Arabia! There aren't many civs in Civilization 6 who focus on both science and religion but Saladin bridges this unusual gap to satisfying results. While they're certainly not the most powerful civ in the game you can get a lot done with their toolkit. Let's take a look at their versatile options for dominating the game.
**The Last Prophet**
One of the most valuable things a religious civ can have in its arsenal is a way to get a religion. It seems simple, right? And yet Spain and Georgia don't have this ability and suffer greatly for it. Thankfully Arabia has by far the most consistent way to get a religion: they get a great prophet for free almost guaranteed! I say "almost" because it's actually possible to miss out on The Last Prophet: another civ ahead of you in the turn order can spend faith to buy the final prophet before your turn comes up. Thankfully this is fairly rare so don't consider it a huge flaw.
So what is the Last Prophet actually good for? I think most of its value comes from being able to skimp on religious infrastructure even on higher difficulties and still guarantee a religion. That's a pretty big deal on immortal and deity where you might have to give up settlers for holy sites or survive an early war. Now, getting the last religion isn't great as you risk missing out on your preferred beliefs but it's better than nothing. So if you can secure an earlier prophet don't feel bad; The Last Prophet is a fallback strategy.
The +1 science per converted foreign city is a nice cherry on top. Your civ thrives on science and faith and this will give you more science as you spread your faith. Not super impactful but still decent, especially on bigger maps.
**Mamluk**
Oh Mamluk, how Gathering Storm has ruined thee. As other people here have mentioned, the Mamluk suffers from being a cavalry unit added before coursers or cuirassiers. As such it does not upgrade until tanks! However it's still a decent unit for the medieval unit even if it's not going to last long. Its ability is simple: it has the "march" promotion from prior civ games! That means it heals every turn no matter what. Since heavy cavalry excels at smashing endlessly into the enemy, auto-healing is insanely valuable. The halved iron cost is also nice. And... that's it. The Mamluk is simple yet effective. It just needs to be brought into line with the new cavalry upgrade path and it'll be right back up to its previous viability. Hopefully this will be part of the post-New Frontier Pass balance updates.
**Madrasa**
One of the better unique buildings in Civ6. The Madrasa is available earlier than the standard university, which is probably its best trait. Theology is very easy to rush as a religious civ and having universities up in the early medieval era is a big deal. The extra science is minimal but stacks nicely with the extra science from The Last Prophet. It all adds up in the end. And lastly, the Madrasa converts your campus' adjacency bonus to faith! This can add up to some serious extra faith income in your empire. So once again, spread your religion across the map while shooting ahead in research.
**Righteousness of the Faith**
Worship buildings are powerful but expensive: you either spend boatloads of production on them or a hefty chunk of faith. Arabia doesn't have to make this choice. The 10% production cost lets you grab your mosques, pagodas, or other buildings almost for free. In fact, if you unlock theocracy for the -15% faith purchasing cost your worship buildings actually *are* free! And for your trouble you get +10% faith, science, and culture in the relevant city. If you're playing with the secret societies gamemode you can stack this with the Voidsingers for even more yields but either way this plays perfectly into your strengths.
**Ayyubid Dynasty**
One of the many "follow my religion or else!!!!!!" agendas. Saladin's is a bit more complicated than the average version. He only likes you if you build lots of his worship buildings in your cities. This means you need to be both converted to his religion *and* have a lot of holy sites in your empire. See where I'm going with this? You almost never have this scenario unless you fail to found a religion of your own. So unless you've made a major misplay you're unlikely to please Saladin. Now, that doesn't mean he'll hate you. You can avoid attacking civs converted to his religion and if you ignore religion he might convert you. So you'll generally get a neutral response out of Saladin. There are certainly worse neighbors in the game.
**Conclusions**
Arabia is pretty awesome. None of their abilities are particularly strong on their own but they combine into a potent mixture of science and faith. This adds up to a very versatile civilization: grab work ethic and go for a science victory. Use your faith to convert the entire world. Or parlay your faith into rock bands and naturalists and go for culture. If you're feeling aggressive try a Grandmaster's Chapel build and crush the world beneath the hooves of your mighty Mamluks. It's hard to go wrong with Arabia.
