A general strategy for Arabia (BNW)

Continuing my series of Civ V BNW strategies, I have just published a guide for a legacy civ that received major updates: Arabia. Please check it out at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2014/09/18/Civ-V-Arabia-strategy.aspx

As always, I appreciate any feedback, so please comment, share, or rate the post as you see fit. I also welcome any discussion about the strategy guide or Arabia strategies in general in this forum topic.

Additional strategies for the BNW civilizations can be found at:
Assyria the tech thief
Brazil the jungle king
spicy Indonesia
Moroccan gatekeepers
Poland the progressive warhorse
Portual borrows luxuries
Land-snatching Shoshone
Blindly managing Venice
Beware Shaka's loincloth of DOOM!

Additional BNW strategies for updated legacy civs:
French tourist trap


I will also be posting a similar thread on the official 2k forums.

Hum, I'd have thought you'd have done both Germany & Japan before Arabia since both of them had bigger changes in the BNW fall patch.

Arabia has a desert starting bias. It's unlikely they'll be shut out of local oil unless this is an OCC.

Um, I'm afraid even as Arabia, Piety start is NOT as good as either the standard Tradition or Liberty standard opening trees. And with the pro desert bias, you'll found a religion quickly anyway with Desert Folklore.

Note on the resource setting (in advanced start), Arabia can't really use "Legendary" quite as much as the other civs for most primary luxuries. (Notable exception is an unkind RNG rolling Cotton as the primary resource.) This is because on legendary, you usually have close to enough spare copies of your primary luxury even without your UB. Actually, this isn't legendary giving all these copies, that's normal even on standard IF there is sufficient tiles in the starting area allowing it at all. Legendary instead boosts bonus resources.
But basically the bottom line is that the UB benefit is almost entirely to the secondary sources of luxuries. (Along with giving the option to NOT settle all known locations of your primary luxury while still being able to sell a copy to everyone.)

Arabia may also be less interested in "Abundant" than most civs as well (plenty of Oil anyway and difficulty finding enough customers for the extra copies), but with the Camel Archer as their UU, they really want "Strategic Balance" to have some horses (prebuild their UU as Chariots and then upgrade)

There is one catch about the Desert starting bias. It's less reliable than other starting biases. (Small Contenants in particular is a type in which it's rare to be placed in or next to it. But even regular size conteants have a high failure rate compared to the Plains and Grassland biases.) Your chances can however be enhanced if you choose "hot" & "arid", if you do this though you should also go with the younger version of earth for more hills for production.

After the recent Immortal Challenge as Arabia, I am convinced that this civ consistently can win domination on any Pangea or Continents map and early too. Just spent the first part setting it up and then wipe them all out.

joncnunn said:

Hum, I'd have thought you'd have done both Germany & Japan before Arabia since both of them had bigger changes in the BNW fall patch.

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That was the original plan, but I decided to go with Arabia first, since its changed trait was "out of the box" rather than via a patch. Germany or Japan will probably be next!

@megabearsfan: I appreciate all the strategies you've created and posted.

Interesting guide, especially as I don't tend to warmonger and ignored the Arabs warmongering potential. I see the Arabs as a wide empire that is UN-biased to trade for money for friends, or just friends. I think the best track is probably a mix of piety and commerce and patronage, with a little bit of exploration/tradition/liberty. Build the widest empire possible with the best trade-network, and keep making friends. Use the innate military benefits to weaken only the strongest competitor in medieval and modern times, but only have one enemy civa at a time.

Piety-religion-holy warriors seems very viable.

I just had a ridiculous start with Arabia. I only started the game to unlock the "Greed is good" achievement that require you to build Petra, Colossus, a harbor and a caravansary in the same city. And I managed to do that. I also managed to build Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Starting location had 1 gold, 1 marble, 1 oasis and eventually also incense and whales. 2nd city had 3 gold and 1 oasis. So with mints and bazaars and a 3rd city who got silk I was getting over 130 gold per turn and that is in the early stages of the game with only 2 trade routs (5 available) so I dont think I will complete the game. I can practically buy any victory I want. And with dessert folklore I pump out faith like crazy. Since no other civs apparently went with tradition I managed get the Hanging gardens as well, after Petra and the NC. And since I moved my settler away from the river to get on a hill I still managed to get that garden. And that river btw provided the capital with 6 flood plains. Crazy food after civil service. And since the nearby CS wanted Islam and got it and wanted me to clear some barb camps wich I did the happiness is not an issue.

Arabia with the right starting conditions can be very OP. I started with emperor difficulty but after 100 turns it felt like a prince game.

Nah, I will probably not complete that game. Perhaps save it for some time when I have been kicked in the nuts by Attila or Spain again.

