Troubles with the Great Library

[Vlado]

My favorite is when two civ trade tech between so you get two fresh techs the same turn. Since the AI doesn't realise that you have the GL it doesn't take that into account. So it's still possible to trade these techs to other AIs.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I think I see thanks to badman's post.

It works like how the GA occurs from Wonder building.

When you get the GL, nothing happens until a civ you know discovers or acquires a new tech. Then the game checks to see if any other civs you know have that tech. If so, then the GL will give you the tech (assuming you don't know it already). This checking process will then continue through all the techs of all the civs you know until you have all the techs that at least two of the civs you know already have themselves.

Hope that makes sense. And is actually right.

[nbarclay]

The tactic of building the Great Library and letting the AIs do your research for you works best (if you can pull it off) in two types of situations. (1) If the combination of difficulty level and starting position poses a major challenge for you, forcing you to come from behind. (2) If your strategy involves massive (and expensive) unit upgrades that are going to divert your resources away from research anyhow. If the combination of difficulty level and starting position is relatively easy for you, and if you don't delay research for numerous upgrades, the Great Library usually doesn't kick in until after you've had a chance to out-grow and thus out-research your AI competitors. Thus, the only way you can take advantage of the Great Library is to throw away your opportunity to build up a nice tech lead, which I almost invariably regard as more valuable. But if you aren't going to be able to build up a significant tech lead anyhow, building the Great Library and raking in some cash can be very useful.

By the way, depending on the circumstances, a singnificant chunk of the early AI tech advantage may come from popping huts rather than from any actual speed advantage in AI research. If you're expanisionist, with reasonable luck, you should be able to keep up quite nicely in the techs-from-huts department. Otherwise, if AIs have the expansionist (or Aztec Jaguar Warrior) advantage, or if you don't explore as aggressively as they do, or if some of them get luckier, you can find yourself behind relatively easily in the early game. (And the willingness for AIs to settle for less when trading with each other than they'd demand from you, especially on higher levels, helps spread around techs once they're popped.) But once AIs stop getting techs from huts, that source of possible advantage for them goes away. That may be another factor in the "Why aren't they researching as quickly as they were before I built the Great Library?" syndrome.

[Gufnork]

I've started to beeline for literacy and build the GL ASAP. Since I play mostly on deity now (sooner or later I'll win a damn game!) I tend to get a LOT of techs the turn after it's built. So you get the techs as soon as two civs you know of have them, with one turn delay. Since this has happened every time I've built the GL the "checks when someone gets advance" theory seems highly unlikely. The Great Library is only useful on emperor and up, on lower difficulties you should concentrate on getting the tech lead instead. Taking the GL as denial is pointless, the AI don't know how to use if. And so what if #3 keeps up with #2?

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

I would totally disagree with the statement that the GL is not useful - that it is more valuable to have a tech lead - on diff. levels lower than Emperor.

I play Regent all the time, and even cranking my research, and REXing hard, I find myself out-"researched" by the expanionists (or at least, I find myself on their level).

The tech lead you can gain over the expanionists, especially if there's 3 or more of them in contact with each other (and the "hemispheric community," for those who play continents) is neglible and dissappears quickly.

However, the GL catches you up, often gets you monotheism from 2 scientific types, and allows you to kill with a will, which is important if securing victory in the game is important to you. I'd much rather spend my early money building a large, dangerous army than maintaining a tech lead.

I can USE the army to smash whomever is a tech competitor in the early medival era. By backpedalling tech in the early era, I find I can become the tech leader by credit of my empire's sheer BULK by the mid-middle ages.

This is the case in my current game, as America - fell behind in tech, but got the GL - got about 5 techs from it, including Monotheism, and so utterly dominated my neighbors with 30 swordsmen, and later knights and med. inf., that I've been in the tech lead since Feudalism. I've built very few libraries in this time, but I smashed so effectively that I had to research education before the GL expired!

I know it's not always that easy to wage war, but I still think there's more to be said for swallowing your pride in the early game only to later cripple and overtake your neighbors, especially once their scouts have been made largely useless.

[Dominae]

Many players who feel the Great Library is "useless" or at least "not that good" know the Civ3 AI very well.

The problem with the GL is that its effects can be largely duplicated with an intimate knowledge of AI research patterns and trading techniques. In games where you have contacts with many neighbors, you can keep yourself competitive in tech and still have a lot of Gold for upgrades. The GL effect is therefore less pronounced, and hardly worth the Shield investment.

It's not easy to determine in which games the GL will really shine or not. If you can research a tech or two at a 40-turn pace and you've got a lot of neighbors, then it's usually not worth building the GL. But it's a gamble. On the other hand, if you think you have a good shot at the GL and you're largely out of the tech loop, it's usually worth it. Again, it's a gamble.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Taking the GL as denial is pointless, the AI don't know how to use if. And so what if #3 keeps up with #2?

