Babylonian (Civ6)

The Babylonian people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Hammurabi, under whom their default colors are light and dark blue. They are available with the Babylon Pack, which was released on November 19, 2020.
The Babylonians' civilization ability is Enuma Anu Enlil, which allows them to unlock full technologies whenever their respective s are triggered, at a cost of 50% of their per turn generation. Their unique unit is the Sabum Kibittum, and their unique building is the Palgum (which replaces the Water Mill).
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: Tier 3 towards Rivers 
Leapfrogging through the technology tree into the future by triggering s, Babylon under Hammurabi can unlock the secrets of the universe at a speed that can be matched by no others, while solidifying their foundational infrastructure for their early empire. A civilization with an intriguing gameplay twist, Babylon requires players to effectively strategize the flow from tech to tech; mastering Babylon is a sign of mastering Civilization VI on the whole. 
=== Enuma Anu Enlil ===
==== Overview ====
This ability, although it can be summed up in two short sentences, is one of the most complex abilities in the game and definitely the hardest one to master; its ramifications are so wide and far-reaching that they shake up what you think you know about the flow of the tech tree. Among a long list of caveats that come with this ability, here are a few crucial ones that you should definitely know before starting your next Babylon game.
First and foremost, the 50% malus is applied at city level and all percentage bonuses are accrued additively. It is easier to process if you think of it this way: Normally, when you manage to accumulate an extra 50% modifier, your civilization will generate at a rate of 150% compared to normal, so if you are generating for example 10 per turn, you get 15 instead. For Babylon, you may believe that the 10 per turn becomes 5 per turn due to this ability, and with an extra 50% modifier their output will become 75%, or 7.5 per turn, but in fact, their actually will return to 10 per turn - akin to having no ability and no active modifiers - because percentage modifiers are added additively and not multiplicatively. Therefore, any percentage modifier you can get on Babylon is twice as powerful as a normal civilization. Keep this in mind: a 50% modifier in means Babylon's output will effectively be doubled. Below is a list of all the percentage modifiers:
* : It is hard to truly leverage this. Babylon, after all, is the most effective at a Domination game, which means your will be very low. However, if you plan for a true Scientific Victory, maybe don't go too wide with your empire, since your cities are likely to be populous with the Palgum, and focus on the happiness of your citizens. This can be further amplified by Ibn Khaldun, a .
* Pingala's opening title Librarian grants 15% to the city he is assigned to.
* Oxford University grants 20% to its parent city.
* The Amundsen-Scott Research Station grants 20% in all cities and 40% in ones with at least 5 Snow or Snow Hills tiles.
* The almighty Kilwa Kisiwani, arguably the most important source of on a large map with many scientific city-states. The power of this Wonder is described in great details in the Strategy section of its page. This is crucial for a serious attempt at a Scientific Victory as Babylon, so if this is the path you choose, play it on a large map with many city-states to increase the chance of having 2 scientific ones in the game.
* Communism grants 10% to every city.
* Geneva city-state, which gives 15% to all cities when the empire is at peace.
* Taruga city-state, which gives each city 5% for every type of strategic resources it owns.
Bonuses that grant a flat amount of to buildings, as expected, do not work this way. Take Albert Einstein for example, whose ability is to grant 4 to each Research Lab. His ability will be cut down to 2 extra per Research Lab if he is recruited by Babylon. Also, the Rationalism policy card grants Campus buildings a flat amount of , so it will not work in our favor either. The International Space Agency policy card does not work in our favor as well, since the extra is granted at empire level, not city level.
In addition, any ability that grants a flat amount of but is not per-turn generation is unaffected by this ability, including:
* s Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Janaki Ammal, Mary Leakey and Margaret Mead.
* Fez's Suzerainty bonus (though Fez is more appropriate for a religiously oriented civilization).
When playing as or against Babylon, World Eras could be noticeably shorter due to constant tech leaping, which means if you are in a Golden Age, it is much more likely you will end up in a Dark Age next time (especially in the early game when you haven't started your conquest yet), since you won't have enough time to accrue enough Era Score and the threshold is raised against you. Plan accordingly with this in mind.
The tech leaping has a few other consequences that you will never encounter elsewhere besides when playing Babylon. First, as you may or may not know, you can complete techs without having their prerequisites as long as you can trigger the s for them. However, in order to manually select a tech to hard-research (in the traditional way with per-turn ), you will need all of the tech's prerequisites. The interesting aspect happens when, let's say, you want to research tech A and have all the prerequisites for it (called tech B and tech C), but you don't have all the prerequisites for either B or C or both of them due to tech leaping. You can only start researching A by selecting it on the menu on the left hand side of the screen, below the world tracker. If you select tech A from the tech tree screen, however, the incomplete techs that are the prerequisites of B and C will be researched instead, so do pay attention to where you are clicking.
Furthermore, regarding unit upgrading path, just because you have unlocked an advanced unit does not mean you can upgrade a precursor unit into the advanced unit while skipping over all the intermediate units. For example, one strategy outlined below is the Spec Ops rush, but just because you have unlocked Plastics and can now train Spec Ops does not mean your Scouts can be upgraded straight into Spec Ops when you are missing either Machinery (to unlock the Skirmisher) or Rifling (to unlock the Ranger).
