It's a coincidence that I was trying to devise a similar strategy with Babylon tonight before coming across this thread. If lightbulbing techs was limited to certain areas, like it was in Civ 4, would that add some necessary balance? As it stands, every time you get a Great Scientist, you're given an Oracle from Civ 4 instantly.
Babylonian Acoustics Policy Slingshot
- Thread starter lemmy101
- Start date
iggymnrr
Deity
- Joined
- May 20, 2003
- Messages
- 2,294
The GSs are powerful, no doubt. But having gotten to space by turn 350 as Babylon, while thinking that opening the rationalism branch was a mistake, I think something else is more powerful: city states and puppets. Particularly the food city state that can throw a ton of food at a gazillion puppets all at once. Thats a lot of beakers, no science enhanced trading posts required.
SeptimusOctopus
Warlord
So if you have banked SP's then acquire more cities do you run the risk of losing social policies as their costs are increased?
At one point in a game today, I unlocked a social policy on a turn in which I was going to settle a city. I founded the city prior to selecting the policy, which caused me to basically miss out on the SP. Needless to say I felt kinda dumb.
At one point in a game today, I unlocked a social policy on a turn in which I was going to settle a city. I founded the city prior to selecting the policy, which caused me to basically miss out on the SP. Needless to say I felt kinda dumb.
r_rolo1
King of myself
I never failed henge on king so far even with ramesses on the mix ... Do you have any decent prod tile in work range ( this because it is awfully expensive to pay it out at this stage 
) ?
) ?Stormfather
Chieftain
I tried it with Marathon, Gandhi, Prince difficulty, and WOW.
I built Worker/Settler/Stonehenge/Library/Oracle in my capital and Great Library in my second city. My warrior was upgraded to a Spearman by a goody-hut, and I kidnapped another worker with him. Ignored $, focused on food and hammers, and hit the Renaissance in 1200 BC with three wonders and 5 policies ready to go. Focused on Freedom, getting the 2x culture in wonder cities, cheaper future civic cost, specialists eat half food, and + great person birth-rate. I'm currently building the Hagia Sofia to crank out even more great persons...
Again, wow. Excellent strategy!
EDIT
And 60 years later, Songhai and England declared war on me. I have a spearman and 204 gold.
I knew it was a mistake for India to trust England.
EDIT 2
Aack... they got me!
I built Worker/Settler/Stonehenge/Library/Oracle in my capital and Great Library in my second city. My warrior was upgraded to a Spearman by a goody-hut, and I kidnapped another worker with him. Ignored $, focused on food and hammers, and hit the Renaissance in 1200 BC with three wonders and 5 policies ready to go. Focused on Freedom, getting the 2x culture in wonder cities, cheaper future civic cost, specialists eat half food, and + great person birth-rate. I'm currently building the Hagia Sofia to crank out even more great persons...
Again, wow. Excellent strategy!
EDIT
And 60 years later, Songhai and England declared war on me. I have a spearman and 204 gold.
I knew it was a mistake for India to trust England.EDIT 2
Aack... they got me!
I've been playing babylon, but been taking Piety and Patronage to try for culture wins.
i realised that trying for culture is hopeless unless you are playing as India, France, Aztec, Siam or Greece, and if playing Babylon you may as well use your advantage to go for science / rationalism and space race instead.
I'm going to try this tactic now, I wonder how long it will be before babylons UA is nerfed
Also, dont forget to build great library + oracle for the freebies and GS points, Porcelain tower too (+2 GS points and another GS), and maybe Kremlin too as it gives a GS point, and makes your UB much more powerful.
Also, build national epic + garden in your GS farm ASAP.
Theres also a wonder that gives +33% great person spawn rate, i usually build that in my second city along with angkor wat.
i realised that trying for culture is hopeless unless you are playing as India, France, Aztec, Siam or Greece, and if playing Babylon you may as well use your advantage to go for science / rationalism and space race instead.
