library is a must at Deity level. Due to AI's production and research bonus, you need a much bigger empire than theirs to stay ahead. However, since the AI civs start out with hell lot more units(including a Settler) than you, they are guaranteed to grow faster than you. In addition, AI civs do lots of "Tech-Whoring" at Deity level, which means you will suddenly be 5 or more techs behind them. The common solution to this dilemma is warmongering: new cities, more workers, blackmailed techs, and most importantly, Great Leaders.

But still, there will be civs outside your reach. You can't blackmail them for techs, and you can't pay their exorbitant prices either. The three early Feudal Age Wonders(Sun Tzu's, Sistine Chapel, and Leo's Workshop) are very important in helping you to win the game. Imagining a situation where you have a Great Leader, but don't have the Techs to built any of them. If you just had the Great Library, things wouldn't be nearly as bad as now.

Finally, I built GLs in all of my last 2 games at Deity level. Everytime I got like around 12 Techs out of it.

[kimmygibler]

The GL becomes essential on deity level. I don't bother with it on monarch. But I find the best way to do well on deity is to pre-build with the pyramids and rush to get literature. Then turn off science and focus on military and grab a few cities. Then hopefully go back into science mode by the time you discover education from the GL. I agree with Merciless, Gl is a must a deity level.

(As far a culture flipping goes I remember someone from Firaxis saying that distance capital was a huge factor as well. If you really want a city to flip, move your capital to the closest possible city. This has worked for me a few times)

[Zarg]

on monarch or lower level GL is usually a waste of production. on emperor it has been a great help for me, but maybe not really necessary to win the game. on deity i didn't try, but i guess it's absolutely necessary to keep up with the ai, fo the great starting advantage he has.

ZARG

[Kampus majore]

Deity is really difficult. I have tried it lately for a lot of games, but in each game I got stuck. Because they expand faster than I can, they can make more units than I can, they also have more tech than I have and last but not least they also got more culture.....

I have tried several strategies, but in each strategy the Great Library was really necessary!

The best strategy is to build up a large army and take what should be yours!

But the zero research I have not tried yet. Maybe it is an option!

[Traelin]

I'm a huge warmongerer (usually I'm at war every year up to Demo), so I really like to dedicate my shields to military. I play Emperor and find I have minimal problems with keeping up in Tech, because I usually attack advanced civs, grab some of their cities, and sue for peace on the condition of receiving techs. In fact I never build a GW until Sistine is available.

[Kuciwalker]

I wish Leo's worked like it did in Civ2

[Dutch]

I hear you, skywalker. In fact, Wonders of the World have been gradually degraded from Civ I through Civ III.

SETI, for instance; in Civ I it added 50 pst to the research of your entire civilization; in Civ II it did the same, only now it was also possible to build research labs in every city and achieve the same effect, albeit in a more complicated way; in Civ III this wonder just adds 50 pst to the research in the city that builds it (cumulative with other bonuses, thank God, but ...)

As for Leo's Workshop - it didn't exist in Civ I, but in Civ II it was a huge advantage. In Civ III it's just saving you some money.

These changes are probably implemented due to game balance issues, and I'm not actually complaining all that much. But on the whole, wonders aren't all that wonderful any more. (And don't get me started on Michela... err, Sistine Chapel; that wonder has really lost some weight.)

[Traelin]

Yeah a lotta the Wonders got downgraded, but I'm not complaining because it was probably necessary for balance and what-not. Maybe I'm getting confused between Civ I and II (God, it's been awhile since I played either), but didn't Michaelangelo/Sistine get cancelled out by Communism? I could be wrong...

[Kampus majore]

Originally posted by skywalker
I wish Leo's worked like it did in Civ2

Yes, back then I allways rushed for it, now it just isn't that important anymore....

But I am also not complaining! Actually on deity I don't seem to be able to build Wonders at all. I usually start, but someone else gets there first and by that time all other wonders are already. So I end up with a lot of shields and having to put them in a granary.... So lately I don't start them anymore till I have the tech available for several Wonders.

[Sovereign]

Hmm..

I build the Great Library to deny the enemy tech's, but at Reagent and above I always lose the race for Great Library.

The hardest level I've ever tried is Reagent. I tried Monarch and Emperor, but I quit FAST, because of early riots. Its a real pain in the ass, when I have some nice production plans all set up, then WHAM! Riots.

I'm thinking of using the Editor to modify the rules a bit. Make it so that ALL difficulty levels have the same riot and corruption levels as Chieftain. Then that way, I can manage riots and still have a hard AI to contend with.


About the culture flipping thing. I build my cities outwards from my capital. I usually play on huge maps, and when I do invade enemys, I take over a few of their cities at first. Then build culture stuff.

But, get this. I capture, say, a 10 turn old city, then build a couple others near the 2nd enemy city that is, say, 20 turns old. In 10 turns or more, my 2, 3, 4, 5 new cities along with the enemy city have temples. In 100 turns, my cities next to enemy territory would have considerable culture, probably in the 100 - 1000 range.

Then the enemy city, still 10 turns older than the one I captured, after 100 turns, doesn't flip. Even under pressure from 3 other cities nearby with moderate culture.


The enemy city usually is size 12 or below. Never past 13, then again, I'm 2 ages ahead of the enemy, with me having hospitals and none for them.


I guess I'll never have that "mythical" culture flipping. It has never happened, both ways. My cities never flip over, nor the enemy flip over to me.


Besides, this Coracle dude seems like he HATES culture a lot. I might sell him a copy of my Civ 3 program, for a price.

[Dutch]

Traelin, in Civ II, cathedrals made four unhappy people content at first. With the invention of Communism this was reduced to three. So Michelangelo's Chapel, equaling one cathedral per city, would have a reduced effect, but it was not made obsolete. Seems like fewer wonders are made obsolete in Civ III ...

Can't remember how this worked in Civ I, though. Haven't played that game since 1996.