Zigzagzigal's Guides - Babylon (GS)

Babylon has a completely unique interaction with the technology tree and can use that advantage to get to key wonders, military units and era objectives first. Here, I detail Babylonian strategies and counter-strategies.

Introduction

Following this guide requires the Gathering Storm expansion.

It also assumes you have all other Civ 6 content, listed below, though it is not necessary to have these to utilise the key strategies of each civ.

• Pre-Rise and Fall content packs
  
  • Vikings, Poland, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia
• Rise and Fall Expansion
  
• New Frontier content packs
  
  • Maya/Grand Colombia, Ethiopia, Byzantium/Gauls, Babylon, Vietnam/Kublai Khan, Portugal

These content packs include exclusive civs, city-states, districts, buildings, wonders, natural wonders, resources, and a disaster, but not core game mechanics - all you need is the base game and the Gathering Storm expansion for those.

I was called by name to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, so that the strong should not harm the weak. Retribution is to be proportionate, yet sufficient. Those who attempt to slander others before the courts shall not be assumed correct until they bring forth proof. Through justice I lead; through justice there is order.

How to use this guide

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is if they have one.
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) is inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but an indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories (which offer production to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - Obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost)

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together (typically 3-4 tile gaps between city centres). This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out (typically 5-6 tile gaps between city centres). Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GPP - Short for Great Person Points. Districts, buildings and wonders generate these points and with enough you can claim a Great Person of the corresponding type.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit or infrastucture.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Sniping - Targeting a specific city for capture directly, ignoring other enemy cities along the way. Typically used in the context of "capital sniping" - taking a civ's original capital as quickly as possible to contribute towards domination victory without leading to a drawn-out war.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district, costs half as much to build and offers some unique advantages on top.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be trained by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader.

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline

Start Bias

Babylon has a tier 3 start bias towards rivers. This makes it easier to use the Palgum unique building.

Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil

• Empire-wide science output reduced by 50%.
  
  • This stacks additively with other empire-wide science outputs. For example, having the Communism government adds a 10% bonus, which results in Babylon having 60% of the base empire-wide science output.
    
  • One-off science boosts (such as from Great Scientists like Charles Darwin and Janaki Ammal) are unaffected.
• Eureka boosts instantly complete all research for their technology, even if Babylon lacks prerequisite technologies.
  
  • You may directly research any technology you have the direct prerequisites for by selecting the technology on the science panel of the world tracker. Selecting it on the technology tree will instead start researching all its indirect prerequisites as well.

Hammurabi's Leader Ability: Ninu Ilu Sirum

• When completing the following districts for the first time, you will also gain the corresponding building in that city:
  
  • Aerodrome - Hangar
    
  • Campus - Library
    
  • Commercial Hub - Market
    
  • Diplomatic Quarter - Consulate
    
  • Encampment - Barracks
    
  • Entertainment Complex - Arena
    
  • Harbour - Lighthouse
    
  • Holy Site - Shrine
    
  • Industrial Zone - Workshop
    
  • Preserve - Grove
    
  • Theatre Square - Amphitheatre
    
  • Water Park - Ferris Wheel
• Upon building an Aqueduct, Canal, Dam, Government Plaza, Neighbourhood or Spaceport district for the first time, receive an envoy.

Unique Unit: Sabum Kibittum

An ancient-era melee infantry unit which does not replace anything

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Resource	Maintenance
None	Iron Working ** Technology Classical era	None	Swordsman (120 20 )	35 or 140 or 70 *	None	None

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

**If you have insufficient iron, you may continue to train Sabum Kibittum units even beyond researching Iron Working.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
17	N/A	3	N/A	3	Deals -85% damage to city walls and urban defences	+17 vs. cavalry units +5 vs. anti-cavalry units

Notable features

Sabum Kibittum units have the following negative changes relative to Warriors:

• 17 strength, down from 20
  
• Costs 120 gold to upgrade to a Swordsman, up from 110 (+9%)

And the following positive changes:

• Costs 35 production/140 gold/70 faith, down from 40 (-12.5%)
  
• 3 movement points, up from 2
  
• 3 sight, up from 2
  
• +17 strength vs. cavalry units

Unique Building: Palgum

An ancient-era city centre building which replaces the Water Mill

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Pillage yield
Irrigation Technology Ancient era	City must be adjacent to a river	None	80 or 320 or 160 *	None	None

*Purchasing City Centre buildings with faith requires you to be suzerain over the Valletta city-state.

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
2 1	1 to all land tiles worked by the city adjacent to a source of fresh water	None	None	None

Negative changes

• Does not directly provide +1 food.
  
• Does not provide +1 food to bonus resources worked by farms.

Variable changes

• Unlocked with the Irrigation technology instead of Wheel.

Positive changes

• Provides 2 production per turn, up from 1
  
• Provides 1 housing
  
• Provides +1 food for all land tiles worked by the city adjacent to a source of fresh water

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.

Leader	Culture	Diplomacy	Domination	Religion	Science
Hammurabi	7/10 (Good)	5/10 (Decent)	9/10 (Ideal)	4/10 (Acceptable)	7/10 (Good)

Culture is a fine route for Babylon, and a cultural Babylon will rely heavily on wonders. Skipping ahead in technology allows Babylon to get a huge head start in certain wonders such as the Ruhr Valley, but also makes wonders worth more tourism. The tourism value of wonders scales based on the difference between the era where they first come available and the research era your civ is currently in. This is easier in smaller map sizes where you can meet all the civs (and start generating tourism) sooner, and where wonders are less competitive.

The diplomatic game doesn't offer a lot for Babylon, but their bonus envoys can help secure some early city-state alliances.

Domination is Babylon's strongest path owing to their ability to quickly get to technologies like Refining and Steel, giving them access to Artillery far before anyone else. Being able to rush to Industrialisation also helps manage the high production costs associated with training such units. All this being said, there are a few notable limitations. Babylon's incentive to build large cities coupled with the lack of amenity bonuses in the technology tree can cause war weariness to be particularly harsh. The arrangement of eureka boosts also tends to push Babylon away from cavalry units, making them potentially predictable to opponents.

Babylon lacks advantages in the religious game, aside from the neat bonus of receiving a free Shrine with your first Holy Site (which can make securing a religion a fair bit easier). Most pieces of research affecting religion are found in the civics rather than technology tree, so the Babylonian civ ability does little to help there.

Babylon can excel at scientific victories despite the 50% global science penalty making researching future-era technologies difficult. However, this relies heavily on your ability to secure empire-wide sources of science like the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder and having a large excess of amenities - something that is trickier to manage than using Babylon's technology lead to go for domination. Kilwa Kisiwani is also much more effective on larger map sizes where there are more scientific city-states available, so take that into account when deciding your victory route direction.

Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil (Part 1/4)

Few unique abilities shake up the game quite as much as Babylon's, creating many new potential strategies but also making some typical ones far less viable. You can skip ahead in technology, skipping regular prerequisites, but typical research paths without eurekas become a lot slower.

Be warned that this is one of the game's most complex civ bonuses to master, though any player can have do well with some of the unique tricks this civ ability enables.

The complexity of this ability means this section of the guide will be divided into many subsections:

• The Babylonian Technology Tree (Part 1) - Provides a quick reference guide to potential Babylonian research paths.
  
