Rhye's and Fall of Civilization - Babylonian strategy
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The Babylonians (UHV)
by Abegweit
Overview
Hammy starts in the middle of a fetid mess of disease. The first temptation is to move to the north where the air is clean. Up there, you will also get access to game and wheat, which are not available at the start position. Unfortunately, the UHV specifically states that Babylon must become the most cultured and populous city in the world, not Ashur or Nineveh. This makes the problem much harder. You are stuck in the swamps, like it or not. Let me assure you. I know this for a fact.
Addendum Blueraider0.
I recently realized that, even though the city names are pre-decided dependent on location and civilization, you still have the capability to rename cities. Therefore, you can build your capital wherever you want and rename it Babylon. It worked for me. I haven't tried to rename a conquered city Babylon, but I imagine it would work the same. Just don't rename more than one city to Babylon, as I imagine it would confuse the system.
The UHV
The charm about the Bab UHV is how tightly the three requirements fit together. There is a synergy about them which is not true of any other civ. The research requirement helps you get culture and the culture requirement helps you get research. Together, they serve as the means through which your city can grow to be far larger than any other.
Solving the Mystery
The first step is to get to Writing before the Chinese do. This means you must beeline straight for it. Research order: Pottery-Writing. As usual, training a worker first is a good move. Then build a granary and a library. The granary will help you with growth and the library with research. Once the worker is finished, he can cottage the stone and marble to further increase your research capacity. If the Chinese decide to make the same beeline (and they just might) you will lose. They play on Noble and you play on Monarch. You simply can’t get there faster than them. Check your status on F8 once you have Writing. If you’re a loser, deal with it and move on.
- One way to get writing first is to build 3 warriors first instead of a worker. Have the first warrior head NW towards Greece and Croatia to pick up 2 goodie huts. Have the 2nd warrior head NE around the soon to appear Persian city and find the goodie hut north of Persia. That is 3 goodie huts. One of which may net you animal husbandry or pottery to accellerate your tech. If none of these give you the tech you want then head to the Dutch or Portugal for the goodie huts there. The Portugal goodie once gave me writing. The advantage of building the three warriors is that you have a warrior left in your city, you can explore for goodie huts, and your city size will grow so your tech goes a tiny bit faster. Writing is the only hard one to get, the other two are easy.
The library also gives you some culture but you will need more than just that. At least one early wonder will be needed too. The best culture in the early wonders comes from the Oracle and, Sacre Bleu, this one helps with your research too. So next go for Mysticism, Meditation and Priesthood. You should be able to time things so that you can immediately start on the Oracle the moment your library is complete.
With Writing and Priesthood, the path is now open to the two last techs you need for the UHV. Monarchy also opens up the Hereditary Rule civic, which is the key to allowing your city to grow. As you need it badly, you should actually choose Monarchy as your free tech instead of the more expensive Code of Laws. Growing the city will also provide additional research capacity which speed up CoL anyway.
But before going after CoL, there is one more tech you need: Animal Husbandry to fence in the sheep. You really need them more for the health than the food. Health is what slows your growth more than food, which you have plenty of. There actually is one more health resource within reach and it should be worked too. On Babylon’s second border expansion, it will take the Wheat away from Shushan. A farm and a road there will connect to Shushan and from there along the coast and rivers to Babylon.
This city will certainly revolt to Babylonian rule a few turns later. Disband it! It is a Persian town and, if you keep it, you will be faced with a choice of war or losing the Wheat a few turns later. Sur may revolt too. You can keep that if you like but there is little reason to.
With HR and the two health resources, Babylon will zoom up in size. Push the ‘Emphasize Food’ button and watch it grow. It will reach size 10 by the deadline. The city can try to build a Monument to add a bit more culture but it probably won’t be able to. Unless it can get an additional warrior from a revolt in Sur, it will be too busy training MPs to do anything else.
Summary
Research Order: Pottery – Writing – Mysticism – Meditation – Priesthood – Animal Husbandry – Monarchy (free tech) – Code of Laws Build Order: Worker – Granary – Library – Oracle – Warrior – Warrior – Warrior… Worker tasks: Cottage stone – Cottage marble – Farm plains – Farm plains – Farm wheat – Road wheat – Pasture sheep
Result: victory in 6 minutes!
Congratulations to the designer of this excellent little puzzle.