==== Ancient and Classical Era s ====
This is the signature bonus of Babylon, and also the one you need to play around the most in order to make Babylon competitive in any field. You will receive a huge malus in generation, a whopping 50%, but s will unlock full technologies instead of completing only a fraction of them. Since it is not possible to activate all s in the early game, you will have to make precise decisions on which tech needs to be hard-researched (at a speed of a turtle, pretty much) and which tech needs to be reserved for later possible s. A huge part of these decisions lies in the first 2 eras, as they will shape how your game is going to turn out. Of course, there cannot be any recommendation here, since each game, your starting location and your early exploration will dictate a lot of possible variations, but there are a few caveats you should keep in mind that can help you out a little bit:
* The first three techs you research in every single game should always be Animal Husbandry, Mining and Pottery, preferably in that order. These three opening techs do not have s, so you will always have to hard-research them, and they all provide the scientific basis for all other techs in the game, so it is best to get them out of the way as fast as possible. The reason why you start with Animal Husbandry, and then Mining, and always finish with Pottery is because Pottery does not provide any meaningful unlocks that allow you to trigger any , so it should always come last. Between Animal Husbandry and Mining:
** Animal Husbandry will have higher priority in every game if you are playing in Gathering Storm, even when you spawn next to a Mine-able resource. In Gathering Storm, are not revealed at the beginning of the game, but only after researching Animal Husbandry, so basically this tech reveals , adding an extra 1 and 1 to one of your tile in your , which is huge this early on. You can then instantly build a Pasture there to unlock Horseback Riding and Horsemen, the premier military unit of the early game, granting you safety in defense and prowess in offense. Mining allows you to build Mines and Quarries, which unlock Wheel and Masonry, respectively, if you are able to build the Mine on a resource and not just on a Hills tile. Mining will only have the higher priority than Animal Husbandry if you have both a Mine and a Quarry resource nearby. Wheel is a not a great tech for Babylon, since their unique Water Mill is unlocked with Irrigation, and Masonry is only great because of the Pyramids, which you are not guaranteed to have a Desert tile to build it on.
** In versions before Gathering Storm, are revealed at the start, so the question of Mining versus Animal Husbandry is more debatable, but again, it follows the same logic line as above, since Animal Husbandry leads to Horseback Riding, which is more likely to be useful than Mining leading to Wheel and Masonry.
* Since your is dreadful, it gives you more time and freedom to decide when and where to settle your . Try to choose a location where you find resources that can be improved the most types of improvements, like Pastures, Farms, Mines and Quarries. Of course, the ideal situation that you find all 4 types is hard to come by, so prioritize Farm-able resources. Building a Farm on a Farm-able resource unlocks Irrigation and your extremely powerful unique building, the Palgum, which will give you a huge source of growth and in the early game. (Read more here.) For this reason, always settle your on a river. If you are unlucky and spawn next to the coast, don't be cheeky and think it is worthwhile because it unlocks Sailing instantly, that is a terrible idea. Spend your time and move inland to find a river with a Farm-able resource, you are Babylon, there is literally no rush for settling.
* Exploration is crucial, since you unlock a lot of free techs just by wandering around, like Writing, Astrology, or techs granted by some Tribal Villages. However, don't build Scouts for this purpose, build your Sabum Kibittum instead, it is a much better and more long-term investment. (Read more here.)
* The three maritime techs located in the top branch of the tech tree are great candidates for techs you have to hard-research, Sailing, Shipbuilding, Celestial Navigation. Sometimes if you are very unlucky with the map generation, Astrology too. However, unless you are completely landlocked with no coastline in sight, it is strongly recommended there should be minimum one, maximum two coastal cities in your empire: at least one city so that you can build ships, put down a Harbor for an instant Lighthouse and a , improve sea resources to trigger a , two cities if you want to unlock Cartography and Steam Power. If you find a spot where you can put down a city both on a coastline and a river, that is ideal, and there is no discussion to have there. However, in most situations, you will not have this ideal spot, so your two coastal cities will take a growth and hit, because they cannot build the Palgum. The easiest way to alleviate this is to send s from those two cities back to the . You will always guarantee to have at least 2 s at this point, 1 from Foreign Trade, 1 from the free Lighthouse of your first Harbor.
==== Campuses, Theater Squares, and the Great Library ====
A huge pitfall inexperienced players often get caught in is to build Campuses in every city, regardless of their preferred Victory condition, but ignore Theater Squares almost completely unless they go for a Cultural Victory. Certain statistics can be of low priority when you go for a certain type of Victory ( in a Religious and Diplomatic game, in a Domination game, etc.), but unlocks Governor titles, s, Governments, and a lot of powerful and game changing Policy cards, so it smooths out the path and accelerates the speed to all types of Victory. That idea will be a lot clearer when you play as Babylon, since building Campuses en masse is no longer a viable option.
