Is it just me or is babylon very overrated? (Diety)
Yes you blow through the early game techs very fast, but it really doesn't matter and just puts you closer to AI tech speed early on. On diety you will still be behind in tech.
Maybe it is just my playstyle, but playing as a civ like arabia or the mongols where you can just micro units endlessly and not lose anything while capping cities and killing tons of units is much more powerful / fun and can easily just win a dom victory pretty quickly.
Not to mention I feel like when I play babylon the AI is like hardcoded to be very aggressive against you or something - I get 80turn multi-dow'd a decent amount and have to invest lots into defense / units earlier on.
It seems like the AI will not dow you if it is sending trade caravans - so playing a civ that gives trade bonuses (AI will then prioritize sending caravans to you) is pretty huge in being able to just get by with making almost no defense and then hitting a sharp timing made powerful by building almost no units earlier and getting big captures with lots of wonders and then you just snowball.
edit: again maybe it is just my playstyle but I never do peaceful games - even when playing a civ like babylon or korea I try to use their faster tech speed to hit a strong timing with a certain unit.
Yes you blow through the early game techs very fast, but it really doesn't matter and just puts you closer to AI tech speed early on. On diety you will still be behind in tech.
Maybe it is just my playstyle, but playing as a civ like arabia or the mongols where you can just micro units endlessly and not lose anything while capping cities and killing tons of units is much more powerful / fun and can easily just win a dom victory pretty quickly.
Not to mention I feel like when I play babylon the AI is like hardcoded to be very aggressive against you or something - I get 80turn multi-dow'd a decent amount and have to invest lots into defense / units earlier on.
It seems like the AI will not dow you if it is sending trade caravans - so playing a civ that gives trade bonuses (AI will then prioritize sending caravans to you) is pretty huge in being able to just get by with making almost no defense and then hitting a sharp timing made powerful by building almost no units earlier and getting big captures with lots of wonders and then you just snowball.
edit: again maybe it is just my playstyle but I never do peaceful games - even when playing a civ like babylon or korea I try to use their faster tech speed to hit a strong timing with a certain unit.
It's true that Babylon doesn't have a totally broken UU. 
science is somewhat overrated on these forums, but no, Babylon is not overrated, their ability is indeed exceptionally powerful. Just the fact they get a free Academy, basically guaranteeing a good start no matter how poor their land otherwise is, is something other civs can only dream of. Actually, Babylon is somewhat underrated because most people here think little of the Walls of Babylon unique building even though it is in fact *very* good (it costs less than walls and improves city hitpoints by a massive 100 points - double of regular Walls, a building that is already very strong as all other defensive buildings improve hitpoints by only 25). Thus, for a minor investment, Babylon's cities basically become much, much harder to take than the cities of other civs. Against the AI which fares poorly when attacking cities this is less significant but it doesn't change the fact that the UB is quite strong, making the Babylonians masters at putting high-science fortress cities all over the map if one so desires.
