[R&F] Civ of the Week: Arabia

[Leathaface]

Buying a worship building at 10% of it's usual cost sounds powerful. I wonder how it empowers Arabia's scientific strengths.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Arabia is pretty good, but it's too easy to get caught up in trying to do it all (science, culture, religion). It's still best to pick a focus and slowly add the rest in. I still feel rushing religion is still no good, even though I should have tried harder to use the dark age policy that boost science. It just takes so long with other things that often times the dark age is already over. It also takes a while to build up a temple to get a faith building anywys.

Mamluks are definitely the most reliable things since knight rushing is something to be done anyways and I usually take too long to do it too.

Start:Emperor/Continents



While not terrible, it leaves much to be desired, and lack of luxuries/gold was a huge problem. Had to make commercial hubs which wasn't cool for fitting holy sites and campuses and all that in. Sadly this is probably the best start I've rolled. And then....



Fortunately with Magnus's help and killing their warriors I chopped a wall. Peter attacked with yet another wave and managed to take the wall down surprisingly though lost the warriors again and could not take the city. That war weariness sucks.

So I used the last of my gold to make 2 swordsmen, and with some warriors took Peter's capital

Spoiler :

Pericles was really ahead for whatever reason, doubling everyone else's science. But fortunately he really didn't advance his army....

Spoiler :

Having Crusade or Defenders of the Faith is nice and since Arabia doesn't have to worry about rushing a religion, usually 1 of the 2 is available and can really help. Just bring your apostles with your army and also get era score for converting during a war.

Spoiler :

Meh should have killed more apostles....

Overall, Arabia is good that they're basically 1 of 2 civs that actually lets you in the religion game, so try to think of something around that.

 

[Patine]

Although, even though I know he's a household name as the main antagonist of Richard the Lionhearted and Phillipe IV in the Third Crusade, and who successfully took back Jerusalem from them and made the effective death knell of the Levantine Crusader Kingdoms (it was just a matter of cleaning up by the Arab/Turkish/Kurdish forces or abandonment by the Crusaders in phases thereafter), I've been dubious since his announcement of Saladin - an ethnic Kurd who never held the title of Caliph himself - as the leader of the Arabia civ.

 

[liv]

The ability to upgrade to their UU makes Arabia deadly and gives them the edge over other options like Polish Hussars or even Varus.

I think it is a bit of a double edged sword thing. Normally I would try to have one iron and keep building chariots for awhile to upgrade but with Arabia you have to prebuild all your chariots to upgrade since once you get stirrups you cannot build any more chariots.

 

[Archon_Wing]

That is a thing with upgradable UUs where you must build faster, but it's usually not a problem to just research something other than stirrups for a while. Plus the times when iron is hard to get.

 

[UWHabs]

That is a thing with upgradable UUs where you must build faster, but it's usually not a problem to just research something other than stirrups for a while. Plus the times when iron is hard to get.

I've even had times where I can't "only" end up with 1 iron - sometimes I already have a district or city on top of 1 resource, and then the urge to mine another copy for the production+eureka is too strong. It's still definitely a bonus to have a resourceless unit - I've had more than a few games where i get to stirrups ready to upgrade to knights, and then forgot that I didn't have iron and now have to run a settler to settle a city I didn't want to just to get access to it.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I've even had times where I can't "only" end up with 1 iron - sometimes I already have a district or city on top of 1 resource, and then the urge to mine another copy for the production+eureka is too strong. It's still definitely a bonus to have a resourceless unit - I've had more than a few games where i get to stirrups ready to upgrade to knights, and then forgot that I didn't have iron and now have to run a settler to settle a city I didn't want to just to get access to it.

Someone's almost always willing to take Iron (or any other Strategic Resource) off your hands. And if for some reason you don't want to do this, you can use a Builder to remove the Iron Mine after you got the Eureka.

And yes, Civ 6 has managed to create an economic system where it's better to remove a mine over a resource in order to build an earlier unit and upgrade than it is to be forced to build the modern unit directly.

 

[acluewithout]

Arabia's introduction updated.

If anyone is still interested in Sensational Saladin, here are a few questions:

• Given Arabia always gets a Religion, are there particular beliefs that work better for Arabia?
  
  
• Similarly, are there particular Worship Buildings that are better for Arabia? I was looking at the Mosque in particular, and thought that might actually be a good fit for Saladin - because the more cities you convert to your religion, the more science you get.
  
  
• Is having bonuses for both Holy Sites and Campus a Synergy or a... uh... not-Synergy because of their shared Adjacencies? If I go the Science-Faith route, I tend to think they work together well. If you have mountains, you can often squeeze in both a Holy Site and Campus (even if one gets slightly more adjacency), and if you can get triangle with your City Centre that can work very well. It's also tempting to blow all your faith buying Great Scientists...

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

I think the scientific religious beliefs would work very well with them. Jesuit Education to buy libraries and universities. Saves production and instantly creates them so you get more science sooner. Wats for super cheap science in your holy sites. And Stewardship would stack well with converting other cities. Not only do you get your +2 science in each city with Arabia's bonus, if there's a campus that's an additional +1, thanks to that belief.

I've used those beliefs for scientific victories with Russia before, and I'm sure it would work even better with Arabia.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I guess you could deliberately fall into a Dark Age and use that holy site gives science card.

 

[acluewithout]

I guess you could deliberately fall into a Dark Age and use that holy site gives science card.

That actually sounds super cool.

You know, one of my big annoyances with Civ is that I can’t get Dark Ages more easily. I mean, I can’t be he only person here who actually wants to get Dark Ages, right?

 

[Patine]

I don't know. The civ sounds kind of OP, with wonky mechanics, and, again, I'm dubious, from a historical perspective, of Saladin being appropriate as a leader of ARABIA...

 

[Disgustipated]

It's also tempting to blow all your faith buying Great Scientists...

I won't mention how much faith I spent in my game buying my last Great Scientist. It was the one that gave 3 eurekas to I believe atomic and information age techs. I only got 1 that was useful for my science victory. 1 is better than 0. I mean if you are going science victory, why not. The other thing you can use faith for is converting other civilizations with the religious belief that gives +1 (or +2?) science to foreign cities with your religion. I didn't want the micromanagement of the latter.

• Given Arabia always gets a Religion, are there particular beliefs that work better for Arabia?

• Similarly, are there particular Worship Buildings that are better for Arabia?

Wat of course, but very difficult to get. If you are banking on getting the last prophet, you'll never get Wats. The AI loves Wats and Meeting Houses. Mosque or Synagogue seems like the best bet, but the latter seems a bit weird for Arabia.

As for how Arabia fits in things, I think someone asked above. I would say they are a solid science civ, and a solid religious civ. In my opinion they are a better science civ than China. Right now I rank the science civs as Korea, Scotland, Arabia, China, Sumeria, and Macedon. Yes, Macedon. I have yet to use Macedon for a science victory, and I really should. They can pound through the tech tree.

 

[Archon_Wing]

That actually sounds super cool.

You know, one of my big annoyances with Civ is that I can’t get Dark Ages more easily. I mean, I can’t be he only person here who actually wants to get Dark Ages, right?

I almost always go into a Dark Age for the first one. Basically just get 2 cities and don't build any scouts.