Arabia

[Stalker0]

I find splash damage pretty useless on 1 range units. The no horse requirement has uses, this patch it means you can save the horse for later and sell it for around 6 gold.

The camel archer is alright but nothing special. Arabia is very strong regardless.

yep I think the Arabia UU is pretty weak, and I consider that an important counterbalance to an already great Civ, aka working as intended

 

[Recursive]

The "winning a war part" is very unreliable as the definition for winning a war is rather strict

War score 25+

 

[Deljade]

War score 25+

Yeah, I know what it entails, it's just that it doesn't come up often for me. If I finish a war and just take a city it's not enough for 25 warscore.

Authority has an easier time getting good K/D ratio and probably better warscore but still

 

[Recursive]

War score calculation has been modified for next version, may have an effect.

 

[JamesNinelives]

If I finish a war and just take a city it's not enough for 25 warscore.

Really? Seems to work well for me. Although if I take a city it usually means I've done a fair bit of killing and pillaging as well.

 

[InkAxis]

Yeah, I know what it entails, it's just that it doesn't come up often for me. If I finish a war and just take a city it's not enough for 25 warscore.

Authority has an easier time getting good K/D ratio and probably better warscore but still

I often get way past 25 war score if I take a city.
Especially if it's around the time you get camel archers. My last Arabia game I rushed Spain with them and took their capital. They were pretty good, but not crazy or anything.

 

[Gidoza]

Just finished a game with Arabia in the June 2020 version. I think it's the only game I played for a long time where I was leading in score, tech, culture, wonders, and votes from the very beginning right to the end of the game. No challenge and no threat. I play on Immortal and this game stood out as too easy.

The only reason the game lasted until nearly turn 400 was because I was basically perma at war with all other civs' in rotation from about turn 150 and on, but it made no difference. Hmmm...

 

[Stalker0]

Just finished a game with Arabia in the June 2020 version. I think it's the only game I played for a long time where I was leading in score, tech, culture, wonders, and votes from the very beginning right to the end of the game. No challenge and no threat. I play on Immortal and this game stood out as too easy.

The only reason the game lasted until nearly turn 400 was because I was basically perma at war with all other civs' in rotation from about turn 150 and on, but it made no difference. Hmmm...

were you isolated?

 

[Gidoza]

were you isolated?

Not at all. I had France, the Inca, and Indonesia all on my island with me. Two of these made their own religions but I Propheted them to death and that maintained my religion on the whole island for the rest of the game.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Two of these made their own religions but I Propheted them to death and that maintained my religion on the whole island for the rest of the game.

If you've eliminated two of your rival religions that puts you in a pretty strong position in itself.

 

[azum4roll]

If you've eliminated two of your rival religions that puts you in a pretty strong position in itself.

They'll hate you though.

 

[Drakle]

Can Arabia be hard-locked to take Tradition? I'm not a Diety player, but it feels silly on lower difficulties to see the AI Arabia pick Progress when Arabia is the most pigeonholed civ for Tradition. I mean it is playable as Authority, so maybe just hard blocked from Progress, which really doesn't play to its strengths.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Can Arabia be hard-locked to take Tradition? I'm not a Diety player, but it feels silly on lower difficulties to see the AI Arabia pick Progress when Arabia is the most pigeonholed civ for Tradition. I mean it is playable as Authority, so maybe just hard blocked from Progress, which really doesn't play to its strengths.

I've personally done really well as Progress Arabia in my games. It may not be as well-synergised but it's not terrible. The science focus of Progress helps with wonders. The investment in settling a little wider pays off in terms of your non-capital cities being more independant and able to support your capital better from then onwards rather than being less developed. E.g. being strong defensive nodes, contributing faith, science, culture, gold, and building diplomats. I also really like learning on the UB in the early-game rather than the UA - the Bazaar really is quite decent. From mid-game onwards satellite cities can start producing great people as well - I have my capital focus mainly on engineers and diplomats. My satellite cities work their guilds and one is usually specialised in great merchants. Progress also feels a lot less militarily vulnerably than Tradition because you have more production overall to build units and access to more strategics.

To be clear, I'm not arguing that Progress is optimal for Arabia. It obviously isn't - Tradition is the best. I'm just saying that it's not useless either.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I agree with hardcoding Arabia as Tradition, at least on higher difficulties. I too can make Progress Arabia work, but its clearly a suboptimal choice, so I'm only doing it if I want to handicap myself.

 

[Thibix Magnus]

I haven't tried, but progress seems ok for a statecraft approach, if trade routes still activate the UA on completion.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Thibix, in that case, why not instead go Tradition and Statecraft if you're already intent on taking Statecraft instead of Artistry?

 

[Thibix Magnus]

Thibix, in that case, why not instead go Tradition and Statecraft if you're already intent on taking Statecraft instead of Artistry?

Not needed, but it might come handy in speciifc cases, with room to expand and many CS neighbors. If you have a lot of free land and not an amazing capital land, even Arabia might want to expand... then if you are committing to a diplo win, progress might make easier to protect allied CS, you cover more land and have a bigger army. Not optimal for arabia, but I would consider it depending on the map and who I face. Full trad also gives you less influence over what happens in the world, with little leverage against a culture runaway. Only theorycrafting though I would just consider diplo arabia because of the side effect of trade routes triggering UA.