Building library with England in ancient

[Frelinder]

Example:

Settle and do the normal thing. At 2900 BC 100g settler. 2800- BC isch Ha is out and you settle your secon city on dyespot. your cap on grass. At 2500-BC you take an AI cap. London now at 3 pop. Dye city have reserached alphapet. you got som extra gold 80g.. what to do?

1. Rush library in dye city making 14 beakers/turn. Meantime put 1 of your cap on forrest and grass and the other on water so you make 20/beakersturn. grab pottery. 2400 BC you start on irr.. keep one cap at hammers grass and the other set on 2 water 1 hammer. This means you are doing 18 beakers/turn (4'18=72) and will finish irr at 2000 BC. Important that the cap that only was working tree and grass have produced the settler and that the sttler are settled and pop are back at 2 the same turn you finish irr in 2000 BC.

Conclusion: in 2000 BC after finishing iirr. you got 3 pop libray city making 18 beakers/turn. you got 3 more cities with pop 3. In one of them you got about 10 hammers saved. You can now get CoL in 5 turns while banking 16 hammers each turn. Thats 80 hammers + the 10 hammers that you already had banked. Or in other words insta 4 settler for free at 1500Bc when you reach CoL.

I would like see someone come up with a better gameplan with the same start I stated in the start of this post that includes making settlers instead of rushing the library.

Important!! I don't wanna see a respond that i would have wen't for legion rush and crushed my opponent instead. Or I would make secon HA and take over 2 more caps instead.

i wanna see an example that shows that making settlers are a better idea then rushing the library

*cheers*

[Liam_Sutty]

This is going off a pretty awesome start and not factoring in allsorts of variables such as being pressed, a stubborn AI, not finding dye, your HA isn't probably vet and you've found what seems to be 6 barbs in total which is very optimistic.

Don't get me wrong I've always been one for my library but I can see the positives of both ways of doing things. More cities = more cities where as your library city will prob only do 22 science max until democracy.

[Frelinder]

This is going off a pretty awesome start and not factoring in allsorts of variables such as being pressed, a stubborn AI, not finding dye, your HA isn't probably vet and you've found what seems to be 6 barbs in total which is very optimistic.

Don't get me wrong I've always been one for my library but I can see the positives of both ways of doing things. More cities = more cities where as your library city will prob only do 22 science max until democracy.

I agree on that this is a quite good start. But the example goes both ways. In other words This is the start you get.

" Settle and do the normal thing. At 2900 BC 100g settler. 2800- BC isch Ha is out and you settle your secon city on dyespot. your cap on grass. At 2500-BC you take an AI cap. London now at 3 pop. Dye city have reserached alphapet. you got som extra gold 80g.. what to do?"

And the arguing are if its better to make settlers instead of rushing the library in dye city. ofcourse if you are being pressed its not good to rush library and its not good to build settler either. None of them are good. As stated I would like to see someone write up a better gameplan to have more prod and better sciense and Col faster by making settlers instead of rushing library. Yes you say more cities give more cities. But making many citiies early ain't smart. getting to CoL verry fast whith alot of hammers banked are smart. In my example I can rush 3 settlers for free (banked hammers) in 1500 BC when reaching Col. That means I will have 7 cities in 1400 Bc. 4 of them with 3 pop and 3 of them with 2 pop and still got 30 hammers banked. At 1000 BC I could easy have 10 cities or more. And I could make good sciense during those turns thanks to my dye library city.

And honestly its alot of games you can have 1 HA and 80 gold at 2500 BC-ish. not only barbs gives gold. Threaten AI and sell them techs. By 2500 you often have encountered 2 of the AI. The closest you sell hbr and then take the cap. the other one you sell HBR and then threaten for gold. How often haven't you Liam got 1 HA, 1 galley and gold to rush a library early in your games? Ofcourse not all the time but often I presume.

Also if not having the extra gold I don't sugest rushing the library because its even not possible. Also if you don't have a dyespot close I also don't recommend rushing the library. that would only be stupid to do so whithout a dyespot.

