[NFP] Babylon Pack (November 2020) - Patch Notes Discussion

[CoconutTank]

Lol, indeed you have a point! I think people were hoping there'd be some cheese strategy, I mean, you can sail through to rocketry fairly easily and there was an assumption that would just continue onwards. If spying was more effective and there were better great scientists, I'd reckon they'd be a good quick SV candidate. I just don't see any way to improve that late game, even if they had half the cities on the planet.

For Babylon, I think Great Library will be necessary in order to cheese the tech tree that way. Pass on Great Scientists one doesn't want, pick up GSes that give eurekas, do as many eurekas as one can on one's own, and hopefully the available techs will narrow down such that GL will boost one's way through. The Sky and Stars dedication can help, but that requires the world era to have caught up.

Like, for example, I teched to Cuirassiers before I secured any iron, so by the time I was ready to build a knight, I couldn't anymore.

OH. Not quite related to your full post, but in a few sessions I'd tech too fast and tech out of Knights before I deployed any. Doing so meant I'd have to hard research Military Science

 

[iammaxhailme]

I think that is because the capital-razing bug is still out there - for City States their only city is their captial.

Should be reported as a bug.

Nah, you could always raze city states. Capital status doesn't apply. It did in civ 5, though.

Anyway, I just noticed something about Arthur which I didn't expect. When the questing knight's lifespan is over, he's gone. I thought it would turn back into its previous identity, but nope. Maybe I should have expected it to go that way...

 

[8housesofelixir]

Nah, you could always raze city states. Capital status doesn't apply. It did in civ 5, though.

IIRC the player can raze the CS in the very early version of the game - I didn't try it anyway so I'm not entirely sure if you can still do that - but, as far as I can tell, AI will not raze CS before the Oct Update introduced the capital-razing bug.

AI CS razing is something new and kind of unfair from a gameplay perspective. Many players had been complaining about AI's hyper-aggressiveness towards CS for some years.

 

[Morgawr]

I think that is because the capital-razing bug is still out there - for City States their only city is their captial.

Should be reported as a bug.

Reported as a bug a month ago

 

[Dotsworthy]

Anyone noticing dramatic ages no longer working properly? Have a game with both this and the heroes game mode on and hit a dark age but lost no cities. Neither did AI

 

[Park Hyun]

Finishing up my Babylon game. I've got 18 DV points and we just hit the modern age, so for the settings I play in, that ain't bad (huge map, epic pace, continents, immortal, no special rules). Thing is, while it's going well, it's not going as I expected.

As others here are saying, Babylon isn't really a science civ, exactly. My best guess was that they were more a diplomacy civ than anything else, based on the bonus envoys. The eureka thing is a fun mechanism, but it seems like more of a malus than a bonus, frankly: getting all those eurekas requires diversity, which is not generally how you win a Civ game. If you're a science civ, you can ignore faith and limp along with minimal culture, but as Babylon, falling behind in any one area limits your ability to get the eurekas you NEED in order to keep up. And I do mean keep up - I was NEVER ahead of the game, scientifically. At best, I was in the middle tier. The AI grabbed Great Library before I could and on Immortal, will vastly out-science most human players anyways. The eureka mechanism, therefore, seemed to be best viewed as a "rubber band" effect rather than an advantage.

That said, Babylon is actually really fun and highly competitive as a diplomatic civ. Canada relies on its no-surprise-wars trick to let it survive the early eras, but Babylon's UU accomplishes the same thing, while getting the player an early Golden Age and facilitating both scouting and barb-hunting. It's a strong defensive unit, and it helps you meet city-states early, meet other players, grab goody huts, and boost your military score as a deterrent (helped me get on Egypt's good side, too). Trade routes were also really easy to start, with a market and a lighthouse up early. All this resulted in being able to rack up DV points even after I dropped the ball a few times on aid requests (I prefer to save up and drop a lump sum the turn before it ends, on the theory that steady gifts will trigger the AI to try to keep topping the player; the problem is loading a save and then forgetting about the contest). Finally, the diplomatic approach helped my science by driving up my alliances quickly.

