I'm playing a Science game as Sweden at the moment, trying to use Nobel Prize to generate as many great scientists as possible... and I'd have to say it's going pretty well. It's my first game on King difficulty, and so far I've managed to plop about 7 academies in Stockholm, thanks to making friends with my close neighbours Genghis Khan and Shaka, with the rest of the world soon falling into line (apart from Poland, who is friendly but /never/ wants to be friends) I have a +95% GP Empire bonus in Stockholm at the moment, thanks to having 7 friends and the Leaning Tower of Pisa, not to mention the 50% bonus from the Garden and National Epic bringing that to +145%. Every other city has +120% due to Gardens, and Sigtuna regularly spits out Great Scientists to help Stockholm out.
I haven't played as Babylon in BNW yet, but I think that the Swedes might have the long term advantage on lower difficulties, so long as you're good with diplomacy, and you like to play on fairly large maps. The Babylonians unquestionably have the early game edge (and are obviously better for Science Victories on smaller maps), but Sweden may well have the opportunity to overtake them later on otherwise.
Something else I've found handy is that the Nobel Prize bonus also affects GWAMs, meaning I can set up my Artist's Guild at the start of the Renaissance and crank out a load of Renaissance Art very quickly, which combined with the theming bonuses of Museums later on lets me bolster up my culture enough to avoid being influenced too much by the culture runaways. I haven't formed an Ideology yet, however, so I'm not sure how good this strategy will be in the late game.