The Babylonians (UHV, BTS update)
by Squirrelloid
Tech
Beeline pottery/writing immediately. Then grab Animal Handling, Mysticism -> Masonry. Then Hunting -> Archery. Now grab Meditation -> Priesthood -> Monarchy. (CoL will be via Oracle)
Opening Moves
Build a worker in Babylon, then start a granary. The worker should cottage the marble (this is important), then any non-stone floodplains tile. (By the time you finish the 2nd cottage you'll be size 3, so it doesn't matter if its on the stone or not, and you'll want to quarry that).
When you get writing, switch to the library immediately - you'll still finish the granary before the wheat comes online (stolen from Shush), which is why it really matters.
Send your initial warrior ENE to the hut in N. Pakistan. Hope for some xp along the way - I got 4 angry villagers from the hut for a cool 5 xp = 2 promotions. I went with city attack 1+2 (see below). Don't worry about city defense yet - Hattusa will be the first military threat, and Sur should deal with them for you.
India
Heal and head to Delhi. Its a crap shoot, but you should have a decent shot at killing Delhi's one warrior if you've got 2 city attack. I got it without even having to save/reload/wait. (something about 50%).
A safer way to do this would be to research archery a little earlier, and build a bowman or two to send to India - they won't prioritize researching archery unless you declare on them, so in that case don't with the warrior. If you don't get the xp, then this is certainly what you'll have to do - an un-upgraded warrior has no chance. But their warriors will get eaten by Bowmen.
Regardless, when you take Delhi, raze it to the ground (their culture will still count if the city is there). The warrior should be sent back to Babylon for garrison/happiness duty whether you use him to take Delhi or not.
Babylon again
You can't get Stonehenge first, so don't even try - Egypt will build it long before you do. Instead, focus on the Pyramids and the Oracle. Your worker should fence in the sheep after the second cottage, and then quarry the stone, which should come online near when you're starting the Pyramids. As strange as it sounds, finish the Pyramids first before doing the Oracle, even though Oracle is arguably in more risk of being stolen (it wasn't on me). Your worker should finish connecting/farming the wheat next (depending on what Shush accomplished), and then might consider Quarrying the marble for the Oracle. I do focus on production squares over unsustainable growth at this point to get the wonder culture earlier. (Hit size 5 and then maximize production).
Egypt
Sur should flip almost immediately after you finish archery, giving you a Bowman. (Disband Sur). Send that Bowman to Egypt - their capital's early Stonehenge will be near impossible to overcome culturally (and they founded Judaism in my game, which was a nightmare). Of course, they should have nothing but warriors - one Bowman with decent luck should trample them. If (it didn't in my game) Shush flips, send its Bowman too. The key is to take the Egyptian capitol quickly after you declare, because they'll tech archery and build archers if you give them breathing room. (Note, before attacking, its probably best to pillage a road from their capitol to another city, to make it harder for them to reinforce). I had no problem using only one Bowman.
Raze their capitol to the ground.
End game
You just finished Oracle and popped CoL with it. A few turns later Monarchy finishes. You've finished your tech goals and you're within about 10 turns of your deadline for the other two.
Your only real competitor at this point is Beijing, and its a population competitor. The first thing to do is switch to Monarchy immediately - you'll need the happiness. Prioritize food from here on out, and crank out warriors to keep your people happy. You should have enough time to beat Beijing by 1 (I finished at Pop 8 to their Pop 7 and about to grow next turn. Of course, i lost the Wheat near Shush when Persia spawned which hurt a lot - if Shush flips and you disband it, you should be size 9 easily).
The Babylonians (Conquest)
by Mercenary82
Overview
My plan was to kill Egypt, India, Greece, and China before anyone has a chance to spawn. This also includes taking the Independent cities of Yerushalayim, Sur, Shushan, and Afrosiab (Samarkand).
First Few Turns
I settled at Ashur ( 1 tile NE of start) this has better early production, health, and will flip Shushan Much sooner. Build warriors until we get archery , research is hunting and archery, and thats it, you won't need anymore techs.
You should have archery, around the same time as shushan flips, do not disband it, we need this city. Ashur should be size 2 around now, have 1 citizen work the forrset hill plain, and have shushan only work the forest. Now set both cities to build continus Bowmen, send your first 3 at Egypt.
Independents
You will have to declare on Independents to pass through, ignore their units and cities for now, attack and raze Egypt's only city, it should have only a warrior or 2 defenders, so you'll only lose an archer or 2. You then should attack India with your next 3 archers, also send the next 3 built, 1 by 1. keep delhi and raze his other city if he built it yet, Produce archers in Delhi as well.