And if it's #5 catching up with #2, making techs cheaper for the former #3 and #4 in the process? I certainly don't view getting the Great Library for denial purposes as a high priority, but I don't consider it completely pointless either. If I miss the Great Library and a relatively backward civ that's high on my target list gets it, that can be less than entirely convenient. I don't go after the Great Library very often, but every now and then, the denial benefit and my general enjoyment of getting wonders combine to provide a sufficient incentive. And on rarer occasions, I actually build it to use it myself. (I imagine I'd try for it more if I played Deity.)

[Gufnork]

Originally posted by nbarclay
And if it's #5 catching up with #2, making techs cheaper for the former #3 and #4 in the process? I certainly don't view getting the Great Library for denial purposes as a high priority, but I don't consider it completely pointless either. If I miss the Great Library and a relatively backward civ that's high on my target list gets it, that can be less than entirely convenient. I don't go after the Great Library very often, but every now and then, the denial benefit and my general enjoyment of getting wonders combine to provide a sufficient incentive. And on rarer occasions, I actually build it to use it myself. (I imagine I'd try for it more if I played Deity.)

Even better. They're not a threat. In fact, that would mean I get better allies against #2. I tend to sell #5 tech for whatever he happens to have to avoid him getting run over by the rest too easily. Unless he's my neighbour, in which case he'd be long since dead.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Thanks for all the input. I started a new game over the week-end: huge map, 16 civs, pangea. The GL worked, thanks precisely to those obnoxious expansionists. One thing, though: everybody seemed to race towards Education, especially the scientific/comercial civs. Because of this, I had to rush to get Invention first, and this tactic seems to have paid off. By the time someone discovered Education (and traded it instantly, as my science advisor told we got from 2 other neighbours, just before, the GL stopped working), I had Gunpowder, and that allowed me to stay in the tech trading market. Of course, I was never out of the market, because, with me relying on the GL, only 3 or 4 civs were actually researching, and guess who got the money from everybody else. Now I just got Combustion and Atomic Theory (from ToE) and the only people able to cough up more than 100 gpt (plus other goodies) for them were those early researchers, everybody else is still trying to recover financially.

Interesting side note about scientific civs (I was playing the Ottomans): at the start of the Middle Ages, every scientific civ in the game got another bonus tech, so that Monotheism, Engineering and Feudalism were researched instantly. At the start of the Industrial Age, everybody got Medicine as bonus.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

A side note to your side note:

I always play with 16 civs, continents, huge world, and I find that the scientific civs, even if there are 4 or more present in the world set up, generally all research the same thing - monotheism typically.

I have oft recieved engineering from the GL, a major boon IMO as engineering in and of itself is not that high a priority (compared to feudalism and monotheism) in my book.

[Gufnork]

Great Library isn't obselete until it's owner research Education. So you'll always get that tech. I'm guessing it was a very peaceful game, in more warlike games they tend to go the bottom route.

As for scientific, I've never seen anyone get anything but Monotheism in the Middle Age and Nationalism in Industrial age. I don't quite remember what they get in the Modern Age, I tend to be in the mopping up phase then (I always war with tanks. I like tanks. Tanks are good.). Or did you mean that they got an additional tech besides that?

[Dr. A. Cula]

Yes, that is my experience also. In this game, however, things were a bit different. One turn I get Republic and Construction from the Gl, then Engineering for free, the next turn I get Monotheism and Feudalism from the GL, along with the "massive barbarian build-up"(tm). Since my Science Advisor told me we got them both from the Germans and someone else scientific, I assumed they each got one for free, then traded.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Originally posted by Gufnork
Great Library isn't obselete until it's owner research Education. So you'll always get that tech. I'm guessing it was a very peaceful game, in more warlike games they tend to go the bottom route.

As for scientific, I've never seen anyone get anything but Monotheism in the Middle Age and Nationalism in Industrial age. I don't quite remember what they get in the Modern Age, I tend to be in the mopping up phase then (I always war with tanks. I like tanks. Tanks are good.). Or did you mean that they got an additional tech besides that?

Yes, it is very nice that you get University as the last tech, and that you get it when 2 others have it. Gives you time to prepare. I had to rush-build a few libraries at this point.

I usually get Nationalsim myself in Industrial Age, but now I got Medicine and everyone else got Nationalism (I checked - that was all they had to offer).

As for a peaceful game, this was anything but that. I was almost constantly at war with someone, yet they seemed to ignore completely musketmen and Cavalry. Gotta love those Sipahis, though. Not even Riflemen can stand in their way. And I'm researching tanks right now.

[Gufnork]

Sounds like that game is really freaky.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Originally posted by Gufnork


Sounds like that game is really freaky.

Tell me about it. I just hit Modern Age and got Rocketry, Computers and Fission the very next turn.

Forgot this: I'm at war with 4 civs right now. I was the 3rd to get to Motorized Transportation, and I think by now all my enemies have it. At least 2 of them have Oil and Aluminum, yet I'm the only one to field Tanks and Mech Infantry.