The arguing was under the circumstances you got the extra 80 gold. You got a dyespot and you now have to choose between start making only settlers and expand/tech. Or rushing the library and making settler expand/tech... which of those two are the best option?

I have stated my point and I would like to see an example that shows me wrong.


2. At 2000 Bc when finishing irr the option is to instead of going for Col going for early Knights. 20 beaers/turn and 16 hammers/turn means at 1300BC you got feaudal and the 10 hammers + 16 *7 = 122 hammers. Whith the free knight you get you now got 2 KA at 1300BC.


Again.. I'm not saying this is a reliable strat that can be easy done in every game. What I am saying is that rushing library is more efficiant then only making settlers.

*cheers*

[elthrasher]

Why do you want Irrigation in 2000 BC, growing all of four cities? I don't agree at all with your goal here. Honestly, I'd love it for my opponent to follow this outline. Prepare to be mangled.

The problem is the choices you are giving aren't realistic. You are offering: rush a library and tech Irrigation which isn't absolutely horrible to do, but somewhat wasteful or slow-build a settler when you already have three cities, one on dye, which is a pretty bad thing to do actually. I could say "so now you can rush a harbor or sell all your units, declare war on the AI and give all your gold to the AI in the peace deal" but that wouldn't prove that harbors are good.

If you want to sell me on a library for fast knights or catapults, I might be inclined to agree. What I would do in the case you've offered totally depends on where my enemy is and what he's doing. If he's close, I want legions and I'm not even thinking about a library. A library would be a very bad move. If he's distant, it still depends on the intel I have. A library might or might not be a good call. In any case, I'm definitely going to tech either CoL or something to kill him with, not Irrigation.

The question here is really one of foundation play vs. endgame strategy. If I'm building a foundation for a mighty empire, then one little library and +4 pop for the cost of 100 beakers (!!!) is pretty meager. But if I'm pursuing my actual endgame strategy, like a knight rush or whatever, then getting there in close to half the time could be worth it.

But still not if I don't have a lot of gold. 20 gold is no enough to build a rush. The first knight army is 50 hammers (since Feudalism comes with a free knight) and the 2nd one is 75. Maybe I can bank hammers on three trees for 10 or so turns to gain 60 hammers, but I also probably need a barracks which is 40. So we're looking at 105 hammers which is 210 gold in ancient or 315 in medieval. If you didn't have decent savings from the initial gold rush, then it's just going to take too long to deploy your knights. Your roadblock won't be that you can't tech fast enough. It will be that you can't produce enough units to make a proper impact.

By the same token, you could also compare going for CoL quickly. Obviously a library gets you there faster but again if you only have 20 gold remaining, you aren't going to expand much. Having 100 gold left over would mean that it takes a bit longer to get to CoL (perhaps 10 turns instead of 6), but you'd be able to get two settlers out almost immediately.

[asmodeios]

Yeah rushing to irrigation is such a noob move and is such a waste of resources just like an early library is most of the time. Blindly teching up fast without infrastructure is just stupid.

[Frelinder]

Why do you want Irrigation in 2000 BC, growing all of four cities? I don't agree at all with your goal here. Honestly, I'd love it for my opponent to follow this outline. Prepare to be mangled.

The problem is the choices you are giving aren't realistic. You are offering: rush a library and tech Irrigation which isn't absolutely horrible to do, but somewhat wasteful or slow-build a settler when you already have three cities, one on dye, which is a pretty bad thing to do actually. I could say "so now you can rush a harbor or sell all your units, declare war on the AI and give all your gold to the AI in the peace deal" but that wouldn't prove that harbors are good.

If you want to sell me on a library for fast knights or catapults, I might be inclined to agree. What I would do in the case you've offered totally depends on where my enemy is and what he's doing. If he's close, I want legions and I'm not even thinking about a library. A library would be a very bad move. If he's distant, it still depends on the intel I have. A library might or might not be a good call. In any case, I'm definitely going to tech either CoL or something to kill him with, not Irrigation.