In sum: fun civ, strong early game, competitive in diplomacy, don't expect to out-science Korea. Theme song is a B-.

 

[James_Champagne]

Is it just me or with Babylon in the game do the eras move even faster than before? I'm not playing as them but I am playing against them and in my current game the world entered the Renaissance era shortly around the year 100 AD... I really hate that!

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Reported as a bug a month ago

You were always able to raze City States.

 

[Morgawr]

You were always able to raze City States.

I was actually thinking about the regular capital razing bug (not CS - regular player's capitals) that was introduced and reported last month. Not sure if it has been fixed or not

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/1-2-7-ai-raze-capital.664063/

 

[Kotofei]

I actually got my fastest science victory ever playing tall Babylon, on my very first try. The key is to snag the great scientists, since they give so many eurekas. It'd probably be impossible with Korea or another science-heavy civ in the game though.

 

[Pietato]

Finishing up my Babylon game. I've got 18 DV points and we just hit the modern age, so for the settings I play in, that ain't bad (huge map, epic pace, continents, immortal, no special rules). Thing is, while it's going well, it's not going as I expected.

As others here are saying, Babylon isn't really a science civ, exactly. My best guess was that they were more a diplomacy civ than anything else, based on the bonus envoys. The eureka thing is a fun mechanism, but it seems like more of a malus than a bonus, frankly: getting all those eurekas requires diversity, which is not generally how you win a Civ game. If you're a science civ, you can ignore faith and limp along with minimal culture, but as Babylon, falling behind in any one area limits your ability to get the eurekas you NEED in order to keep up. And I do mean keep up - I was NEVER ahead of the game, scientifically. At best, I was in the middle tier. The AI grabbed Great Library before I could and on Immortal, will vastly out-science most human players anyways. The eureka mechanism, therefore, seemed to be best viewed as a "rubber band" effect rather than an advantage.

That said, Babylon is actually really fun and highly competitive as a diplomatic civ. Canada relies on its no-surprise-wars trick to let it survive the early eras, but Babylon's UU accomplishes the same thing, while getting the player an early Golden Age and facilitating both scouting and barb-hunting. It's a strong defensive unit, and it helps you meet city-states early, meet other players, grab goody huts, and boost your military score as a deterrent (helped me get on Egypt's good side, too). Trade routes were also really easy to start, with a market and a lighthouse up early. All this resulted in being able to rack up DV points even after I dropped the ball a few times on aid requests (I prefer to save up and drop a lump sum the turn before it ends, on the theory that steady gifts will trigger the AI to try to keep topping the player; the problem is loading a save and then forgetting about the contest). Finally, the diplomatic approach helped my science by driving up my alliances quickly.

In sum: fun civ, strong early game, competitive in diplomacy, don't expect to out-science Korea. Theme song is a B-.

You have always needed strong culture for science victories.

I actually got my fastest science victory ever playing tall Babylon, on my very first try. The key is to snag the great scientists, since they give so many eurekas. It'd probably be impossible with Korea or another science-heavy civ in the game though.

Depends entirely on where the final space mission is in the tech tree. Also having powerful science civs makes the Great Library stronger.

 

[Park Hyun]

You have always needed strong culture for science victories.
Depends entirely on where the final space mission is in the tech tree. Also having powerful science civs makes the Great Library stronger.

Yeah, plenty of other people have talked about rocketing through the tech tree, but when I focused entirely on scoring as many eurekas as possible, it didn't turn out to be so easy. Could be very situational; immortal or deity will also make science tough just because the AI gets such a boost. The AI also grabbed the Great Library before I ever had a chance.

 

[UWHabs]

Yeah, plenty of other people have talked about rocketing through the tech tree, but when I focused entirely on scoring as many eurekas as possible, it didn't turn out to be so easy. Could be very situational; immortal or deity will also make science tough just because the AI gets such a boost. The AI also grabbed the Great Library before I ever had a chance.

One other curious piece about Babylon jumping around is that when I build Oxford University for the 2 free techs, I was lucky enough to get a couple atomic/info era techs because I had one there already, while most of my research was still going through the industrial/modern era at the time.

