Civilization V - How to Rush the Great Library (Comprehensive)

I must begin with a Disclaimer that I think Great Library rushes are very bad the vast majority of the time. Even if you manage to rush and complete it, the opportunity costs are often too high. Others can forward settle you while you are building it, and by the time you are done, your city will still need many early game needs that may have been ignored in order to build it. People who rush the Great Library often gain substantial short-term science leads that may dissipate later on due to lack of growth, missing early infrastructure and a slow start. They often also have low production and demographics compared to non-rushing civs. It is also a highly contested wonder and there is a great risk that you end up with gold.

With that said, if you are going to rush the Great Library, you should do so in a calculated manner, identifying your situation and evaluating your odds of finishing the Wonder. Remember that you will be competing with other humans who want the Wonder just as much as you do.

This guide seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of different strategies for rushing the Great Library (or what I sometimes like to call the Great Lie).

Before discussing how to rush the Great Library, you must first know when it is ideal to attempt it.

It is not always advisable to rush the Great Library. Most of my experience is in Multiplayer, although this holds true for higher-difficulty Single Player as well.

A skilled player should base most of their play and decision-making on the terrain around them and the situation that the game has placed them in. They should not try the same strategy every time they play and expect the same results. The same strategy/play may work well for some situations and poorly for others. This applies to a Great Library rush just as much as it does to anything else.

The first thing to consider is the land around you. The Great Library is usually a highly contested wonder (especially in Multiplayer) and many people will compete with you to build it first. The person with the highest production will usually win. If your capitol is in a poor starting location with very little production (such as all jungle), then you may want to reconsider even trying to build it. When several civs compete to build a wonder this early, before infrastructure can be developed, land quality matters more than ever, and some players will have a considerable advantage over others simply because of the spawn they received. There is little that can be done about this.

The second thing to look at is demographics. Demographics are your best friend. They let you know who has the most (and fewest) hammers, food, GPT, military, and how your stats compare to the other players. The demographics also let you know if anybody has researched writing yet. Somebody who has not yet researched writing will have a literacy score of 0% in the demographics. The demographics can be accessed by clicking on the scroll button in the top-right corner titled "Additional Information".

Before you have teched writing, you can check the literacy demographic every turn to see if somebody else has researched writing before you. If they have, then the "top" literacy score will be above zero percent. This means that that person probably has a headstart on the Great Library and will start building it before you. This suggests that you may want to abandon plans to build it and change course ahead of time since they may beat you to it.

Additionally, the literacy demographic can tell you HOW MANY people have researched writing. The demographics handles ties by giving tied players the highest ranking. For example, if only two people have researched writing (and the rest have 0% literacy scores), then the people who don't have writing yet will see their ranking as 3rd in the literacy demographic, rather than 6th (or whatever the lowest ranking is).

FOR EXAMPLE #1:

Let's say you are 2 turns from finishing writing. You open the demographics and see you are 2nd in literacy with 0%. This means that one person has already finished writing (and usually if somebody has early writing, they are probably rushing the Great Library, unless they got it from a ruin which is unlikely).

However, you notice that the "TOP" literacy score of 5% belongs to your neighbor, the Maya. You scout their capitol and notice that they are building the Great Library via wonder-spotting. However, their capitol is flat in a vast sea of flat jungle, with no forest to chop. They may have a two-turn headstart on you for building the Great Library, but they are not much of a threat because their production is so low compared to yours. You go ahead and decide to attempt it anyways.

P.S. The Mayans are one of a few civs that I think may have a slight advantage in building Great Library because their Pyramid gives an early science bonus that usually means they get to finish Writing a couple turns earlier. However, this may or may not be an advantage because building a shrine between pottery and writing instead of a granary or worker is questionable.

FOR EXAMPLE #2:

Two turns before finishing writing, you open demographics and notice that you are third in literacy with 0%. The top player in literacy is once again the jungle Maya player from example 1, whom we already disregarded as a non-threat. However, since you are third in literacy, you know there is another player that has writing, but the demographics don't tell who it is.

You notice you have also met your neighbor Morocco. You pull up the diplomacy screen with Morocco and in his trade screen, he is able to accept your embassy. This tells you that Morocco is the other person who has teched writing. Since they have 3 salt in their capitol and the highest Manufactured Goods demographic, you decide that they will probably beat you to the Great Library because of their 2 turn headstart and high production. Therefore you decide not to build it and change course.

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To summarize, you want to use all information given to you to determine who else is building it, when they have started building it (if they have a headstart on you) and how your hammers compare to everybody else's hammers. The Great Library rush is a risky strategy, so it is best to approach this in a calculated and informed way instead of jumping in blindly. Watch demographics, check your neighbor's diplomacy screens for embassies, and scout their capitols to see how much production and forest they have, as well as spotting the wonder itself.

