Discussion about Babylon

[AntSou]

Balance is an essential part to a fun strategy game experience, so that the player feels they have accomplished something through superior strategy and wit.

That's disproven by the appeal of Paradox and CA titles. Playing Rome Total War one knows it will be a greater challenge to start as some Germanic tribe rather than Rome. France and the Ottomans tend to be dominant in EU4, and it's completely unbalanced yet equally fun to play as either Germany or Poland in HOI4, despite the later being a much greater challenge.

So it's clearly not an essential part. Maybe that should be expected because Civs in Civ start from an equal standing. Some games like Age of Empires or Company of Heroes do need it. But those are RTS games, which typically are one hour matches.

 

[greenOak]

Just loading up a save from my last game and pissed around for a few turns (note the game was played on epic speed):

-Scottland got to ballistics on turn 201 or 400 AD
-Korea already had multiple Hwacha's (requires gunpowder) when I loaded the game at turn 186.
-I finished ballistics on turn 203 (430 AD) and could've gotten there a lot sooner if I went for the tech. I was making 285 science and 152 culture per turn as Japan and these outputs would've been higher if I actually focused for the 15-20 turns playing the game.

Sorry but 325 AD field cannons are far from game breaking, and only a small improvement over what other deity AI's were capable of. I would venture that getting field cannons before 325 AD is possible with any civ in the hands of a human player.

P.S Currently playing a bottom tier civ in Georgia, got boxed in and only have 7 cities, still managed to get field cannons on turn 141 (standard speed). Being 12 turns behind the AI in the renaissance era on deity difficulty is perfectly fine balance wise imo - and this was a slow start.

 

[bengalryan9]

That's disproven by the appeal of Paradox and CA titles. Playing Rome Total War one knows it will be a greater challenge to start as some Germanic tribe rather than Rome. France and the Ottomans tend to be dominant in EU4, and it's completely unbalanced yet equally fun to play as either Germany or Poland in HOI4, despite the later being a much greater challenge.

So it's clearly not an essential part. Maybe that should be expected because Civs in Civ start from an equal standing. Some games like Age of Empires or Company of Heroes do need it. But those are RTS games, which typically are one hour matches.

If they don't want how the game goes to be random, maybe they should play with AI civs set to random?

Do you still insist that Babylon is not a ridiculous addition in the game?Just see the pic below. Turn 133 and Babylon reached 16 Population. Plus I always have it the closest neighbor and of course it declared war on me with Cuirassiers spam in turn 133 while I was having Knights.As a result he wiped all of my army. How could anyone counter this? I mean I dont seek for perfect balance... but Babylon makes the game a parody.
If I uninstall Babylon dlc do I also loose Heroes mode?

a) The evidence you keep posting isn't quite as out of line as you want to make it out to be (as others have pointed out).
b) You can easily set up your game so that it doesn't have Babylon in it and still play with Heroes mode.

Of all the things in that picture, the thing that jumps out to me as being most out-of-whack for turn 133 isn't the city size of Babylon...

 

[Fluphen Azine]

ATEX just won a Science Victory wih Babylon at turn 138 : https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...y-science-victory.649761/page-7#post-15975223 using some cheesy strats such as hard pillage thanks to the military advance in order to avoid the lack of science. He won with less than 200 science per turn. With pillage strats and Babylon's mechanics if you go cheesy science per turn is no more a critera. It is quite amazing to see these strats. Pillage gameplays with Norway is also quick.

So I was probably wrong : for warring and pillage game Babylon seem to be one of the powerful and quicker civs for a science victory. For peaceful games I am more scpetish tho.

Babylon is Top Tier, OP, Crazy Good.

 

[Enfant_Sauvage]

Babylon is Top Tier, OP, Crazy Good.

I doubt about that for peaceful games. Call a civ OP is a thing, to prove it is another. Their potential on warring games is increadible but for peaceful games it still have to be proven.

And what is top tier for you ? for science games for example ?

 

[bengalryan9]

I doubt about that for peaceful games. Call a civ OP is a thing, to prove it is another. Their potential on warring games is increadible but for peaceful games it still have to be proven.

Realize that for some people around here "peaceful games" don't exist. Which is fine and all but it'd be nice if they'd at least acknowledge that how they play doesn't apply to everyone else.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Field cannons in the year 325AD and it's "totally awesome." How Civilization has fallen. If it's supposed to be fun, not balanced, why not allow our slingers to launch nuclear warheads at our foes? Why not give our medieval swordsmen vibranium shields so they can save the world like Captain America? Balance is an essential part to a fun strategy game experience, so that the player feels they have accomplished something through superior strategy and wit.

At this point I am fairly convinced folks are paid to come here and big up this game. I constantly read how the game is apparently is TOTALLY AWESOME, but in my experience it's just totally depressing.

