Arab Strategy
Bonuses
Start: Knowledge of Religion
Ancient: +50% Caravan Gold
Medieval: Knowledge of Mathematics
Industrial: +1 attack for horsemen and knights
Modern: 2% interest on gold reserves
Intro
Ive used the Arabs quite a bit recently in H2H, primarily. They are a very effective FFA civ as well, but H2H, as with a lot of civs, they are even more powerful, because they get tons of bonuses that increases their rushing capabilities, which sets them up nicely to abuse the AI. They work very well for all things military, but they can hold their own in other areas, but it usually all starts with aggression.
Ancient Era
comments on bonuses:
Starting off with Religion is not only helpful for rushing, but it also means that you get +1 culture in all cities. This is very helpful for preventing flips, receiving Great People faster, and expanding your cultural borders. Being in Fundamentalism has on inherent drawback, which is that you cannot use libraries. Thats ok, you dont need libraries for quite a while, as it is often not a good idea to have a library in the BC anyway.
The +50% Caravan Gold bonus is probably one of the worst bonuses in the game. It only applies to caravans that you build, not for caravans that you receive from Barbarian Villages or Friendly Huts. As most players rarely build caravans, this one is a wash. To top it off, Caravans require Currency in order to build them. The only way typically to get Currency in the Ancient Era, is to get over 250 gold. This is very possible because you can overrun barbs pretty easily, but youre probably not going to spend 30 hammers in the Ancient Era to get what will most likely be 50 gold. So, you should consider this bonus to be non-existent, because essentially it is. You start with Religion, and thats what youre going to have going for you in the Ancient Era.
Warrior Rush
This is what your are almost always going to try to achieve. The plan is to get a warrior army to a capital as quickly as possible, hopefully in the first 10 turns or so, but up to 15 turns is usually effective, depending on who youre facing and the map. Start with two workers on two forests for 5 turns. Send the 1st warrior one direction, and then send the next an opposite direction. Keep those workers on forests.
My rule of thumb on creating warriors: I usually limit myself to 10 turns on two forests. Sometimes you dont need to go that many, but often you need a warrior army, and maybe one or two more roaming warriors. Having your workers set to forests after 3000BC is often too long, and will hurt your post-warrior rush game.
After you have your 2nd warrior created, you should know a little about the map. Here is were you need to decide where your 3rd and 4th warrior should be heading. You should send these two warrior in the direction that will most likely lead to you reaching some capitals, and at the very least, some barbarians. Rush warriors for 12 gold whenever possible. You shouldnt have too much problem getting barbs fast.
Two Essential things to know about Arabs warriors:
1. Warriors armies will overrun barbarian villages. This makes it very easy to get gold fast, as well as upgrade them.
2. A warrior with only one wound will almost always win against a barbarian. The odds will be 1.34 vs. 0.5. You wont lose this battle in the first 20-30 turns. After that, you can, but early in the game you shouldnt. This speeds up the amount of time it takes to get barbarians.
Getting to the caps is essential. If you get to the AI caps before 2000BC, you should probably be able to win that battle, but 20 turns is pretty slow. It is worth it to stop at a barbarian village on the way to a cap, but spending too many turns out of the way can often make you lose your best shot at taking the cap. If there is a single unit in a city in the first 10-12 turns, you should win that city. Warriors only have one movement, so its not always possible to get there, but Id say in more than half of my games, using the strategy of sending my first two warriors in opposite directions, then send two more in the best case direction, I get a cap early with those warriors.
The only other thing that usually holds you back is if you have to spend too much time healing. Sometimes you have to heal for 1 or 2 turns to get back to a good strength, and that may cost you against human players, but against the AI, you should still be fine. Just get them to accept peace, and then heal, and resume your attack when you are back up to strength.
After youve made your first army, if you still have directions that need to be explored, go ahead and get more warriors out and send them that way. But, be wary of spending too much gold on warriors. This is one of the toughest things to manage with the Arabs. Sometimes its way too easy to waste your gold, and you may have trouble later when all the barb villages and huts are gone, and you still dont have your 100 gold. If your warrior rush fails, then youll have to sell those armies at a loss, or create a settler with hammers and food, which will make future expansion slower.