Babylon's Asharittu bowman do not have the ability to go through jungle, so don't try it. Send a group of 3 or more along the north side of the Himilayas, and then east to Beijing. This is just like the Silk Road in 600AD. If done fast enough, they will only have warriors also, same deal here, raze Beijing, and his other city near the coast.
Victory
At the same time you should be sending your next 8 archers in a stack from Ashur and Shushan, they need to arrive within a few turns of Greeces spawn. have archers built there continue heading that way 1 by 1 just in case. Try to wait till their phalanxes are outside before declaring war, you usually still have to face 1 fortified in athens, with a couple warriors, but 8 is usually enough to kill them.
Next, taking out the independent cities which is easy enough, just throw stacks of archers in 3 or more at each one till their dead, you only need to take Sur, Yerushalyim, and Samarkand, and you get a conquest victory before Persia spawns!
Survivial guide
by Romelus
Babylon has a unique problem - history is against it. It is not meant to survive into the modern age, and the mod reflects Babylon's many historical challenges. I have not seen the AI Babylon survive, but you are smarter than your computer.
It is entirely possible to finish a game as a Babylonian super power on monarch difficulty. Here are some pointers.
Your starting location is pretty good. Do the usual routine. I usually avoid capturing the two independent cities nearby, because they will spawn Judaism and Christianity most of the time, giving you two free holy cities.
Persia
Your first challenge is Persia. You will usually have culturally converted Shusha by the time Persia spawns. Persia will ask for Shusha, and you of course will tell them to shove it. Beating persia is not too hard, if you researched bronze working early, and have the copper near shusha hooked up for spearmen. Defend the copper with your spearmen and you'll murder those immortals. Persa is a good production city, so feel free to take it.
Arabs
The Arabs usually spell the doom of AI Babylon if it managed to live past Persia. To effectively fight the horde of camel archers, it's necessary to have elephants from India. Just trade for it; India is not hostile. I don't think it's practical to have engineering researched at that time so don't count on pikemen. Once the initial Arab attack is repelled they are screwed, because they can't produce fast enough from all the desert tiles.
When you have a little break in the action, take the two independent cities nearby, which should be holy cities by now. Islam is yours after destroying the arabs. If you take out india you'll have 5 religions. Money will not be a problem for you.
Turks
Now the turks spawn and want your land. You should have some time to prepare between Arabs and Turks. One trick is to settle a city in Turkish land early on (it was my 2nd city), but not too close to where their capital city would be. One good location is a few tiles north of your capital, where there's a choke point for you to easily defend any potential Russian attack. When the Turks spawn, your cultural border should prevent them from building another city. Refuse to vacate their land and pull units back so they don't defect. If the turks advance into your borders, then move units into the cities. But most likely they'll just turtle. You should have more than enough production to overwhelm them. Janissaries usually don't attack, and also don't get any bonus against cannons. (Hint)
Stability
The biggest problem I had was stability. Babylon is not supposed to get very big. so you quickly lose stability with more conquests. Stay away from bad civics combinations (see stability guide). The Arabs may respawn a few times, but you can easily retake the cities. After killing the Turks you have some excellent choke points - Istanbul, Suez, your northern chokepoint second city, weak persia/india to the east. Expand at your leisure and enjoy having almost all the oil in the world. You have just rewritten history.
360 Degrees of Space
by Jet
I tried several strategies for the Space Race unsuccessfully, and without spoiling anything too much, here's what did work for me. Warlords v1475, Monarch, default settings.
- You can get almost every ancient and classical wonder and also secure Persia. To put this in perspective, I think you can probably do OK without a lot of planning, but it took me many attempts to refine my favorite, optimized way to do it.
- Let your neighbors spawn peacefully and without any of your cities wanting to flip, then conquer what you want in a normal war. The RFC:W Atlas shows the tiles where cities will flip (and your capital cannot flip); and it's possible to prepare for all three neighbors so that the fighting is easy. This miminizes instability from losing cites and razing enemy cities (although you can't always avoid that) and units defecting in liberation wars.
- No matter what, you need to be vigilant about Stability. Apart from problems related to your neighbors, open borders, trade resources, minimize anarchy, build wonders, Courthouses and Jails, avoid occupying a lot of territory, and adopt Commonwealth.
- With a total of 8 nearby cities, focus research on one super-science city with Bureaucracy, Representation, settled Great People, and of course The Channel Tunnel. My research rate was around 80%, but at 100%, your Babylon can pull over 1000 beakers per turn.