The question here is really one of foundation play vs. endgame strategy. If I'm building a foundation for a mighty empire, then one little library and +4 pop for the cost of 100 beakers (!!!) is pretty meager. But if I'm pursuing my actual endgame strategy, like a knight rush or whatever, then getting there in close to half the time could be worth it.

But still not if I don't have a lot of gold. 20 gold is no enough to build a rush. The first knight army is 50 hammers (since Feudalism comes with a free knight) and the 2nd one is 75. Maybe I can bank hammers on three trees for 10 or so turns to gain 60 hammers, but I also probably need a barracks which is 40. So we're looking at 105 hammers which is 210 gold in ancient or 315 in medieval. If you didn't have decent savings from the initial gold rush, then it's just going to take too long to deploy your knights. Your roadblock won't be that you can't tech fast enough. It will be that you can't produce enough units to make a proper impact.

By the same token, you could also compare going for CoL quickly. Obviously a library gets you there faster but again if you only have 20 gold remaining, you aren't going to expand much. Having 100 gold left over would mean that it takes a bit longer to get to CoL (perhaps 10 turns instead of 6), but you'd be able to get two settlers out almost immediately.

Hi Trasher

You haven't read what I'm writing. When I hit Col in 1500 BC I got 90 hammers banked. This thanks to that my library do all the teching so my other cities can all work hammers. This means I got 90 hammers banked and thats equal 270 gold in medival.

If I instead save the 80 gold. Build a couple of settler in ancient to get pop/cities enough to be able to make 20 science/turn not only will it take me longer before I have enogh pop to be able to make 20 beakers/turn. I also then have probably have all my pop on water so I can't bank any hammers. Then when reaching CoL I got 80 gold saved.. settlers costs 60 gold so thats 1 and a half settler.

You think this is better then having 90 hammer banked thats equal 4 and a half settler?

Or do you mean to expand so much in ancient/beginning of medival before starting teching to CoL that you can both making 20 beakers per turn and banking alot of hammers whithout getting the irr bonus??? Okay 7 beakers in dyecity. You need 6 more pop on water to make 20 beakers/turn. Thats 3 more ancient cities. Then you need 8 more pop to get the same amount of hammers banked that I can. thats 4 more ancient cities. If you sugest reaching medival first and settle a couple then you need 5 tech to reach medival.. so you are loosing turns to tech to 5 techs... can you see where I am going with this?

I don't get it.

Can you please write an example and show with numbers and dates.. like this much sciense and pop and hammer banked in 1800 BC and so forth and explain to me how you are right and I am wrong.

Banking hammers from early on makes a huge impact later in game when rush costs are higher. Saving 80g in ancient instead of banking alot of hammers is not smart. Golds value becames veaker for each era but hammers do not and I know you know this.

I can accept that you think grabing irr is for noobs. Fine.. but if you don't grab it your opponent will. So lets say skipping teching irr and instead go straight for CoL. with the same start as stated before I can reach CoL in 2000 BC with a less banked hammers and some saved food but can probably crunch out 2-3 sttlers quite fast anyway. Or I can go a little slower and finish CoL at 1500 BC so that I have more banked hammers and food when reaching CoL.

Anyway It still makes more scense to build the library then not building it.

*cheers*

[Frelinder]

Yeah rushing to irrigation is such a noob move and is such a waste of resources just like an early library is most of the time. Blindly teching up fast without infrastructure is just stupid.

LoL

An rushing alot of settlers in ancient is an Elite move? Blindly making settlers early whithout infrastracture is better?

Comon and look at what I am writing instead of just saying its a noob move. And as I said. Give me an example on an Elite move involving just making settlers instead. Give me numbers. I wanna see your math.

*cheers*

[elthrasher]

Hi Trasher

I expect this from the silly Frenchies, but aren't you Scandinavian? You ought to know how to use an H.

You haven't read what I'm writing. When I hit Col in 1500 BC I got 90 hammers banked. This thanks to that my library do all the teching so my other cities can all work hammers. This means I got 90 hammers banked and thats equal 270 gold in medival.

I did indeed read it and you can see I assumed banking hammers above. The thing is, you can do that with or without a library. Without a library it takes longer, but you have more gold when you're done and can make up for lost time. Maybe. You know, it all depends on the game. I accept what your blueprint here can be a good move at times but all the time? No way. Absolutely not.