After the Warrior Rush (Ancient cont.)
After youre done producing warriors (3000BC at the latest), you should grow your capital back to 3 pop. Usually your first tech to research is Bronze Working. There are some cases when you may want to research Horseback Riding first, and I will discuss them a little later in the Ancient Era discussion. But, Bronze working should usually be your 1st tech to research, because it makes you safer from threats, and gives you the ability to settle next to fish, build barracks, and other basic stuff you should probably know.
The Amazing power of Fundamental Archers:
Arab Archers are one of my favorite units in the game. They are basically an archer and a legion all wrapped in one. They still have all the defensive capabilities that normal archers do, but with the +1 attack from Fundamentalism, an archer army has 6 attack when its non-vet. This means, they are basically like any other civ having an archer army and a legion armies all rolled into one. The best thing about this is, they wont leave the city when attack units. The bad thing about them is that they wont move when attacking and winning a battle outside of a city, unless it takes the last unit in a city. Not really an awful thing, they stand their ground. They can really claim so much of the map for you. If you want to focus on expansion, having a few archer armies clearing land before you reach Code of Laws is not really a bad idea at all. You can also punish rushers for even thinking about stepping foot next to one of your cities.
You should have your 100 gold pretty fast, you may want to wait until you have your second settler or even third settler before researching bronze working. This is a judgement call based on whats happening on the map. Researching it in one city takes 5 turns, while it usually 2-3 turns if you have 2-3 cities working on it.
Now, if you are not going to consider horserushing, then you should consider the value of getting Irrigation vs. Code of Laws. If its going to be a close race for Irrigation, dont waste your time, you dont really need those techs that much, and most can be backfilled later. If you were able to pick up an extra cap, or even two, then getting Irrigation first is typically pretty easy, just by the sheer fact that youll probably have more cities than others. Code of Laws is typically the safer call, and will help you expand out to more cities. Getting either Code of Laws of Irrigation should push you into the Medieval era, since you only need 4 techs to get there (because you start with Religion).
Early Horserushing
Sometimes youll need to consider forgoing the warrior rush and go straight for horses. On a map where movement is key, and you pick up some early gold with your 1st or 2nd warrior, this can work out. I still recommend trying the warrior rush most of the time, but if the opportunity arises, then a horserush before or without a warrior rush can work.
Typically, Ill consider it if I found a barbarian village with my first move with my first warrior, meaning youll have your first barb @ 3600BC. If you get more than 40 gold, this means you can have your first horseman right after finishing HBR. If you want to try it, switch you workers to science, and youll have it 5 turns, with 3000BC the latest you should have it (if youve spent 5 turns getting it, you can switch your workers after 1 warrior, its your call). If you run across an early hut, you can save yourself some time, and get switch your research to HBR before getting it, hopefully saving all the research time. Sometimes it makes sense if you get HBR from a hut in the middle of setting up a warrior rush, to go ahead and switch gears and go for a horserush instead.
Those horsemen should pick up barbs pretty quickly, and dont need to be ultra fast, since a horsearmy has 9 attack base, 13.5 vet. This means you can deal with single archer ok. The other nice thing is that a single horse has a base attack of 3, and 4.5 vet. So, if you want to gamble a little bit, and know that a cap has a single warrior in it, youll have the advantage. A single vet horse from a hill has 6 attack, the same as non-arab horsearmies. Its a pretty big gamble though, and if youre going for early horserushing, then you should be pretty assured of a cap if you just army up and attack a few turns later.
Horserushing after the warrior rush
This is often a good call, especially if youve been sucessful in taking a cap with a warrior army, and have reached your 100 gold. Instead of Bronze Working, or right after a quick researching of Bronze, its often a good idea to go ahead and get a horsearmy out there. Before 20 turns, you should be able to try to upgrade your horses and may be able to get a cap, but there are other things you can do with the horsearmy.
