[NFP] Babylon First Look

[Datgingah]

A possible path:
mining -> make three mines -> apprenticeship -> make three industrial zones with workshops -> unlock industrialization -> build ruhr (or other ind wonder) -> flight -> biplanes (but need oil)
~ (at industrialization) two coal power plants -> refining (unlocks oil) -> unlocks oil well and battleship -> build oil well (most random and predictable part here) -> unlocks plastics -> spec ops auto-win domination

This is a dom civ guys

 

[Noble Zarkon]

mining -> make three mines -> apprenticeship -> make three industrial zones with workshops -> unlock industrialization -> build ruhr -

That's a lot of production for the Classical age lol, only your first IZ gets a free workshop, Ruhr will take you 200 turns to build

 

[Datgingah]

That's a lot of production for the Classical age lol, only your first IZ gets a free workshop, Ruhr will take you 200 turns to build

You’re forgetting both the mine boosts are picked up in this time. I think it’s medieval at best, but still potentially doable

 

[SirMediocrity]

I don't mean to be "that guy" but I'm unsure how historically accurate Hammurabi's skin tone is. Does anyone here have some knowledge on the genetic makeup of ancient Babylonians/Amorites that they can share with us?

P.S. please don't leave any politically charged comments

 

[UWHabs]

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.

If you want to go domination, then probably vampires would be best for them, since you only need one super-late unit for vampires to level up. So if you do the Feudalism->Knights->Cavalry rush option, you only need to build one cavalry unit for your vampire to join them as a 60-ish strength unit. Or if you go the naval route, just need one caravel and suddenly your first vampire or two are 55 strength base.

Otherwise, I could definitely see a voidsingers/Oracle strategy work for them to try to pick and choose which great people you target. Or if you want to delay to late game, obviously those extra spies with Owls will be critical.

But yeah, there's multiple beeline options, so truly more than anyone else, I think they're going to be a "play the map" civ. Start coastal? Obviously a crazy caravel rush. Start alone? Probably aim to max out great people and take your time to get super units. Get a lucky early eureka from a barb hut? Maybe that totally sends you down a different path.

They will be a little like Mali in that their very early game will struggle. Mining/AH are going to take you 15-20 turns to research right off the bat, so you're going to need to be patient there. But at the same time, meet a neighbour on turn 3 and suddenly you could place a campus right away.

*Actually thinking about that some more, truly their power is going to be rushing for those early scientists. If you can meet a neighbour in those first 5-10 turns, you're going to be the first civ to writing by far, and so can place a super cheap early campus. That gives you a free library, so you're potentially getting +2 great scientist points well ahead of anyone else. Even more if you go divine spark, so you can probably nab a scientist before anyone else even puts 1 point into one, and that could really leapfrog you early.

 

[Kibikus]

Anything on how strong the UU is, besides the buff mentioned?

17 combat strength

 

[_hero_]

I'm thinking with Babylon you will only build enough Campuses to get the related Eurekas/Great Library and potentially to rush out Great Scientists with the project, but otherwise, I actually think faith might be really powerful for Babylon as being able to rush buy units with Grand Master's Chapel for instant Eurekas will be quite powerful. If you can somehow manage to get Oracle all that faith will help getting the GSs you actually want as well. A heavy dose of theatre squares may be necessary as well so that you can unlock the necessary things from the civic tree to get some of the science Eurekas you want.

 

[The Highwayman]

The Game Mechanic just said he thinks Babylon isn't a science civ and I disagree as of right now. True, Atomic and Future era techs will be unboostable but 2,000+ science per turn becomes 1,000, so instead of 1 turning techs you're 2 turning. Surely getting the majority the eurekas prior to late game will more than make up for the slower future era right? We'll find out in a week I suppose.

 

[Aurelesk]

That's a lot of production for the Classical age lol, only your first IZ gets a free workshop, Ruhr will take you 200 turns to build

The Ruhr Valley costs 1240 Production. With Autocracy, you can have a +10% Production, so the total cost drop at 1127. I think it is doable to have a 30 Production early in the Capital, so it is going to take 37 turns to complete, which is still to much.

