[NFP] Babylon First Look

[Lily_Lancer]

Very powerful.

HIGHLIGHT: You only need Feudalism to unlock Cavalry.

CAVALRY @ T60.

 

[kaspergm]

Hammurabi is really really REALLY going to love Abdus Salam.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The design of Babylon is really creative, absolutely strong and fun to play/plan, and I like asymmetry abilities in general.

However, I cannot feel anything really "Babylonic" from this design - "Eureka give full science" can be applied to any Scientific civ with no problem, "Free building and envoy" can be applied to any Builder/Diplomatic civ with no problem. It looks like these abilities are just directly attached to Babylon with no deeper considerations.

The only Babylonic design in the whole Babylonic toolbox is the unique watermill. And the bonus of the said unique watermill - all freshwater tiles +1 food - is still very generalistic and can be applied to any other Agriculturalist civ.

Personally, I feel the whole design of the Babylon is really fun and really boring the same time.

 

[Palo]

Babylon is going to need a pretty nice gold income to afford upgrading their archers to x-bows in ancient era and their knights to cavalry in classical/medieval.

 

[Revanchist]

The design of Babylon is really creative, absolutely strong and fun to play/plan, and I like asymmetry abilities in general.

However, I cannot feel anything really "Babylonic" from this design - "Eureka give full science" can apply to any Scientific civ with no problem, "Free building and envoy" can apply to any Builder/Diplomatic civ with no problem. It looks like these abilities are just directly attached to Babylon with no deeper considerations.

The only Babylonic design in the whole Babylonic toolbox is the unique watermill.

Personally, I feel the whole design of the Babylon is really fun and really boring the same time.

EXACTLY

They seem more like a stealth domination civ which many others have pointed out. The bonus to farms doesn't exactly scream Babylonian to me, neither does the leader's design or abilities. I feel like we could have gotten a more unique science gimmick instead of instant eurekas. Furthermore, the bonuses aren't tied to Hammurabi's historic accomplishments in any way

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Can we talk about how the UU is going to have zero problem with barb horsemen?

 

[Potworny]

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.

 

[The Highwayman]

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.

Exactly. It feels like the floodgates are open for all types of possibilities.

 

[Zaarin]

Interesting design. I think this is a civ I'm going to have to play before I decide if I like it or not. However, I 100% agree with @8housesofelixir that nothing about this civ really says "Babylon" to me. Crossing my fingers that Hammurabi speaks better Akkadian than Gilgabro...but if he doesn't I can at least blame his Amorite heritage.

 

[bengalryan9]

This sounds really fun. I'm sure they'll be completely OP in the hands of some players, but oh well.

I always seem to struggle with mid-to-late game Eurekas, so I could see myself jumping out to a huge tech lead and struggling to stay in front.

I do think you should be required to have the prereqs researched first, though, otherwise you're going to see some really weird results of people popping techs way too early.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

@Andrew Johnson [FXS] - Does the City Center count as a generic or specialty district in regards to the unique ability? i.e. does founding your first city grant a free monument, free envoy, or neither?

City Center does not count!

 

[Victoria]

HIGHLIGHT: You only need Feudalism to unlock Cavalry.

You only need to work a horse tile to get horsemanship. That is getting the most OP unit in the game a hell of a lot earlier.
... What I like is the move 3 sight 3 UU
Why would you ever build a campus with this guy (beyond 1 for the GL), you'll still own 30 by the end of the game. This fact alone is huge.
Kill 3 barbs to find Iron, have a builder ready... bosh, early swords.
.etting muskets - Build a quarry ... bosh Masonry - Build a wall... bosh Engineering - Build an aqueduct ... bosh Military Engineering ... kill 3 barbs for an encampment and with a military engineering armoury you are at muskets.... Quite do-able. Then kill a unit with muskets to get Frigates. Sweet Jesus.

Do they not know how eureka aware we are?

 

[Kibikus]

At 2:01 and 2:07 in the video they seem to get a "regular" eureka, probably a visual bug:

Also, in the tech tree the eureka bar is displayed as the regular 40%, rather than the whole tech, which could be a bit misleading. Might just be footage from an earlier build.

 

[Jkchart]

Interesting design. I think this is a civ I'm going to have to play before I decide if I like it or not. However, I 100% agree with @8housesofelixir that nothing about this civ really says "Babylon" to me. Crossing my fingers that Hammurabi speaks better Akkadian than Gilgabro...but if he doesn't I can at least blame his Amorite heritage.

It’s at the very least an interesting civilization to play with a unique design. Agreed on the rest of this, but I’ll still play it because it sounds so fascinating.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The sea path seems very terrific.

You start at seaside-- Free Sailing

You build a builder to build 2 fishboats, you build a settler. You build 2 harbors and some trireme. These can be done within 30~40 turns.

Suddenly, as your 2nd harbor completes, you unlock Cartography! Now you have 55-strength Caravels. Totally Insane! Why can Babylon enter ocean even earlier than Norway?

 

[thecrazyscot]

The sea path seems very terrific.

You start at seaside-- Free Sailing

You build a builder to build 2 fishboats, you build a settler. You build 2 harbors and some trireme. These can be done within 30~40 turns.

Suddenly, as your 2nd harbor completes, you unlock Cartography! Now you have 55-strength Caravels. Totally Insane! Why can Babylon enter ocean even earlier than Norway?

Who knows what seafaring feats the Babylonians could have accomplished if they were a geographically seafaring civilization instead of being essentially landlocked...

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

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

 

[Zaarin]

It’s at the very least an interesting civilization to play with a unique design. Agreed on the rest of this, but I’ll still play it because it sounds so fascinating.

I agree it sounds fun to play. I'm just a little disappointed that we finally got a second Mesopotamian civ, and it doesn't seem much more Mesopotamian than the first one. I still want my cultural Assyria, and I feel like Babylon's district ability would have actually suited Assyria really well, whether as the CUA or as the LUA for Tiglath-Pileser III or Sennacherib.

 

[Goodenuf]

What are the odds that a future new Culture based Civ will have a similar ability for Civics (i.e. eurekas grant 100%, but 50% culture)?

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

I agree it sounds fun to play. I'm just a little disappointed that we finally got a second Mesopotamian civ, and it doesn't seem much more Mesopotamian than the first one. I still want my cultural Assyria, and I feel like Babylon's district ability would have actually suited Assyria really well, whether as the CUA or as the LUA for Tiglath-Pileser III or Sennacherib.

We should get Hittites and the Assyrians, then the ancient Mesopotamia area is well rounded off.