• Basics of Babylonian Research (Part 1) - Explains the basics of what to look out to maximise research effectiveness as Babylon.
  
• Strategy 1: Fast Industrialisation (Part 2) - Explains an easy starting strategy for Babylon to get a strong production base, and other strategies that can branch off it:
  
  • Early Spec Ops
    
  • Fast Flight
    
  • Da Vinci at Halicarnassus
    
  • A Cultural Alternative
• Strategy 2: Alternative Rushes (Part 3) - Domination strategies dependent on Babylon's beelining abilities, taking different research paths:
  
  • Instant Men-at-Arms
    
  • Quick Crossbowmen
    
  • Sort-of Quick Cuirassiers
• Strategy 3: Scientific Babylon (Parts 3-4) - How to use Babylon's civ ability to a scientific victory.
  
• Summary (Part 4) - Summarises this entire section in fewer words.

The Babylonian Technology Tree

Click on the image and then on the link to see the full-sized version. You can zoom in by holding the CTRL key and using your mouse's scroll wheel, or by holding CTRL and the + key.

If no image appears, that's a bug with Steam Guides. It's sometimes annoying like that.

The image above shows Civ 6's technology tree in a whole new format - sorted not by technology prerequisites but by eurekas. For example, the Irrigation technology unlocks the unique Palgum building. As a Water Mill replacement, building it will activate the eureka for Construction, immediately granting you the technology.

Notably, it is possible to reach the Steel, Plastics and Ballistics technologies as Babylon purely via eureka boosts. More about special Babylonian beelines like that will be covered later in this section.

Basics of Babylonian Research

For most civs, researching faster is primarily a matter of accumulating science. For Babylon, however, the key yield for Babylonian research is production. A huge proportion of eurekas rely on your ability to build something or train a unit, so more production will get you through the process faster.

While your science output will be initially very small, you'll still have to choose technologies to use it on. Use it on technologies that can't be boosted (e.g. Animal Husbandry), technologies with very difficult eurekas you're unlikely to get in time, and technologies which can only be boosted through Spies.

While the science Campuses offer might not be very helpful at first, the Great Scientist Points they generate can be rather handy, given many Great Scientists offer random eurekas. Still, if you can rush to the classical-era Recorded History civic and build the Great Library wonder, you can get a free eureka whenever any civ gains a Great Scientist, allowing you to neglect building additional Campuses altogether if you so wish.

Any source of eurekas will be helpful for Babylon. Aside from sources already mentioned, you can also receive them from tribal villages, having a level 2 or higher research alliance with another civ (requiring the medieval-era Civil Service civic), stealing off another civ via Spies, the Nobel Prize in Physics scored competition (if Sweden is present in the game) and the information/future-era Sky and Stars Golden Age dedication.

One hidden downside of this ability is that you may end up activating a eureka and granting a technology you're not yet ready for. As an example, having any level 2 alliance will activate the Chemistry eureka, giving you the technology and unlocking AT Crews, but making you unable to train the cheaper Pike and Shot units any more. Still, in most games this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Now, despite Babylon being mostly dependent on eurekas for research, you can overcome Babylon's 50% science generation penalty by having a large surplus of amenities or by being suzerain over a lot of scientific city-states while owning the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder. This will be covered in more depth later on in the Scientific Babylon part of this section.

Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil (Part 2/4)

Strategy 1: Fast Industrialisation

There are many ways you can start Babylon's game, but a reliable one is to rush the Industrialisation technology. Here's the basic plan:

1. Begin by researching the Mining technology.
   
2. Train a Settler and a Builder.
   
3. Settle a second city, and build three mines with the Builder to unlock Apprenticeship.
   
4. Build an Industrial Zone in both cities. The first to complete an Industrial Zone should train a Builder to help chop woods or rainforest in the second city, helping you get Workshops in both quickly. This unlocks Industrialisation.
   
5. You can now build Factories and Coal Power Plants for a significant production boost.
   
6. If you don't have coal near your territory, you'll still have time to settle coal spots before any other civ is aware they're on the map.

There are a few complications to this plan - you'll need defensive units and you'll need to expand to more than just two cities for the sake of general development, but it's a good start. Consider training a Sabum Kibittum unit early on to help with basic exploration.

Nonetheless, there are great rewards to be had. Building a Coal Power Plant immediately puts you at the Refining technology, unlocking Battleships which can devastate any coastal city this early in the game. Constructing Industrial Zones and their buildings very early on will give you a huge advantage in securing Great Engineers. And most notably, the production yields will help you with getting subsequent eurekas, training advanced units and securing wonders alike.

It is important to note that building Coal Power Plants this early will speed up climate change and result in a loss of diplomatic favours, so consider converting some of them to Oil Power Plants or investing in renewable energy later on.

Early Spec Ops

Building a Coal Power Plant puts you at Refining, which allows you to build an oil well. Doing so skips you ahead to the atomic-era Plastics technology, allowing you to train Spec Ops. Though weak units for their era, they are strong relative to the units other civs will have available at the time. You can fight with them to gain experience and earn the Ambush promotion, giving them a massive +20 strength boost.

Fast Flight

The Industrialisation technology is most useful for unlocking Factories and Coal Power Plants, but it also unlocks the Ruhr Valley wonder. Once you're done setting up a Coal Power Plant for the production boost, build this wonder! It'll be extremely uncompetitive, offer a huge production boost, and importantly, as an industrial-era wonder it will activate the eureka for Flight.

With Flight and Refining, you'll be able to build an Aerodrome and some Biplanes. Biplanes can function akin to ranged units, but with a massive 75 ranged strength and an attack range of 4. They're also the only air unit which requires oil rather than aluminium; the latter requires the Radio technology which has a rather awkward eureka boost (building a National Park - this requires the modern-era Conservation civic).

Da Vinci at Halicarnassus

Babylon's ability to secure and develop Industrial Zones early gives them a massive advantage to generating Great Engineers. You can build on that advantage with the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder, which gives all Engineers an extra retirement charge. The wonder requires the classical-era Defensive Tactics civic, but developing a strong production base means you can often beat civs with a stronger culture output.

With the wonder secured, look out for the renaissance-era Great Engineer Leonardo da Vinci. He has a particularly powerful retirement bonus for Babylon: +3 culture per turn for all Workshops (helping you greatly in civic research) and a random modern-era eureka! Retiring him twice gives you an impressive +6 culture for all Workshops and two modern-era technologies for free! It's worthwhile to save up some gold or faith to secure him via patronage.

A Cultural Alternative

Reaching Coal Power Plants very early gives you an immense production advantage (especially in conjunction with Governor Magnus with the Vertical Integration promotion), making it easy to build a lot of wonders. With lots of Great Engineers and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder as well, you can also get plenty of charges to directly rush the production of wonders.

Wonders create tourism based on the difference between the era they first come available, and the research era you're currently in. For example, Stonehenge (an ancient-era wonder) provides 2 tourism in the ancient research era, 3 in the classical, and so forth. The Colosseum (a classical-era wonder) provides 2 tourism in the classical research era, 3 in the medieval, and so forth. As Babylon can very quickly rush to the atomic era via the Plastics technology, you can easily get 8 tourism out of every ancient-era wonder, 7 out of every classical-era one and so forth.