I use these techniques often and have built the Great Library as early as turn 20 (the earliest build I have seen is turn 18 or 19 I think) but I rarely ever attempt to build it for various reasons.

You may also want to rethink building the Great Library if you are in a hurry to build certain things in the early game. If you have a couple of good production tiles, but an army of 5 barbarians is stepping on every good tile in your territory, including your production tiles, you may want to think about getting a control of incoming barbarians before doing anything else.

If there is a valuable expansion area between you and a nearby neighbor that is teeming with resources, you may want to rush a settler to that spot instead of rushing the Great Library.

There is a lot of risk and high opportunity costs to building the Great Library, which is why I often recommend not building it.

To finish this section off, I want to list a few things that I think greatly increase your odds of getting the Great Library, or reduce the opportunity costs of attempting it.

In the Early game, there are generally many things that you want to build, including scouts, monument (though not always), shrine, granary, worker, etc. If you are rushing Great Library, you will probably not get to build all of these things because you are pressed for time. Therefore, if you are able to meet the needs that these things satisfy in some other manner, then this greatly helps your ability to rush.

• Getting a spear ruin and tributing several city states for gold greatly helps with this (although in high-level single player this is a non-factor because the AI always has top military early). If you can buy a worker, granary, or shrine early on, then this helps you greatly, both in finishing your early needs in time for writing, and also in the direct production benefits provided by having a worker to improve tiles, granary to support growth to new production tiles, etc.

• Meeting a Faith City-State and getting a free pantheon sans shrine is hugely beneficial. You can take God-King or Monument to the Gods for the extra hammer without having to build a shrine, leaving you free to build a granary or worker instead between Pottery and Writing.

• Finally, it helps greatly to receive an early culture ruin that allows you to adopt Aristocracy without building a monument, or to open Liberty faster.

• Early pop ruins help tech writing faster and increase number of production tiles to work.

• City-States that are nearby and produce workers early that are easy to steal help greatly with rushing the Wonder.

The rare times where I rush the GL is usually when one or more of these things occur.

To start off, I wanted to list some civs that I believe have some advantage, however big or small, in building the Great Lie. Note that some of these "advantages" may be miniscule but I will list them nonetheless, in no particular order.

Egypt (Obviously):
+20% Wonder production bonus, nothing really needs to be said about that.

Celts:
Getting a free pantheon without building a shrine can be nice. You can take God-King for the extra production, Monument to the Gods, or something else. The Celtic pantheon benefit is most impactful early on IMO, which is when you will probably build the Great Library. Also the Forest start bias means you might have more forest to chop.

Maya:
This is an example of a "miniscule" advantage. The Mayan Pyramid gives 2 extra beakers which means you will finish writing before other people (probably). However, even with this in mind it may be more ideal to skip shrine altogether in lieu of a worker or granary before writing.

Babylon:
Another possibly miniscule advantage but still noteworthy. If you want to rush GL with Babylon, you can save their Great Scientist you get from Writing for 3-4 turns until you tech Mining, and then place the academy on a forest tile. This chops the forest and sends hammers towards production of the Library just as a worker chopping forest would. So basically, you get an extra chop. This may or may not be a worthy strategy because you might be better off in the long-term placing it on a non-forest tile, depending on what's around you.

Also, after Writing, Babylon can tech faster to Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working to reveal more production tiles which may also confer a small advantage.

Shoshone:
Shoshone can select early culture and pop ruins which allow for accelerated science (from more population), usually higher production (from more population being able to work more tiles), and faster social policies to get Aristocracy (+15% Wonder Production) from Tradition, or Republic/Citizenship from Liberty in a timely manner.

Russia:
Russia gets extra hammers from horses and iron. It can be hard to see benefit from this while building the great library because you probably won't finish bronze working before the Great Library, so you're really limited to horses. Even then you may not tech Animal Husbandry after Writing until after you've researched Mining and Calendar.

Ethiopia:
Ethiopia's Stele can allow them to fill their social policy needs and get a free pantheon at the same time, effectively knocking out two birds with one stone. This way you can get pantheon benefits without building a shrine as well as Aristocracy or beginning Liberty.

Many times when rushing the Great Library, I find it optimal not to build a shrine and simply go without a pantheon beforehand, opting for a worker or granary instead. Most pantheons are not going to help you build the Great Library.

With that said, some pantheons will help you. The two best candidates for building the Great Library are God-King and Monument to the Gods. A couple of other pantheons may help more indirectly, such as Sun-God, by allowing you to grow more and work more hammer tiles, although this is largely situational.