Making Theater Squares the main to build as Babylon has a lot of advantages. First, there are quite a few techs whose s depend on civic advancement. They are Stirrups, Castles, Banking, Scientific Theory, Sanitation, Radio, Combustion, Combined Arms, Computers, Telecommunications, and Robotics. Some of these techs are absolutely crucial to any civilization, since they either unlock a powerful Wonder, or a premier military unit of its era, or a project that leads to a Scientific Victory. Not to mention, empires with strong can reach Globalization civic incredibly fast, which allows them access to the mighty International Space Agency policy card (and, for Babylon, unlocks Giant Death Robots). This card can help Babylon tremendously in completing late game techs whose s have to be triggered by or Spies, and Hammurabi's bonus towards s, while not very strong, can be decent for Babylon to establish a diplomatic foothold with city-states. Also, Spies are almost exclusively unlocked by civics, with the sole exception of the Computers tech, whose is also triggered by civic development.
By no means you should completely ignore Campuses, you should have at least 2 of them, one of which should be adjacent to a Mountains tile, so you can trigger the s for both Printing and Astronomy, while triggering the for Recorded History, the civic that unlocks the Great Library.
The Great Library is an extremely powerful Wonder in Babylon's hands, as it normally gives a free every time another civilization recruits a , but because of Enuma Anu Enlil, these s become full technologies. Unlike the trap that China falls into thinking that their slightly more powerful s will help pay off the and time invested into the Great Library, Babylon should absolutely build this wonder. Since you do not want to build a lot of Campuses, your point generation will be poor, so it is likely you will miss out on a lot of them. This wonder is most useful in the late game when many of the s are the same: "Boost though Great Scientist or spy", this is also the time when Babylon is relatively weaker than other pure civilizations, as everyone else will be building Campuses and having their multiply exponentially, while Babylon's tech advantage over the rest of the world evens out (if you are not going on a Domination path, that is). Overall, the Great Library will certainly grant you multiple free techs over the course of the game, which can be even more valuable if the techs received are those whose s are required by civic advancement, as mentioned above. Thus for Babylon specifically, the Great Library is nearly as powerful as other universally powerful wonders such as Forbidden City or Kilwa Kisiwani.
==== Medieval, Renaissance, Industrial and Modern Era s ====
Mid-game s are a lot harder to trigger, and require much more calculations and investments. You cannot just trigger random s just for building an improvement you would want to build anyway like you did in earlier eras anymore. However, you can save a lot of time strategizing by just going on a full conquest mode in these eras, as the majority of the s in this period ask you to kill a unit with a certain unit type, build a number of buildings, or train a certain type of units, all of which can easily be completed by conquering neighboring empires. As long as you successfully claim some cities with some levels of infrastructure, you are good to go, free techs will flow in naturally. Aim for techs that unlock advanced units, and with your high output from all your Theater Squares, you will have appropriate policy cards to train your army and demolish your enemies.
The most important s of these four eras are the ones that either unlock new military units or boost yields of your improvements or reveal new strategic resources. The ones that unlock new buildings and Wonders should be of lower priority, since you can always steal these from your defeated foes.
The only tech that cannot be triggering by conquering or having high output from Medieval to Industrial is Education. If you are in a game against Scientific civilizations that build a lot of Campuses, there is a high chance you will never earn a , so this tech is a good candidate to be hard researched. In the Modern Era, Chemistry should also be hard-researched, since a lot of conquest means everyone else most likely hates you, so you cannot trigger the for this, regardless of the version you are playing in. For Radio, although it is heavily map generation dependent, the more territory you have from conquering, the more likely you will find a spot for a National Park, so it is not a big deal. You can also build a Settler to settle down a new city in a high Appeal area just to get this triggered. With all of this being said, there will never be enough emphasis on how crucial it is for Babylon to have a good generation, as it solves a ton of problems that they may run into.
This makes the construction of Monuments Babylon's utmost priority when settling new cities, as triggering s is something Babylon can do irrespective of cities for the most part, while are much harder to come by. +2 at just 60 is nothing to scoff at, although it is worth noting that you should only prioritize building Monuments once you start conquering and your build order becomes a bit more lax.
==== Atomic Era and onward ====
There are not much in terms of strategies that can be discussed with Babylon from this point onward, since from Atomic Era, there are a lot of techs that can only be boosted with s or Spies. The issue with s has been mentioned above, you do not build a lot of Campuses, competing for them may be difficult. Espionage can technically help you, but it also depends a lot on who you are playing the game against. Most likely, at this point, Babylon is so far ahead in terms of number of techs unlocked, that unless you have some pure civilizations in the game like Korea, Maya, or Australia, there is a really high chance you cannot use your Spies to steal any tech from anyone. And just the fact you may have to wait for them to catch up with you in research to be able to use your agents really defeats the purpose of having a lead. If you are in the game with one of these Scientific civilizations, Cryptography and Nuclear Espionage policy cards may aid your espionage a lot. However, if there is no one who is more technologically advanced than you, there are still a few things that can help you smooth out your path to Victory as Babylon.