If I instead save the 80 gold. Build a couple of settler in ancient to get pop/cities enough to be able to make 20 science/turn not only will it take me longer before I have enogh pop to be able to make 20 beakers/turn. I also then have probably have all my pop on water so I can't bank any hammers. Then when reaching CoL I got 80 gold saved.. settlers costs 60 gold so thats 1 and a half settler.

Who said you should do this? You could instead just tech CoL at a slower rate and then have an even greater explosion in settling. One nice side-effect of that is that your GP will show up around the time you reach Republic. You won't delay him by changing government.

Can you please write an example and show with numbers and dates.. like this much sciense and pop and hammer banked in 1800 BC and so forth and explain to me how you are right and I am wrong.

Yes, I can but I don't really care to because these examples are completely unrealistic in my experience. You aren't being pressed at all. That means you are playing a kitten. It means it doesn't matter what you do.

Here's your example:

Okay, Muffins, I've got you right where I want you! I have 80 gold and have teched Alphabet. I'm buying a library and you can't stop me!

Meow?

Congrats. You win!

But okay, let's say I have three cities: my capital (2 pop), 100 g city (2 pop + dye) and AI cap (3 pop). I'm safe for the moment and want to get to CoL and build as many settlers as possible. I have 100 gold and Alphabet, Horseback Riding and Monarchy. It's 2500 BC.

Library + Irrigation: Buy the library (20 gold left). Tech Pottery while Zimbabwe builds a settler. I'm doing 18 beakers, as per your example. It will take six turns during which time I'll finish that settler and plant it. I'm done in 1900 BC and now I have four cities all at 3 pop.

The library city is blazing away at 18 beakers so I add 2 from my cap and put everybody else in forests. I tech CoL in five turns. I have 24 hammers banked in London, 0 banked in Oxford, 36 in Zimbabwe and 36 in Reading. So basically I'm looking at having five settlers in 1400 BC, 11 turns after I started working toward this goal. Note that if my opponent shows up with any force whatsoever, I am completely and utterly screwed beyond any hope of redemption because I have ~20 gold and virtually no units!

So right, it all looks fine until your opponent drops three legion armies on your shores and now you've lost the game. That's why I don't buy libraries. I focus on units. I send them to my enemy and get him running around in a panic. I tech CoL slower and wind up with fewer settlers than I would have had if I were playing in a vacuum. And then I win against good players!

So if and only if I have enough money to effectively press my enemy and buy a library will I do so. Your solution works fine in a totally passive game but passive players simply are not good ones.

[elthrasher]

Another thing to consider is if you can quickly settle 3+ dye, that's probably a lot better than a library. Then you hit 20 beakers easily while occupying more space and have more hammers/gold if needed.

[asmodeios]

Yeah my opponent got an early seven cities...invested it into 2 libraries and a short time later i show up with 5legion armies and take both his archer army defended cities in a ffa game. Libraries sure do help early on!

[Frelinder]

I expect this from the silly Frenchies, but aren't you Scandinavian? You ought to know how to use an H.



I did indeed read it and you can see I assumed banking hammers above. The thing is, you can do that with or without a library. Without a library it takes longer, but you have more gold when you're done and can make up for lost time. Maybe. You know, it all depends on the game. I accept what your blueprint here can be a good move at times but all the time? No way. Absolutely not.



Who said you should do this? You could instead just tech CoL at a slower rate and then have an even greater explosion in settling. One nice side-effect of that is that your GP will show up around the time you reach Republic. You won't delay him by changing government.



Yes, I can but I don't really care to because these examples are completely unrealistic in my experience. You aren't being pressed at all. That means you are playing a kitten. It means it doesn't matter what you do.

Here's your example:

Okay, Muffins, I've got you right where I want you! I have 80 gold and have teched Alphabet. I'm buying a library and you can't stop me!

Meow?

Congrats. You win!