In this section I will mostly stick to comparing God-King vs. Monument to the Gods.

God-King:
The Great Library rushing benefits of God-King are two-fold: (1) The extra hammer provided, and (2) the extra Beaker, which if adopted early enough, can result in faster completion of Writing tech by a turn or two.

Monument to the Gods:
This is basically another Aristocracy (Tradition) Social Policy that gives +15% to World Wonder production, minus the happiness (which isn't present in the early game anyways). Unlike God-King there is no science benefit, although the science benefit from God-King may not affect the outcome anyways.

The main comparison required here is whether or not the +1 Hammer from God/King is more or less than the +15% production from Monument to the Gods.

A simple way to determine this is to take your base hammers and multiply them by 0.15. This is where a calculator comes in (or simple mental math). If you have really high base hammers (which you should have anyways if you're even considering this rush), then Monument to the Gods will add more production to the Library. If you have lower base hammers then the +1 hammer from God-King will add more.

Finally, the sooner you adopt your pantheon (perhaps from Faith City-State or Celtic bonus), the more value is given to God-King, because the extra hammer can also be used to finish a worker or granary faster in time for the Library.

The break-even point is at 6.67 hammers. If you have more than this amount, then Monument to the Gods will add more hammers to Library production than God-King. However, you should consider that God-King will give you more benefits outside of simple wonder production as well, such as the +1 Culture, +1 Faith and +1 Gold. These may be worth more in the longer term.

The two prevailing play styles are as follows:

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(1) Tradition: : (Aristocracy) - Get +15% Wonder Building from Aristocracy.

(2) Liberty:: (Republic) - Get the +1 hammer from Liberty

(Notice the parallel between these two choices and God-KIng vs. Monument to the Gods.

(3) Liberty: (Citizenship) - Get a free worker.

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The main comparison I will make here is between Tradition (Aristocracy) and Liberty (Republic).

The comparison here is mostly the same as with the God-King vs Monument to the Gods comparison made in Part 2. The benefits of Republic are the same as God-King in this instance, and the benefits of Aristocracy are the same as Monument to the Gods. One gives you +1 hammer and the other gives you +15% Wonder Production. One benefit to the Tradition approach is that you often do not need a monument to accumulate Tradition policies, although you may still consider building one to speed up Aristocracy if you do not acquire any culture ruins.

I mainly want to add that Aristocracy usually synergizes better with God-King, and Republic usually synergizes better with Monument to the Gods, because each pair increases your base hammers and production modifier at the same time. Modifiers generally do not stack well in this game because they stack additively rather than multiplicatively. I do not feel like elaborating on this distinction in this guide.

The third approach (Liberty/Citizenship - Free Worker) is an alternative approach that is in my opinion far lesser than the first two. I already consider Tradition to be better than Liberty the vast majority of the time, and adopting Citizenship before getting the Free Settler will greatly increase the waiting time for the Free Settler, which in my opinion is one of the only strengths that makes Liberty worthwhile.

I would also like to say that going Liberty just so you can get a free settler while rushing Great Library simultaneously is a terrible reason to go Liberty IMO. I think this has terrible long term value, although then again this is only a guide to rushing Great Library.

This is perhaps one of the most difficult decisions. Usually you will build some number of scouts and maybe a monument while teching pottery, and then build a granary, worker or shrine on the way to writing. There is much discussion on whether it is optimal to build a granary, worker or shrine.

I usually consider a granary or a worker to be better than a shrine. The main reason is that a shrine does not give you any benefits until you found a pantheon, which comes several turns after you build the shrine. This could take a longer time if other players take pantheons before you.
Founding a religion in a game can be immensely helpful, but it is not required for victory, and this is a guide that focuses on how to rush the Great Library. Naturally you will have to make some sacrifices whenever you rush a wonder this early.

Another reason not to build a shrine (assume quick pace)
Additionally, building a shrine usually screws up the overflow towards the Great Library that you often get from building a granary or worker. This is because a shrine costs fewer hammers than a granary or a worker. Overflow occurs when you have surplus hammers after building something, and those surplus hammers are added to the next thing you build. If you have a lot of experience playing Civ V, you will notice that a shrine usually finishes a turn or two before the writing tech is complete (on quick pace). The problem is that you cannot finish anything else in the 1-2 remaining turns it takes you to finish writing. Therefore you will get no overflow (surplus hammers) when you start the Great Library unless you completely finish a new building project, which will delay the time that you start on the Great Library. Building a Granary or Worker more often finishes right on the same turn that writing is finished, leading to more overflow. If you are on course to finish your granary/worker BEFORE the writing tech, then you can micromanage your citizens to work more growth tiles and fewer production tiles so that the granary/worker finishes right on time instead of too early. The extra growth during this waiting period might also give you more population available to work production tiles once the Great Library actually starts.