This horsearmy usually excel at taking newly settled cities, and can have an advantage if it is vet vs. archers armies that are not in a cap, 13.5 vs. 12. But, usually it wont come to such a close battle. These horsearmies can be used throughout the BC. You dont have to rush to pick up cities. Just get them together in an army, hopefully upgrade, and be patient about where to best use them. They can really help you claim more of the map, and help terriorize the other civs to stay out of you terriorty. If you dont have a great shot at rushing with them, keep them around, because theyll receive a +1 attack upgrade in the Industrial, which basically makes them knights.
Defending against rushers
Ive already gone into a little detail about this. The Arabs excel at defending early rushes because of their excellent counterattacking abilities. If youve got Bronze Working, its no problem. Otherwise, smart play with warriors will keep you safe against horserushers and impi armies. The 4 warriors trick works like a charm. But, you dont really need to wound the horsearmy with the warrior you that is defending, since you can form an army with 3 other warriors and kill the horsearmy with 6 attack. If they are vet or on a forests, then it may be risky and you may want to wait for a wound, but in general, its easier to do with the Arabs than other civs.
Though you usually dont have a problem repelling attacks, people often gun for you because they want Religion. You probably want some archers a little earlier against the Zulu, you dont need them always to survive, but for contiuning the game, having the archers push back the impis, and then sending them out to claim more of the map is a great way to relieve the strain of the Zulu claiming your territory.
Just dont get sidetracked in your own rushing that you overlook an oncoming rush, its still wise to protect your cap, and you may have to slow down a little bit to get back control of the area around your starting spot.
Island Starts/Isolated Starts:
This can be tough to deal with, but it happens. It does take away your early advantage. If you have room to settle on your island, and not much gold, go ahead and settle more cities. If you are able to get your 100 gold on the island, then get your galley and decide whether you should settle more right away on your island, or if its wise to load a settler on the galley to try to get some mainland control. You can do both, rushing a settler out your cap, and settling your 100 gold settler on the island.
If you dont have the 100 gold settler, then you should load a unit or a few on a galley and try to get to the mainland asap. You want a settler as soon as possible on the mainland, so you can start to build a situation where you can work toward rushing your enemies. If you cannot do this, this try to expand however you can, and hope for the best, but usually these types of games are best resolved by throwing some kind of hail mary rush someone else.
The thing you do have in your favor is that youll get your first GP a little sooner than most civs, so hopefully you can work that into the equation for getting back into the game, and finding another window for aggression.
Culture
Im not going to make any recommendations on Great People. Its too game dependant. Im just going to note that if you expand well, or pick up a few caps, you can often be the most powerful culture civ on the map. Your cap gets 6 culture at 3 pop, and your subsequent cities get +1 culture. 5 cities and youre making more culture than the English early on. Typically youll get your first GP 5-15 turns earlier than everyone else. The first one normally helps with continued rushing, or expansion, if youve stopped your major early rushing.
Medieval Era
Bonus: Knowledge of Mathematics.
This is a pretty good bonus to get. Its a 70 beaker tech, it allow you to build catapults, and it is a pre-requisite for Navigation, Engineering, and University. You dont get the free catapult, but thats ok. You probably wont be using the bonus to stage many all-out early catapult rushes, but its still handy to be able to. In Fundamentalism, they have a base attack of 5, an army is 15, and a vet army is 22.5. They should keep you safe for quite a while, if you need them for counterattack. Otherwise, they can be useful from time to time to take down cities, but early in the game, its a little tough to use them for this purpose, due to their low movement and hammer cost.
Expansion vs. Aggression
At this point, you should have at least 3 cities, and should have Code of Laws, or working your way to Code of Laws after getting Irrigation first. Your aggression will be at its lowest point at this stage, but hopefully youve already busted a nice hole in the map and claimed it as your own. If youve taken capitals and raked in a lot of gold, this part should be easy. But you will have a drop off in attack power. If you do need to switch back to Fundamentalism at this point, make sure you are going to be effective, as you will lose at least a few turns switch out of Republic and then back into it if you need to expand more. Just make sure that when you switch governments, you bring a solid force, because people are most likely going to know what you are switching governments for.