 

[bengalryan9]

Yeah, plenty of other people have talked about rocketing through the tech tree, but when I focused entirely on scoring as many eurekas as possible, it didn't turn out to be so easy. Could be very situational; immortal or deity will also make science tough just because the AI gets such a boost. The AI also grabbed the Great Library before I ever had a chance.

I found some Eurekas to be map dependent. I spawned on a small continent by myself with no iron or niter. Being by myself makes building encampments and forts pretty unappealing, and with only 6 cities I'm not likely to build multiple IZs (you need 3 workshops for one Eureka). I also found that teching so quickly so early means you're likely to get to some techs with Eurekas that you're just not ready to take advantage of yet.

In my current game I jumped out to a big tech lead early but it's shrunk as I hit a bunch of Eurekas I couldn't get in the middle ages. I'm starting my espionage game now which I anticipate will help me jump out to a lead again later on.

I think Babylon will definitely be OP in some player's hands and on some maps, but I'm not convinced they need a nerf.

 

[Disgustipated]

It'd probably be impossible with Korea or another science-heavy civ in the game though.

I've been thinking about playing a game with all the AI civs being science heavy civs. I would make AI Babylon as well and see how they do as Babylon. I figure Korea, Babylon, and Scotland for sure. Who are the other "science" civs? China a little bit. Kongo does well on science even though they aren't built to be a science civ. I would like to see if the AI could do something between them all. I'm likely to be disappointed in their performance.

 

[bengalryan9]

I've been thinking about playing a game with all the AI civs being science heavy civs. I would make AI Babylon as well and see how they do as Babylon. I figure Korea, Babylon, and Scotland for sure. Who are the other "science" civs? China a little bit. Kongo does well on science even though they aren't built to be a science civ. I would like to see if the AI could do something between them all. I'm likely to be disappointed in their performance.

I've seen AI Maya put up some crazy numbers before. Usually she seems to get everyone angry at her and gets held in check, though.

Australia for sure. Brazil can do pretty well at science as well.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I've been thinking about playing a game with all the AI civs being science heavy civs. I would make AI Babylon as well and see how they do as Babylon. I figure Korea, Babylon, and Scotland for sure. Who are the other "science" civs? China a little bit. Kongo does well on science even though they aren't built to be a science civ. I would like to see if the AI could do something between them all. I'm likely to be disappointed in their performance.

Civs that are designed to be Science-focused and do have a corresponding AI: Australia, Babylon, Korea, Maya, Scotland, Sumeria

Civ that is designed for Science but AI will often focus on the other bonus: Arabia (religion bonus)

Civs that are not designed for Science but their AI will often focus on Science anyway: Cree, Hungary (district discount), Inca, Kongo (no religion so focus on science instead)

Although putting Babylon and Maya in the same game basically means Babylon's era-rushing side effect will make sure Maya is in a Dark Age in nearly every single era.

 

[Kotofei]

Vampire Babylon is my new favorite combination. I accidentally unlocked Offworld Mission before Smart Materials while I was distracted throwing nukes and invincible vampires at the AI.

Pro tip: Vampires don't do well on fallout tiles.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

8 charges actually. And for the war path she can speed up levying those warriors/swords.
And we dont talk about Hungary.

I actually feel that Himiko has a better synergy with Tamar. Just wait for the city-states to be of your religion, and Himiko has potentially 16 envoys in one life. That's just enormous. Plus, if you send Envoys to city-States you're already the suzerain of, it gives you faith, meaning buying Himiko again or buying most missionaries/aspotles to convert more city-States and on and on... I was swimming in diplomatic favors like crazy. Even "+2 envoy when levying" Matthias was no match to keep suzerainties bonuses. It was hilarating to see him levying city-States to gain to envoys, then I sent Himiko with two charges and hop! Bue-bye, Matthias!

 

[Haig]

I wonder why Wolin was introduced as a CS, does it have some interesting history behind it?

Nothing against it, was just surprised.