But okay, let's say I have three cities: my capital (2 pop), 100 g city (2 pop + dye) and AI cap (3 pop). I'm safe for the moment and want to get to CoL and build as many settlers as possible. I have 100 gold and Alphabet, Horseback Riding and Monarchy. It's 2500 BC.

Library + Irrigation: Buy the library (20 gold left). Tech Pottery while Zimbabwe builds a settler. I'm doing 18 beakers, as per your example. It will take six turns during which time I'll finish that settler and plant it. I'm done in 1900 BC and now I have four cities all at 3 pop.

The library city is blazing away at 18 beakers so I add 2 from my cap and put everybody else in forests. I tech CoL in five turns. I have 24 hammers banked in London, 0 banked in Oxford, 36 in Zimbabwe and 36 in Reading. So basically I'm looking at having five settlers in 1400 BC, 11 turns after I started working toward this goal. Note that if my opponent shows up with any force whatsoever, I am completely and utterly screwed beyond any hope of redemption because I have ~20 gold and virtually no units!

So right, it all looks fine until your opponent drops three legion armies on your shores and now you've lost the game. That's why I don't buy libraries. I focus on units. I send them to my enemy and get him running around in a panic. I tech CoL slower and wind up with fewer settlers than I would have had if I were playing in a vacuum. And then I win against good players!

So if and only if I have enough money to effectively press my enemy and buy a library will I do so. Your solution works fine in a totally passive game but passive players simply are not good ones.

LoL.. Yes I agree on that most times its better to invest in units instead of library. But then again. The argument was

1. Building library and settlers/banking hammers.. Like I sugested.

2. or instead just invest the 80 gold building setlers.

The argument was not if its better to build legions then library.

Are anyone reading what I'm writing here?

Alsong as anyone can't show with numbers/math that its better to invest the 80 gold on settler instead of rushing a library in ancient, with England, with the start that I stated... No one can say I'm wrong.

I respect you as an excellent civ rev player Trasher and I probably would loose more games then I would win against you. However you have still not showed me wrong in my statement.

*cheers*

[Frelinder]

Yeah my opponent got an early seven cities...invested it into 2 libraries and a short time later i show up with 5legion armies and take both his archer army defended cities in a ffa game. Libraries sure do help early on!

And again. The argument was building library or settlers. So you mean 2 settlers would have saved the day against 5 legion armies?

Only counter units would have saved him and thats not what we are arguing here.

I'm not being rude but can you guys read? I'm starting to get iritating when you keep responding on a total different thing then we are arguing.

*cheers*

[asmodeios]

Your libraries are just not a good idea period. Teching ability is not what matters. Units in the field and cities are.

[ScottieX]

I expect this from the silly Frenchies, but aren't you Scandinavian? You ought to know how to use an H.

although he hasnt really changed the meaning much. In civ rev - you crush people up and throw them in the trash after thrashing people

I accept what your blueprint here can be a good move at times but all the time? No way. Absolutely not.

then you seem to be arguing past each other. you are both saying you are sometimes correct - there therefore isnt any contradcton!

I ofcourse tend towards thinking elthrasher's approach is stronger beause it seems to have won more often.

But at the same time it is possble for you to be pretty confident the enemy cannot press you (great choak points etc) and then lay down a library and settlers and whatever. Possible becase of the choak pont, and maybe reqired due to a lack of good land on your side of the choak (until you kill an AI somwhere else and then expand from there lets say).

[elthrasher]

1. Building library and settlers/banking hammers.. Like I sugested.

2. or instead just invest the 80 gold building setlers.

The argument was not if its better to build legions then library.

Yes, I'm reading what you're writing. If the point of your article is to show which is the superior of two sub-par strategies, then I apologize for getting involved at all! Neither of the above choices are very good.

And now you owe me two Hs.

