[R&F] Civ of the Week: Arabia

acluewithout

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  • Leader: Saladin.
  • Leader Ability: Righteousness of the Faith. Arabia's Worship Building (e.g. Mosque, Cathedral) is one-tenth normal cost for both Arabia and other Civ following Arabia's Religion. Arabian cities with Arabia's Worship Building get +10% Science, Faith and Culture.

  • Civ Ability: The Last Prophet. Arabia automatically gets the last available Prophet, which means Arabia can always found a Religion. Arabia receives +1 Science per Foreign City following Arabia's Religion.

  • Unique Unit (Civ): Mamaluk. Unique Heavy Cav unit which replaces the Knight (unlocks at Stirrups). Melee Strength 48, Movement 4, Cost 180, Maintenance 3, upgrades to Tank. Heals at the end of every turn. Does not require Resources.

  • Unique Infrastructure: Madrasa. Unique Tier 2 Campus Building (replaces University and Unlocks at Theology, not Education). Provides +5 Science (vs +4 for University), +1 Housing, +1 Citizen Slot and +1 Great Scientist Points. Also provides faith equal to Science Adjacency of Campus District. Cost 225, Maintenance 2.
  • Leader Agenda: Ayyubid Dynasty. Likes Civs with Arabia's Worship Building; dislikes Civs following other Religions or at War with Arabia's Religion.
Notes:
 
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Righteousness of the Faith: how does this work exactly?
The Worship building for Arabia's Religioncan be purchased by any player at one-tenth of the usual Faith cost. +10% Science, Faith, and Culture on Arabian citieswith this Worship building.

Do I get that 10% for each mosque? (Or whatever worship building you choose) or just once? And would that once also be for any ai civs that build it? Like once per AI? How do I even know if an ai built a mosque.

I already finished my game, but when I play I sometimes get too into my game, but when I get home I'll load my save and try to figure out how much I was getting.

Although rereading it, it looks like I only get it in the city with the mosque, that makes the most sense. At first I thought it meant all Arabian cities.

edit: took out horrible oversize images, sorry about the copy and paste from wiki
 
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First of all, for anyone interesting in playing this save, I'll include the starting save. It's a fairly interesting map. I'd almost think they had a mountain bias, but of course that would make no sense with Arabia. You'd think they would have a desert bias, but apparently not. A desert bias would be pretty lethal considering they had not bonuses for desert. Which of course puts them at a serious disadvantage on TSL maps.

Spoiler :


So this is kind of a strange civ in that the unique building boosts a different currency (faith), where the civ ability for a faith building boosts the science currency. So I just built both in a lot of cities, though I should have built more holy sites I suppose. For some reason I misread that as all Arabian cities, I wasn't paying close attention to the qualifier at the end. Just to be sure I verified it:
Spoiler :

I do like the tooltip is handy in this situation. Sometimes this game can be ambiguous about some values, but at least this is explained in the tooltip.

So because you are encouraged to build 2 districts, they are well suited for both science and religious victory. I went science only so I could compare them to China. And they did surpass China, though not by as much as I thought they would. But I got a little bogged down with people attacking me, and had to devote more resources to defense than I would have liked. I had to defend on 3 fronts which wasn't easy. I mainly used manluks and crosswbowmen for defense. But I did use them to liberate some city states.

In hindsight, maybe I should have played a more peaceful game instead of conquering Egypt's only 2 cities. Other people were hostile towards me for much of the game, I had numerous surprise wars against me. But I wouldn't have had good land to settle had I done so. And Australia kept conquering Carthage, he's the biggest hypocrite in this game. I liberated Carthage 3 times and La Venta once.

Here are their abilities and some thoughts:
The Last Prophet: Automatically receives the final Great Prophet when the next-to-last one is claimed (if one has not been earned already). +1 Science per foreign city following Arabia's Religion.
I think I did get the final prophet, I kind of ignored the prophet race, so I can't be sure. I just build a holy site and shrine and waited. I didn't spread the religion outside my civilization, I kind of forgot about the 2nd part of this ability. While I did have massive faith from an early relic and Earth Goddess, I mainly used it on great people.

Righteousness of the Faith: The Worship Building for Arabia's Religion can be purchased by any player at one-tenth of the usual Faith cost. +10% Science, Faith, and Culture on Arabian cities with this Worship building.
Now I think I understand this better, it's very nice. I wish I had built more holy sites. Only down side is having to get all the way up to temple first, takes a bit of production, but the payoff is worth it. The faith costs to buy were very low.