If you intend to be that hyperbolic, why stop at slinger launching nuclear warheads? Why not a civ with a special ability that allows them to win after 3 next turn clicks? No one is getting paid to be on this forum, just somehow the extremely simple concept of "different people liking different things" is way above the comprehension level of some.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I doubt about that for peaceful games. Call a civ OP is a thing, to prove it is another. Their potential on warring games is increadible but for peaceful games it still have to be proven.

Realize that for some people around here "peaceful games" don't exist. Which is fine and all but it'd be nice if they'd at least acknowledge that how they play doesn't apply to everyone else.

Wholly agree. Pulling off an early war and snowballing from there is technically the easiest way to win the game, as AI usually cannot stop you from snowballing. But that "OP-ness" is laying in the playstyle or "how you play the game", not in the Civ ability, and cannot really prove that if the said civ is OP.

There is a reason why many good players tend to use peaceful SV turn numbers as the benchmark turn number, instead of turn numbers of a early-war-and-snowballing game.

 

[salty mud]

If you intend to be that hyperbolic, why stop at slinger launching nuclear warheads? Why not a civ with a special ability that allows them to win after 3 next turn clicks? No one is getting paid to be on this forum, just somehow the extremely simple concept of "different people liking different things" is way above the comprehension level of some.

Well exactly, why not? I'm not the one arguing that balance isn't necessary. As long as it's "fun", stick whatever you like into the game. Firaxis seem to be doing just that.

 

[Manol0]

-I finished ballistics on turn 203 (430 AD) and could've gotten there a lot sooner if I went for the tech. I was making 285 science and 152 culture per turn as Japan and these outputs would've been higher if I actually focused for the 15-20 turns playing the game.

Try play some game above Settler difficulty level plz and come back again...

 

[greenOak]

Try play some game above Settler difficulty level plz and come back again...

Nice try, but it was on deity. The AI certainly isn't getting to ballistics by 400 AD on settler. Maybe you should git gud.

 

[Manol0]

Nice try, but it was on deity. The AI certainly isn't getting to ballistics by 400 AD on settler. Maybe you should git gud.

Upload the saves. I know that AI after the updates has been certainly improved.. I ve already said above that Scotland started Space Project around 1000 AD in one of my recent games. I never complained about that. I actually like this kind of challenge. However having Field Cannons and Cuirassiers in 325 AD is nonsense.

 

[greenOak]

I'm not sure how to upload saves but I'll gladly do it if someone shows/links me to directions on how to do it..

Also, I don't know why you're so concerned with 325 AD ballistics if you don't care about 1000 AD satellite launch. The latter puts far more pressure on the player than the former. It's usually pretty easy to keep peace with the AI and Hammurabi's agenda isn't particularly difficult to satisfy.

 

[Manol0]

Field cannons in the year 325AD and it's "totally awesome." How Civilization has fallen. If it's supposed to be fun, not balanced, why not allow our slingers to launch nuclear warheads at our foes? Why not give our medieval swordsmen vibranium shields so they can save the world like Captain America? Balance is an essential part to a fun strategy game experience, so that the player feels they have accomplished something through superior strategy and wit.

At this point I am fairly convinced folks are paid to come here and big up this game. I constantly read how the game is apparently is TOTALLY AWESOME, but in my experience it's just totally depressing.

A sensible comment at last. I opened thread in Steam forum too and the comments section agreed with me. Plus as I read people also complain about Babylon in Facebook page. Only here I see this treatment. I remember I had this kind of treatment here in the past too while I expressed remarks about some Civ V issues like you couldnt shoot down atomic bomb plane with mobile SAM.Well the comments section here tried to devour me back then too. Your suspicion seems reasonable.

 

[salty mud]

That's disproven by the appeal of Paradox and CA titles. Playing Rome Total War one knows it will be a greater challenge to start as some Germanic tribe rather than Rome. France and the Ottomans tend to be dominant in EU4, and it's completely unbalanced yet equally fun to play as either Germany or Poland in HOI4, despite the later being a much greater challenge.

So it's clearly not an essential part. Maybe that should be expected because Civs in Civ start from an equal standing. Some games like Age of Empires or Company of Heroes do need it. But those are RTS games, which typically are one hour matches.

You're confusing balance with difficulty, and comparing apples to oranges. If you follow the Warhammer series of games, there was recently a huge discussion around Snikch and his "delete-a-faction" ability, with many arguing that it is, in fact, totally overpowered. Fans are clamouring for ways to large empires in CK2/3 to be made more unstable, because at the moment they are too strong and unbalanced.

 

[Manol0]

I'm not sure how to upload saves but I'll gladly do it if someone shows/links me to directions on how to do it..

