Beware Babylon!

[grumble]

I thought for a while that I (Sumeria) was on track to get my first victory at Emperor level but Babylon just got a Science victory in 1888.
I was doing really well - I was at the top of the Score table with 1748 (Dido is second with 1449)
I have the most science per turn - 72 researched techs, 618pt (Hammurabi only has 343pt but he has 75 researched techs because of his advantages)
I am leading on every metric in the Demographics mod except for GNP (Dido has the most).
I have conquered 3 capitals and I am close to conquering a fourth. I think I could have conquered the world if I had had more time.
Note to self:
In future if Babylon is in the game either place even more emphasis on science than normal or conquer Babylon.

[plaguepenguin]

If memory serves (and it doesn't always lately), Babylon's RPs get reported with the -50% factored in, so in this game, at a reported 343 RPs, he's got enough pop and campuses with buildings to give him what would be 686 RPs for any other civ. You have conquered 3 other civs, yet only have 618 RPs per turn. Babylon has either taken a whole lot of land, more than matching your land acquired, or he is doing a better job at exploiting that land to get more pop and campuses. It can't be pop because you are ahead in all the demographics except gold, so it must be campuses.

So, sure, getting rid of Babylon is always an attractive option if practical, but the numbers you report suggest that the low emphasis on science was the problem here. Unless Babylon had done as much conquest as you managed, he must have fewer cities in which to build campuses, yet clearly he has more campuses. What I think of as a normal emphasis on science results in campuses in most cities, as a default, campuses in every city except those for which I have a specific reason not to build campuses.

[Lemurian1972]

I'll just point out in addition that Babylon's ability is only an advantage through the first half of the tech tree. Once you get to techs that require Spy or Great Person, they're often hosed.

If you'd been on track throughout the game you would have been in close pursuit when they reached that point, and easily passed them before they could reach the Science Victory.

Relative Score is the least useful metric for figuring out who is winning. Scoring under-rewards progress on most non-combat Victory Conditions, and is a lagging indicator for who is close to winning.

It truly pays to regularly monitor all victory conditions and world rankings once you've begun to industrialize, if not sooner. This is the kind of thing that shouldn't sneak up on you. Once you see an AI hit that second step of the Science Victory and have some research for the third, you should be heavily preparing to counter them somehow. Either with your own rush, Spies, or Open War (or all three).

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by grumble:

I thought for a while that I (Sumeria) was on track to get my first victory at Emperor level but Babylon just got a Science victory in 1888.
I was doing really well - I was at the top of the Score table with 1748 (Dido is second with 1449)
I have the most science per turn - 72 researched techs, 618pt (Hammurabi only has 343pt but he has 75 researched techs because of his advantages)
I am leading on every metric in the Demographics mod except for GNP (Dido has the most).
I have conquered 3 capitals and I am close to conquering a fourth. I think I could have conquered the world if I had had more time.
Note to self:
In future if Babylon is in the game either place even more emphasis on science than normal or conquer Babylon.

The best time to get rid of Babylon is before you start play. Hammeredrabbits just causes to many issues,

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

If RPs

Just wanted to say, this took me a moment to figure out based on context. In years on the boards for two different Civ games I've seen almost no one refer to them as Research Points, and abbreviating without using the full term at least once assumes the term is common knowledge or lingo for the game.

As I said, I figured it out from context, but if you want to be best understood by players of all ability levels, stating your terms is common courtesy.

[plaguepenguin]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

If RPs

Just wanted to say, this took me a moment to figure out based on context. In years on the boards for two different Civ games I've seen almost no one refer to them as Research Points, and abbreviating without using the full term at least once assumes the term is common knowledge or lingo for the game.

As I said, I figured it out from context, but if you want to be best understood by players of all ability levels, stating your terms is common courtesy.

As a common courtesy, I assume that readers on this forum pay attention to context.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

As a common courtesy, I assume that readers on this forum pay attention to context.

Good for you, but I was always taught it's the duty of the writer to make themselves clear to their reader, not force them to figure out what you meant. Not using unexplained abbreviations is a pretty common rule of technical writing.

You write a lot of posts explaining things here, so I thought you'd be interested in making sure you were best understood. My bad.

[Evrach]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by plaguepenguin:

As a common courtesy, I assume that readers on this forum pay attention to context.

You write a lot of posts explaining things here, so I thought you'd be interested in making sure you were best understood. My bad.

Dude, I was absolutly certain than nobody ever read any of PP (short for you know who ^^)'s post because they're faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too long to read XD
You prove me wrong ! Kudo to you.
(@PP : Just joking eh ^_^ don't take offense)

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Evrach:

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

You write a lot of posts explaining things here, so I thought you'd be interested in making sure you were best understood. My bad.

Dude, I was absolutly certain than nobody ever read any of PP (short for you know who ^^)'s post because they're faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too long to read XD
You prove me wrong ! Kudo to you.
(@PP : Just joking eh ^_^ don't take offense)

*snicker* normally I don't, that one was short.
(also kidding- though most of the time true, I just skim them or skip them since they generally seem correct, if longwinded. No harm in that, just not something I have time to dig into).

[Darklord]

Once an AI completes the first space goal, I tend to just send spies to pillage their spaceports.

They rarely fix them, so it's pretty easy to lock them down indefinitely.

Daniel.

[SLG]

Babylon ability and feature can cause Hammurabi to speed through the science tree. He gets 100% on scientific eurekas.