Mamluk:
Can't complaing about a fast uu, but it's not real powerful, and I had a little trouble taking Carthage (the first time) with them, had to wait for some reinforcements. It's safer leaving them vulnerable to city attack with their heal ability. Great units for pillaging as I found out. I did a lot of pillaging of Australia.

Madrassa:
This does give an extra science over the university so that's good. The faith is okay. I did manage a +4 adjacency campus in my capital, so can't complain about 4 extra faith.

I beat my China science victory by 15 turns. In hindsight, I could have done better and built more holy sites. I can reasonably say they are a better science civ than China, but no way will they compare to Korea when I play them. My science was 595 per turn on my turn of victory (epic speed standard size map). I grade this civilization A-. They may be better suited for religious victory. In any case, religious victory should always be faster, and is the fastest way to victory with this civ. I may actually play them again going for religious victory.

My final save game screenshot. Rushing the builder will finish the science victory. Hattin was a poor city location, I settled there not knowing what lay beyond those mountains (turns out there were more mountains), so limited space was an issue, still managed a campus and theater square in this city.

Spoiler :
 

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Arabia is an interesting civ.

Leader ability - Righteousness of the Faith
  • The worship building for Arabia's Religion can be purchased at 10% of the usual faith cost (for anyone)
  • Arabian cities with this worship building get +10% science, faith and culture
I think both parts of this ability are very good. With Arabia, you will definitely want to go for fully developed Holy Sites, and getting the top building for next to nothing is very helpful. You will probably be going for some sort of faith purchasing in your game, so extra faith is great, and extra science and culture is great for anyone.


Civilization ability - The Last Prophet
  • Claim the final Great Prophet once the next-to-last one is claimed
  • +1 science for each foreign city following Arabia's religion
Another great ability, which means Arabia is the only civ guaranteed to get a religion in every game. The science part of this ability is pretty minor, but it serves as an extra incentive for Arabia to spread its religion.


Unique infrastructure - Madrasa
  • Replaces University
  • +5 science, 1 more than University
  • Provides faith equal to the adjacency bonus of the Campus district it is in
Another great unique for Arabia. The little bit of extra science is okay, the extra faith is potentially very substantial.


Unique unit - Mamluk
  • Replaces the Knight
  • Cost, power, movement and maintenance all the same as the Knight
  • Heals at the end of every turn
  • Requires no resources
Another good one. Knights are already good, Arabia's Knight is significantly better. Healing at the end of every turn is a major tactical advantage, which will give these units great staying power.


Overall, Arabia is pretty great. Their main focus is religion/science, which is an interesting combination. They are clearly designed for some faith purchasing strategy, and have the potential to get excellent faith output, while also doing really well in science.

Although rereading it, it looks like I only get it in the city with the mosque, that makes the most sense. At first I thought it meant all Arabian cities.
This is how I understand it, and what makes the most sense. Arabia is heavily incentivized to get its worship buildin in as many cities as possible. It wouldn't make much sense if they were incentivized to build only one of these super cheap buildings, and if it was a stackable bonus which applied to all cities, the bonus would be completely insane.
 
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So does anyone ever purchase Arabia's worship building when playing a different civ but with Arabia in the game? I don't think I ever have, though I often don't pay attention to the faith buy menu. Is there a good reason to? I'm guessing you can't build 2 worship buildings, now that would be nice. So what reason would I have to build Arabia's worship building and not my own? I'm assuming you don't need their religion since it specifically says any player can purchase it. I suppose it would be cheaper than building your own, I suppose if they had a better building I would consider it. But as I said, I often don't pay attention to faith purchasing.
 
Arabia is a fun civ, having a great science/faith mix - science building that gives faith and a faith building that gives science. They basically want holy sites and campuses in as many cities as possible, which is kind of annoying in that it takes up 2 district spots, but is certainly a much better mix than other civs that require multiple districts to make use of their bonuses (England or Norway, for example).

Some key points with them:
-The free prophet is great, since you never have to worry about rushing to get a prophet. Although obviously then you get last choice of religious beliefs, which may or may not be a problem. It might still be worth it to rush earlier, especially if it means locking in Jesuit Education. Choral Music would also be a great dedication for them, since between that, setting up holy sites everywhere, and the bonus to religious building, they would almost definitely not ever need a theatre to keep up in culture.
-The double campus adjacency bonus I believe will impact the faith yield of the Madrassa, so you basically always want to be running that policy, even after getting the later science policies. You're probably getting a lot of holy sites too so might want to run faith policies too, which does mean they have less slots for other policies. Might need some complicated numbers to figure out what is best for them overall with limited spots.
-Given how cheap their faith buildings are, you really do want to rush for them ASAP. I don't know if they've fixed it, but I also remember before that the Theocracy faith bonus somehow applied separately to the Arabian discount, so I think my worship buildings were literally 0 faith cost to buy. Even if not, it's only like 30 faith to buy them. Once you have the holy site built, it might even be worth it to buy the shrine/temple/worship building ASAP. It will only cost like 700 gold to get +9 faith, +10% science/faith/culture, plus whatever other small bonus from the worship building.

