Hammurabi can get Machinery in the Ancient Era!

[Mesix]

In my first game as Babylon, I started with my standard military focused build: Scout, Scout, Slinger, Slinger, Slinger (or Archer if available). My first slinger killed an barbarian unit and got me a eureka for Archery (Babylon gets the full tech). I upgraded the two Slingers to Archers. When I finished building a third on about turn 20, I got the eureka for Machinery during the Ancient Era! After clearing a couple of barbarian camps, I had enough gold to upgrade one of my Archers to a Crossbowman. Do you know how easy it is to take down city defenses with a Crossbowman in the Ancient Era?

 

[pokiehl]

Yep, he sure can.

 

[criZp]

You can also make a builder, make 3 mines, and get apprenticeship with +1 production to those mines

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Medieval Infantry is possible too, but a little harder because you have to get Refining too for the Oil.

 

[iammaxhailme]

You can also make a builder, make 3 mines, and get apprenticeship with +1 production to those mines

After they revealed Gaul, I never thought they'd release someone who can reliably get apprenticeship EVEN FASTER!

The ancient Babylonian crossbow rush is going to shake up the metagame for a while, I expect

 

[berlin88]

Babylon can also reliably get the first religion in many games, if you happen to start near a natural wonder. Just send the initial warrior to go looking for one, and then you get instant astrology and can start building stone hedge or a religious district much faster than the AI.

The tribal villages also allow Babylon to get free techs early on as well.

Babylon may get a 50% science penalty, but all the free techs from Eureka's more than offset that penalty. I bet Babylon will eventually get nerfed a bit, like they did with Gran Columbia.

 

[Kotofei]

And 2 crossbowmen unlock bombards. Building an aqueduct unlocks niter. 2-3 eurekas from there gets you to field cannons.