Babylon vs. Korea

[Gnthurlby]

So with Korea you definitely want to go tall to maximize your amount of specialists... But with Babylon would it be more beneficial to go wide or tall?

 

[Matthew.]

The biggest perk of Babylon is the initial tech lead right at the beginning of the game. But if you want to keep using the full UA for all it is worth, any size empire that allows you to work scientist specialists.

 

[steveg700]

Korea ties with Ethiopia for most "balance schmalance" UA, although Poland may well displace them both now. When people talk about civs like Germany having a weak UA, they're comparing it to a very small number of civ's with OTT UA's, of which Korea is one.

Really, you could drop the +2 beakers from specialists from the UA altogether and still have a so-so UA.

You could keep the +2 from specialists but drop the the +2 from great person improvements and still have a pretty good UA.

You could keep both, but lower their bonuses to +1 beaker instead of +2, and you would again have a good UA.

You could have the great person tile improvements yield +2, but lower the bonus from specialists to +1, and you would now have a great, top-tier UA.

So yeah, what we have here is pretty whacked-out and has been begging for a nerf for a long time.

 

[adwcta]

Plus, Korea is much more versatile than Babylon... Korea is one of the few civs that are well suited for ALL types of victory not just the scientific victory.

Yup. Korea > Babs in my experience. In BNW, starts are less important, and being behind in science for longer has more benefits. I purposeful try to stay behind as much as possible for the spy/trade route benefits. Where G&K was a sledgehammer of faster maor better, BNW is a much more intricate tool that requires a lot of balance and situational adjustment.

Korea adjusts better. I don't care about UUs when going peaceful and in BNW, bribes almost always work better than walls, and super-early aggression is easily averted, so Babs' UB and UU are heavily nerfed, whereas Korea's UUs still come at a time where AI aggression is possible, and having a couple of those around will actually have a deterrence effect, especially your first turtles. The AI (correctly) fears them.

 

[Petiscator]

Hmm... I thought on a possible exploit that I'm fairly sure doesn't exist, but... what if Korea sells their library an builds it again? Will they keep getting science boosts?

 

[NotSure]

Hmm... I thought on a possible exploit that I'm fairly sure doesn't exist, but... what if Korea sells their library an builds it again? Will they keep getting science boosts?

You could do this when the DLC first came out, but they fixed it pretty quick.

 

[telekinetic136]

Korea lost out on a lot of science due to there only being 3 building that run art specialists. Babylon remains the king of science to me.

 

[Chiatroll]

Korea for the late game explosion.

Babylon survives the early game better but late game their UA is almost non existent when you are stacking on all the possible great person modifier 25% for garden, 25% for heroic epic, 25% for rationalism, sometimes 25% for an ideology, maybe even 25% for the leaning tower. The extra 50% doesn't feel like as much next to the raising costs and modifiers for GPP.

Korea's benefit though at that point is just starting to shine and late game no one can touch their science and they blast past anything babylon can go near.

 

[ahawk]

For me:

Korea is really about the ability to get +4 science per specialist (2 from UA, 2 from Rationalism SP). That's a lot of science if you have 2 or 3 fairly tall cities. The Hwacha is a great scientific advantage, too, in that it allows me to bee-line non-military techs and still have a great defensive scheme up until Great War units appear. The Turtle Ship is actually not all that great, and the rest of the UA (tech-boost on finishing scientific wonders or buildings in the capital, +2 science on Great Person improvements) is usable, but not nearly as good as the specialist boost.

Babylon is about planting an academy ridiculously early and getting easier Great Scientists. Neither the UU nor the UB are all that good (Bowman was good in vanilla, but was already considerably nerfed by the appearance of Composite Bows in G&K). So Babylon is pretty much, to me, just the UA, but what a UA! That early academy can help me fly through early techs, and it's the earliest large boost to science you'll ever get, considering the Mayans need to have four cities up with their UB to get the same boost.

Ultimately, I prefer Korea because Babylon's UA does tend to taper off unless you have scientific world wonders and Leaning Tower of Pisa to really get the most out of it, whereas Korea's UA just gets more and more powerful as even more buildings with specialist slots are added and more cities are built. But it's close, because Korea takes a little while to get going while Babylon gets a large boost very early.

 

[PrideDefiler]

Yup. Korea > Babs in my experience. In BNW, starts are less important, and being behind in science for longer has more benefits.

Yep.

In BNW being ahead of everyone else scientifically in early game is not really rewarding.

That's why I like Korea late game science explosion - it accumulates slowly but surely and after Education tech and Rationalism SP, research agreements just explodes your science.

Also even in early and mid game, Korea is never really behind in science thanks to science building at the capitol bonus.

 

[z284pwr]

Korea for the late game explosion.