But overall, a solid mix of faith plus other bonuses.
 
I believe will impact the faith yield of the Madrassa

I just verified this is indeed the case, and can be verified with my final save posted above since I was running that policy at the time of victory.
 
Arabia is a fun civ, having a great science/faith mix - science building that gives faith and a faith building that gives science. They basically want holy sites and campuses in as many cities as possible, which is kind of annoying in that it takes up 2 district spots, but is certainly a much better mix than other civs that require multiple districts to make use of their bonuses (England or Norway, for example).

Some key points with them:
-The free prophet is great, since you never have to worry about rushing to get a prophet. Although obviously then you get last choice of religious beliefs, which may or may not be a problem. It might still be worth it to rush earlier, especially if it means locking in Jesuit Education. Choral Music would also be a great dedication for them, since between that, setting up holy sites everywhere, and the bonus to religious building, they would almost definitely not ever need a theatre to keep up in culture.
-The double campus adjacency bonus I believe will impact the faith yield of the Madrassa, so you basically always want to be running that policy, even after getting the later science policies. You're probably getting a lot of holy sites too so might want to run faith policies too, which does mean they have less slots for other policies. Might need some complicated numbers to figure out what is best for them overall with limited spots.
-Given how cheap their faith buildings are, you really do want to rush for them ASAP. I don't know if they've fixed it, but I also remember before that the Theocracy faith bonus somehow applied separately to the Arabian discount, so I think my worship buildings were literally 0 faith cost to buy. Even if not, it's only like 30 faith to buy them. Once you have the holy site built, it might even be worth it to buy the shrine/temple/worship building ASAP. It will only cost like 700 gold to get +9 faith, +10% science/faith/culture, plus whatever other small bonus from the worship building.

But overall, a solid mix of faith plus other bonuses.
I believe Arabia is underrated as a warmongering civ. As UWHabs and other posters detail, they have a nice synergy for science and faith. This gets them culture as well if they take Choral Music, which lets their Mamluks upgrade to corps and armies while they are able to devote resources to commercial hubs rather than theatre squares (they need gold to support the faith/campus Grand Master’s Chapel war effort).

I skip light cav entirely and rush the Mamluk upgrade to tanks with Madrasa spam. But the Mamluk's can carry on for quite some time due to their healing ability if they work in conjunction with a Chaplain promoted apostle or Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi.

I remember the T3 religious building costing zero as well. And I liked Arabia more in vanilla when I think holy site buildings had a 0 gold maintenance. With R&F the gold is a bit tighter than I care for.
 
Starting next to Arabia is terrifying due to the Mamluk unit. Mamluk's used to wreck me before, when I was moving up in difficulty and they invaded I only had archers hitting them. Archers did nothing.

Eventually I was good enough to get Crossbowmen by the time Mamluk's hit, but 2 Mamluk's can kill a Crossbowman in 1 turn. Now if Saladin is near I make sure to build plenty of Spearmen then upgrade them into Pikemen ASAP.
 
Starting next to Arabia is terrifying due to the Mamluk unit. Mamluk's used to wreck me before, when I was moving up in difficulty and they invaded I only had archers hitting them. Archers did nothing.

Eventually I was good enough to get Crossbowmen by the time Mamluk's hit, but 2 Mamluk's can kill a Crossbowman in 1 turn. Now if Saladin is near I make sure to build plenty of Spearmen then upgrade them into Pikemen ASAP.

They feel like a tank, in that they can take a seemingly unlimited amount of small hits an then quickly heal back afterwards. Kind of like trying to attack Scythia who heals back her units all the time.
 
So if you are good at several things are you then really not a good civ? Arabia feels like that to me.

I am trying a game and playing with religion this time...I have played Arabia where I actually did not use the free prophet to very late in the game as I saw no good reason to have a religion (I play for domination) Now in RF with the loyalty penalty Arabia may be worse for domination if you go for a religion...
 
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So if you are good at several things are you then really not a good civ? Arabia feels like that to me. I have played Arabia where I acutely did not use the free prophet to very late in the game as I saw no good reason to actually have a religion (I play for domination)
For me, the trick with Arabia is to pick your target based on the # of holy sites the civ has, then activate the great prophet to get the choral music culture flowing.
 