I'm going to try this tactic now, I wonder how long it will be before babylons UA is nerfed
Also, dont forget to build great library + oracle for the freebies and GS points, Porcelain tower too (+2 GS points and another GS), and maybe Kremlin too as it gives a GS point, and makes your UB much more powerful.
Also, build national epic + garden in your GS farm ASAP.
Theres also a wonder that gives +33% great person spawn rate, i usually build that in my second city along with angkor wat.
lemmy101
Emperor
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2006
- Messages
- 1,064
EDIT
And 60 years later, Songhai and England declared war on me. I have a spearman and 204 gold.
And so the weakness of going all out 100% is revealed.
I think the trick here to make it actually useful in the field is to sacrifice a bit of the speed of executing it to make sure you do not leave other aspects of your empire completely lacking. Finding that balance is key.Stormfather
Chieftain
And so the weakness of going all out 100% is revealed.
Exactly.
Gandhi's sacrifice was not in vain.And so the weakness of going all out 100% is revealed.
With babylon though, you can keep any city defended from attack with just 2-3 bowmen.
With India, use War Elephants which are even cheaper, but get owned by spears and pikes.
King Jason
Fleece-bearer
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2005
- Messages
- 2,053
What's funny is that I was just coming here to do a Babylon OCC cultural write-up, which specifically detailed this sling-shot.. and here you are.
If you're playing Babylon, I can think of almost no reason not to embrace this slingshot. Personally, I spent my first 3 SPs on Tradition so I could ensure the construction of the wonders I wanted (turned out to be a smart idea since Egypt was in my game), but then I didn't purchase a single policy until freedom, netting myself the discount on SPs.
I lost interested in doing an actual write-up of the game, but the bullet-points
~Emphasize Science specialists (even if you're not Babylon, cause this will hugely contribute to your science rate), and be very mindful of their use. Emphasize technologies that offer buildings and wonders before military tech, as with siege weapons and tactical planning, along with the proper defensive procedures (semi-detailed below), you can fend off larger, slightly more advanced military forces. Eventually you'll reach a point where military techs are the only ones you can really research, and you'll catch up appropriately enough... in the end, by the time I got cannons, everyone else still had cannons too.
~Patronage is a wise investment in so many insane ways. For the culture win, it nets to more culture (cultural), it increases your growth (Maritime), and the last, beautiful piece of the puzzle... 40% (at least) to 60% of my military came from city-states (Militaristic), whether it was their gifted units or their military contribution as at the very least a distraction for my enemy. This point is important because in OOC you find yourself constructing very many buildings and wonders, so if you can shave any turns off of unit production, then great.
~Piety is another great branch, primarily to fuel a deficit spending. You might wonder how that translates.. Well, Golden ages. GAs in this game are godly, and I often found myself with a surplus of several hundred gold, but losing GPT when not in one. There's two ways I managed to never fall in the deficit and the first one involved golden ages because how I handled my Ages (I did use some specialists) allowed me to bring in so much income during the golden age, that I wouldn't hit zero gold before the next one.
~Great merchants... There came a time where I stopped emphasizing scientists, which sounds crazy as Babylon I'm sure, but less so with other civs. Anyway, I switched to Merchants because my gold was becoming a huge issue and what I would do is perform trade missions to my city-state allies. This provided both a huge boost to my gold, and even better, a huge boost in city-state rep. In fact, I think this is a strategy in itself ~ You're not paying city-states to be your allies with this method... Technically, you're getting paid to have them as allies.
~Defense: Patches of rough terrain are your friends. I was lucky enough to have a monster of a defensive position in my game. I had coast to my east, then a patch of hill that was an area 3 tiles west, and 3 tiles ne (so one big block of hill).. top it all off with a river surrounding this patch of mountain. Basically, with rough terrain everywhere, then everyone is reduced to movement... which means build tons of siege and watch your enemy get slaughtered. Especially since I took both Tradition and Order policies trees, giving me a total of 58%(?) combat bonus in my territory. I butchered anyone that came near me and I had a military 1/4th the size of everyone else at best. Not related to strategy really, but I even took the fight to my enemies from time to time, liberating city-states or razing their cities.