As for where to expand, you should focus most of your expansion on the mainland, but still dont disregard any tasty island spots. You need a good launching pad for your future rushes. Most of the time you wont be setting yourself up to be the tech leader, which isnt really the Arabs strong suit. Youre looking to find spots with high production, decent trade, and maybe a few settler pumps. Looking for a city with hills would be nice, if you can get the free workshop from Construction, otherwise look for oak, and lots of trees.
Expand out to as many cities as you can, you can stay in Republic for all of the Medieval if you want, switching back to Fundamentalism as needed, but as I said before, this may be your least aggressive stage in the game.
Other key techs in the Medieval
Your ultimate goal in Medieval teching is to get to Feudalism, because youll probably look to end the game with knights. All the techs along the way, primarily Monarchy, can really help. Its usually a good idea to go ahead and get Feudalism before you get to the Industrial Era, so you can rush more knight for less gold.
Currency is a nice tech to pick up after Code of Laws, if you can get it first and get the free market, this will help fund more settlers and more units. Navigation is often attainable first, as you get Mathematics to start the Medieval. You should have Writing from your path to Code of Laws, which you have often teched in the Ancient, so you could conceivably get Navigation as your 7th tech, but you dont really need it that soon. You dont really need it at all, but its a good tech to have, and youre still heading the Industrial, it can aid in expansion, and help you get more artifacts and islands, as well as help do some catapult rushes on single unit cities.
Prepping the Knight Rush (Medieval era still)
This is something you want to do in the Medieval. The knights get +1 attack in the Industrial. On top of +1 from Fundamentalism, knights are ridiculously powerful, and can match tanks in attack power. Since the Arabs dont have an inherent trade prowess, you usually need to look to end the game early, or take control of the map militarily.
Teching up to Feudalism has been discussed. Building a barracks is often a good idea in the Medieval. Once this is done, you can hammer bank in that city till you get Feudalism, and then get knights from those banked hammers. A settled GL means your hitting them in an overpowering manner.
You do not need to be in the tech lead to win as the Arabs. You just need to live long enough to have powerful enough knights kill them. Arab knights can take down riflemen, so youve got a little cushion if you need to let the other guy take a bigger tech lead. You dont want to give them all day, and you want to make sure you can handle their rushes, but the tech lead is not needed at all.
Sending out archers and having ships ready to escort knights helps as well. If you do this early, youll have a more likely chance that your knights wont be killed en route to the enemy.
Having Samurai Castle (need monarchy to build it), is always a good idea, if you can get the builder.
Industrial Era
Bonus: +1 Attack for knights and horsemen.
This is what youve been working up towards. If you have saved some horsemen from the Ancient and Medieval raids, then great, they are basically what a normal knight is, when you are in fundamentalism. Its the knights that are powerful though, so lets break this down:
In Fundamentalism, here are the numbers for knights:
Single knight= 6
Single vet knight= 9
Non-Vet Army= 18
Vet Army= 27
Vet Army+hill/infiltration/gg= 35
Vet Army+ 2 50% upgrades= 45
Samurai Castle:
Non-vet army= 21
Vet army= 31.5
Vet army + hill/infiltration/gg= 42
(note: Im not always great at listing these numbers, so if Im wrong, let me know, and Ill edit, thx).
Add any type of naval support, and the numbers are even scarier. Basically, look for anyway you can to upgrade those knights. This should be your goal. The longer you take to get the knight rush going, the more upgrades that you are going to need.
A cruiser fleet is sometimes really nice to have, as it will provide great protection against counterattacks, and help make your super-knights that much stronger.
Closing Remarks (hey! What about everything else?)
What about everything else?? I just wrote pages of strategy to help you kill everyone! If that doesnt do the job, everything else plays out pretty much like any other civ. Their last bonus is 2% gold reserves in the Modern. This helps a little, but nothing game changing in my opinion. Strategies for the late Industrial and Modern Eras are all very game dependant, but typically follow a familiar blueprint. If the knights dont end the game, or you dont have a lead, then youre gonna have to work to get there. If things go well for you, you should have increasing control of the map. So, after youve finished up with the early Industrial Era rush, proceed as you see fit, and be thankful I didnt write as much for the last two eras as I did for the first two.
