Babylon
Hammurabi
Uniques and adjacency effects read from the game data.
Victory focusScienceDomination
Kit at a glance
Hammurabi's Babylon breaks the tech tree: eurekas complete their technology outright, at the price of crippled baseline science. You leap eras by engineering boost after boost — a puzzle civ that rewards knowing every eureka condition by heart.
Opening: the first 60 turns
Hammurabi's first sixty turns are a checklist rather than a build order. Warrior, scout, then a builder before the first settler, because three improved tiles hand over Craftsmanship's boost. Settle the second city on the coast for Sailing and Shipbuilding, and the third beside a river for the Palgum at Irrigation. Kill a barbarian unit with a slinger for Archery, build the Sabum Kibittum for its cheap cost and use it to clear camps. Research points should go only into techs whose eureka is hard to trigger, such as Astrology or Currency; everything else is completed by doing the thing. Aim to be one full era ahead by turn sixty.
Unique to this civilization
Unit
Sabum Kibittum
Building
Palgum
Replaces Water Mill
Technology: Irrigation
Adjacency effects
No adjacency bonus — standard district rules apply.
How to play it
Plan your eureka chain from turn one — builders, encampments and coastal cities each unlock key boosts. Rush a decisive military tech lead (crossbows, knights-era power) and convert it before opponents catch up; your late game is weaker, so strike in the window.
Victory paths
Science is the headline but the route is odd: Babylon reaches the late tree early and then slows down, so the win comes from finishing the space race while rivals are still in the Industrial era rather than from out-researching them per turn. The pattern is to chain eurekas into Apprenticeship, Industrialization and Electricity ahead of schedule, build the production base, then let Great Scientists and campus projects handle the techs whose boosts require late-game actions. Domination is the equally valid alternative, and often easier: crossbowmen against warriors or musketmen against swordsmen end wars in a handful of turns. Many strong Hammurabi games take a neighbor or two in the Medieval window and then coast to a science finish on the captured land.
Synergies: city-states, wonders, policies
Scientific city-states matter less than usual because raw science is halved, so favor industrial and militaristic ones, plus any city-state whose quest happens to be a eureka you want. Pingala is still valuable for Great Scientist points, but Magnus and Liang earn their keep faster by chopping and building the improvements that trigger boosts. The Pyramids are excellent, adding a builder charge to every builder that fuels improvement-based eurekas; Great Library later hands out extra boosts for free. Policy cards Ilkum and Serfdom make the builder engine cheap, and Natural Philosophy is worth slotting for the science that remains. A production pantheon like God of the Forge or Lady of the Reeds and Marshes beats faith options, since Babylon rarely competes for religion.
Weaknesses and counters
The halved science makes any tech without a reachable eureka painfully slow, and several key late techs demand actions like owning aluminum or building a specific district that a small empire cannot arrange in time. Babylon therefore fades after the Renaissance unless the early lead has already produced conquest or a large production base. Players lose games by hoarding the era lead instead of spending it, or by forgetting that Great Scientists and city-state boosts are the only way through techs like Astrology whose conditions are luck-based. Opponents should survive the Medieval push with walls and pikes, then simply outlast; by the Modern era a normal science civ is ahead. Loyalty and amenities also suffer because wide expansion, which the kit needs for boosts, is not supported by any bonus.
Similar civilizations
Related guides
- Science Victory City Planning: Roles, the Production Core, and the SpaceportA city-by-city plan for science victories in Gathering Storm: which cities carry research, which one carries the spaceport, era checkpoints to measure against, and what to do when the plan stalls.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
- Which Civilization Should You Play? Picks by Victory TypeThree to four leader picks for each victory type — science, culture, domination, religion, and diplomacy — with the reason each one teaches that victory well, plus flexible all-rounders and a guide to matching a civilization to how you actually like to play.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
- Early District Planning: The First 100 TurnsHow to read city sites for future adjacency, decide between settling for yields now or reserving tile clusters, and know when a planned layout should be abandoned.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
- City-States and Envoys: Where Your Influence Should GoWhere envoys come from, how to spend the first handful, which city-state types match each victory plan, how to win and keep suzerainty against the AI, and when conquering a city-state is the right call.Last reviewed: 2026-10-03
Last reviewed: 2026-10-03