As you can only generate tourism against civs you have met, the cultural victory path for Babylon works best on smaller map sizes - which has the added benefit of making wonders less competitive. This contrasts with the scientific game, which for Babylon is more effective on larger map sizes.

Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil (Part 3/4)

Strategy 2: Alternative Rushes

Here's a couple of alternative domination paths that still lean on Babylon's unparalleled beelining ability, but don't directly branch from the fast-Industrialisation strategy.

Instant Men-at-Arms

By researching Mining and constructing three Mines, you can instantly boost to Apprenticeship, allowing you to train Men-at-Arms units (with Bronze Working for iron resources - kill three Barbarians for that). Build a quarry as well for Masonry, and you can bring along a Battering Ram to take down enemy cities quickly.

Quick Crossbowmen

Babylon can unlock Crossbowmen with no research whatsoever! All you need to do is this:

1. Train a Slinger and kill a unit with it, unlocking Archery.
   
2. Upgrade that Slinger to an Archer and train two more, unlocking Machinery.

This research path can be done parallel to the fast-Industrialisation strategy, and the eurekas only require you to train units that can be upgraded to Crossbowmen anyway. It's a wonderfully efficient strategy which is great for helping you conquer a neighbour. Sabum Kibittum units can be used to get the last hit on enemy cities to capture them.

Sort-of Quick Cuirassiers

It is possible to get to Ballistics and unlock Cuirassiers having only researched Mining and otherwise have gained all the technologies via eurekas. Cuirassiers are fast and have no resource maintenance, though they can't take advantage of Siege Towers. Luckily, Ballistics, the technology which unlocks Cuirassiers also unlocks Field Cannons and you'll unlock Bombards along the way as well, so blasting through city defences won't be too hard.

Because Machinery is on the way to Ballistics, it's a good idea to start this path by embarking on the Quick Crossbowmen strategy. From there, you'll also need the following:

1. Research Mining.
   
2. Kill three Barbarians to unlock Bronze Working so you can build an Encampment.
   
3. Train a Builder and build a quarry to unlock Masonry.
   
4. Build Ancient Walls to unlock Engineering.
   
5. Build an Aqueduct to unlock Military Engineering.
   
6. Build an Armoury in one of your Encampment cities, so you can train a Military Engineer.
   
7. Train two Crossbowmen to unlock Metal Casting.
   
8. Build a nitre mine or gain nitre from a city-state.
   
9. Build two Bombard units, unlocking Siege Tactics.
   
10. Build two forts with a Military Engineer, unlocking Ballistics.

Strategy 3: Scientific Babylon

Babylon can quickly get to some technologies such as Industrialisation, but you'll notice that many late technologies lack direct eurekas. On the face of it, this may make the Babylonian scientific game appear considerably harder than it is for other civs, but by rushing to key technologies and stacking empire-wide science outputs, Babylon can compete with some of the best scientific civs.

This strategy works best on larger map sizes. The reason for that is it's heavily dependent on you securing the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder and then becoming suzerain of multiple scientific city-states for global science bonuses. Kilwa Kisiwani requries the Machinery technology (to get there, kill a unit with a Slinger and train three Archers).

Global science bonuses like the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder stack additively with Babylon's science penalties. For example, being suzerain over two scientific city-states while owning Kilwa Kisiwani adds a 15% science bonus. Combined with Babylon's 50% science penalty, Babylon's effective science rate goes from 50% to 65%.

Why is this particularly useful for Babylon? Because it closes the research speed gap between Babylon and other civs. If Babylon has a 50% research rate and other civs 100%, those other civs have 2x as much science per turn as Babylon. But if Babylon has a 65% research rate and other civs 115%, the effective multiplier for other civs drops to 1.77x. The more empire-wide science modifiers you can stack, the smaller Babylon's disadvantage is even relative to other civs with the same modifiers.

You can also get a science modifier in a city with sufficient amenities. This is easier if the city has a small population, so consider going to the city screen and clicking on the food icon twice to make the city avoid growing where possible. However, given cities provide +0.5 science per point of population, and bigger cities are more productive, consider this carefully.

Alongside maximising your science output, you'll want to have a high culture output as many key technologies (notably Robotics) require you to get far into the civics tree for their boosts. Getting the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder and the renaissance-era Great Engineer Leonardo da Vinci will help a lot.

Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil (Part 4/4)

The Road to Scientific Victory

The final push to scientific victory has two key research stages. The first is the pre-Future era segments, which are consistently placed in the technology tree. These technologies are Rocketry, Satellites and Nanotechnology. To research all three of these, it helps immensely to have the modern-era Radio technology, which requires the modern-era Conservation civic to boost.

Technology	Component Unlocked	Direct Prerequisites	Boost	Notes
Rocketry	Spaceport district, Earth Satellite project	Radio and Chemistry	Great Engineer or Spy only	The modern-era Great Engineer Robert Goddard can give you the boost to Rocketry, but otherwise you'll need to research this directly. Both of Rocketry's direct prerequisites require things from the civics tree. Chemistry needs a level 2 alliance, which in turn requires the Civil Service civic and a willing other civ. Radio requires a National Park, requiring the Conservation civic.
Satellites	Launch Moon Landing project	Advanced Flight and Rocketry	Build two Broadcast Centres	You'll need the Radio technology and Humanism civic for the boost, along with two Theatre Squares you can build Broadcast Centres in.
Nanotechnology	Launch Mars Colony project	Composites	Build an Aluminium mine	All you need is the Radio technology and a spare Builder charge for the boost!

The next stage is to get the future-era Smart Materials technology. Future-era technologies have randomised prerequisites, so what you'll need to do to get there is different every game. You'll typically need Robotics, Nuclear Fusion, and Nanotechnology but you can sometimes need Telecommunications or Stealth Technology.


Be sure to check this part of the technology tree to work out what precisely you'll need.

Putting aside Nanotechnology, which has already been covered, let's look at these other information-era technologies you may need:

Technology	Direct Prerequisites	Boost	Notes
Nuclear Fusion	Lasers	Great Engineer or Spy only.	Nuclear Fusion's only direct prerequisite is Lasers, which can be boosted by owning two Drones. Drones can be built with the Computers technology, which has a few different methods to boost. You can either take any tier three government (Communism, Democracy or Fascism), or retire the industrial-era Great Engineer Ada Lovelace or modern-era Great Scientist Alan Turing.
Robotics	Computers, Satellites, Guidance Systems and Lasers	Have the Globalisation civic.	Researching Robotics directly is a bad idea due to its sheer number of prerequisites. Instead, a heavy investment in culture throughout the game will help you get to Globalisation at a reasonable speed.
Stealth Technology	Synthetic Materials	Great Engineer or Spy only.	While you can't easily boost Stealth Technology, boosting Synthetic Materials isn't so bad. You'll need to build two Aerodromes, requiring in turn the Flight technology. Flight can be boosted with any industrial-era or later wonder - the Ruhr Valley being usually the easiest for Babylon.
Telecommunications	Computers	Great Engineer or Spy only.	Unlocking Telecommunications is similar to Nuclear Fusion in that you'll want to start by unlocking Computers with either an appropriate Great Person or a tier three government.

With all the prerequisite technologies done, what remains is to research future-era technologies until you can get to Smart Materials to launch the Offworld Mission. Then, unlock Offworld Mission to be able to build Lagrange Laser Stations to speed up the exoplanet mission.