I think that's it. Oh ~ important piece of information: I did the OCC on King.
If you're playing Babylon, I can think of almost no reason not to embrace this slingshot. Personally, I spent my first 3 SPs on Tradition so I could ensure the construction of the wonders I wanted (turned out to be a smart idea since Egypt was in my game), but then I didn't purchase a single policy until freedom, netting myself the discount on SPs.
I lost interested in doing an actual write-up of the game, but the bullet-points
~Emphasize Science specialists (even if you're not Babylon, cause this will hugely contribute to your science rate), and be very mindful of their use. Emphasize technologies that offer buildings and wonders before military tech, as with siege weapons and tactical planning, along with the proper defensive procedures (semi-detailed below), you can fend off larger, slightly more advanced military forces. Eventually you'll reach a point where military techs are the only ones you can really research, and you'll catch up appropriately enough... in the end, by the time I got cannons, everyone else still had cannons too.
~Patronage is a wise investment in so many insane ways. For the culture win, it nets to more culture (cultural), it increases your growth (Maritime), and the last, beautiful piece of the puzzle... 40% (at least) to 60% of my military came from city-states (Militaristic), whether it was their gifted units or their military contribution as at the very least a distraction for my enemy. This point is important because in OOC you find yourself constructing very many buildings and wonders, so if you can shave any turns off of unit production, then great.
~Piety is another great branch, primarily to fuel a deficit spending. You might wonder how that translates.. Well, Golden ages. GAs in this game are godly, and I often found myself with a surplus of several hundred gold, but losing GPT when not in one. There's two ways I managed to never fall in the deficit and the first one involved golden ages because how I handled my Ages (I did use some specialists) allowed me to bring in so much income during the golden age, that I wouldn't hit zero gold before the next one.
~Great merchants... There came a time where I stopped emphasizing scientists, which sounds crazy as Babylon I'm sure, but less so with other civs. Anyway, I switched to Merchants because my gold was becoming a huge issue and what I would do is perform trade missions to my city-state allies. This provided both a huge boost to my gold, and even better, a huge boost in city-state rep. In fact, I think this is a strategy in itself ~ You're not paying city-states to be your allies with this method... Technically, you're getting paid to have them as allies.
~Defense: Patches of rough terrain are your friends. I was lucky enough to have a monster of a defensive position in my game. I had coast to my east, then a patch of hill that was an area 3 tiles west, and 3 tiles ne (so one big block of hill).. top it all off with a river surrounding this patch of mountain. Basically, with rough terrain everywhere, then everyone is reduced to movement... which means build tons of siege and watch your enemy get slaughtered. Especially since I took both Tradition and Order policies trees, giving me a total of 58%(?) combat bonus in my territory. I butchered anyone that came near me and I had a military 1/4th the size of everyone else at best. Not related to strategy really, but I even took the fight to my enemies from time to time, liberating city-states or razing their cities.
I think that's it. Oh ~ important piece of information: I did the OCC on King.
I just tried this, and its great:
I took Tradition and Aristocracy to help me spam my wonders, then didnt spend any more policies. I were just one turn away from completing Porcelain Tower when a research agreement finished and gave me acoustics.
I took Constitution > Free Speech first to reduce the spend on policies after that, and also took Civil Society > Democracy so Babylon can keep on working two Scientist specialists and grow better, and my future Great Scientists will take much less time.
I still need to build National Epic and a Garden, but had wonders to build first plus a monument, library and temple which are more important.
I have my second city building Hagia Sophia and will build a third after Porcelain Tower is finished.
Ok, this is just seriously broken and too powerful:
o.O!!!!!
I took Tradition and Aristocracy to help me spam my wonders, then didnt spend any more policies. I were just one turn away from completing Porcelain Tower when a research agreement finished and gave me acoustics.
I took Constitution > Free Speech first to reduce the spend on policies after that, and also took Civil Society > Democracy so Babylon can keep on working two Scientist specialists and grow better, and my future Great Scientists will take much less time.
