[NFP] Babylon First Look

[Palo]

Babylon will probably be better than some inherently religious civs at securing a religion. With a little bit of luck - an early Astrology Eureka - they'll be able to get +2 GP points per turn very quickly. Even the First Look points at this.

Take Divine Spark and it's +3 GP per turn.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

It looks great. I probably won't even build scouts to explore with. I assume that since they didn't describe the technology that unlocks it, it will be a starter unit.

+1 sight is a long time coming. IMO scouts should come with it or have as an early promotion.

 

[leandrombraz]

What if the eureka bonus was 99% of the tech instead of 100%?
Babylon would still require the prerequisite techs...

That's a good way to nerf it, if it turns out to be as broken as it seems to be.

 

[ShallowSeas]

I wonder if Babylon is actually better when you're going for a culture victory.

 

[criZp]

Seems like a civ that was designed while the devs were on a high or something.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I wonder if Babylon is actually better when you're going for a culture victory.

In terms of securing a religion (Culture Victory needs a lot of faith) and rushing important tourism techs (Flight), technically yes.

 

[Pitohui]

Ed Beach CONFIRMED on Twitter that there is no real restriction to tech jumping... so yeah all the beelines are possible.Only stopping point of Babylon will be production/gold.

If Babylon needs nerfing,please devs,don’t take away tech jumping...I suspect Babylon will do just fine with like -80% science if it has too.

 

[Inhalaattori]

It does seem that Babylon is very versatile Civ that is good at all different victory types.
- Domination is pretty strong option, because of early tech lead.
- Strong science game without campuses makes it easier to focus on culture.
- You can get early religion for religious VC.
- Extra envoys help a little bit with diplomatic victory.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Babylon sounds like a lot of fun. I hope I have the time to play with it before the whiners demand it be nerfed.

 

[Navelgazer]

Okay, so realistically, production and gold are going to be the bottlenecks to keep this from getting game-breakingly OP, which is fine. I can picture myself (and most players, honestly) treating this like a kid in a candy store with all of the early possibilities, and then running into issues like "how are you going to build Pyramids, Oracle, Great Library and Colosseum while getting your settlers and districts out and trying to pump out classical-era riflemen?"

Dramatic Ages are going to be very fun with Hammurabi, racking up GA points from free techs while pushing the next era along that much faster (at least in the early game.)

I wouldn't be surprised if Babylon turns out to have a start bias away from coasts, and possibly towards desert (which would be debilitating enough to counterbalance a lot of the UA.) That wouldn't matter on an archipelago map, but ocean-crossing isn't as important on those either, so not a huge deal.

I feel like Owls will probably be best for Babylon, who will want to focus on trade anyway to make use of their early tech lead, will want good Suzerainities (which will also synergize nicely with the free first district buildings in addition to Divine Spark, which is my go-to pantheon regardless but is even more powerful in Hammurabi's hands) and will really get going in the later eras when Babylon's lead starts to peter out. Voidsingers would still be good for a different strategy, though, focusing on faith production to get that to snowball, supplementing science and gold (and culture) in the medieval era, and allowing you to more-easily faith-purchase Great Scientists in later eras.

I've complained (a lot) previously about the "turtle up and click 'til you win" design of Babylon in Civ 5 (which is my least-favorite design of any civ in the series' history) and I'm glad that they went the opposite way with this one - potentially super-powerful, but you'll want to optimize every turn and really think ahead.

 

[Onii-chan]

The more I think about it, the more I feel like this is more of a domination civ than a science one. Your main advantage is being able to get specific techs from the far future in the tech tree rather than being particularly good at science in general. And the best way to take advantage of that has to be by getting futuristic military techs and then wiping the floor with your neighbours with way stronger military units

I don't feel like that is how the devs probably intended Babylon to work but that's currently what I'm envisioning being the most efficient way to play them

 

[Daigotsu Max]

I know the focus is on the science ability - for good reason - but I quite like the unique Water Mill. Makes a lot of sense a Mesopotamia civ would have such good use of rivers.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I just want to gun for Divine Spark, Oracle, wheel for water mill so I can build all of the districts in my supercapital

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

With regards to unlocking techs massively early, they're going to have a hard time exploiting them properly. They are going to be the dog that caught the car. Sure, you can build Infantry super early theoretically. But you don't have Oil and it will take all your Gold just to upgrade one.

 

[Zaarin]

Like they did with Gilgy. And presumably Ashurbanipal and Nebby in Civ5.

Ashurbanipal's Akkadian wasn't perfect, but it wasn't horrible (albeit he also mixed in some Aramaic IIRC)--but it was much better than Gilgabro's or Nebuchadrezzar's.

 

[Leucarum]

So for team multiplayer games... Where all team mates get eurekas for techs other team mates research...

Man... I'm in 2 minds for this one. For single player it looks like a blast but I've been playing a lot more multiplayer lately and there.... Hoo boy!

 

[Equilin]

Also, if i'm not mistaken, production cost scales with tech progress, right? Does that mean they won't be able to produce stuffs later on aside from chopping (which also scales)?

 

[Kjimmet]

Shrines increase lifespan of heroes by 10% (if Heroes and Legends mode is on).

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Shrines increase lifespan of heroes by 10% (if Heroes and Legends mode is on).

Yeah, I was just watching the video and noticed this. So it appears Religion and Holy Sites will have a lot to do with Heroes.

 

[Lord Lakely]

So, who's idle animation is he reusing? I swear I've seen this pose already...

Suleiman.

Lol I completely forgot the first look was today but these boosts are roughly what I wish Sumer had - never the less, good design, I'll nag my dad's ears off to buy me NFP for Xmas, etc.