Backup Strategy

Because the last few technologies for scientific victory are so hard to boost, Babylon can end up losing precious time in the space race to competitors. If this is the case, you can use your rush to the Robotics technology to aid with Giant Death Robot-led warfare. Aside from Robotics, you'll also need the Combined Arms technology to reveal uranium, but that can be easily boosted by forming three armies or armadas (requiring the modern-era mobilisation civic, which you should already have by this point).

Summary

• Research Mining, build three mines and then two Industrial Zones with Workshops for a strong production start.
  
• Pushing for early Factories will get you a lot of Great Engineers.
  
• Train a Slinger, kill a unit with it and train three Archers for an easy Crossbowman force.
  
• You can overcome Babylon's science penalty with the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder and suzerain status over scientific city-states. Alternatively, having the Great Library wonder can allow you to forgo Campuses and still get much of their benefit.

Unique Unit: Sabum Kibittum

While Babylon's least impactful unique, the Sabum Kibittum unit does offer a fair compromise between the mobility of a Scout and the strength of a Warrior.

Exploration

Sabum Kibittum units can be trained from the start of the game. While depending on your start you might want to train a Slinger first instead to help with the boost for Archery, it's still worth training one as a scout. With 3 movement points and 3 sight, few units this early in the game are as effective at exploration, helping you track down tribal villages and potential settling spots faster.

The chance of getting a technology or eureka boost (or two!) from tribal villages is 1 in 7, or 14%, which means it's not a bonus you can rely on, but is nonetheless useful to aim for. The two free eurekas reward cannot be unlocked until turn 30, and the free technology isn't unlocked until turn 50. Because of the way tribal village probabilities work, the best time for Babylon to uncover tribal villages is between turns 30 and 49, as the two eureka boost bonus will have a mildly higher chance of appearing then relative to after turn 50. Still, the difference is tiny and not worth playing around in most games.

With the Commando promotion, Sabum Kibittum units are capable of moving four tiles per turn - as fast as Horsemen! That movement bonus also applies when embarked, so it can be a good idea to send a unit or two across the ocean once you have the Cartography technology, arrange Open Borders with another civ on a new continent, and explore their lands with them.

Combat

With only 17 strength, Sabum Kibittum units are rather weak in direct combat, though their slightly lower production cost relative to Warriors helps offset that somewhat, and their strength is still substantially better than that of Scouts.

This lower strength can be a problem when clearing Barbarian Encampments. Without the Discipline military policy card, Sabum Kibittum units are at a 3 point strength disadvantage against Barbarian Spearmen and Warriors. Their higher sight at least lets them see Barbarians coming, and their high mobility means they can almost always escape to friendly territory, so this isn't as bad of a problem as it may at first appear.

Sabum Kibittum units also have a massive +17 strength bonus against cavalry units. This makes them almost as strong as Spearmen in this role for just over half the price. Their higher mobility and sight also makes them good at catching enemy Heavy Chariots and Horsemen. This is most effective against Barbarian cavalry units, but can also be effective against rushing civs dependent on cavalry, most notably Scythia.

Obsoletion

Sabum Kibittum units' low strength combined with the nature of Babylon's civ ability means you'll generally not want to train too many, and any units you can upgrade them into will be substantially more powerful - albeit slower. Because Sabum Kibittum units don't have a maintenance cost, are relatively mobile and have a high sight radius, they're good for exploring safe areas like the lands of another civ you have open borders with. Once you run out of locations like those, however, it's definitely time to upgrade them.

Summary

• Sabum Kibittum units can fill the role of Scouts, Spearmen and Warriors alike.
  
• Due to the nature of Babylon's civ ability, don't train too many.

Hammurabi's Leader Ability: Ninu Ilu Sirum (Part 1/2)

Babylon's civ ability is stronger the more production you have, given that most eurekas rely on your ability to build or train things quickly. As a result, Hammurabi's leader ability is particularly welcome as it saves quite a bit of production in the crucial early parts of the Babylonian game, allowing you to rush through key technologies even faster. It can also provide a few envoys which can be handy for securing strategic resources or extra yields via city-states.

It's important to remember this bonus only takes effect the first time you build a type of district.

Districts which receive free buildings

Aerodrome

Hangars are among the most expensive buildings you receive for free, though one of the less impactful ones. Still, it provides +2 air unit capacity for its city and +2 production per turn, so it's excellent if you are developing a key Biplane-producing city and want to get to work as soon as possible.

Campus

There's two key advantages of a free Library - one, it means more Great Scientist Points for a better shot at eurekas, and two, it allows you to start building the Great Library with the Recorded History civic. The latter is a very powerful wonder for Babylon!

Commercial Hub

Immediately completing a Market means you can have an extra point of trade route capacity sooner than normal. It also means more gold sooner, which is important for Babylon given how much later-game units cost to maintain.

Diplomatic Quarter

The Diplomatic Quarter is best-placed in a larger city, as they're both more likely to have the district capacity spare and are more likely to need the extra Spy defence. For the most effective results, build it in the city you intend to build Kilwa Kisiwani in as the city-specific multipliers the wonder offers can stack nicely with the envoy bonuses buildings in the Diplomatic Quarter offer. Getting a free building allows the city to get back to work on things more directly relevant to your victory goals.

Encampment

While Encampments usually offer a choice of a Barracks or Stable, Babylon's first Barracks will always contain a Barracks. That's not generally a problem, however, as aside from Cuirassiers, most cavalry units are quite hard for Babylon to beeline. A free Barracks means you can use its helpful +1 housing and +1 production bonuses to complement the Palgum UB, and you'll be able to build an Armoury immediately at the Military Engineering technology. Having an Armoury is necessary for the boosts to Gunpowder and Ballistics.

Entertainment Complex

Unless carefully managed, Babylon is particularly prone to running an amenity deficit, as amenity-granting buildings are found in the civics tree rather than the technology tree, while the Palgum UB encourages the building of tall cities. Getting an Arena for free not only means your first Entertainment Complex will be worth 3 amenities, but also that you'll be able to start work on the Colosseum wonder sooner for extra amenities on top.

Harbour

The Lighthouse is an excellent building to get for free for two key reasons: One, it offers +1 trade route capacity, and two, its array of bonuses will help your first coastal city to catch up to your other cities (assuming you didn't start by the sea). It also lets you start work on the Great Lighthouse wonder sooner, which can be useful for cutting down the time needed for a domination victory on some maps.

Holy Site

Simply discovering a natural wonder will grant you the Astrology technology. If you then build a Holy Site, you'll immediately generate two Great Prophet Points per turn. This generally isn't enough on its own to generate a Great Prophet - you'll probably need a second Holy Site to do that - but it does give Babylon a curious edge at founding a religion relative to most non-religious civs.

Industrial Zone

Quite possibly the best bonus this leader ability has to offer. Babylon can quickly rush to Industrialisation to get an Industrial Zone while its scaling cost is still very low. With a free Workshop on top, completing the district can be as much as a +5 production boost while it's still the ancient game era. You'll need a second city to build an Industrial Zone and Workshop to boost Industrialisation, but you can rush this by training Builders in your first city and having them chop woods down in your second, with the help of Governor Magnus (the Steward).

Preserve

Preserves don't lead to any eurekas, though they can be a decent alternative source of culture in a city with the Grove building and high-appeal tiles. This is best-built in a city with riverside woods, as they have high appeal and will generate a lot of food with both a Grove and a Palgum.