(For the following paragraph only, the term "boostable" will be used to describe techs that have a specific requirement, while "non-boostable" will describe techs that have to be triggered by espionage or s.)
Since Medieval Era, it is highly suggested you become a warmonger, so there is no point in stopping now, especially considering other paths are incredibly difficult for you. Luckily for Babylon, all the techs that unlock new units in the last few eras are boostable, meaning you can fully upgrade your melee, ranged, heavy and light cavalry units to the end of the line, even the Giant Death Robot can also be unlocked easily as well (as long as, once again, you have a good flow of , since Robotics is boosted by having the Globalization civic). Bombers and Fighters can also be unlocked by triggering the of Advanced Flight, helping you replace the outdated siege and ranged units. At this point, you are miles ahead of your opponents on the tech tree, Bombers and Fighters should be more than enough to finish your enemies. Overall, as a warmonger, the only thing you will have to go without is nukes, so you have to capture cities in the old-fashioned way, but your highly advanced units will have no problem tearing down the enemies' walls and charging right in. Just a proof to show that Babylon is actually quite bad at winning a Scientific Victory: every piece of infrastructure or project related to the Scientific Victory is locked behind a non-boostable tech, which they cannot reliably earn s or use Spies for.
==== The most reliable unit progression for a Domination Victory: Crossbowman rush ====
A Domination Victory is a much better choice for Babylon, using their ability to grab vital techs that give them powerful units other civilizations would not have access to for a long time. The most efficient unit progression for Babylon would be the Crossbowman rush, since the Crossbowman is the premier military unit of late Medieval Era (detailed here), if you are able to get them in late Ancient, early Classical, that is the doom for most civilizations. First, construct 3 Slingers. Then, kill a barbarian or enemy unit with the Slingers to trigger Archery. Upgrade your Slingers to Archers (180 for 3 Archers) to trigger Machinery (as detailed here). You can then try to upgrade these Archers into Crossbowmen (250 each, 750 in total) and use these units to shoot down enemy cities before they build Walls.
If they manage to build Walls then the process is a bit longer, but the gist is basically the same. After having 2 Crossbowmen, you will unlock Bombards from Metal Casting, but not yet have to build them. An Aqueduct is required to boost Military Engineering, giving you access to . You can build one Bombard (or two if you are generous), your enemies will most likely only have Ancient Walls with the city strike damage of an Archer (read more here), and your Bombard can blast Ancient Walls from 100% to 0% in one shot. The moment the Bombard gains the Crew Weapons , it will be unstoppable for a long time, especially if you heal it properly between fights. With your Crossbowmen and your Bombard, you can keep using your Warriors and Sabum Kibittum to deal the final blow to capture cities, both of which can be upgraded into Swordsmen if needed. All they need to do is to fortify on the frontline surrounding the enemy city to put it under siege, and strike at an opportune moment.
As you might have gleaned, this rush involves a lot of constructing and upgrading units, and here lies one of the caveats of Babylon: getting access to advanced techs early is only one part of victory; the other part is amassing enough and . Unfortunately, Mercenaries comes rather late for you to take advantage of Professional Army, so you should instead build a Commercial Hub and a Harbor (with Ninu Ilu Sirum gotten a free Market and a free Lighthouse), so now you will have at least 3 s to assist your financial needs, and an Industrial Zone (with an extra 2-3 free from the Workshop, depending on the game version you are playing) for your manufacturing needs. Considering Apprenticeship gives you both the Industrial Zone and a boost to Mine , you need to build 3 Mines as soon as possible. Remember to put your Industrial Zone next to the Aqueduct you would build to boost Military Engineering to gain the major adjacency bonus.
Of course, how important is to Babylon cannot be emphasized enough, as it unlocks major policy cards that either helps you upgrade your units at a much lower cost, accumulate resources faster, lower the units' maintenance cost, or just build them a lot faster. Remember, you can combine policy cards with Magnus' Groundbreaker title; use your Builders to chop Woods and Rainforests to quickly train your expensive units.
==== Infrastructure focus by beelining Industrialization: An alternative ====
Note: After the December 2020 Update, certain conditions were made easier to achieve in Gathering Storm. Since the vast majority of players who own New Frontier Pass also own Gathering Storm, this section will only apply to the Gathering Storm expansion without detailed explanation for players who play without Gathering Storm. With that being said, the strategy outlined in this section can still be used even if the player does not own Gathering Storm, it is just harder to achieve, since the conditions are higher, so the timing will be less reliable.
The purpose of this strategy is trying to reach the Industrialization tech as soon as possible (preferably in the Ancient Era), giving all of your cities a huge that allows you to branch off to many other directions depending on what you want to do next. The key flow here will be reaching Apprenticeship first by building 3 Mines, then building 2 Industrial Zones, the first of which will give you a free Workshop (thanks to Hammurabi). The moment you finish the second Workshop in another city, Industrialization is unlocked, revealing and unlocking Factory and Coal Power Plant. Even if there is no in your territory (which is likely, considering you already have 2 cities at this point), you are the only one that is aware of , so settle extra cities to take advantage of this. This strategy is a really powerful one, because it puts your infrastructure at such an advanced level that you can actually build your extremely expensive units in a reliable amount of time. 