The early IZ means early Engineer, including Isidore of Miletus for 2 × 215 Production, 3 × 215 with the Mausoleum. Since you also want to have 2 early Harbors too... Even if it is only 215 Production (236.5 with Autocracy), it is 19% of the builder cost per charge. I think there is something to try here.

Building Mines on River is going to be insane. Put the Palgum for 1 Food on river / lake / oases, and 3 Mines bordering thiose tiles, and a Grassland Mines is going to be 3 Food and 3 Production early in the game.

 

[Guynemer]

This looks very interesting. Using infixo's Real Eurekas mod along with hidden tech tree will definitely make this harder to play than without.

 

[Zaarin]

I don't mean to be "that guy" but I'm unsure how historically accurate Hammurabi's skin tone is. Does anyone here have some knowledge on the genetic makeup of ancient Babylonians/Amorites that they can share with us?

P.S. please don't leave any politically charged comments

I was definitely surprised; he seems considerably darker than the leak we saw. He looks more Yemeni or Omani than Mesopotamian to me. The devs seem to have forgotten Hammurabi was a Levantine.

 

[The Kingmaker]

I was definitely surprised; he seems considerably darker than the leak we saw. He looks more Yemeni or Omani than Mesopotamian to me. The devs seem to have forgotten Hammurabi was a Levantine.

He’s been sunning himself out by the Euphrates.

 

[Zaarin]

He’s been sunning himself out by the Euphrates.

Maybe he should use his magic eurakas to invent sunscreen.

 

[SirMediocrity]

I was definitely surprised; he seems considerably darker than the leak we saw. He looks more Yemeni or Omani than Mesopotamian to me. The devs seem to have forgotten Hammurabi was a Levantine.

Some people think the Phoenicians were partly/mostly "black" because Herodotus allegedly wrote that the Phoenicians claimed to come from "Aethiopia/Ethiopia" in their mythology/traditional origin story (personally I think it's rather foolish to give mythology so much weight).

I wonder if this is related.

 

[pokiehl]

This looks very interesting. Using infixo's Real Eurekas mod along with hidden tech tree will definitely make this harder to play than without.

That'll be a fun combo!

 

[Zaarin]

Some people think the Phoenicians were partly/mostly black because Herodotus allegedly wrote that the Phoenicians claimed to come from "Aethiopia/Ethiopia" in their mythology/traditional origin story (personally I think it's rather foolish to give mythology so much weight).

I wonder if this is related.

I'm guessing such people have never seen anyone from Lebanon. But anyway, Hammurabi would have been from Syria or Jordan.

 

[JesseS]

Wow Babylon can unlock horsemen with 1 pasture and bombards with 1 slinger kill, 3 archers, and 2 crossbows. Build a niter mine and you get rangers (usually pretty bad but would be great at turn 50).

This is insanely overpowered.

 

[Guynemer]

That'll be a fun combo!

On top of whatever madness you throw into Civs Expanded, yes.

 

[Kibikus]

There will some interesting considerations when playing Babylon.
For example, as soon as you build your 3rd archer, you won't be able to build archers anymore (unless you pre-build a bunch of slingers before you unlock archers), since you'll have unlocked crossbows. They're powerful, but also a bit tricky to build in the ancient/classical era with low production and no policy cards.

Also, the same goes for Babylon AI, which means they'll have crossbows really early, and if any of their cities have walls, it will be a nightmare to attack them.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Just some of my thoughts after digesting this civ a little bit.

• They look absolutely beastly, but that depends on how good of a player you are. They're not an easy OP civ like GC. Players that have memorized their eurekas and tech trees will be unstoppable with them.
• Kudos to FXS for going beyond the stereotypical Babylon design and ignoring walls and archers. This an interesting design for sure.
• I agree with the posters above who said this is a Dom civ masquerading as a science civ. Their power doesn't come from raw science. Babylon is centered around unlocking specific techs way earlier than anyone else can. The most reliable way to play them would be to get early xbows, caravels, industrialization, etc and attack your rivals while being two eras ahead.