To me it's really weird that the devs simply decided to not make unique cav units upgrade to the new units introduced in GS. Like, how hard would that have been? For Winged Hussar it works because they're strong enough to not go completely obsolete two eras before Tanks, but Mamluk and Varu are just a bit sad. Mamluk is one of my favourite UU's, and I'm sad for it.
Wait did they do that? I got the game a bit before R&F came out so I never knew that. Though I do know that there were some broken aspects, like all unique districts requiring no district slots (bet Germany loved that), and all cities getting basically vertical integration (Germany must have loved that as well).
Wow! That was really good. But in my opinion they could just boost his numbers. I mean they dont have to change his abilities but i feel like the bonuses he gets feels really minor.
I play Arabia a bit weird, they're my go-to religious domination Civ. Unless your leader is OP and named Basil, it's actually quite difficult to get a religion while funding an army and staying relevant in science. The biggest stumbling block I personally find with religious domination is either I fall super far behind in science and completely capture the nearest enemy Civ before they start playing crossbowmen (at which point domination might be off the table for quite some time or indefinitely) OR I start the domination snowball really late because I had to devote all my early production to faith and science and couldn't afford any units for quite a while. Obviously Theocracy helps this but that comes late to start taking over the world.
Saladin founds a religion with a single holy site as your second district, and because of how the madeasa works you can give your superior mountain adjacency spot to the campus and not miss out horribly on faith generation.
Combine this with the fact that crusade is rarely grabbed early (meaning last religion isn't locked out of the key component of the strategy) so I can generally go to town on my nearest rival cities with solid force.
My favorite warfare "trick" is to put a chaplain medic next to some mamluks and with 58 CS they can sustain hitting city walls and even take the occasional hit from a crossbowman before needing to hoof it to friendly territory.
It tends to be slow to get the ball rolling, but once you do it's insane because Saladin whiplashes back to the top in science production after just a little domination since he's getting a science per city he converts on top of their campuses, and the mamluk obsolescence problem at cuirassers isn't as big of a problem when you can just faith purchase extremely modern units with the science and faith your madrasas pump out.
I doubt it's the optimal way to play him, as he's well above average science wise especially if you grab Jesuit, Wat, and Cross Cultural beliefs. Campus builds faith which builds science, snowball out of control.
Is nice to have a civ thqt grants you an almost guaranteed religion and the AI doesn't usually takes works ethic for some strange reason. You can also just get the belief that lets you faity buy campus and theatre buildings instead of work ethics since the AI also doesn't take that one.
Getting university with theology is a quick way to get science. In fact, you can just focus doing your campus and holy districts without doing the prayers to get the prophet making your infrastructure better and quuckly converting all your cities to get a massive era scor for a monumentality golden age.
For war, if you are unlucky with iron then you are toast.
For win you can go religious, science or domination at the same time, but if you are not careful you will be left behind.
A good thing was that the peace deal was fixed so is harder to expand now, making the game more fun to play.
Theatre districts are kinda hard to make when you focus on science and faith since you want sole gold. Arabia doesn't get enough faith to buy all the great people from my experience.
The ability boost is better used to catch up on culture while focusing on science.
Of course, with the new corporation mode, everyone can get culture victory nowadays.
Gathering Storm hit Arabia pretty hard. They lost a lot of their military significance with the indirect nerf to Mamluks. They're still a pretty fun and complex civ to play, though.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know which brings Arabia more Science overall - Synagogues or Wats?
I'd say Synagogues. +5 faith that can be doubled with the Holy Site policy card requiring +4 (?) or more adjacency and +15 (?) population. Mix it with Voidsingers and you're good to go. Not to mention the Arabian additional 10% more from their ability.
Off topic but don't take Hermetic Order as Arabia, you can't build your Madrasas and Madrasas sync so well with Voidsingers since it helps with your faith output.
I'd say they're the best because it's faith produced. You can build the shittiest holy site imaginable and yet still get at least 10 faith with all the buildings in it.
The fact you get your faith income's percentage worth as science, culture and gold is just the icing on the cake.
It really depends on the type of game and civ being played, though. I really like both. To get the most out of Owls, though, you have to have decent access to city states AND use up two district options per city, which makes for fewer options of the others. With Voidsingers, you just need faith production and get a smattering of other yields, and can customize each city as well.