[ll SRR ll]

this is my english strat for FFA, If I rush two warriors sometimes three if cap is available. If I dont get cap and no possible HR I work two grasslands to rush to three pop and settle free settler next to dye and rush bronze if I get fish with dye or alpha if no fish. I rush galley to look for wonders, friendly, and naming tiles. I work both cities on gold til 80 is achieved and rush library. Work iron working if I'm the first to it if not I b-line irragation. While I'm getting early tech Im working on 3rd city settler in london and settle it next to dye and repeat process for a nice prodution city if one is availble. I'm usually the first to both irragation and math and working on nav next. I rush a barrack in production city to pump out one legion army and a cat army. once I get nav I switch everything over to gold and rush galleon fleet and attack the strongest competitor. In the process I'll usually get a GL or a GS and I use them defferently everytime depending on circumstances. I dont know too many pike armies that can stand up to this but usually im attacking single archers or militia if there americans.

[ll SRR ll]

asmodious didnt I just beat you in your (I'm not even good at h2h) h2h game by building libraries, I wasnt even the english either I was the japs. Strike one up for the LIBRARIES fellas lmao.

[asmodeios]

asmodious didnt I just beat you in your (I'm not even good at h2h) h2h game by building libraries, I wasnt even the english either I was the japs. Strike one up for the LIBRARIES fellas lmao.

xbox live disconnect is why you won. No other reason considering i had plenty of production on the mainland and a Gl for elites.
nevermind that i was playing around building things as well. If i was really taking that game serious i would have attacked you instead if building markets. Your attacks were pretty late considering your great builders as well

[ll SRR ll]

What ever man you where toast I had bombers on the way. No excuses you let a game slip away and cant admit it.

[ll SRR ll]

Don't get me wrong I've always been one for my library but I can see the positives of both ways of doing things. More cities = more cities where as your library city will prob only do 22 science max until democracy.





This is not true ive had my dye library city get 27 or higher with GS. I get a GS alot for some reason as my first GP.

[ll SRR ll]

Your libraries are just not a good idea period. Teching ability is not what matters. Units in the field and cities are.


This is the stupidest statement ive heard yet what good are cities if you cant protect them and what good are units if they are obsoleted? Just like that game I played you in today I brought a gun to a knife fight and I won bc I had better units. I agree having advanced units dont mean ☺☺☺☺ if you cant produce them but I always can and I make sure of that.

[elthrasher]

Buying a library is debatable. Settling your GS? Unless you've got a functional Colossus in Thebes with a bunch of deserts, it's an absolute no-no.

[ll SRR ll]

Buying a library is debatable. Settling your GS? Unless you've got a functional Colossus in Thebes with a bunch of deserts, it's an absolute no-no.


I disagree, yes save it for the long hall game but if ive got a good start and can end the game with cat and galleon rush then I always settle it. I dont have statistical data but when I settle him in a dye or double dye spot I tech those techs faster and plus if my rush doesnt work I still can hit inv and steam faster. (my rush has never failed though!) The only games I lose are the ones where I get a bad start ei no free settler or too close to arabs, zulu, aztec, or am hr.

[ScottieX]

I sppose there might be a mathmatical possibility of it being better to settle it..
but lets say you are going for a cats and galleon rush like n your example... wont it work out better to just GS nav and tech maths pottery and masonary?
youll probably have already teched pottery and masonary... so you are geting more than double the beakers by using the GS compared to settling it. (even if you are playing a OCC).

no need to worry about hitting inv and nav faster if your rush is never going to fail.

I'd often settle as part of an OCC strategy via non dom win. and I might consider it in a hypothetical scenario for a normal domination win - but those seem VERY rare...

[asmodeios]

What ever man you where toast I had bombers on the way. No excuses you let a game slip away and cant admit it.

sorry but having bombers doesn't mean you automatically win. Then again you think settling scientists is a good thing. You may have won anyway but you won because of a disconnect pure and simple.i had elite defenders on the mainland and you were never getting my cap.

[elthrasher]

I sppose there might be a mathmatical possibility of it being better to settle it..
but lets say you are going for a cats and galleon rush like n your example... wont it work out better to just GS nav and tech maths pottery and masonary?
youll probably have already teched pottery and masonary... so you are geting more than double the beakers by using the GS compared to settling it. (even if you are playing a OCC).

no need to worry about hitting inv and nav faster if your rush is never going to fail.