Shacassanach said:

Interesting guide, especially as I don't tend to warmonger and ignored the Arabs warmongering potential. I see the Arabs as a wide empire that is UN-biased to trade for money for friends, or just friends. I think the best track is probably a mix of piety and commerce and patronage, with a little bit of exploration/tradition/liberty. Build the widest empire possible with the best trade-network, and keep making friends. Use the innate military benefits to weaken only the strongest competitor in medieval and modern times, but only have one enemy civa at a time.

Piety-religion-holy warriors seems very viable.

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If you are after the fastest possible win time, Rationalism is actually the key social policy tree for every single civ for every single victory condition. (On some map types you can win as Arabia before completing Rationalism but even then the policies you placed into Rationalism sped up science to allow the faster win.)

For a self founded wide empire (self found a minimum of 6+ cities), Full liberty start is best for Arabia just like everybody else. Liberty depends upon luxury resource diversity, which will play right into Arabia's UB. Finishing Liberty ASAP will get you a free great person of your choice.
You'll then have about 2 spare polices to play with prior to being allowed into Rationalism.

For a self founded tall empire (self found at most 4 cities pre ideology), Full tradition start is best for Arabia just like everybody else. Note that this carries some risk of not getting much out of the UB but happiness issues aren't nearly as much of an issue going tradition anyway. Finishing tradition ASAP will place free aquaducts in your cities faster than you can research the tech.
Again, you'll then have 2 spare policies to play with prior to being allowed into Rationalism.

Conquering a wide empire actually goes into the of the first two categories, if you are planning on razing your conquests down and refounding in their correct positions one or two tiles away from where the AI did, that is a Liberty strategy above. If your instead keeping half (or more) of their cities and only razing to thin them out some, that is a Tradition strategy above.

joncnunn said:

Piety start is NOT as good as either the standard Tradition or Liberty standard opening trees. And with the pro desert bias, you'll found a religion quickly anyway with Desert Folklore.

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Counter intuitively, Piety starts are the best when you already have high faith output. I would never consider Piety starts at all unless I have desert folklore, tears of the god (gems), or Spain with a few wonders. The whole point of Piety is to maximize the use of your religion and it is pointless to do piety if you don't have high faith.

One thing you might want to add to the Temple of Artemis section is the production bonus stacks with the production bonus from stables when building camel archers.

Vitruvius said:

Counter intuitively, Piety starts are the best when you already have high faith output. I would never consider Piety starts at all unless I have desert folklore, tears of the god (gems), or Spain with a few wonders. The whole point of Piety is to maximize the use of your religion and it is pointless to do piety if you don't have high faith.

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Yes, that's the only time Piety gets up to good. However, even in this case, standard Tradition / Liberty (depending upon # of cities self founded) is still better.

This is because:

1. Piety doesn't have anything unique giving happiness bonuses. You'll get Pagodas faster, that's it, by comparison Liberty gives +1 happiness per city on top of everything else while Monarchy is a 50% capital pop reduction in happiness.

2. Piety doesn't have anything boosting culture. (Faster access to things that do, but again both Tradition & Liberty have this beat)

3. There is nothing in the Piety tree giving food bonuses, which is very important for tall empires. Indirectly you get the food follower belief a few turns faster, but it's not close to the 2 food + 10% growth in every city + 4 free aquaducts.

4. For wide empires, there's nothing in Piety tree to get faster settlers (important to get 6+ self founded cities)

5. For wide empires, Liberty's finisher is a free Great Person of any type.

6. Tradition's finisher includes faith based GE. (Rationalism's finisher includes faith based GS). Aesthetics finisher includes faith based guild specialists.

Sure you can still win going Piety against the AI, but instead of improving your turn to victory count it actually slows it down due to what was not taken.

Basically, both Tradition & Liberty would need significant nerfs to make Piety a better opener even under ideal Piety circumstances.

Love it! You're guides are so professional and helpful!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go back and do the rest of the civs eventually!

Monthar said:

One thing you might want to add to the Temple of Artemis section is the production bonus stacks with the production bonus from stables when building camel archers.

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Actually, I'm pretty sure that the stable does not buff the production of Camel Archers, since they are of the combat type "Archery" instead of "Mounted".

Carl5872 said:

Love it! You're guides are so professional and helpful!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go back and do the rest of the civs eventually!

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Thanks Carl. I am still working on Civ strategies and have a couple more in the pipeline. I have been delayed considerably, since my home was burglarized earlier this month and my laptop was stolen, so I lost all my test game saves and had to start over on my desktop. But I hope to have something for you within the next couple weeks.