Hope it helps!
Bonuses
Start: Knowledge of Religion
Ancient: +50% Caravan Gold
Medieval: Knowledge of Mathematics
Industrial: +1 attack for horsemen and knights
Modern: 2% interest on gold reserves
Intro
Ive used the Arabs quite a bit recently in H2H, primarily. They are a very effective FFA civ as well, but H2H, as with a lot of civs, they are even more powerful, because they get tons of bonuses that increases their rushing capabilities, which sets them up nicely to abuse the AI. They work very well for all things military, but they can hold their own in other areas, but it usually all starts with aggression.
Ancient Era
comments on bonuses:
Starting off with Religion is not only helpful for rushing, but it also means that you get +1 culture in all cities. This is very helpful for preventing flips, receiving Great People faster, and expanding your cultural borders. Being in Fundamentalism has on inherent drawback, which is that you cannot use libraries. Thats ok, you dont need libraries for quite a while, as it is often not a good idea to have a library in the BC anyway.
The +50% Caravan Gold bonus is probably one of the worst bonuses in the game. It only applies to caravans that you build, not for caravans that you receive from Barbarian Villages or Friendly Huts. As most players rarely build caravans, this one is a wash. To top it off, Caravans require Currency in order to build them. The only way typically to get Currency in the Ancient Era, is to get over 250 gold. This is very possible because you can overrun barbs pretty easily, but youre probably not going to spend 30 hammers in the Ancient Era to get what will most likely be 50 gold. So, you should consider this bonus to be non-existent, because essentially it is. You start with Religion, and thats what youre going to have going for you in the Ancient Era.
Warrior Rush
This is what your are almost always going to try to achieve. The plan is to get a warrior army to a capital as quickly as possible, hopefully in the first 10 turns or so, but up to 15 turns is usually effective, depending on who youre facing and the map. Start with two workers on two forests for 5 turns. Send the 1st warrior one direction, and then send the next an opposite direction. Keep those workers on forests.
My rule of thumb on creating warriors: I usually limit myself to 10 turns on two forests. Sometimes you dont need to go that many, but often you need a warrior army, and maybe one or two more roaming warriors. Having your workers set to forests after 3000BC is often too long, and will hurt your post-warrior rush game.
After you have your 2nd warrior created, you should know a little about the map. Here is were you need to decide where your 3rd and 4th warrior should be heading. You should send these two warrior in the direction that will most likely lead to you reaching some capitals, and at the very least, some barbarians. Rush warriors for 12 gold whenever possible. You shouldnt have too much problem getting barbs fast.
Two Essential things to know about Arabs warriors:
1. Warriors armies will overrun barbarian villages. This makes it very easy to get gold fast, as well as upgrade them.
2. A warrior with only one wound will almost always win against a barbarian. The odds will be 1.34 vs. 0.5. You wont lose this battle in the first 20-30 turns. After that, you can, but early in the game you shouldnt. This speeds up the amount of time it takes to get barbarians.
Getting to the caps is essential. If you get to the AI caps before 2000BC, you should probably be able to win that battle, but 20 turns is pretty slow. It is worth it to stop at a barbarian village on the way to a cap, but spending too many turns out of the way can often make you lose your best shot at taking the cap. If there is a single unit in a city in the first 10-12 turns, you should win that city. Warriors only have one movement, so its not always possible to get there, but Id say in more than half of my games, using the strategy of sending my first two warriors in opposite directions, then send two more in the best case direction, I get a cap early with those warriors.
The only other thing that usually holds you back is if you have to spend too much time healing. Sometimes you have to heal for 1 or 2 turns to get back to a good strength, and that may cost you against human players, but against the AI, you should still be fine. Just get them to accept peace, and then heal, and resume your attack when you are back up to strength.
After youve made your first army, if you still have directions that need to be explored, go ahead and get more warriors out and send them that way. But, be wary of spending too much gold on warriors. This is one of the toughest things to manage with the Arabs. Sometimes its way too easy to waste your gold, and you may have trouble later when all the barb villages and huts are gone, and you still dont have your 100 gold. If your warrior rush fails, then youll have to sell those armies at a loss, or create a settler with hammers and food, which will make future expansion slower.
