Babylon vs korea

[kb27787]

People sometimes overrate the early academy... (2 caravans will get you the same thing if you have a trading neighbor); Babylon on an isolated start should be the same as Korea on a start where you get beakers from trade routes.
Korea's coastal bias does make mid-game food ships really powerful, but Babylon can get a coastal start too sometimes.
Babylon suffers the same problem as Korea: food. When your pop is still under 20 for every academy you are working, you are probably giving up +2 food from river farm improvement, same with Korea and their specialist slots. If your start is starved for food, you'd have trouble working the university slots without giving up something, such as great writer slots.

Also the problem I usually encounter (well not a problem but more of a dilemma) with teching fast early-mid game is that your cities do not have enough production to catch up to make use of the tech There's no point reaching metal casting 10 turns earlier (if not only for reaching the end of the tech tree 10 turns faster, but the advantage is not immediate) if your cities are busy building coliseums No point reaching machinery early if you lack the gold to upgrade your CBs. No point reaching architecture faster by 10 turns if you don't have ironworks up and take 20+ turns to build PT.

And so on... late game is when production catches up and you can afford the hammers (late game techs are really blah, after factories and hydro plants and hermitage, you are basically done with infrastructure, any hammers go to troops/money/archaeologists/wonders etc. This is where you want the game to go fast, and I feel Korea does it just a bit better when you look at the sheer number of slots just in your capitol: 6 from guilds, 4 from science buildings, 3 or 4 from production buildings, 3 from money buildings, in short, 32-34 extra base science which is basically 3 academies.

 

[tommynt]

I gotta agree to former poster - the early science thing is a bit overrated.

all it does it give the option to catch early wonders on higher lvl - but most arent really needed anyway.

Have had my fastest winning tiems with not so early NC and university times but with lots of huge cities in lategame ..

 

[KmDubya]

I am also on the Korea is better side.

At emperor level as the AI Korea always does better than Babylon in my experience. Korea is always the tech leader and a powerhouse. The turtle ships even defend well against frigates.

As the player I find Korea much better. The tech bulbs from buildings, and the extra two science per specialist are much better than a super early academy. The faster scientist rate only adds a few due to the increased costs each one has. Korea is guaranteed bulbs from building a library, National College, university, public school, research lab, and oxford. That is the equivalent of six great scientist bulbs, throw in more for an observatory or any science wonders. For a science victory the Korea mid to late game is just much stronger.

Babylon has the advantage in a case where the early academy gives a relative tech advantage that can be exploited militarily. As in your increased early tech rate lets you get a compound bow rush out faster which you use to conquer your neighbors. The UU and UB are both pretty worthless, now if the UU Bowman was a compound bow..... that would really rock.

 

[Quitzz]

As Babylon you have a UU that almost = comp. bow, you can get an early wonders and military units, even religion. GS works well with Scholasticism and bpt from trade routes - another advantage. Early game is the most important part of the game imo. And Babylon's UA works even better if you go wide.

Korea on other hand is a one trick pony, that very limited in strategy - you want so much specialist as you can, always, without exceptions.

In my eyes Babylon > Korea since it's much more versatile.

 

[Deau]

Korea is far better at min/maxing. However, it only compounds from the mid game on making it far less flexible.

So for CV or early game rush based VC (it can be all of diplo sv or domination), Babylon is far more reliable/polyvalent. Purely from the perspective of min/maxing turn to victory for a 3-4 city peaceful game (or expanded with late game units), Korea wins. The weight of the +2 science per specialist is huge for late game GS bulb spam.

Babylon's 15-20 turns off of university is only as good as you can grow your cities enough in such a tight time frame science-wise to really profit from it so unless you get El Dorado or some other gold magic happens.


BnW has nerfed Babylon relatively speaking since the power of 8bpt relative to your bpt is very diminished from trade route science. In fact, I find Morroco to be very close to providing Babs' settled GS without the required detour to writing and with additional funding/no growth hindrance from working a non-farmed tile all along. It's obviously even more dependant on AI proximity but nonetheless shows how trade routes diminished the return on Babs UA

 

[telekinetic136]

Korea used to be my favorite but it feels weaker in BNW. You get so many less artist specialists now then you used to. Now you get a total of 6 instead of getting 4 per city.

Babylon is about getting the science snowball rolling ASAP the soon you get the NC the sooner you get universities the sooner it starts raining great scientists. Which ends in more science then Korea.

 

[comatosedragon]

I like Korea - Except for the fact that I lose out on part of the UA by purchasing universities. I think the boost should allow me to purchase science buildings, not just build them. But maybe then they would be too good.