Also, I don't know why you're so concerned with 325 AD ballistics if you don't care about 1000 AD satellite launch. The latter puts far more pressure on the player than the former. It's usually pretty easy to keep peace with the AI and Hammurabi's agenda isn't particularly difficult to satisfy.

First of all this happened once because Scotland had really good RNG.All I wanted to mention is that AI prior to last updates couldnt go so far ahead no matter what and now I m satisfied that AI acts more reasonable which means that under certain circumstances it can think smart and exploit the advantages that RNG may gives it.This is great impovement indeed
However Babylon is a completely different story. No matter what it gonna assault you with field cannons and cuirassiers spam in 130 turn. This is nonsense.

 

[bengalryan9]

Try play some game above Settler difficulty level plz and come back again...

Says the guy with a culture output of 18 in turn 133... maybe you shouldn't be so quick to talk down to anybody else?

 

[Manol0]

Says the guy with a culture output of 18 in turn 133... maybe you shouldn't be so quick to talk down to anybody else?

Do you want me to give you the seeds to see how you deal with Field Cannons and Cuirassiers spam in turn 130? Plus I play on Deity. You cant invest on every field at the same time so early on Deity. I had to prioritize science gold faith and of course army. Culture was necessarily my least invested field. Try some Deity games and you ll see what I mean.

 

[AntSou]

A sensible comment at last. I opened thread in Steam forum too and the comments section agreed with me. Plus as I read people also complain about Babylon in Facebook page. Only here I see this treatment. I remember I had this kind of treatment here in the past too while I expressed remarks about some Civ V issues like you couldnt shoot down atomic bomb plane with mobile SAM. Well the comments section here tried to devour me back then too. Your suspicion seems reasonable.

That's pretty needy. You're looking for a pat on the back rather than opinions and then get upset when you face disagreement.

You're confusing balance with difficulty, and comparing apples to oranges. If you follow the Warhammer series of games, there was recently a huge discussion around Snikch and his "delete-a-faction" ability, with many arguing that it is, in fact, totally overpowered. Fans are clamouring for ways to large empires in CK2/3 to be made more unstable, because at the moment they are too strong and unbalanced.

I'm not confusing anything.

That argument only serves to prove you wrong. If there was a huge discussion about Snikch being overpowered is because there wasn't agreement on the topic. And in fact a quick survey through google shows just that. Stop pretending you've access to some obvious greater truth and that everybody else can't possibly enjoy it and must therefore be on the payroll.

Secondly, the OP completely misses that asymmetrical balance is a thing and instead wants a direct nerf on Babylon. They could, for instance, make it so Babylon only gets 20% from Inspirations. That would be balance (though a bit ugly) without breaking Babylon's identity ability. But that's not what either you or the OP are asking for.

Third, it's hard to take someone seriously when they're at 18 Culture 133 turns in when the next worst Civ is at 58 in one picture, 72 in the other picture.

Worse still, he has no interest in learning, insists on playing Deity while having no understanding of the importance of Culture in the early game, then still has the audacity to accuse others of surely being newbs who must play at Settler difficulty. It is, at best, pretty childish.
-----------------

@Manol0 Take a screenshot of the tech tree on that last picture. I'm curious as to how advanced is China.

 

[salty mud]

I'm not confusing anything.

That argument only serves to prove you wrong. If there was a huge discussion about Snikch being overpowered is because there wasn't agreement on the topic. And in fact a quick survey through google shows just that. Stop pretending you've access to some obvious greater truth and that everybody else can't possibly enjoy it and must therefore be on the payroll.

Secondly, the OP completely misses that asymmetrical balance is a thing and instead wants a direct nerf on Babylon. They could, for instance, make it so Babylon only gets 20% from Inspirations. That would be balance (though a bit ugly) without breaking Babylon's identity ability. But that's not what either you or the OP are asking for.

Third, it's hard to take someone seriously when they're at 18 Culture 133 turns in when the next worst Civ is at 58 in one picture, 72 in the other picture.

Worse still, he has no interest in learning, insists on playing Deity while having no understanding of the importance of Culture in the early game, then still has the audacity to accuse others of surely being newbs who must play at Settler difficulty. It is, at best, pretty childish.

No need to get so butthurt over a computer game. Regarding the bold part, not true. Practically everyone agreed that it was overpowered, because it clearly is. The defenders of the mechanic just said, "don't use it then" as a defence. Which is perfectly valid; you can just not use it. That doesn't mean it isn't overpowered, and the balance is therefore thrown out the window if you do decide to use it.

The discussion serves to highlight that plenty of people do want balance in their games. I'm not asking or demanding for anything in particular and couldn't give a crap as to how OP's game is going; you picking out his culture counter is just deflecting away from the issue. I just don't agree with the notion that balance isn't necessary in single player games.