After the Warrior Rush (Ancient cont.)
After youre done producing warriors (3000BC at the latest), you should grow your capital back to 3 pop. Usually your first tech to research is Bronze Working. There are some cases when you may want to research Horseback Riding first, and I will discuss them a little later in the Ancient Era discussion. But, Bronze working should usually be your 1st tech to research, because it makes you safer from threats, and gives you the ability to settle next to fish, build barracks, and other basic stuff you should probably know.
The Amazing power of Fundamental Archers:
Arab Archers are one of my favorite units in the game. They are basically an archer and a legion all wrapped in one. They still have all the defensive capabilities that normal archers do, but with the +1 attack from Fundamentalism, an archer army has 6 attack when its non-vet. This means, they are basically like any other civ having an archer army and a legion armies all rolled into one. The best thing about this is, they wont leave the city when attack units. The bad thing about them is that they wont move when attacking and winning a battle outside of a city, unless it takes the last unit in a city. Not really an awful thing, they stand their ground. They can really claim so much of the map for you. If you want to focus on expansion, having a few archer armies clearing land before you reach Code of Laws is not really a bad idea at all. You can also punish rushers for even thinking about stepping foot next to one of your cities.
You should have your 100 gold pretty fast, you may want to wait until you have your second settler or even third settler before researching bronze working. This is a judgement call based on whats happening on the map. Researching it in one city takes 5 turns, while it usually 2-3 turns if you have 2-3 cities working on it.
Now, if you are not going to consider horserushing, then you should consider the value of getting Irrigation vs. Code of Laws. If its going to be a close race for Irrigation, dont waste your time, you dont really need those techs that much, and most can be backfilled later. If you were able to pick up an extra cap, or even two, then getting Irrigation first is typically pretty easy, just by the sheer fact that youll probably have more cities than others. Code of Laws is typically the safer call, and will help you expand out to more cities. Getting either Code of Laws of Irrigation should push you into the Medieval era, since you only need 4 techs to get there (because you start with Religion).
Early Horserushing
Sometimes youll need to consider forgoing the warrior rush and go straight for horses. On a map where movement is key, and you pick up some early gold with your 1st or 2nd warrior, this can work out. I still recommend trying the warrior rush most of the time, but if the opportunity arises, then a horserush before or without a warrior rush can work.
Typically, Ill consider it if I found a barbarian village with my first move with my first warrior, meaning youll have your first barb @ 3600BC. If you get more than 40 gold, this means you can have your first horseman right after finishing HBR. If you want to try it, switch you workers to science, and youll have it 5 turns, with 3000BC the latest you should have it (if youve spent 5 turns getting it, you can switch your workers after 1 warrior, its your call). If you run across an early hut, you can save yourself some time, and get switch your research to HBR before getting it, hopefully saving all the research time. Sometimes it makes sense if you get HBR from a hut in the middle of setting up a warrior rush, to go ahead and switch gears and go for a horserush instead.
Those horsemen should pick up barbs pretty quickly, and dont need to be ultra fast, since a horsearmy has 9 attack base, 13.5 vet. This means you can deal with single archer ok. The other nice thing is that a single horse has a base attack of 3, and 4.5 vet. So, if you want to gamble a little bit, and know that a cap has a single warrior in it, youll have the advantage. A single vet horse from a hill has 6 attack, the same as non-arab horsearmies. Its a pretty big gamble though, and if youre going for early horserushing, then you should be pretty assured of a cap if you just army up and attack a few turns later.
Horserushing after the warrior rush
This is often a good call, especially if youve been sucessful in taking a cap with a warrior army, and have reached your 100 gold. Instead of Bronze Working, or right after a quick researching of Bronze, its often a good idea to go ahead and get a horsearmy out there. Before 20 turns, you should be able to try to upgrade your horses and may be able to get a cap, but there are other things you can do with the horsearmy.