- If you don't capture Mecca (I didn't), definitely raze it the turn before you launch. You'll know why.
Babylon UHV BtS v1.181 (and don't fight with anyone)
Build Babylon on the spot and start making a worker. Research Pottery and then Witting. The worker should cottage the stone (you don't need the stone for any wonders and the extra commerce helps). DON'T BUILD ROADS (no time). After the cottage is complete move directly below Babylon and cottage the floodplain there.
The Warrior should move to Asia Minor and the Balkans to get the goody huts and then the one north of India (should be Afghanistan). Then the warrior should make it back to Babylon right on time to help against any unhappiness.
After the worker is done in Babylon, build granary and library. I am not sure about the optimal order. Start Granary, switch to Library and then finish the Granary or just do the Granary first. Both work with sufficient micromanagement. (move workers so that the granary is complete right when the food stored in Babylon is at 50%)
After Witting research Mysticism, Masonry, Meditation and Priesthood. At the time the Granary and Library are finished you should start working on the Oracle.
After the Worker finishes the second cottage, move him to do a road between the marble/stone and the wheat. When the road is done, start working on the Marble. Things should be in sync give or take a turn. By the time the marble is done, the wheat should be in your cultural borders so work on that next.
After Priesthood research Animal Husbantry and then go for Monarchy. When the Oracle is done grab CoL. Switch immediately to Caste System and run as many artists as possible.
Once the worker is done with the wheat, go for the sheep. Afterwards it makes no real difference.
One or two of the independents would flip. Keep Sur and disband Shush. Sur should build several warriors, you need total of 3 - 4 in Babylon to keep people happy and in case Persia declares war. Keep research to 100% and use the money from the huts to pay for support of two cities.
Move population in Babylon so that the same turn Monarchy is found, Babylon grows to size 6 and with as much food overflow as possible. Same turn switch to Hereditary Rule.
There are two options now.
- put everything on food, grow to size 8 and then use the food stored in the granary to run artists and generate a Great Artist so that on turn 86 you can culture bomb Babylon. (the Oracle can create a Great Prophet which would be unfortunate, but either way you should have enough culture).
- put everything on food, grow to size 9 and then use the foodl stored to run artists. That would not generate Great Artist, but gives a larger city with more culture.
Babylon UHV 1.186
By The_K
I don't know if it's just me or what, but the above strategy for 1.181 didn't work for me. I could never get to monarchy on time. Even when I went for it without Animal Husbandry. Maybe there's something in the 1.186 patch. Whatever the reason, here's how to do it in plenty of time (on monarch of course).
Start
Build warrior. Send both warriors east to Delhi. As soon as the first warrior is built start another one because the city will grow in 3 turns. When the city grows switch to worker and finish the warrior after that. After the warrior (which should be fortified) build granary, library, oracle. Just check Babylon whenever it grows and make sure you work cottages and other good areas (don't work hill, forest or plains). The technology path for the game will be: Pottery->Writing->Mysticism->Masonary->Meditation->Priesthood->Monarchy->Animal Husbandry The worker should do the same as above (cottage on stone, below Babylon, road to fields...)
War path
The two warriors should go quickly to Delhi. When they get there declare war. He should only have one warrior in the city and (and this is important) he will put his worker in the city too. Take Delhi. You have 2 warriors, he has 1, your first warrior should do enough damage so that the other one can take the city. If you want, you can explore the goody hut on the way to India, maybe you'll get experience or another warrior to help you.
Two cities
You have 2 cities. Delhi should build another warrior. 1 warrior should remain in Delhi while the other one should take the southern goody hut and then go west-northwest to take the other goody huts (1 near the Black sea, 1 in scandinavia and then the european ones). Best thing he can find is money. The worker you got from Delhi should make 2 cottages and then go to Babylon. Have Delhi build another worker and send that one to Babylon too. This way, Delhi will have 2 cottages which will give you the much needed commerce, and you will also get 2 more workers which will help Babylon.
The End
Yes. The end. The toughest part is losing money for having two cities far away. When the Independent cities flip disband both of them - you don't need the cost. The three workers at Babylon should do more or less like in the above guide but it will be much faster. If you don't get enough money from huts lower the research rate somewhat. You will still research in plenty of time - you just need Monarchy before turn 84. When you do the oracle get Code of Laws. Switch to Hereditary and Caste and run artists.