With this much early on, there are many routes that you can take, including unlocking advanced units for conquests, using the to build Wonders and Theater Squares for a Cultural Victory, or continue focusing on infrastructure for a Scientific Victory:
* Without having to do anything else, the "rapid industrialization" method allows you to train Men-At-Arms in the Ancient Era. All you have to do is to build 3 Mines, at least one of which is an Mine.
* Musketman rush: The Musketman is a very powerful unit, with 55 Combat Strength, and if it is unlocked very early, it is practically unstoppable. After you finish Industrialization, you need to build a Quarry to unlock Masonry, then Ancient Walls to unlock Engineering, then an Aqueduct for Military Engineering, and lastly an Armory for Gunpowder. Since most of what you have been doing until now focuses on building up your infrastructure rather than expanding, there is a chance you do not have in your territory. If so, after revealing with Military Engineering, you choose for yourself whether or not to go down this path.
* Spec Ops rush: The Spec Ops is not an especially combat-oriented unit under normal circumstances, since their Combat Strength is very low for its era. However, when you can unlock it this early, it is both powerful and mobile without requiring any strategic resource. Building a Coal Power Plant unlocks Refining, which reveals . Building an Oil Well unlocks Plastics, which allows you to train Spec Ops.
* Biplane rush: With Industrialization, you unlock the Ruhr Valley, a strong Wonder that gives another boost if you manage to grab it. Remember this Wonder is very competitive normally, but you will be the only one trying to go for it in this case considering how far you are ahead. It may take a while, but if you manage to chop Woods and combine it with Magnus, you can finish the Wonder in a reasonable amount of time. Finishing it will unlock Flight, which allows you to build Aerodromes and Biplanes. Remember that this is a viable unit rush method, but the Biplane will be the only air unit you can build, since it requires and not . is revealed by Radio, whose is impossible to trigger in the early eras and must be hard researched. The bottleneck of this strategy is how fast you can build the Ruhr Valley, and how close cities are together on the map. The Biplane's main weakness is its limited range, so this strategy will not work if you don't have a next door neighbor where your planes can reach. 
** Research Mining.
** Build 3 Mines to unlock Apprenticeship.
** Build 2 Industrial Zones and their Workshops to boost Industrialization
** You will need at least 1 source of , either in your territory or in a tributary city-state to build Biplanes.
* Wonders and Cultural push: Every Wonder has a based value, starting at 2 and increasing by 1 for each era different between the era of the Wonder and the era the builder is in (this is based on the builder's current civic and tech research and independent of the world era). As you can see, with a huge foundation and the ability to quickly unlock Atomic Era techs, every Ancient Era wonder will yield 8 , Classical Era wonders yield 7, etc.
* No matter which route above you pick after your push for Industrialization and , you will have a huge lead in the race. For this reason, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus should be something you pay extra attention to. Also, Leonardo da Vinci, a Renaissance has fantastic synergies with Babylon. He gives 3 for every Workshop, 6 with the Mausoleum, and that is huge especially with the innate hunger for of Babylon. Also, he will unlock a Modern Era tech (2 Modern Era techs with the Mausoleum).
==== Bad timing: consequences and solutions ====
As outlined above, Babylon needs a good flow from tech to tech, a flow so delicate that it can be disrupted easily if there is a poorly timed popping up unexpectedly. For example, a Slinger can kill a Barbarian to grant you Archery before you get the chance to train 2 more Slingers, and now you have to waste to hard build Archers. Even if you have a lot of and want to build more than 3 Slingers to upgrade to Archers, you cannot. The moment you upgrade your third Slinger, you will gain Machinery, thus making every other Slingers you may have upgrade to Crossbowman instead, which is much more expensive. Building 2 Harbors will unlock Cartography and Caravels, thus forcing you to hard-research Shipbuilding even when you do not really want to. The s that will lead you into this situation are the ones that unlock a new military unit, thus phasing out an older one, yet the older one is required to unlock another , so pay extra attention to those. 
In the early game, what you can do in these situations is to find a city-state, become its Suzerain and levy its troops, these levied units will count towards the s that you need, although this is not recommended, since you want to use to upgrade your units for conquest, so if you mess up, just add the tech that cannot be boosted to the list of hard-researched techs. In the mid game and later on, these earlier techs can be stolen from your enemies by your Spies, so that you can keep researching the ones from the era you are in, but piggyback off of your opponents' research for earlier techs.