Theatre Square

Theatre Square adjacency bonuses are based on district and wonder placement rather than terrain, so it tends to take a while for them to generate decent amounts of culture in their own right. As such, getting a free Amphitheatre helps to make your first copy of the district more impactful sooner, and also ensures you have somewhere to put your first Great Works of Writing.

Water Park

Water Parks are the only district where their first and second building are unlocked at the same time. This means immediately after building your first Water Park district, you can build an Aquarium and enjoy the amenity boost for cities within nine tiles. To maximise the number of cities in range, build the Water Park on an inland lake.

Hammurabi's Leader Ability: Ninu Ilu Sirum (Part 2/2)

Districts which grant an envoy

Building any non-speciality district, or a Government Plaza for the first time, grants a bonus envoy rather than a free building. Envoys in city-states increase the yields of specific buildings, which is particularly helpful in the case of industrial city-states as Babylon has an easy time getting to Coal Power Plants for the full bonus.

• Aqueducts are unlocked at the Engineering technology. Research mining, build a quarry and build Ancient Walls to get there. This is one of the easiest districts for Babylon to unlock.
  
• Canals require the Steam Power technology, which requires two Shipyards (and hence both the Celestial Navigation and Mass Production technologies) to boost. This can be a bit slow to unlock if your coastal cities are weak.
  
• Dams require the Buttress technology. Building any classical-era or later wonder will unlock it - good options are the Great Library and Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.
  
• The Government Plaza requires the State Workforce civic, unlocked very early in the game. You'll want to build it anyway no matter your civ, so it's no great diversion.
  
• Neighbourhoods require the industrial-era Urbanisation civic. It's necessary to go through Urbanisation on the way to your tier three government, so they're not too hard to unlock.
  
• Spaceports require the atomic-era Rocketry technology, and due to this difficult requirement and their high production cost, that's best left to players aiming for a scientific victory.

Summary

• This ability mostly serves to complement the civ ability by saving you some production.
  
• Getting a Commercial Hub and Harbour built quickly will help boost your trade route capacity.

Unique Building: Palgum

Palgums are handy and versatile buildings - and a rare UB with no district requirement. Nonetheless, they do require your cities to be placed next to a river, which can be quite a limitation when planning out your city placements.

Unlike regular Water Mills, Palgums are unlocked at Irrigation, not the Wheel. This makes the building a little harder to unlock for Babylon due to the way Babylon's civ ability works. Typically, the best use of Babylon's first Builder is to create three mines and boost Apprenticeship. The eureka boost for the Wheel (improve a resource with a mine) would fit into this strategy, but Irrigation's boost (improve a resource with a farm) does not. Nonetheless, you'll be able to pick up the eureka with your second Builder, so it's not so bad.

Using Palgums

A very helpful feature of Palgums is their increased production bonus: +2 instead of +1. Combined with the fast-Industrialisation strategy, Babylon can achieve a powerful production base ready to rush through wonders or train up later-era units.

As for the food bonus, it may appear to be intended for building tall cities, but there's actually a few different ways you can use it. Hills adjacent to lakes, rivers and oases will receive the +1 food bonus - not just tiles you can build farms on. This allows you to have mines which provide enough food to cover the citizens needed to work them, allowing the city to work more production tiles than may otherwise be the case.

Conclusion

Any city you intend to become highly productive should be built on a river to gain the full benefits of the Palgum UB. While it's not necessary to settle every city on a river, the potential production advantages gained from not having to work as many food tiles are pretty significant.

Administration - Government and Policy Cards

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Governments

Tier One

Your early options are fairly open depending on which strategy you wish to pursue. If you want to rush Men-at-Arms, it's worth picking up Oligarchy at first until you have the legacy card, then switching to a different government for the yield bonuses. Classical Republic is a reliable choice as its extra economic policy card slots help with early expansion, but Autocracy is also good. You can rush to Industrialisation for production, and use Autocracy to help build wonders even faster.

The Ancestral Hall helps save precious early production on expansion, but if you want to take Babylon's bonuses to war, the Warlord's Throne can be effective.

Tier Two

Merchant Republic is a great choice. Faster district construction synergises with Hammurabi's leader ability, while the gold bonus can help cover the high maintenance cost of units from later eras.

The Intelligence Agency allows you to more effectively steal eurekas (and therefore technologies) from other civs, though if you have a high faith output from conquests, consider the Grand Master's Chapel to save yourself some production obtaining new units.

Tier Three

Fascism is ideal for a domination game, but otherwise Communism performs well. The 10% science bonus stacks additively with Babylon's 50% penalty, making a bigger difference to your science output relative to other civs. The production boost is useful for building wonders.

Take the War Department for a domination game, Royal Society for a scientific game and National History Museum for a cultural game.

Tier Four

Synthetic Technocracy is best for domination and scientific games - the power bonus means you can support your buildings with fewer strategic resources, leaving more free for military units, while the bonus to city projects helps in the space race. Cultural players will do better with Digital Democracy.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Agoge (Military, requires Craftsmanship) - Sabum Kibittum units become essentially cheaper than Scouts with this policy card, while being just as mobile, stronger and having a larger sight range. This policy card will also help you train Slingers and Archers, needed to boost your way to Machinery.

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) - Skipping ahead to later eras comes with hefty unit maintenance costs. Artillery for example need a massive 6 gold per turn!

Corvée (Economic, requires State Workforce) - A cultural Babylonian game works best by rushing ahead to Industrialisation, then using that production bonus to grab as many ancient or classical-era wonders as possible, seeing as they generate the most tourism.

Discipline (Military, requires Code of Laws) - The lower strength of Sabum Kibittum units relative to Warriors means a boost to their strength will be very helpful when taking on Barbarians.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - Many early eurekas rely on Builders creating improvements, making this a helpful policy card to pick up.

Inspiration (Wildcard, requires Mysticism) - Many Great Scientists unlock eurekas, which in Babylon's case outright grants technologies. However, spending a wildcard slot on a mere +2 Great Scientist Point boost is quite risky when you could be using that slot for other things.

Urban Planning (Economic, requires Code of Laws) - Production is crucial in Babylon's early game, as most of your scientific advancement will be via eurekas.

Classical Era

Veterancy (Military, requires Military Training) - The eurekas for Gunpowder and Ballistics require you to develop an Encampment, while the eurekas for Cartography and Steam Power require you to develop Harbours. This policy card allows you to construct those districts and their buildings faster!

Medieval Era

Craftsmen (Military, requires Guilds) - Doubling Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses not only provides plenty of production in itself, but also doubles the production output of Coal Power Plants. Seeing as you may well already have a bunch of those buildings already, this can be a very powerful policy card immediately!

Gothic Architecture (Economic, requires Divine Right) - Great for using your production advantages for wonder construction.

Merchant Confederation (Diplomatic, requires Medieval Faires) - Hammurabi's extra envoys can pay off here with a little extra gold.

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - Skipping ahead in eras makes unit upgrade costs very expensive, so this policy card will be particularly helpful.

Renaissance Era

Drill Manuals (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Access to nitre and coal can be a bottleneck in a Babylonian goal for conquest or production (in the case of coal specifically). This policy card will help you get more of both, but only if you have nitre and/or coal mines to begin with.