I'd often settle as part of an OCC strategy via non dom win. and I might consider it in a hypothetical scenario for a normal domination win - but those seem VERY rare...

Right. Unless we are America, we don't have the GS at the start, so we are part of the way through our teching by the time we can use him. Since we are already using a library (we must assume, otherwise settling the GS is really not a good idea), we're probably going through Writing and not Masonry and certainly have the tech finished by the time the GS shows up or we're already going to be too slow. So we can go Mathematics (90), Navigation (130) by tech-jumping Masonry twice or we can go Pottery (20), Masonry (30), Mathematics (70), Navigation (110).

A double-dye library city is doing 20 science. The GS adds 10. In the first case, it's going to take 3 turns for Mathematics + 5 for Navigation if we settle or it takes 5 turns for Math and then we use the scientist for Nav.

If we don't want to tech-jump, we go one turn for Pottery, one turn for Masonry, three for Mathematics and four for Navigation or one turn, two turns, four turns done.

Tech-jumping with a settled GS: 8 turns
Tech-jumping GSing Navigation: 5 turns
Teching everything with a settled GS: 9 turns
Teching everything and GSing Navigation: 7 turns

I only included the last one for completion. We obviously want to tech-jump when using a scientist.

Note that we have optimal conditions here. We've got a double-dye spot with a library (we won't always find this) and our GS has arrived before we even started teching Mathematics which would indicate a 2nd city very early on (either that or we're being super slow). It would be more common to have just one dye in which case the city does 14 science or 21 with the settled GS and it's very likely we would have started on Mathematics before the GS appears around 1500 BC. Finally, we're doing all our teching in one city here which may or may not be the case. Change any of this stuff and using the scientist on Navigation becomes even more attractive.

[Frelinder]

I expect this from the silly Frenchies, but aren't you Scandinavian? You ought to know how to use an H.

But okay, let's say I have three cities: my capital (2 pop), 100 g city (2 pop + dye) and AI cap (3 pop). I'm safe for the moment and want to get to CoL and build as many settlers as possible. I have 100 gold and Alphabet, Horseback Riding and Monarchy. It's 2500 BC.

Library + Irrigation: Buy the library (20 gold left). Tech Pottery while Zimbabwe builds a settler. I'm doing 18 beakers, as per your example. It will take six turns during which time I'll finish that settler and plant it. I'm done in 1900 BC and now I have four cities all at 3 pop.

The library city is blazing away at 18 beakers so I add 2 from my cap and put everybody else in forests. I tech CoL in five turns. I have 24 hammers banked in London, 0 banked in Oxford, 36 in Zimbabwe and 36 in Reading. So basically I'm looking at having five settlers in 1400 BC, 11 turns after I started working toward this goal. Note that if my opponent shows up with any force whatsoever, I am completely and utterly screwed beyond any hope of redemption because I have ~20 gold and virtually no units!

So right, it all looks fine until your opponent drops three legion armies on your shores and now you've lost the game. That's why I don't buy libraries. I focus on units. I send them to my enemy and get him running around in a panic. I tech CoL slower and wind up with fewer settlers than I would have had if I were playing in a vacuum. And then I win against good players!

So if and only if I have enough money to effectively press my enemy and buy a library will I do so. Your solution works fine in a totally passive game but passive players simply are not good ones.

Yea I'm from Sweden

Anyway lets go away from the argument building a library instead of building early settlers. Now lets try implement building a library but still be agressive.

The early library give you the oportunity to use your other cities at making units. Same example you finish irr 2000 BC. This means you now can grab IW in one turn and then either go for CoL or The agressive math/Nav or Feudal with your techcity while your other cities are making Legions. 16 hammers/turn means one LA every 2 turn at the same time that you are making good teching.

In year 1500 BC-1000 BC you can press your enemy with 3 LA and Archers and the HA and now Have CoL and start making more cities. Or feudal/math/nav. Either way building the library doesn't mean you don't have to build any units at all. What I'm saying is that Building the library gives you the chanse to have more prod. My first example was thast you can have 90 hammers banked for settlers. But you can just the same use the hammers for units.