This horsearmy usually excel at taking newly settled cities, and can have an advantage if it is vet vs. archers armies that are not in a cap, 13.5 vs. 12. But, usually it wont come to such a close battle. These horsearmies can be used throughout the BC. You dont have to rush to pick up cities. Just get them together in an army, hopefully upgrade, and be patient about where to best use them. They can really help you claim more of the map, and help terriorize the other civs to stay out of you terriorty. If you dont have a great shot at rushing with them, keep them around, because theyll receive a +1 attack upgrade in the Industrial, which basically makes them knights.
Defending against rushers
Ive already gone into a little detail about this. The Arabs excel at defending early rushes because of their excellent counterattacking abilities. If youve got Bronze Working, its no problem. Otherwise, smart play with warriors will keep you safe against horserushers and impi armies. The 4 warriors trick works like a charm. But, you dont really need to wound the horsearmy with the warrior you that is defending, since you can form an army with 3 other warriors and kill the horsearmy with 6 attack. If they are vet or on a forests, then it may be risky and you may want to wait for a wound, but in general, its easier to do with the Arabs than other civs.
Though you usually dont have a problem repelling attacks, people often gun for you because they want Religion. You probably want some archers a little earlier against the Zulu, you dont need them always to survive, but for contiuning the game, having the archers push back the impis, and then sending them out to claim more of the map is a great way to relieve the strain of the Zulu claiming your territory.
Just dont get sidetracked in your own rushing that you overlook an oncoming rush, its still wise to protect your cap, and you may have to slow down a little bit to get back control of the area around your starting spot.
Island Starts/Isolated Starts:
This can be tough to deal with, but it happens. It does take away your early advantage. If you have room to settle on your island, and not much gold, go ahead and settle more cities. If you are able to get your 100 gold on the island, then get your galley and decide whether you should settle more right away on your island, or if its wise to load a settler on the galley to try to get some mainland control. You can do both, rushing a settler out your cap, and settling your 100 gold settler on the island.
If you dont have the 100 gold settler, then you should load a unit or a few on a galley and try to get to the mainland asap. You want a settler as soon as possible on the mainland, so you can start to build a situation where you can work toward rushing your enemies. If you cannot do this, this try to expand however you can, and hope for the best, but usually these types of games are best resolved by throwing some kind of hail mary rush someone else.
The thing you do have in your favor is that youll get your first GP a little sooner than most civs, so hopefully you can work that into the equation for getting back into the game, and finding another window for aggression.
Culture
Im not going to make any recommendations on Great People. Its too game dependant. Im just going to note that if you expand well, or pick up a few caps, you can often be the most powerful culture civ on the map. Your cap gets 6 culture at 3 pop, and your subsequent cities get +1 culture. 5 cities and youre making more culture than the English early on. Typically youll get your first GP 5-15 turns earlier than everyone else. The first one normally helps with continued rushing, or expansion, if youve stopped your major early rushing.
Medieval Era
Bonus: Knowledge of Mathematics.
This is a pretty good bonus to get. Its a 70 beaker tech, it allow you to build catapults, and it is a pre-requisite for Navigation, Engineering, and University. You dont get the free catapult, but thats ok. You probably wont be using the bonus to stage many all-out early catapult rushes, but its still handy to be able to. In Fundamentalism, they have a base attack of 5, an army is 15, and a vet army is 22.5. They should keep you safe for quite a while, if you need them for counterattack. Otherwise, they can be useful from time to time to take down cities, but early in the game, its a little tough to use them for this purpose, due to their low movement and hammer cost.
Expansion vs. Aggression
At this point, you should have at least 3 cities, and should have Code of Laws, or working your way to Code of Laws after getting Irrigation first. Your aggression will be at its lowest point at this stage, but hopefully youve already busted a nice hole in the map and claimed it as your own. If youve taken capitals and raked in a lot of gold, this part should be easy. But you will have a drop off in attack power. If you do need to switch back to Fundamentalism at this point, make sure you are going to be effective, as you will lose at least a few turns switch out of Republic and then back into it if you need to expand more. Just make sure that when you switch governments, you bring a solid force, because people are most likely going to know what you are switching governments for.