Granary vs. Worker
This issue deserves the most attention of all build order topics. In the end, Great Library goes to the person who accumulates hammers the fastest. Workers increase hammers through chops and building mines or pastures. Granaries can increase hammers as well by speeding up growth, which makes you grow to production tiles faster, or allows you to work more production tiles in place of food tiles without starving.

I carefully suggest that building a worker is probably optimal in most cases. If you have at least two forest tiles in your lands, this is immediately 26 hammers that the worker can add to Great Library. A Granary is unlikely to add 26 extra hammers to your production by the time Great Library is completed. However, I believe there are limited circumstances where the land around one's capitol actually favors a granary for early production over a worker. Also, a worker costs 46 hammers (quick pace) versus 40 hammers for a granary, so the specific overflow dynamics may render a granary to be the best choice in some situations.

Below I have listed various examples that might lead you to consider one build over the other:

• The first thing to consider is number of forest tiles within your border. Forest tiles inside your border give you 13 hammers when chopped (quick pace). Forest Tiles outside your border give fewer hammers. If your capitol has a lot forest inside the capitol, and all those forest tiles are close together, this is an argument for worker over granary.
  
• If your capitol contains no bonus resources for granary (banana, wheat, deer), then the granary will only provide 2 extra food at most, lending further argument towards a worker.
  
• If your capitol has enough population already (from pop ruins maybe) to work critical production tiles without needing a granary to sustain it's food levels in the meantime, you've got yourself a worker.
  
• If you have a salt start. A big reason salt is OP is that it produces 2 extra yields (one food one hammer) when it is improved, whereas most resources' yields only increase by one. This means you need an early worker to utilize the full potential of the Salt.

• Your lands don't have any forest to chop, and there are no tiles that gain hammers when improved (such as sheep). Or, the tiles which gain hammers upon improvement (such as stone) require a tech that is too out of the way (Masonry), and won't be researched in time.
  
• When your capitol has lots of bonus Granary resources (such as wheat. I hesitate to say deer because they often appear on forest = worker), and abundant hills, that can only be worked once you have the granary food to support them.
  
• Your capitol can finish a granary right on time to begin Great Library the same turn that Writing is finished, whereas it would have to wait an extra turn or two if building a worker instead.
  
• A generous city-state close by has conveniently provided you with a free worker at a very convenient and early time to take back to your capitol.
  
• WHEN NOT TO BUILD GRANARY There is vast jungle with plentiful bananas. Even though bananas are a granary resource, if there are no production tiles to grow to, then growth will not help you build the Great Lie. In this situation you should probably not even attempt it in the first place.

2 Scouts vs. 1Scout/Monument
If you are going Liberty, you probably need a monument. If you are going Tradition, you might consider a monument if you don't get any early culture ruins.

Scout -> Worker
Some may propose building one scout then worker. The problem with this strategy is the worker has nothing to do if it is too early before techs come that allow it to improve tiles. A worker at Pottery can do nothing but build farms. You must wait until Mining to chop forest, and animal husbandry to build pastures. There will also be time between the worker and Writing to build other things. If you can fit a shrine or scout in before writing, then it would have been better for you to build these things before the worker, instead of having an early worker sitting around idle.

This is perhaps the most important section, yet should perhaps be placed closer towards the front of the guide.

It goes without saying that you generally want to go Pottery -> Writing first. Some people propose that teching Animal Husbandry or Mining before Writing gives more time to build early game needs before Great Library. This play style is not an all-in rush. In my opinion this would be a much healthier play style as well, since I usually think it is best not to rush the Great Library. However that's not what this guide is about.

After teching Writing, you will need Mining for your worker to chop forest. If you don't have a worker (which in most cases I recommend you build one) then Animal Husbandry may be preferred to reveal horses for production.

Secondly, you will need to make sure that you have prerequisite techs finished by completion of the Great Library so that you can get the Free Tech you want. It is very frustrating to take Drama & Poetry instead of Philosophy because you did not finish Calendar in time. Make sure you get the production techs that you need after writing, then go straight to Calendar (if you want Philosophy) or The Wheel (if you want Mathematics). The rest can wait.

I recommend that you do not rush Great Library 95% of the time. However if you are going to all-in rush it, or consider doing so, you should be wise and do it in a calculated manner, instead of throwing dice and ragequitting when somebody else beats you to it.

You should first identify your situation and that of your competitors' to determine if building it is a good idea.

You should tech writing as fast as you can by accumulating growth and try to balance your builds between what will give you the most early production and what will give you the most overflow (surplus hammers) when you begin building the Great Library.

Good luck, and Rush Responsibly.