If not building the library you will have lower prod (no fast irr bonus for the extra sciense and alot more hammers/turn) you will have less tech. You will defently get feudal, math and Nav much later. Also you will hit Col much later.

We can all agree on that many cities means more prod, more science etc right? If I hit CoL 5-6 turns faster thanks to having the library means that I will have more cities much faster. This way I can have 10-15 cities in 500 BC and 3-5 KA.

Unless you aiming at finishing the game before 1500 BC with 2 LA and 1 HA building the library is not stupid.

Building one ancient library with England on Dyespot ain't the same as:

building several Librarys with an ordanary civ and perhapps settle The GP if its an scientist.. Not what I recommend.

I don't reccomend anything of this.. Just the ancient library as England on dyespot can be a verry good idea.

*cheers*

[elthrasher]

Unless you aiming at finishing the game before 1500 BC with 2 LA and 1 HA building the library is not stupid.

I'm generally aiming for pretty much exactly that. It works a lot of the time.

I do take your point about the library. Mine is simply that if you're spending more than half your gold on that library and your opponent is any good at all, that will probably end up being the decision that costs you the game. It is so much more worthwhile to invest in horsemen or legions in the early game than it is to buy libraries. If you can do both, great. But any time I have to choose, I'm going with units. The exceptions would be if I know my opponent is a weak player who turtles and doesn't press or if I'm very distant from him and don't anticipate much in the way of early combat (very rare).

If you are going to get attacked, then the very worst thing you can do is get into medieval and cause 50% inflation on purchasing units. The alternative here is to just get archer armies in your cities. As England, this should save you, but now you're looking at 120 gold (minus whatever you've hammered) in archers + 80 gold for the library = 200. You don't get 200 gold every game so if you're getting a library in a low-gold game, that means you have a city which is vulnerable.

And again, if you're playing opponents who won't exploit that vulnerability, then you are playing with kittens.

[ll SRR ll]

I won bc you got lazy and slipped up. I dont care what you had I had bomber wing, two tank armies, cruiser fleet, two inf knight armies, and a riffleman army. Not too menchin I was getting 250 gold and 15 hammers per turn in Koyoto and working on Leonardo's Workshop. Dude you where toast and I dont believe you even got disconected I think you saw my bomber wing and knew you where done and quit.

[dukeblue1987]

I just want to point out that there is an EXTREMELY big difference between H2H and FFA as well as an EXTREMELY big difference between playing with good players and bad players (obviously).

I don't play ranked FFA so I can't really comment. I have played quite a bit of player match FFA with good players. Normally, the game ends up being H2H after a bit of a prolonged rush phase anyways. Very rarely are the games balanced. It's just the nature of the game.

Elite players are going to exploit any weakness you have. That is why building libraries is a no-no. You have no flexibility. Yes, you may have a 5 or 10% advantage in tech. But I have a 100% advantage in gold production and hammer production. Guess who's going to win that game? Yup, me. A ranked player is going to sit there and let you feel like GOD as you spank them however you please. 95% of games that last until takes simply means that the player who was winning messed up and missed an easy opportunity to win earlier.

[elthrasher]

95% of games that last until takes simply means that the player who was winning messed up and missed an easy opportunity to win earlier.

takes=tanks I assume.

The other 5% are games in which one player blew a big advantage and the other one caught up at tanks.

[dukeblue1987]

takes=tanks I assume.

The other 5% are games in which one player blew a big advantage and the other one caught up at tanks.

Yes and Yes

[SVPM]

I expect this from the silly Frenchies, but aren't you Scandinavian? You ought to know how to use an H.

Stop telling trash about Frenchies, you bag of thrash!!!

[elthrasher]

Stop telling trash about Frenchies, you bag of thrash!!!

Okay here's the truth. There are two kinds of Frenchies: the kind that can take a joke and the kind that have no idea what I'm saying.

[SVPM]

Okay here's the truth. There are two kinds of Frenchies: the kind that can take a joke and the kind that have no idea what I'm saying.

Here's The truth. There's two kind of Frenchies: the kind that answer to joke with sarcasm and the kind that answer with insults.