As for where to expand, you should focus most of your expansion on the mainland, but still dont disregard any tasty island spots. You need a good launching pad for your future rushes. Most of the time you wont be setting yourself up to be the tech leader, which isnt really the Arabs strong suit. Youre looking to find spots with high production, decent trade, and maybe a few settler pumps. Looking for a city with hills would be nice, if you can get the free workshop from Construction, otherwise look for oak, and lots of trees.
Expand out to as many cities as you can, you can stay in Republic for all of the Medieval if you want, switching back to Fundamentalism as needed, but as I said before, this may be your least aggressive stage in the game.
Other key techs in the Medieval
Your ultimate goal in Medieval teching is to get to Feudalism, because youll probably look to end the game with knights. All the techs along the way, primarily Monarchy, can really help. Its usually a good idea to go ahead and get Feudalism before you get to the Industrial Era, so you can rush more knight for less gold.
Currency is a nice tech to pick up after Code of Laws, if you can get it first and get the free market, this will help fund more settlers and more units. Navigation is often attainable first, as you get Mathematics to start the Medieval. You should have Writing from your path to Code of Laws, which you have often teched in the Ancient, so you could conceivably get Navigation as your 7th tech, but you dont really need it that soon. You dont really need it at all, but its a good tech to have, and youre still heading the Industrial, it can aid in expansion, and help you get more artifacts and islands, as well as help do some catapult rushes on single unit cities.
Prepping the Knight Rush (Medieval era still)
This is something you want to do in the Medieval. The knights get +1 attack in the Industrial. On top of +1 from Fundamentalism, knights are ridiculously powerful, and can match tanks in attack power. Since the Arabs dont have an inherent trade prowess, you usually need to look to end the game early, or take control of the map militarily.
Teching up to Feudalism has been discussed. Building a barracks is often a good idea in the Medieval. Once this is done, you can hammer bank in that city till you get Feudalism, and then get knights from those banked hammers. A settled GL means your hitting them in an overpowering manner.
You do not need to be in the tech lead to win as the Arabs. You just need to live long enough to have powerful enough knights kill them. Arab knights can take down riflemen, so youve got a little cushion if you need to let the other guy take a bigger tech lead. You dont want to give them all day, and you want to make sure you can handle their rushes, but the tech lead is not needed at all.
Sending out archers and having ships ready to escort knights helps as well. If you do this early, youll have a more likely chance that your knights wont be killed en route to the enemy.
Having Samurai Castle (need monarchy to build it), is always a good idea, if you can get the builder.
Industrial Era
Bonus: +1 Attack for knights and horsemen.
This is what youve been working up towards. If you have saved some horsemen from the Ancient and Medieval raids, then great, they are basically what a normal knight is, when you are in fundamentalism. Its the knights that are powerful though, so lets break this down:
In Fundamentalism, here are the numbers for knights:
Single knight= 6
Single vet knight= 9
Non-Vet Army= 18
Vet Army= 27
Vet Army+hill/infiltration/gg= 35
Vet Army+ 2 50% upgrades= 45
Samurai Castle:
Non-vet army= 21
Vet army= 31.5
Vet army + hill/infiltration/gg= 42
(note: Im not always great at listing these numbers, so if Im wrong, let me know, and Ill edit, thx).
Add any type of naval support, and the numbers are even scarier. Basically, look for anyway you can to upgrade those knights. This should be your goal. The longer you take to get the knight rush going, the more upgrades that you are going to need.
A cruiser fleet is sometimes really nice to have, as it will provide great protection against counterattacks, and help make your super-knights that much stronger.
Closing Remarks (hey! What about everything else?)
What about everything else?? I just wrote pages of strategy to help you kill everyone! If that doesnt do the job, everything else plays out pretty much like any other civ. Their last bonus is 2% gold reserves in the Modern. This helps a little, but nothing game changing in my opinion. Strategies for the late Industrial and Modern Eras are all very game dependant, but typically follow a familiar blueprint. If the knights dont end the game, or you dont have a lead, then youre gonna have to work to get there. If things go well for you, you should have increasing control of the map. So, after youve finished up with the early Industrial Era rush, proceed as you see fit, and be thankful I didnt write as much for the last two eras as I did for the first two.
Hope it helps!