Machiavellianism (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Spies are a good way of getting hold of trickier eureka boosts.

Industrial Era

Force Modernisation (Military, requires Urbanisation) - Helps lessen the burden of unit upgrade costs allowing you to keep your military in line with your technological progress.

Native Conquest (Military, requires Colonialism) - Babylon's ability to rush ahead in era allows them to get some extra money out of this policy card.

Skyscrapers (Economic, requires Civil Engineering) - The last policy card to boost wonder production; ideal for a cultural Babylon.

Modern Era

Five Year Plan (Economic, requires Ideology) - Boost your Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses, plus Campuses on top.

Levee en Masse (Military, requires Mobilisation) - Later-era units cost a lot to maintain!

Nuclear Espionage (Diplomatic, requires Nuclear Programme) - Stealing eurekas now gives you two - or in other words, two whole technologies! Heavy investment in Spies can help you fill in the technologies you may struggle to otherwise boost.

Resource Management (Military, requires Conservation) - Oil, and later aluminium, is needed to maintain most of the units in later eras. Without a good supply, you'll struggle to make the most of your technological advantages.

Science Foundations (Wildcard, requires Nuclear Programme) - A significant boost to Great Engineer and Scientist points alike - especially strong if you're pushing for a scientific victory.

Atomic Era

Cryptography (Diplomatic, requires Cold War) - Boosts your Spies' effectiveness, aiding you in stealing technologies.

Future Era

Non-State Actors (Wildcard, requires Cultural Hegemony) - You can give Spies the Technologist promotion every time, boosting their effectiveness at stealing technologies.

Administration - Age Bonuses and World Congress

Age Bonuses

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Free Inquiry (Dedication, Classical to Medieval eras) - Grants you era score for getting eurekas, something you should be aiming to do anyway.

Pen, Brush and Voice (Golden Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Quite a few key technologies like Radio rely on the civics tree, so the significant culture boost on offer here is very welcome.

Twilight Valour (Dark Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - A great wildcard to use if you're skipping ahead to units like Cuirassiers, as they'll be so strong they'll be able to withstand plenty of attacks before they need to heal, so the need to heal in friendly territory isn't as much of a problem.

Robber Barons (Dark Age, Industrial to Information eras) - If you can handle the amenity penalty, the production bonus is rather significant, and will help you on your way to remaining production-intensive eurekas.

Collectivism (Dark Age, Modern to Information eras) - If you have a lot of Coal Power Plants already, this policy card can add a huge amount of production, at the cost of halving your Great Person Points output. Best-used for domination games.

Bodyguard of Lies (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - Speeds up the Steal Tech Boost mission, among others.

Wish You Were Here (Golden Age, Atomic to Future eras) - Playing a cultural Babylon game focused on building wonders? It can really pay off here with a 50% boost to wonder tourism in any city with a Governor.

Sky and Stars (Golden Age, Information to Future eras) - Get a whole array of technologies for free - though given this bonus can't occur until at least the information game era, you'll seldom get to use it.

World Congress

How you should vote in the World Congress will often be specific to your game - if you have a strong rival, for example, it might be better to vote to hurt them than to help yourself. Furthermore, there may be general bonuses to your chosen victory route or gameplay which are more relevant than ones that have stronger synergy with civ-specific bonuses. Otherwise, here's a list of key votes that have high relevance for this civ relative to other civs.

Global Energy Treaty - Effect B (Ban the production of buildings of this type) on Coal Power Plants

By the time this resolution comes up, you should already have a developed power infrastructure. Denying other civs the ability to build new Coal Power Plants delays the development of their power infrastructure.

Nobel Prize in Physics - Vote in favour

You can use your early industrial infrastructure to get an edge in Great Engineer Points and therefore an edge in this scored competition. Winning the competition is worth two technologies to Babylon, and even only scraping the top 50% is still worth a free technology.

Patronage - Effect A (Earn double points towards Great People of this class) on Great Engineers or Scientists

Rushing to Coal Power Plants will result in you getting plenty of Great Engineer Points, but if you're heavily investing in Great Scientists for the eurekas they offer, that's a good option too.

Urban Development Treaty - Effect A (+100% production towards buildings in this district) on Industrial Zones

It's easy for Babylon to unlock Industrial Zones, Workshops, Factories and Coal Power Plants, and passing this resolution early can save a lot more production for Babylon than it would for other civs.

Administration - Pantheons, Religion and City-States

Pantheons

City Patron Goddess - Combined with Hammurabi's leader ability, you can quickly develop your first copy of a new district type.

Divine Spark - An extra source of Great Scientist Points, which will help you secure extra eurekas.

God of Craftsmen - Babylon's ability to rush to certain technologies like Industrialisation, Iron Working and Refining let them reveal and improve certain strategic resources much earlier than other civs. This makes this pantheon stronger than it would otherwise be, and a handy source of bonus production.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes - A powerful boost to early production if you have a start that allows it, allowing you to rush through early eureka boosts.

Monument to the Gods - Can be useful for a cultural Babylon game, where you aim to get as many early wonders as possible while skipping to the Plastics technology, giving you a large early tourism yield.

Religious Idols - Building three mines as Babylon immediately unlocks Apprenticeship, which boosts their production by 1, making them quite an effective tile early on. This pantheon makes this even stronger by adding faith to mines over bonus and luxury resources.

Religious Beliefs

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Meeting House (Worship) - Bonus production helps with securing eureka boosts.

Work Ethic (Follower) - A powerful extra source of production.

City-States

Akkad (Militaristic) - Particularly effective if you're rushing Men-at-Arms, as it allows them to rip down city defences without siege support.

Antananarivo (Cultural) - Hammurabi's civ ability can give an initial advantage to Great Person generation, which in turn can provide extra culture via this city-state.

Auckland (Industrial) - A powerful source of production for coastal cities - rather useful for getting maritime-based eurekas like the one for Steam Power.

Ayutthaya (Cultural) - An early push for production can pay off wonderfully if you're suzerain over Ayutthaya, as every building you construct will grant you culture on top.

Bologna (Scientific) - Extra Great Person Points from districts - particularly helpful for Great Scientists, which will help you secure eurekas.

Brussels (Industrial) - Ideal for a cultural Babylon which intends to build a lot of wonders.

Fez (Scientific) - If you have a religion and are suzerain over Fez, you can gain one-off bursts of science by converting other cities. Importantly, this is one of the few sources of science unaffected by Babylon's 50% science penalty.

Geneva (Scientific) - This stacks additively with Babylon's science penalty, resulting in an effective science rate of 65% of the base level. This helps close the gap between Babylon and other civs.

Hattusa (Scientific) - A very powerful city-state for Babylon, as it allows you to secure strategic resources the moment you unlock them rather than having to track them down. This is particularly helpful for ones that can be elusive like nitre, coal and oil.

Johannesburg (Industrial) - An extra source of production.

Kabul (Militaristic) - Very powerful if you're rushing Plastics for early Spec Ops, as you can get to the all-important Ambush promotion sooner.

Mexico City (Industrial) - Babylon's ability to rush to Industrialisation quickly allows you to use Mexico City's suzerain bonus earlier than most civs.

Singapore (Industrial) - An extra source of production.

Administration - Wonders

Wonders

Note: Wonders are ordered by research era, then placed alphabetically as with other civ guides, though due to the nature of Babylon's civ ability this certainly won't be the order you will unlock wonders in.