I still need to build National Epic and a Garden, but had wonders to build first plus a monument, library and temple which are more important.
I have my second city building Hagia Sophia and will build a third after Porcelain Tower is finished.
Ok, this is just seriously broken and too powerful:
o.O!!!!!
Ok, tbh this isnt actually good, or nice, its just WAAAAAAAY broken:
Well, its nice for the human player against the AI, but I can see it now, Babylon will be banned from HoF game submissions, they are even more powerful than Inca were in Civ IV.
Well, its nice for the human player against the AI, but I can see it now, Babylon will be banned from HoF game submissions, they are even more powerful than Inca were in Civ IV.
r_rolo1
King of myself
The problem is that you can this without babylon ... it will only take some more turns to get the 2 GS to bulb Acoustics. But yes, babylon GS bonus + ability of bulbing anything with a GS is bound to cheesiness, no turn around that.
P.S People of HoF are already discussing kicking babylon out That is quite a feat if you think that the game is out in less than half month
P.S People of HoF are already discussing kicking babylon out
That is quite a feat if you think that the game is out in less than half month Yea, you can do it without Babylon, but babylo still gets GS's twice as fast.
Plus they have bowmen for defence, and those things are crazy strong throughout the Ancient era.
I even had them standing up against Hoplites and Companion Cavalries in previous games with careful positioning and sniping. They still remain usable later on too and dont really need upgrading to crossbows, I could use them all the way to cannons, which I could actually get very fast with all those GS's.
I started a new game now increasing the difficulty to king, I still cant be bothered to play through full games, even though they give steam achievements too
Plus they have bowmen for defence, and those things are crazy strong throughout the Ancient era.
I even had them standing up against Hoplites and Companion Cavalries in previous games with careful positioning and sniping. They still remain usable later on too and dont really need upgrading to crossbows, I could use them all the way to cannons, which I could actually get very fast with all those GS's.
I started a new game now increasing the difficulty to king, I still cant be bothered to play through full games, even though they give steam achievements too
I made it in 335 BC this time on king difficulty:
Before I used to waste the first two on Philosophy and Theology, picking up Civil Service with GLIB. Now I tech Philosophy while building GLIB using shift - enter after it completes, and now I'm teching Theology because bulbing Education + Acoustics first is much better.
Before I used to waste the first two on Philosophy and Theology, picking up Civil Service with GLIB. Now I tech Philosophy while building GLIB using shift - enter after it completes, and now I'm teching Theology because bulbing Education + Acoustics first is much better.
I tried it with Marathon, Gandhi, Prince difficulty, and WOW.
I built Worker/Settler/Stonehenge/Library/Oracle in my capital and Great Library in my second city. My warrior was upgraded to a Spearman by a goody-hut, and I kidnapped another worker with him. Ignored $, focused on food and hammers, and hit the Renaissance in 1200 BC with three wonders and 5 policies ready to go. Focused on Freedom, getting the 2x culture in wonder cities, cheaper future civic cost, specialists eat half food, and + great person birth-rate. I'm currently building the Hagia Sofia to crank out even more great persons...
Again, wow. Excellent strategy!
EDIT
And 60 years later, Songhai and England declared war on me. I have a spearman and 204 gold.
EDIT 2
Aack... they got me!
Haha, 1400 culture by 1200 BC - that's crazy. Still, though, I guess no military = death?
r_rolo1
King of myself
You have time to make some military if you don't aim for extra speed ... that or a detour to CS ( via GLib ) to allow upgrade warriors to pikes will give you something to rest on top of.
Sure , this also depends of the proximity with other civs and such. In my try I had my part of the continent linked by two land bridges to the rest of it ( forming a inside sea ) and I had a CS right on one of them. That obviously helped the AI of not thinking on going to my town ... that and my pikeman, probably
Sure , this also depends of the proximity with other civs and such. In my try I had my part of the continent linked by two land bridges to the rest of it ( forming a inside sea ) and I had a CS right on one of them. That obviously helped the AI of not thinking on going to my town ... that and my pikeman, probably