Yeah that makes sense. So really not build your own holy sites?
Do you make a point of conquering very early then? Even now I think most civs build holysites as their first district
 
Yeah that makes sense. So really not build your own holy sites?
Do you make a point of conquering very early then? Even now I think most civs build holysites as their first district
I rarely build holy sites as Arabia in the early game. I build as many campus districts as I can fit in without being overrun (or going broke) in order to hard research stirrups. This also tends to get me Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi. I usually like to have an encampment with a stable with other civs, but I think it slows Arabia down and would be better as a campus district. I think they should just build the heavy chariots in any old city and prepare for the Mamluk upgrade. They'll see enough action so the +25% experience won't matter. Then pick a civ with a bunch of holy sites and go! It doesn't even need to be a neighbor per se, as the mamluk's are able to conquer back to back to back cities to establish loyalty. Not only will the civ have the holy sites I need, but will also be more prone to be weaker because they built all the holy sites. Your experience may vary as start and map conditions may not always be kind, but given the right set of conditions, Arabia can warmonger with the best of 'em. It does have to wait a bit (like the Zulu). Also marathon speed will extend the life cycle of the Mamluk.

.I have played Arabia where I actually did not use the free prophet to very late in the game as I saw no good reason to have a religion (I play for domination) Now in RF with the loyalty penalty Arabia may be worse for domination if you go for a religion...
As a follow up, if you bring an inquisitor along with a missionary or two the religion loyalty mechanic can work in your favor.

Can you tell I'm a Saladin fan ;-)?
 
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As a follow up, if you bring an inquisitor along with a missionary or two the religion loyalty mechanic can work in your favor.

That's relatively historical. Medieval Arab armies being accompanied by Inquisitors and Missionaries, that is.
 
As Arabia may be my favorite civ, I'll add another follow up onto the follow up. I started a game for doing as I specified earlier, built a bunch of campus districts and recruited Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi. Things were going exceptionally well, and I couldn't have asked for a better starting position. The war with Macedon was going just as well. I eliminated 2 Hetairoi, took Vilnius, then I realized I had built the govt plaza before I was accustomed to and missed the switch to Classical Republic. I was going to scrap the game, but thought in honor of Trav'ling Canuck's post "How do you play if you want the AI to have a fair chance?" I decided to soldier on ;-). I have included a screenshot and video of the 1st battle.

The Main Strategy: Spam campus districts, hard research stirrups, recruit Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi.
The Secondary Strategy: Go on a conquest spree and use the Classical Republic legacy card to mitigate the war weariness and/or amenities needed for new conquered cities.
When it works, it works REALLY WELL. When it doesn't, it's still not such a bad idea to have a bunch of campus districts. The Mamluks make the AI's Hetariroi look like heavy chariots.
Spoiler :
Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11) 9_24_2018 8_03_19 PM.png

 

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Appreciate it. It is fun to try to work the different civs abilities as much as possible.

Tried to get the great scientist but Kongo is the game and they did get out more campuses than I did so that did not work out that well for me.
I will have fun seeing what mameluks can do.
So when you do stirrups as arabs, can you still build chariots?
 
Tried to get the great scientist but Kongo is the game and they did get out more campuses than I did so that did not work out that well for me.
I was religious about science in this game and still had to lay out 1000+ gold to buy Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi. Luckily I was able to strike a few favorable trade deals with an amenity challenged Cyrus early on, so I had allot of gold. As Arabia, when using this strategy, you really have to plan your game around acquiring Al-Zahrawi, as you may not be able to summon a chaplain apostle due to faith restrictions (or lack of holy sites). He is key.
So when you do stirrups as arabs, can you still build chariots?
Chariots are also key for expedience. hard building the Mamluk's would make the less effective and give the enemy garrisons time to entrench and fortify, and units to upgrade also.

Here's the present state of the game (which is strangely competitive)...
Spoiler :
Sid Meier's Civilization VI (DX11) 9_25_2018 9_13_41 AM.png


EDIT: I finished my game...
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...eek-edition-warmonger’s-delight-deity.636846/
 

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On an emperor map, Arabia crippled me early on enough where I would not be able to bounce back. I lost my capital and was surrounded by 7 or so units. I abandoned the game rather than wait to be eliminated.

Since then, I have ruthlessly eliminated Arabia from every single game. After all, blood doesn't sleep.

As to playing Arabia, I find it to be average across the board. While it certainly does have some great abilities, I didn't find it to be more interesting to play than the other civilizations.
 
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