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Specific Great Engineers and Scientists are particularly powerful for Babylon, so being able to use patronage can be critical at times. The Oracle cuts the cost of faith patronage by 25%, making it easier to take such an action! It also can provide some extra Great Engineer and Scientist points, among other Great People.

Apadana (Classical era, Political Philosophy civic) - Ideal for cultural and scientific Babylon players alike, as rushing to Coal Power Plants allows you to build wonders with ease, and the extra envoys can be used in conjunction with the Kilwa Kisiwani wonder for extra science and other yields.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - Hammurabi's leader ability makes getting the requirement for this wonder slightly easier, which helps you secure the amenity and culture bonuses for yourself.

Great Library (Classical era, Recorded History civic) - Among Babylon's best choices for wonders, as it grants Babylon a free technology every time someone else gets a Great Scientist. This can allow you to potentially forgo Campuses altogether. It also gives you every ancient and classical-era technology!

Great Lighthouse (Classical era, Celestial Navigation technology) - Hammurabi's leader ability makes the prerequisite for this wonder slightly easier. Faster naval movement goes nicely with Babylon's fast research to launch attacks on new continents before they're even aware of your presence.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Classical era, Defensive Tactics civic) - Another excellent wonder for Babylon, as it provides an extra retirement charge to all Great Engineers. Getting to Industrialisation early lets you get a huge advantage in Great Engineer Points, and Leonardo da Vinci's retirement bonus in particular is especially powerful if used twice - you'll get two modern-era technologies and +6 culture to all Workshops!

Petra (Classical era, Mathematics technology) - Makes a desert city strong at production, especially if you can secure Ruhr Valley in the same city.

Kilwa Kisiwani (Medieval era, Machinery technology) - Another key wonder for Babylon, particularly for the scientific game. Being suzerain over every two scientific city-states will add a 15% global science modifier, which helps counteract Babylon's default penalty.

Venetian Arsenal (Renaissance era, Mass Production technology) - Skipping ahead to technologies like Refining for Battleships? They'll be pretty expensive, but with the Venetian Arsenal wonder you can produce twice as many!

Oxford University (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - Provides 2 random technologies outright; hopefully ones that would otherwise be hard to boost.

Ruhr Valley (Industrial era, Scientific Theory technology) - A great wonder that Babylon can reliably build as you can reach Industrialisation far before any other civ. It provides a significant production advantage, and as an industrial-era wonder, completing it will give you the Flight technology.

Administration - Great People

Great People

Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Babylon's uniques, not necessarily the most effective options.

Classical Era

Aryabhata (Great Scientist) - Three random eurekas, classical or medieval eras.

Euclid (Great Scientist) - Eureka for Mathematics as well as another random boost for the classical or medieval eras.

Gaius Duilius (Great Admiral) - You can get to Refining for Battleships long before you can get to Nationalism for fleets. Retiring Gaius Duilius allows you to get an extremely powerful Battleship fleet - though watch out for the high maintenance cost.

Themistocles (Great Admiral) - Grants a permanent +20% bonus to naval ranged unit production - particularly effective if you're rushing to Refining for Battleships.

Zhang Heng (Great Scientist) - Grants the eurekas for Celestial Navigation, Mathematics and Engineering.

Medieval Era

Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi (Great Scientist) - Eureka for a random medieval or renaissance-era technology.

Bi Sheng (Great Engineer) - Eureka for Printing.

El Cid (Great General) - There's a good chance you'll have a strong unit long before you can form it into a corps, so retiring El Cid allows you to make them even stronger - though watch out for the maintenance cost.

Omar Khayyam (Great Scientist) - Two eurekas, random medieval or renaissance-era technologies.

Renaissance Era

Emile du Chatelet (Great Scientist) - Three eurekas, random renaissance or industrial-era technologies.

Galileo Galilei (Great Scientist) - Provides a one-off boost to science not held back by Babylon's civ ability.

Leonardo da Vinci (Great Engineer) - One of the most powerful Great People for Babylon. Extra culture for Workshops helps you get to key civics like Globalisation sooner, while getting a modern-era eureka could get you to key tricky-to-boost technologies like Radio.

Santa Cruz (Great Admiral) - Allows you to make an early armada. A Battleship armada at this point in the game is extremely powerful!

Industrial Era

Ada Lovelace (Great Engineer) - Allows you to boost the Computers technology without needing a tier three government.

Charles Darwin (Great Scientist) - Grants a one-off science boost unaffected by the penalty in Babylon's civ ability.

Dmitri Mendeleev (Great Scientist) - The eureka for Chemistry - a relatively hard technology for Babylon to boost - and a random other technology from the industrial era.

James Watt (Great Engineer) - Makes all your Factories provide +2 production - you might have quite a few by this point in the game.

James Young (Great Scientist) - Two eurekas, industrial or modern eras.

Napoleon Bonaparte (Great General) - Gain an army without needing the Nationalism civic. A Spec Ops army relatively early on, with the Ambush promotion on top, will be extremely effective.

Modern Era

Alan Turing (Great Scientist) - Eurekas, for Computers and another modern-era technology.

Albert Einstein (Great Scientist) - Random modern-era eureka.

Alfred Nobel (Great Scientist) - Random modern/atomic eureka, and grants +100 Great Person Points to all current and future Great People - quite useful for securing subsequent Great Scientists.

Nikola Tesla (Great Engineer) - Extra production for Factories and Power Plants, which you may have plenty of by this point.

Robert Goddard (Great Engineer) - Provides the eureka for Rocketry, which is tough to get as Babylon. Also provides a 20% production bonus to all Space Race projects.

Atomic Era

Erwin Schrodinger (Great Scientist) - Three eurekas for atomic and information-era technologies.

Grace Hopper (Great Admiral) - Two free random technologies, hopefully for ones that would be hard to boost.

Janaki Ammal (Great Scientist) - Up to 2800 science on offer here, unaffected by Babylon's civ ability!

Margaret ♥♥♥♥ (Great Scientist) - 1000 science, unaffected by Babylon's civ ability.

Mary Leakey (Great Scientist) - One-off science unaffected by Babylon's civ ability. The more artefacts you can stack in the city, the more science you can get.

Information Era

Abdus Salam (Great Scientist) - It's a shame this Great Person comes so late into the game, because the effect is extremely strong for Babylon: Get every single information-era technology!

Masaru Ibuka (Great Merchant) - Excellent for cultural Babylon players as you'll get +10 tourism for every single Industrial Zone you own!

Counter-Strategies

Babylon has a completely unique research path allowing them to rush certain technologies that other civs can't, but it also can make them slow to certain key technologies as well. The absolute best move is to weaken Babylon very early on, but if you can't manage that, there's other things you can try.

Civilization Ability: Enuma Anu Enlil

A smart Babylon can send Battleships at you before you have even Caravels - which is an utterly terrifying fate for any civ. However, their ability to send advanced technology after you has a few limitations:

• Production - A smart Babylonian player will rush to Industrialisation - if not immediately - fairly early on to build a production base. Pillaging their Industrial Zones or sending Spies to sabotage them will substantially set back Babylon's production, and substantially limit their ability to train advanced units.
  
