Great Buildings Review - Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel is one of the first Great Buildings we encounter, and the first economy - related GB in Forge of Empires. It appears in the Bronze age and it offers two bonuses: A number of goods per day (collected once every 24 hours) and a passive bonus to population.
Due to the Tower being an early-game building, it is relatively popular among ancient age players in general and very popular among the ones that focus more on the economy side of the game rather than fighting.
Now the question is: Is it worth it to build it or not?
And the answer is - as usual: "It depends."
Let's take a look at each bonus separately.
Population bonus begins at 90 when reaching level 1, goes up to 360 at level 5 and 1140 at level 10. This amount of population is quite low for a GB, considering that 4 houses of Colonial age can give more population (+gold) than a level 10 Babel at the same amount of space. Thus this bonus on its own is not very efficient, however within the same space we get another bonus.
The amount of goods produced starts at 6/day at level 1 and reaches 15/day at level 10. This amount of goods is quite good in terms of production-to-footprint as well as in terms of production-to-FPs invested. On the other hand, a dedicated goods building in early eras of the game can produce a lot more goods (requiring an investment of gold and supplies to do so) at the same or similar size and without any requirement for an FP investement. Later on, goods buildings become quite large, and thus as we progress, Babel becomes more efficient in terms of space.
The combination of both bonuses makes this GB quite efficient in terms of space even at lower levels, but never really shines.
The big problem here is that another GB (Lighthouse of Alexandria) that comes shortly after and takes up exactly the same space is giving more goods/day and has a FAR better secondary bonus. There is really no comparison between Babel and Lighthouse, the latter wins in every regard.
But does that prevent us from having both? Certainly not - however there is a limiting resource in maintaining both of these GBs and this is FPs. With a given amount of FPs you can either level LoA and Babel in parallel, or have only one of the two at a higher level than the other. The second option - while giving less goods overall, is stronger in terms of second bonus as well as footprint efficiency.
Therefore, while Babel is by no means bad, I would personally recommend not building it early on. The goods provided in the early eras compared to the space it takes is not worth investing FPs that could go on other, stronger GBs. Later on, when the stronger GBs are levelled up high enough and space is a little more flexible, it becomes a solid option for an additional goods income.
Tower of Babel rating: 5/10
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