Babylon?

[pi-r8]

Not so. Great Person cost scales linearly in this game while it was exponential (iirc) in Civ4. That is, if the first one costs 100 and you produce 10gpp you get it in 10 turns. The second one costs 200 which you get in 20 turns, the third one costs 400 which you get in 40 turns. With philosophical you got the first in 5 turns, the second in 10, the third in 20 because you added twice as many points.

However, in civ 5, the first costs 100, the second 200, the third 300, and so on. So again assuming 10 points you get the first in 10 turns, 20 turns, 30 turns, etc. while the Babylonians (correct me if I'm wrong because I don't own them) halve the cost of this, putting them at 50, 100, 150, etc. or 5 turns, 10 turns, 15 turns and so on. So the effect is much better than just getting the first one a bit earlier.

Well it doesn't exactly halve the cost. It's a +100% bonus, so with other bonuses like the garden or national epic the Babylonian bonus is less noticable.

And the cost increase for the first 10 great people was exactly the same in Civ 4- 100, 200, 300, etc. It didn't increase until after 10, when it went from 1000 to 1200 points.

Obviously you do get more great scientists with the Babylonians. It's just that you don't get twice as many, like some people think.

 

[alpaca]

Well it doesn't exactly halve the cost. It's a +100% bonus, so with other bonuses like the garden or national epic the Babylonian bonus is less noticable.

And the cost increase for the first 10 great people was exactly the same in Civ 4- 100, 200, 300, etc. It didn't increase until after 10, when it went from 1000 to 1200 points.

Obviously you do get more great scientists with the Babylonians. It's just that you don't get twice as many, like some people think.

Ah ok, then I must have remembered incorrectly. I rarely paid attention to the exact number anyways

But then I don't understand why it was argued that philosophical only gives you the first GP earlier. If the cost increases in a linear fashion and you get twice as much then you get more than just the first earlier. You get the same number in half the time, which is not the same as twice the number in the same time of course.

Besides, the additional bonuses in Civ5 are weak compared to Civ4 where the National Epic yielded +100%. They are, in fact, so underwhelming that specialising for GP growth is somewhat useless. This is another thing ICS is better at: Setting 2 scientists in 5 cities is much better than setting 5 in one, which wasn't true in Civ4 due to the high modifiers. The cities all accumulate GP points at the same rate so you will get GS at a constant rate as long as they all start producing at the same time.

 

[pi-r8]

Ah ok, then I must have remembered incorrectly. I rarely paid attention to the exact number anyways

But then I don't understand why it was argued that philosophical only gives you the first GP earlier. If the cost increases in a linear fashion and you get twice as much then you get more than just the first earlier. You get the same number in half the time, which is not the same as twice the number in the same time of course.

Besides, the additional bonuses in Civ5 are weak compared to Civ4 where the National Epic yielded +100%. They are, in fact, so underwhelming that specialising for GP growth is somewhat useless. This is another thing ICS is better at: Setting 2 scientists in 5 cities is much better than setting 5 in one, which wasn't true in Civ4 due to the high modifiers. The cities all accumulate GP points at the same rate so you will get GS at a constant rate as long as they all start producing at the same time.

I remember a lot of complicated discussions about this on the civ 4 forums. Like you said, the bonuses were stronger so the boost from philosophical wasn't as big. The math is complicated and depends on a lot of assumptions about how you play the game, but as I recall, the consensus was that most typical games, philosophical gave about 2 extra great people. 2 extra isn't all that much, but the more important benefit is that all the earlier ones come sooner.

One thing that really bugs me about the specialists in Civ V is that all the GPP boosters round down. For example, a garden gives +25%, but if you're running 2 scientists for 6 scientists points/turn, the garden just boosts that up to 7. Woo. Building an extra library and 2 more scientists somewhere else is way better.

 

[alpaca]

I remember a lot of complicated discussions about this on the civ 4 forums. Like you said, the bonuses were stronger so the boost from philosophical wasn't as big. The math is complicated and depends on a lot of assumptions about how you play the game, but as I recall, the consensus was that most typical games, philosophical gave about 2 extra great people. 2 extra isn't all that much, but the more important benefit is that all the earlier ones come sooner.

One thing that really bugs me about the specialists in Civ V is that all the GPP boosters round down. For example, a garden gives +25%, but if you're running 2 scientists for 6 scientists points/turn, the garden just boosts that up to 7. Woo. Building an extra library and 2 more scientists somewhere else is way better.

