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

[leandrombraz]

Himiko really helps unlock more heroes because they are triggered by envoys.

She's also OP as hell. 7 charges and her ability that gives an envoy costs 1 charge.

 

[Equilin]

She's also OP as hell. 7 charges and her ability that gives an envoy costs 1 charge.

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

 

[Laurana Kanan]

That's relative

FXS verbiage, not mine. I think we can all agree, though, that the patch notes have been "less than complete" going back to the 2016 Fall Update.

I've also posted the .diff for human-readable files

What program do you use to generate your .diff files?

 

[kb27787]

Babylon is just as broken as I feared... I have coal in the medieval era... and my mines are 4-5 production tiles. If one is lucky, one kills 3 barbs quickly and before you know it you have a swordsman from your starting warrior; this stops early rushes cold done properly.

They are probably best for cultural victory (get Rapa Nui or La Venta, etc., build an industrial era wonder--which you can rush to) super quick flight without a single campus. The ability is there not for you to win by science per se (with -50% it takes FOREVER to research those late game techs and your spies cannot steal the boost from a civ that does not have the tech already) but for you to win by culture or domination without having to worry about science output at all, period.

Heroes are very broken and I'm afraid I won't be playing with them extensively... the fact that they can appear in the ancient era with massive bonuses (Sinbad, looking at you; although he is a naval unit) completely makes the game into a diceroll.

 

[Kotofei]

Just got Machinery on T33 , this is just crazy

Babylon turns the tech race upside down. I was well ahead of the AI by T100, but it'll be hard to keep that up. But wonders unlock earlier and I was able to build all my favorites; I wonder if I can leverage that.

 

[leandrombraz]

I have the AI playing Babylon in my game. So far, it's as Ed Beach said, the AI jumps to a big early game science lead. Lets see if it keeps up or if the AI will start to struggle as the game progresses.

 

[RealHuhn]

I restarted my game because apparently, faith is the most important resource in this game mode. Without Earth Goddess and Holy Site spam, the mid game is just boring because you cannot revive your heroes (850-1000 faith per hero).

 

[WineGuy]

I'm loving the Heroes mode although Sun Wukong is a bit boring, except as a scout but once I've scouted everything I don't think I'll recall them once they expired (did pop a couple barbarian huts though).

Anyone else having problems seeing the "display great works" screen?

 

[Gedemon]

What program do you use to generate your .diff files?

I use TortoiseGit for the shell interface, and Git for Windows for the exe IIRC.

 

[pokiehl]

This is a surprise. I had assumed Trung Trac was a shoo-in.

The speculation threads are fun but it's important to remember that baseless speculation being amplified over and over doesn't make it any less baseless

 

[Uberfrog]

The speculation threads are fun but it's important to remember that baseless speculation being amplified over and over doesn't make it any less baseless

To be honest it was less the speculation, more the presumed likelihood of a female leader!

I wonder if instead they will pick a modern leader for Vietnam. In NFP so far we have representatives from the Ancient (Hammurabi), Classical (Ambiorix), Medieval (Basil and Lady Six Sky) and Industrial Eras (Bolívar, Menelik).

So between Vietnam and the final mystery civ, we might expect one from the Modern and one from the Renaissance (the latter especially if we get Portugal or the Iroquois).

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

To be honest it was less the speculation, more the presumed likelihood of a female leader!

I wonder if instead they will pick a modern leader for Vietnam. In NFP so far we have representatives from the Ancient (Hammurabi), Classical (Ambiorix), Medieval (Basil and Lady Six Sky) and Industrial Eras (Bolívar, Menelik).

So between Vietnam and the final mystery civ, we might expect one from the Modern and one from the Renaissance (the latter especially if we get Portugal or the Iroquois).

A second classical isn't out of the question though.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The speculation threads are fun but it's important to remember that baseless speculation being amplified over and over doesn't make it any less baseless

To be fair the speculation and the hype around Trung Sisters are mainly because that popular Civ V mod, for many people the only Vietnamese figures they know are Trung Sisters and Ho Chi Minh. Many in the thread were arguing for other leader choices for Vietnam.

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

Heroes is a really fun mode, although I think they are too war focused, especially since war is already the most efficient way to win.

Babylon are great fun, really enjoyed playing as them. They felt very powerful though, being able to keep pace in science without wasting any production on campuses is extremely liberating. Spawn next to a natural wonder and you'll even get a religion on deity!

 

[iammaxhailme]

I'm on my 3rd babylon game

I haven't made it past "you lost the great library!" yet. It's like I'm really playing civ 5 again!

(I just want it for gimmicks...)

 

[DeutschDachs]

Well I have infantry in about 500 ad but Korea is next to me and has 3xs my science per turn. I don't think I'm going to be able to keep up for the science victory I wanted

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Heaven Forbid you make more than 3 swordsmen. Because as soon as you upgrade 3 swordsmen to Musketmen, you unlock Replaceable Parts and you can't upgrade any more swordsmen until you get oil.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Heaven Forbid you make more than 3 swordsmen. Because as soon as you upgrade 3 swordsmen to Musketmen, you unlock Replaceable Parts and you can't upgrade any more swordsmen until you get oil.

Don't you usually get the ability to make obsolete units if you don't have the resource for the current unit? Or is a two tier jump (infantry to swordsman) too far?

But if you're upgrading those swordsmen to musketmen, then you have niter at least, so you could make more musketmen...

Still, I've had some wacky things like that happen in my few aborted babylon games so far. Like I was building a slinger in a city to defend from barb horsemen.... one of my other slingers killed another barbarian, and my "1 turn until slinger" became "4 turns until archer". Then I upgraded too many slingers and my "4 turns until archer" became "9 turns until crossbow" or something, all over about two turns. (Numbers may be off, don't overanalyze...)

Anyway, I think the meta play as Babylon is to do something like that... but better... make a bunch of slingers, then go kill something, upgrade to archers and then crossbowmen really quickly, then go on a rampage (using your 3 move unique unit to capture after crossbows soften up enemy cities).

 

[Ferocitus]

I have the AI playing Babylon in my game. So far, it's as Ed Beach said, the AI jumps to a big early game science lead. Lets see if it keeps up or if the AI will start to struggle as the game progresses.

That squares with my game so far.
I'm up to move 500ish in a marathon game, and Babylon are doing as well as other civs at the same stage over many other of games.
Tech shuffle makes it more interesting (IMO). There are some dead periods where you start worrying about other civs having triple
your science output, but a few sudden lucky jumps can compensate for that very quickly.

 

[Piranga]

In your Hall of Fame it is now possible to delete a game out of your list if you choose. I really don't remember this being a feature. Was this added in this patch? Maybe I missed it in a previous patch though.

I've personally been hoping for something like this because I once I had a game that I lost the turn before I would have won. I replayed that final turn so many times, my HoF was absolutely full of the repeated Loss.