=== Ninu Ilu Sirum ===
==== Free first building in a specialty when building that the first time ====
This is the main and more important bonus of this ability. As soon as you can construct their home for the first time, you will receive a free Library, Shrine, Market, Lighthouse, Amphitheater, Arena, Workshop, Grove, Consulate, Ferris Wheel, or Hangar. Of those, the ones you should be thinking about most are the extra point from the Shrine, the extra from the Market and Lighthouse, the extra point from the Library, and free from the Workshop. An extra point can be crucial in the race to claim a religion, since basically your first Holy Site will grant you 2 points instead of 1, similar to Byzantium. However, as Babylon, the route to claim a religion is actually a lot bumpier, since first, you have to be lucky enough to run into a Natural Wonder, since it takes you forever to research Astrology from scratch. Even if you are lucky enough to unlock Astrology early, you have way too many higher priorities in your build order: a Sabum Kibittum for exploration, a Builder for s, a Palgum for a lot of early and , an early Settler for a second city, 3 Slingers to unlock Archery and Machinery, and maybe a Monument for some early generation, etc. Your plate is already so full that trying to find a space to stuff in a Holy Site may seem like a tall order. However, if you want to make certain sacrifices to get an early religion, that is by no means a terrible decision. As discussed many times before, you are a Domination civilization, and the Crusade belief aids that quest tremendously (and you can snipe that belief from other religious Domination empire, like Byzantium, Spain or Poland). If you have to replace anything in the list above with a Holy Site, the Palgum and the Monument can wait a bit longer. If you are unlucky with the Natural Wonder map generation, just ignore religion. Thanks to your tech leaping ability, you do not even need to research Astrology and still have access to techs after it. 
The first Campus is also important, since it comes with a free Library. Since Babylon should not build a lot of Campuses, thus is not competitive when it comes to s, this first Campus + Library can give you a headstart to earn one, so that you can unlock the infamously difficult Education tech. Invest your first three Governor titles in Pingala, so that he can earn Grants, if you establish him in the city with the free Library, you will be earning 4 points per turn, which is respectable. If you also have the Oracle in this city, the number will be 8 points per turn, and up to 10 if you run the Inspiration policy card. If you want to get the for Education, make sure to build this early. If you give other empires enough time to build multiple Campuses, you will never be able to compete with them with only 1 or 2 Campuses.
 and s are also important, so the first Industrial Zone, Commercial Hub and Harbor should come next. As crucial as is to Babylon, they are not as important in the first two eras, when s are very easy to trigger, so the first Theater Square can be delayed a bit longer.
==== Free when completing a non-specialty district for the first time ====
In essence, Hammurabi's Babylon can receive a grand total of 6 free Envoys over the course of the game, when he builds the first Aqueduct, Dam, Neighborhood, Canal, Spaceport and Government Plaza. By no means this ability is enough to push Babylon toward a Diplomatic Victory, as earning only 6 extra Envoys over the entire course of the game is quite underwhelming. You should invest in militaristic city-states in the early game, as they help you build your expensive army, especially if those city-states help you directly in war, like Lahore or Akkad. Later, you should invest in cultural city-states or industrial city-states. Industrial ones are hit-or-miss, some are awesome, some are just purely awful, but cultural city-states are generally powerful, with only Vilnius and Mohenjo-Daro being either terrible or extremely situational. 
Overall, Hammurabi's ability phases out of relevance pretty quickly, and it only feels impactful when you build these s in the early game, when you already have a lot of priorities you need to sort out first. A free building in Ancient/Classical Era feels great, but a free building in Medieval onward is just underwhelming, it all depends on how early you can get your infrastructure up, which makes Babylon's decision-making in the early game even harder than it already is.
=== Palgum ===
The Palgum is a very nice upgrade to the rather underwhelming and underused Water Mill. Beside the 1 extra and compared to the Water Mill, the Palgum provides 1 to all tiles next to a source of Fresh Water, including rivers, lakes and oases. The efficacy of this building is no longer heavily tied to random map generation like the Water Mill, since now you can seek out locations on a river where there are many Fresh Water sources, and grow your cities incredibly quickly. And don't underestimate the bonus, either. Extra 2 is huge in the Ancient Era, especially for a building that does not require another slot. For comparison, the Workshop, a Medieval Era building, also provides 2 in Vanilla and Rise and Fall, while being almost 2.5 times as expensive as the Palgum and requiring the Industrial Zone.
Also, the Palgum is only one of the two City Center unique buildings, meaning it is not dependent on a specific type of and can be built everywhere, as long as the city satisfies one very simple placement requirement. The Valletta city-state, therefore, has a powerful synergy with Babylon, since it allows them to instantly purchase the Palgum with , making it easier for new cities to grow immediately after settling.
It is worth noting that the Palgum is unlocked with Irrigation rather than Wheel like normal. For most civilizations, this is barely a distinction, but because of the way Babylon's ability interacts with technology it ends up being unlocked much sooner, since you will nearly always spawn next to and prioritize improving , , and , thanks to your starting bias. Considering Babylon's outstandingly low per turn and the fact that they can easily catch up with their civilization ability, they are not under pressure of having to settle almost immediately after the game starts. Indeed, they can wander around for the first few turns looking for an ideal spot with a Farm-able resource to instantaneously unlock Irrigation and get their unique building up and running in no time. It is actually quite viable to start training a Builder to put down a Farm on a resource, then move on to build the Palgum immediately, so that your will receive this huge boost of and ; however, by doing so, you will have to forgo early exploration.
