I was reading a recent post that transposed into this subject and I wanted to hear your views. GL or no GL. For me, GL. I conquer early. My tech tends to go Monarchy-Philosophy-Invention-Democracy. The GL is the only near indespensible ancient wonder for me. GL enables me to put min % in science when I get Lady Liberty and switch to Fundy. I can build hoards and amass gold and be no worse than tied for 2nd 'til ELECTRICITY. The whole time which egghead sucker civ do you think will get the brunt of my Grand Armee.
Some famous poster said that it takes longer to research your techs w/GL, I disagree. Although any specific tech may not be researched first, given that all techs are mandatory and you lose no beakers thru conquest or GL the stored beakers will eventually get your chosen tech first. This combined with attacking AI civ tech leader for me means NO ONE gets electricity at all because when I rule the world, everybody practices green simple living.

Merry Holidays,

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Save the whales, collect the whole set!!

If Al Gore invented the Internet, then I invented the spell check- Dan Quayle

Another reason for not building the GL and for killing it early is that it seems to be fairly high on the list for the AI, the same as KRC. The AI Civs will keep starting and abandoning it over and over until someone finally completes it. At that point the only value that they have to you is for score points so let them build those instead of Hover's, liberty, or SETI which are much more useful to you.

When I play on emperor level(never won yet ) I always build it, without it I find myself far behind the other civs.

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Go Redskins!

The Great Library is a wonderful, wonderful wonder if you're going to set your science rate low and concentrate on a military. It means "free" techs with no effort.

I, however, usually play to win via the space race. Here keeping ahead of the AI in research is important.

A couple comments on the "I have to research every tech anyway" view.

1) When you get a certain tech is important. The first civilization to say Monotheism is much more likely to build Michaelangelo's Cathedral than the second or third. Theology is a useless and research-impeding tech if you get it after J.S. Bach's has been built. Wonders are very potent in Civ 2 so it often becomes a game of races for the next wonder. In these races a streamlined tech path is more important than merely knowing a lot of techs. Even if you have to eventually learn a tech, learning it later rather than earlier can be a big help due to wonder building considerations.

Getting a tech for "free" from the Great Library means you don't have spend beakers to get it, so it would seem that you'll spend fewer beakers overall to get to Space Flight. However, the Great Library might make you miss out on some tech-enhancing wonders (Copernicus's Observatory being a big one with the AI). These wonders give you back "free" beakers that you can use on techs of your choosing.

2) You can sometimes skip over early techs and never research them if you get lucky with tech trading. Railroad is a pretty important tech. To get it you need Bridge Building and to get that you need Iron Working and to get that you need Warrior Code. So I guess you need all these techs, right? Not so. A friendly AI might trade you Iron Working or Bridge Building, meaning you'd never have to learn Warrior Code at all (we need railroads, not archers). That way you'd have (at least) one less tech in your bag slowing down your research.

However, I see some use of it in MP. Last night I played in a 7 player simultaneous game, alliances allowed, map size 100x100 (I think). Right at the beginning of the game I decided to go for the GL, something that was even more tempting when I discovered I was somewhat isolated on a fairly small island. Why?

First of all the GL is more useful when you play humans, because they tend to make better tech choices than the AI. Second, on a map that large early contact is, well, not so early. Trading techs with others is (possibly) delayed, increasing the importance of GL and the Embassy.

It also prevents (to some extent) allies from changing techs, or at least forces them to be more careful about when and which techs to trade. This can of course also be a disadvantage (as noted by people above) in that people can trade useless (for the moment anyway) techs to slow you down.

As an example, when I started to research construction I had a science rate of 7 or 8 turns. Techs dropped in from the GL, and when I finally got construction the rate was about 15 turns (which I got down to 11 when researching engineering by founding more cities and rearranging workers).

Another drawback is the random element mentioned in posts above. For example, I got feudalism from the GL meaning that warriors were no longer an option in the building list. The first row of shields thus vanished making rushbuilding more expensive. Also, if I build Leo's then I can't use the warrior to musketeer trick. Maybe not a big deal, but it illustrates the point.

All in all, I think I agree with the title of this thread. To build or not to build the GL, that is still the question.

Happy New Civing Year, everybody!

Okay, that is too strong, but I would only build it in a situation like C-Rex brilliantly elucidated. (had to go to the library to look that word up)

The things I don't like about it are:

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Build only 1 wonder(The Library) as fast as you can and then set science to zero and see what happens.No government changes after Monarchy either.No city bribing.

Otherwise, you should be in the lead in science and gold with a good science city and trade trade trade. I build the Colussus, which doesn't expire because you don't need flight.

I don't even bother with Cops Ob anymore. Those shields give me more science as trade caravans, and by the time I have artillery and cavalry, I don't need any more advances.

I seem to remember one game where I got something like 20 techs from the library in the space of five or six turns.

The Great Library is one of several key wonders available in the early game. Other key wonders available at about the same time include Colossus, Hanging Gardens, Great Wall, Pyramids, Marco Polo. At the higher levels, it's nearly impossible to build all of them so you have to prioritize the wonders. I generally prioritize Hanging Gardens and Colossus and try to build them in the same city. I also prioritize Pyramids. Taking into account your limited resources in the early game, the act of prioritizing certain wonders in effect causes you to surrender the other wonders to the AI.

In the early game my main wonder goals are (1) all wonders associated with a Super Science City - HG, Colossus, Copernicus, Isaac Newton, (2) Michaelangelo, and (3) Leonardo's Workshop. Not having the Great Library allows me to research the associated tech goals single-mindedly without having other techs slow my progress. If I accomplish my goals of a SSC and Michaelangelo, then I find, paradoxically, that not having the Great Library has actually sped up my research.

Of course, there are certain techs that are outside my streamlined tech tree that I find desirable. For example, I find Feudalism desirable because it enables me to build Sun Tzu. To obtain these techs, I build Marco Polo and try to obtain desired techs through trade offs. I can also find out which civilizations have certain desired techs and obtain them through conquest or theft.