• Gold - Advanced units have a high maintenance cost, and Babylon can have a hard time getting to some key gold-granting technologies and civics. This can result in Babylon having a very powerful, but very small, armed forces. Consider avoiding trading the civ gold as a result.
  
• Strategic Resources - Many advanced units require strategic resources not only to train, but to maintain. It can take a lot of Settlers and gold to obtain the tiles necessary for these. Look for Babylonian mines on flat land or oil rigs, as that's a clue a strategic resource is there, and that'll be a key target to pillage.
  
• Loyalty - Most bonuses to loyalty (including most sources of amenities) are found in the civics tree, so Babylon will struggle to keep conquered cities that aren't close to their own lands, at least at first.
  
• Culture - Babylon's ability to generate culture is a bottleneck for some key technologies like Radio.

With Spies, you can steal the eurekas for any technology Babylon has unlocked, which might be several eras ahead of where you're currently researching. That's rather helpful when catching up with Babylon.

Babylon's reliance on eurekas over direct research tends to make their military predictable. Here are some key units to watch out for that Babylon is likely to unlock early:

• Men-at-Arms
  
• Crossbowmen
  
• Caravels
  
• Musketmen
  
• Battleships
  
• Artillery
  
• Biplanes
  
• Spec Ops

You'll notice a lack of cavalry units on this list (while Cuirassiers can be unlocked fairly early by Babylon, it relies on a high number of prerequisites). If you settle cities inland to avoid Babylon's naval assaults (and the extra pollution they're likely to add to the world), then their attacks, albeit very strong, will tend to be slow-moving. Use ranged units and sufficiently strong cavalry to your advantage, and stack any relevant defensive bonus you can.

If you wish to form an alliance with Babylon, make sure it's not a research alliance of at least level two. A level one research alliance will likely help you more than Babylon, but that will switch around once it reaches level two and starts granting them free technologies. You can also try and deny Babylon from getting bonus eurekas by taking the Great Library wonder for yourself, or using patronage to get Great Engineers or Scientists which offer eureka boosts.

Babylon's military advantages fade once other civs start reaching the modern era, and their technological advantage will likely diminish into the future era. Again, using Spies against their Campuses and Industrial Zones will be effective.

Hammurabi's Leader Ability: Ninu Ilu Sirum

This leader ability is stronger if Babylon can build a rich diversity of districts, and weaker if they don't. The less land Babylon can expand into, the less diverse terrain to take advantage of various districts' bonuses they'll have. Of course, settling extensively near Babylon can be a dangerous move considering how quickly they can unlock very powerful units, but at least weakening them now will weaken their counter-attack later.

Hammurabi's Agenda: Cradle of Civilization

A computer-controlled Hammurabi tries to build at least one of as many different types of district as possible. He likes civs that do the same, and dislikes civs that over-focus on a small diversity of district types.

This is likely to catch out scientific and religious civs as they can perform well with a relatively low diversity of districts. Cultural civs tend to have a wider diversity of districts, as do warmongers once they start capturing other civs' cities.

One side-effect of this agenda is it will make Babylon a good target for Spies, even putting aside the fact it's a good way to counter their civ ability. Any mission you want to perform you'll probably be able to find somewhere to carry it out.

Unique Unit: Sabum Kibittum

Babylon's unique unit is cheap, mobile, but has the lowest strength of any unique unit. If you can trap Sabum Kibittum units in a pincer movement between two units of your own, you can prevent them using their superior mobility to escape - Warriors are perfect for this. Archers are fairly effective against them as well, though watch out for their high anti-cavalry bonuses if you intend to use Heavy Chariots or Horsemen.

Unique Building: Palgum

Babylon's unique building may have no district requirement, but it does require its city to be founded on a river. You can make things harder for Babylon by settling within three tiles of a river near them, disallowing them from settling directly there.

Other Guides

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Gathering Storm

Compilation Guides

• Civ summaries (Start here for an introduction for all civs)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Ideal for more experienced players)

Individual Civilization Guides

• America - no additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• America - all additional content* (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Arabia (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Babylon (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Byzantium (Domination/Religious)
  
• Canada (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• China (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Diplomatic)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• France (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Gaul (Domination)
  
• Georgia (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Gran Colombia (Domination)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Hungary (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Inca (Religious/Scientific)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mali (Diplomatic/Religious)
  
• Māori (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Maya (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Phoenicia (Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Diplomatic/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Sweden (Cultural/Diplomatic)
  
• Vietnam (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

*The Teddy Roosevelt Persona Pack splits Roosevelt's leader ability in two, meaning the game with it is substantially different from without - hence two different versions of the America guide. Lincoln was added later and is only covered in the latter guide.

Other civs with alternative leader personas are not split because the extra personas added in later content do not change the existing gameplay - as such the guides are perfectly usable by players without them.

Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm. They are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Gathering Storm. To look at them, click here to open the Rise and Fall Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Rise and Fall guide has links to every other Rise and Fall guide.

Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated and have not been kept up to date with patches released since Rise and Fall. To look at them, click here to open the Vanilla Civ Summaries guide. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.

[Big Wooper]

One point I'd like to add in counter-strategy (or strategy in general) is that any game that Babylon is present is bound to have high-tech barbarians showing up sooner or later, since barbarians immediately gain access to the highest-tech level unit worldwide, and Babylon can skip through the tech tree like nobody else, regardless of difficulty setting. So it may be sometimes beneficial to delay eureka a little bit if you already scouted out a barbarian encampment to avoid high-tech barb swarms, and it may be extra crucial for you to clear up your vision if you have scouted out Babylon or are playing Babylon to prevent future barb spawns. Otherwise, detailed analysis as always.

[slyoledog]

has anyone thought to exlore the possibility of a naval fast track to the museum at halacarnassus and the great admirals or engineers with double charges? this was one of the first things that came to mind for me when I started playing as babylon.

[Zigzagzigal]

Turns out that you can't get the Replaceable Parts eureka with Musketmen any more, even though the in-game description indicates you can. I'll have to adjust the guide accordingly, as this means you can no longer rush Infantry with Babylon.

[Zigzagzigal]

Undocumented patch change: You can now activate the eureka for Siege Tactics with two Trebuchets, and the eureka for Replaceable Parts with three Line Infantry. The Babylonian tech tree has been updated accordingly.

[8Zak]

Yeah that makes sense. Keep up the epic guides!

[Zigzagzigal]

I've been fairly slow, but the general idea is to leave the R&F guides that are likely to see rebalances to last (in other words, expect it to take longer for Australia, Mapuche, Scotland and Spain). Otherwise, I've taken to pairing updated R&F guides with new guides.

[8Zak]

I'm sure this question has been asked a million times, but when will old R&F guides get updated? Are you planning to wait until the big balance patch?

[plaguepenguin]

Thanks! All of your guides are good, and this one is especially helpful. Of course, presenting so much detail, you're going to inspire suggestions on slightly different options.

I like to go for a religion with Babylon, because the free shrine makes it more doable, but don't pursue a religious victory. This leaves you free to forego beliefs that help religious conquest in order to get beliefs that help elsewhere. In addition to your picks, I like Feed the World to help early growth, and Jesuit Education to give me something needful to spend faith points on. Production and gold yields are otherwise occupied, so the utility of buildings that provide faith yields is enhanced if you have outlets for spending faith, like the Grandmaster's Chapel, or Jesuit Education, quite aside form patronage of great people, of course..