=== Sabum Kibittum ===
The Sabum Kibittum is an interesting unique unit. The stat that may jump out at you is its disappointing 17 Combat Strength - 3 less than the Warrior, which it does not replace, and less than any unit in the game with the exception of the Scout. However, it has some things going for it. First of all, it has 3 - more than any melee unit all the way until the Atomic Era - as well as a radius of 3. This makes it as effective, and slightly more survivable, than the Scout; additionally, it has the standard melee +5 Combat Strength bonus against anti-cavalry units, which makes it slightly better at dealing with Barbarians than, say, the Okihtcitaw, but still not a good choice at clearing the outpost: against a Barbarian Spearman, it only has 22 Combat Strength compared to the Spearman's Combat Strength of 25 plus extra Combat Strength from fortification. Finally, it has a whopping +17 Combat Strength bonus against all cavalry units, whether light or heavy. While not especially suited for conquest by itself, the combination of its unique traits makes the Sabum Kibittum an excellent defense against cavalry, even more so than the underpowered Spearman. Its bonus makes it almost as strong against cavalry, it is not only cheaper but available earlier as well, and its greater allays the main flaw with anti-cavalry units: the inability to catch up with the cavalry it's meant to defend against. It could perhaps supplement an invasion and deal with pesky cavalry harassing your main army of Warriors and Archers, or use its to snipe an irritating ranged unit.
Babylon especially wants to scout, and be on the lookout to claim as many Tribal Villages as possible to pick up some early s. Thanks to the reconnaissance prowess of this unit, there is virtually no reason for Babylon to build Scouts. At only 5 extra , you have a maneuverable unit that can clear Barbarians quickly and can even be used effectively in combat. Also, because of its classification as a melee unit, its relevancy can be prolonged into later eras. Overall, the Sabum Kibittum is just a better unit - and a far more worthwhile long-term investment - than the Scout. Not to mention, there is not a single technology in the game whose has to be triggered with a recon unit.
With that being said, despite being a more worthwhile investment than the Scout, the Sabum Kibittum should never be the heart of the Babylonian army. Due to its obvious weakness against melee and ranged units, dealing with this unit is very easy. Not to mention, Babylon is a civilization with the most rigid build order in the entire game; in the early turns of the game, they perpetually have way too many priorities on their plate to maximize the number of s unlocked. Mass training the Sabum Kibittum means you would have to let go so much progress in favor of a unit so inefficient at conquest, even if you have a horde of them. With their ability to unlock technologies at a ridiculous speed, especially with the popular and simple Crossbowman rush, there is virtually no reason for Babylonians to build more than one of this unit for the sole purpose of exploration.
=== Victory Types ===
Though it seems like Babylon is the premier civilization to go for a Scientific Victory, the reality is a bit more nuanced, mainly because every tech required for a Scientific Victory does not have specific s for Babylon to obtain, meaning even they are stuck researching it the old fashioned way. Coupled with the inherent penalty you also have, as well as the likely fact you have not built as many Campuses as a normal empire would, by the time you have researched said techs, other empires may catch up and essentially negated the head start Enuma Anu Enlil gives Babylon. Sometimes, you do not even need to wait until the late game to realize the mechanics may not always be in your favor, even as early as the Medieval Era onward, if you do not go on a conquest. Babylon's ability is powerful in the early game, but begin tapering off by the late game, and Hammurabi's ability is not even relevant at the time when Babylon needs to sprint hard for a Scientific Victory. Unlike other early game civilizations like Scythia, Macedon or China who can easily snowball from their early advantage, whether it is from conquering or from their own infrastructure, Babylon simply does not.
As outlined in great details above, Babylon excels in conquest. Contrary to popular belief, their civilization ability does not give them an edge in , instead it gives you an edge in techs, and these techs unlock new units far ahead of the world era. Given that the and management needs to be on point when you produce expensive units, but once the Domination machine starts, it just cannot stop, because from conquering a lot of cities, you will naturally trigger s that give you even more techs. Babylon is a little bit different from other Domination civilization, since the beginning of the game is a bit rough, since you rely on these very advanced units, yet incredibly expensive to roll over your opponents, but once they start rolling, they will be nigh-unstoppable.
A Cultural Victory is also within reach. Despite having no direct bonus, the playstyle engendering from your civilization ability necessitates the mass construction of Theater Squares, which will make you quite competitive in earning . Also, because you will be way ahead of everyone in the tech tree, you gain access to Wonders quicker. Of course, you will run into other pure Cultural civilizations, but one thing to keep in mind about them is that they most likely are very passive. If their generation is too high for your to penetrate through, or if their recruitment of is becoming a problem, you can always use your Bombards and aircraft to ensure that their people have to buy your blue jeans and listen to your pop music.
=== Counter Strategy ===
A prosperous Babylonian empire needs three things: and in the early game to get their technologically advanced army up and running, and later, to sustain their scientific lead. Their early generation is pitiful, which means they will take an exceptionally long amount of time to research the first three techs to improve their tile yields. Furthermore, their civilization ability asks for a rigid build order without any deviation with the only aim being to unlock as many s as possible. Anything you can do in the early game to harass them or to force them to go out of their desired build order can push them back a ton:
* When their Builders are done putting down 3 improvements, you can declare war just to pillage these improvements. Of course, you cannot undo the techs they already gained, but you force them to either train another Builder to repair these improvements or go without the extra yields. If you have to choose, improvements that grant (Plantations) and (Mines, Quarries, Pastures) should have high priority.