Babylon survives the early game better but late game their UA is almost non existent when you are stacking on all the possible great person modifier 25% for garden, 25% for heroic epic, 25% for rationalism, sometimes 25% for an ideology, maybe even 25% for the leaning tower. The extra 50% doesn't feel like as much next to the raising costs and modifiers for GPP.

Korea's benefit though at that point is just starting to shine and late game no one can touch their science and they blast past anything babylon can go near.

If Babylon keeps all their scientists until after Plastics/Research Labs, bulbing 4-5 scientists is a lot of beakers really fast near the end of the game. Can Korea's +2/+4 specialists really take over that many bulbs near the end game compared to the early Babylon boost plus the late game Scientist bulbing?

 

[Nicasen]

If Babylon keeps all their scientists until after Plastics/Research Labs, bulbing 4-5 scientists is a lot of beakers really fast near the end of the game. Can Korea's +2/+4 specialists really take over that many bulbs near the end game compared to the early Babylon boost plus the late game Scientist bulbing?

That doesn't work in BNW anymore since they changed it so the total beakers from a Great Scientist use is based on what your science output was when the GS spawned instead of when the GS is used.

 

[Falconiano]

In BNW being ahead of everyone else scientifically in early game is not really rewarding.

It's actually the opposite.

Being the first to Printing Press can turn the tides for both religion and world congress, so is being the first to Acoustics.
Babylon is also the only civ who can pop the pre-medieval wonders on deity since they get there fast enough, with other civs the moment you research the req tech other civs already finished the wonder it enables.

I'm not sure what difficulty you play on but in Deity the early game decides the rest of the game.
You get ahead? You win.
You fall behind? Others will fund congress and possibly embargo you, pop fundamental cultural wonders before you, and ultimately run away like the Road Runner.

 

[JustinianIV]

I would say Korea, but it is tough. Not that experienced with either civ, but Korea gets rewarded with science for getting tech, which then leads to them getting more tech. It's a lovely cycle.

Still Babylon IMO is a bit more fun because you have to coordinate your GSs.

Question: now that science is no longer king in BNW, are these two civs more balanced?

 

[Falconiano]

now that science is no longer king in BNW

Wrong assumption.
Faster teching still means vastly increased chances of victory.

are these two civs more balanced?

Still the 2 best civs imho.
No wonders they are sold separately

 

[adwcta]

It's actually the opposite.

Being the first to Printing Press can turn the tides for both religion and world congress, so is being the first to Acoustics.
Babylon is also the only civ who can pop the pre-medieval wonders on deity since they get there fast enough, with other civs the moment you research the req tech other civs already finished the wonder it enables.

I'm not sure what difficulty you play on but in Deity the early game decides the rest of the game.
You get ahead? You win.
You fall behind? Others will fund congress and possibly embargo you, pop fundamental cultural wonders before you, and ultimately run away like the Road Runner.

I play on Deity. This is not true. It's not the opposite. The start didn't get more important in BNW, it got less important.

Now, being the first to Printing Press WILL turn the tides, but that doesn't mean it helps you any more than having more late-game science and not hitting Printing Press until Pisa is gone. You can also reliably build one of more than half of the per-Medieval wonders without being Babylon.... it's the Medieval wonders that you can't get. So, not sure about your comment there.

You can run away with both civs, quite easily, with any start, as they are both very overpowered. Touting Babylon's start is pointless, since you should be evaluating the overall science output of the two civs over the course of the game, balanced by their security. The turn times for finishing games for these two civs are very comparable, so let's not overstate the importance of the early game for science.

I got a turn 254 Deity science victory once with Korea in BNW, where I delayed the NC, only had one wonder: PT, was in the tundra so bad growth, didn't get a religion, and had ZERO rivers/mountains in any of my 4 cities (one city had a lake). Think of the turn time it could have been if that game was at all a decent start....

I would argue that on a random start, Korea actually has a better start than Babylon, if only because it has a coast start bias, so it gets guaranteed 2x benefits from food routes. Babylon has no start bias, so it's pushed behind the 10 civs that do have it for coast. This is very bad on Pangea, and still not so good on balanced land/sea maps.

As for # of specialist slots decreasing in BNW:
Food routes lets you grow your cities, on any start, while working specialist slots and planted GSs. Korea on 4 cities may have lost 6 specialist slots overall in BNW, but now you can put 3 more in your NC city = 9 specialists worth of science, which means you've effectively only lost 3 overall specialist slots, and zero if your NC city happens to have a mountain. Overall, Korea's going to be able to better use it's UA than in G&K, even though the total # of slots has decreased.

 

[PrideDefiler]

Overall, Korea's going to be able to better use it's UA than in G&K, even though the total # of slots has decreased.

Hear, hear.

Very detailed analysis of Korea as well.

Kudos