Yeah the bonuses should really work in thirds, not in quarters or halves, since specialists add three points each. Alternatively, change specialists to 4 points which I would actually prefer.

 

[Martin Alvito]

All you want to do with the Babs is build Libraries and Unis in moderately sized cities and fill them.

If you staff enough L's and U's, you're looking at a tech every 5-6 turns. The speed at which the points scale isn't a huge issue, because the number of GP you get before the game ends is pretty small.

 

[vranasm]

Well maybe there are better civs then babylon, but I had some good fun with them anyway.
Their UU bowman is pretty good, range strength 8 is pretty good and comes from tech you can tech right away at start.
More scientists in the early game are certainly good and should help with some serious beeline.

Can't remember the third bonus so probably I didnt saw it as good as the first 2 things.

To the question about price. I bought the game as digital deluxe paying 55€ instead of 50€ and in retrospect...
well it's a question of how you like the game, if you are content with the game I would buy it since if you don't you will have incomplete game, otoh if there are things that you are discontent with (bugs, incompetent AI, too easy) you probably should avoid giving money to devs that disappointed you and wait for real expansion or some DLC bundles half year-year in the future.

 

[Abegweit]

Yeah the bonuses should really work in thirds, not in quarters or halves, since specialists add three points each. Alternatively, change specialists to 4 points which I would actually prefer.

I've heard this rumour that modern computers come with these things called "floating point units". They apparently have the ability to add up fractions.

 

[pi-r8]

I've heard this rumour that modern computers come with these things called "floating point units". They apparently have the ability to add up fractions.

Careful now, that's dangerous thinking. You best stick to your work.

 

[nokmirt]

they were in the civ 5 deluxe edition and can be bought for $5.00 USD after the 25th (this month) when they release the free DLC.

Do you buy it from the steam store or where? Is is for sale tomorrow.

 

[nokmirt]

Can someone tell me a little about the Babylonian civ, what are it's UU and UB?

 

[eric_]

edit: sorry, posted to a more appropriate thread.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Can someone tell me a little about the Babylonian civ, what are it's UU and UB?

UU's an Archer with War Elephant (8/6) power, 2 moves. Very decent unit, but doesn't compare to the best in the game.

UB is garbage. Walls that add 7.5 power instead of 5.

UA is insanely, insanely good and very flexible.

 

[Nunya]

Can someone tell me a little about the Babylonian civ, what are it's UU and UB?

UU is Bowman. Replaces Archer. Has 6 strength and 8 ranged strenth. Good unit, but pales in compare to Horsemen.

UB is Walls of Babylon. Replaces Walls. Gives +7.5 defence to the city instead of +5 like normal Walls. Pretty bad special because you so rarely need to build walls.

UA is Ingenuity. You get a free Great Scientist when you research Writing. And you also generate Great Scientists twice as fast as normal. That doesn't mean that you get twice as many great scientists during the course of the game, but you do get them sooner. It's great for slingshots through the technology tree.

 

[fed1943]

The bowman allows to build less troops for defense in the begining.

 

[Vordeo]

will let you know tomorrow when i see if this free DLC counts as my D2D "free DLC", if it doesnt then yes. If it does then its $2.50 USD for soundtrack (which is great) and $2.50 USD for the making of movie.

FYI, someone on another thread contacted D2D and they confirmed that this wasn't it, and that the DLC (w/ two civs) you guys are getting free comes out in December.

 

[KingMackem]

Babylon priced at £2.99 in UK. I'm happy with that. Will just have to have 5 pints instead of 6 Friday night.

 

[alpaca]

I've heard this rumour that modern computers come with these things called "floating point units". They apparently have the ability to add up fractions.

Most games like to round to integers because humans can process them better. And no, floats don't properly handle fractions because fractions can not be expressed exactly in floating point notation with a finite number of digits

To be honest, there's a reason for this: Mostly, people would rather have some rounding errors and weirdness than to use "ugly-looking" floats. I'm all for floats, it's better than using huge integers in my opinion.

Edit: In fact, the game does even worse. SP cost is rounded to multiples of 5, rush-buying to multiples of 10.

 

[Zenstrive]

I pop up great scientists at alarming rate using Babylonians. It's that scary.