* The most common unit rush of Babylon is the Crossbowman rush (detailed above), which requires three Slingers. Anytime you manage to kill just one of these Slingers can add a lot of pain to Babylon, since you force them to build Slingers again and again. If they use their Slingers to fight back your units, the moment a Slinger kills a unit, Archery will get triggered, and Babylon will be forced to expend even more to build Archers, since they cannot build Slingers anymore.
* The army you use to wage war on Babylon should comprise of a lot of melee units, since they are amazing at smashing ranged units. Beside the starting Warrior, a Sabum Kibittum for scouting, Babylon will exclusively train ranged units in the Ancient Era to actualize their rush. Melee units deal really well with both the Sabum Kibittum and ranged units. Anytime you can kill one of their units, their progress will be set back a lot, and they are the type of civilization that has to be ahead, since they are terrible at catching up.
Also, in the early game, it is suicidal to trade to Babylon, especially if they ask for one-time deal instead of per turn. They are always starving for in the Ancient Era to upgrade their units, so do your best to cut off their sources and do not give them anymore than what they have.
The thing about Babylon is the more you play them, the more you realize there are only that many flows they can go on. Any deviation from such pre-defined paths will cause fractures in their plans, which will eventually cause their empire to succumb to outside pressure because of their innate low per turn. There are a few advanced units that they can rush effectively and there are ones they almost never use due to how the tech tree's system is laid out. These are some examples of advanced units Babylon will never field, since the s to reach these techs are very awkward:
* The Knight is unlocked by researching Feudalism. The Medieval Era is way too early into the game for Babylon to have a high edge to get to Feudalism quickly.
* The Courser is unlocked by having a level 2 government, which poses the same problem as the Knight above.
* The Cavalry is unlocked by killing a unit with a Knight.
* The Tank is unlocked by excavating an Artifact, an action that becomes possible only in the late Industrial Era and beyond. 
The list goes on, but the obvious overall pattern is that they are all light and heavy cavalry units. Therefore, the advanced units you will have to deal with against Babylon are either naval units (so if you are on a water map, it is wise to be away from the coast), or melee and ranged units, with high damage but very slow. Also, the hallmark of a Babylonian "army" is that they only have two to three units but very advanced (like an Atomic Era unit on the Medieval battlefield sort of "advanced"). Settle in rough terrains and accumulate any layer of defense you can, and in the meantime try to be friendly with Babylon (just don't form a Research Alliance with them, or at least don't get the that Alliance to level 2). If you get attacked, amassing ranged units and put them inside defensible s to whittle down Babylon's units bit by bit. Remember, since they are limited by and , every time you manage to kill one of Babylon's advanced units by focus fire, it costs them a huge fortune. Babylon's bonus will taper off later in the game, and that will be your chance to catch up.
=== Bugs ===
As of version 1.0.7.9, Hammurabi's ability will not grant you the free building or if the first of its type is conquered and not built by Babylon themselves. However, when they build it for the first time, the game will act as if they already built this type of before, and thus will not give them the free building and then either.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Citizens ==
Males 	Females 	Modern males	Modern females
Dadanum 	Baunu 	Abbas 	Afra
Enusat 	Munawwirtum 	Adil 	Janay
Ea-nasir 	Nidintu 	Adnan 	Jesenia
Demeetheresu	Ahati-waqrat	Ferran 	Maysun
Baassiia 	Gemeti 	Faris 	Maja
Naram-Sin 	Ia 	Dabir 	Salama
Sargon 	Iltani 	Daoud 	Sadia
Rihat 	Ettu 	Dekel 	Tahira
Ubar 	Erishti-Aya 	Hud 	Faizah
Zuuthusu 	Arwia 	Imran 	Bushra
== Trivia ==
* The Babylonian civilization's symbol is based on the Lion of Babylon, an ancient symbol of Babylonian royalty.
* The Babylonian civilization ability is named after a collection of Babylonian tablets dealing with the astrological interpretation of a wide variety of celestial and atmospheric phenomena.
* Before the Babylonian civilization was added, the city of Babylon was a city-state added in Rise and Fall. After Babylon's release, it was replaced by Anshan.
* Babylon is the final civilization added to Civilization VI that has been playable in every standard Civilization game.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Civ6 Sabum Kibittum In-Game.jpg|The Sabum Kibittum, Babylon's unique unit
File:Civ6 Palgum In-Game.jpg|The Palgum, Babylon's unique building
== Videos ==
thumb|center|300px|First Look: Babylon
== Related achievements ==
== References ==
== See also ==
* Babylonian in other games
== External links ==
* https://civilization.com/news/entries/civilization-vi-first-look-hammurabi-leads-babylon/
ru:Вавилон (Civ6)
Category:Civilization VI: New Frontier Pass
Category:Babylonian