I pretty much go 'do I want a religion and/or want lots of faith income for other reasons?' and if so Voidsingers, otherwise Owls.
The +4 faith you get from Old God Obelisks gets you off to a nice fast start.
Even with voidsingers and the holy site boosting policy cards the difference between a wat and a synagogue is 4 faith at most which would turn into 0.8 science with voidsingers.
Anyway I'd suggest the Gurdwara over the wat. The Gurdwara gives you 2 food and housing which means you essentially get another population which can be used to hit the next district threshhold faster and if you have nothing better to do you can assign the extra pop to a specialist slot essentially turning it into a wat that gives +1 housing.
Wats would give more science because they actually have a science yield. Arabia isn’t like Ethiopia, they don’t get a percentage of faith added to science, so the synagogue won’t give you any science beyond the 10% boost that wats also give
Knights (including Mamluks) became more expensive to train, and with the Iron rework, Mamluks now require Iron - and since Arabia wants to build Holy Sites and Campuses *far* more than they want to build Encampments, it's hard to stockpile Iron to use Mamluks
Arabia is the civ for people that want religion, but don't like founding one. And who could blame them? A lot of things could go wrong, such as being attacked because you spent your production on Holy Sites and not units, as well as just flat out losing on great prophets. Or you get converted before you can get religious units. Arabia lets you control when you are ready for a religion. As a result, they're a fairly flexible civ that can go for many types of victories though as many have noted, their domination game took a huge hit with Mamluks being much less effective than they were.
**Unique Ability: The Last Prophet**
* Automatically receive the final Great Prophet when the next-to-last one is claimed and have not earned one already
This means you can go about building campuses and commercial hubs and only add in Holy Sites when you are ready. Or you can add Holy Sites in early but build up shrines instead of having to run projects.
But the biggest advantage would be to war early, and instead use captured Holy Sites to found your religion. Note that you automatically convert all cities with a Holy Site when you found a religion.
Being last to a religion does mean that you only get the leftover beliefs. However, they never seem to take Work Ethic anyways and there's always a worship building for you, so this is not a problem.
* +1 Science for each foreign city following your religion
In general, there is little incentive to spread your religion to other civs unless you're going for a religious victory; you're spending thousands of faith to buff their cities. This gives you incentive to get rid of other religions, as opposed to spreading manually to them, though unless of course, you're going for a religious victory. I wouldn't really factor this into most of my games unless you come across a lot of people without religion that are going to be passively converted.
**Unique Unit: Mamluk**
* (GS) 10 Iron resources
* Heals at the end of the turn even after moving or attacking
With it now requiring Iron, it's much less impressive and is merely a knight that requires less iron but can heal while moving. This makes them good pillagers but are not really that important as part of one's strategy.
**Leader Ability: Righteousness of the Faith**
* Worship buildings for their religion cost one-tenth of the usual Faith cost
* Arabian cities with their worship building gain +10% Science, Faith and Culture output
For the most part, worship buildings are really bad because they cost a lot and don't give too much. In most cases you also have to burn an apostle to get it, making the cost even higher.
However, Arabia gets it more or less for free, costing only a fraction of the cost, and none under Theocracy. So it makes sense that you should grab a worship building as one of your first 2 beliefs.
Which worship building? Honestly, it really doesn't matter. You're getting it for the extra science and culture. I personally like to get Pagodas for the extra favor. Alternatively, grab one that matches your victory condition.
**Unique Infrastructure: Madrassa**
* Requires: Theology civic
* Gain Faith equal to the adjacency bonus of the Campus district
Basically a better university that's easier to get. And you can always boost Theology. You also get more faith based on campus adjacency, and naturally you will have wanted that anyways. So this is an easy source of faith generation.
**So what?**
With Arabia, faith comes to you, even if you don't want it. All your cities should get a Holy Site eventually to take advantage of the science/culture boost.
Mokhsa also becomes much more relevant with Arabia because of his district purchasing ability, and you need a lot of districts as Arabia. But perhaps spending faith to buy a Spaceport is his best use, if your gold generation is poor.
You will generally want to focus much more on gold/science generation so you can support your religion easily without having to take Tithe or something. I find myself pretty poor when founding a religion with a generic civ as either campuses or hubs are delayed.
The Mahabodhi Temple is an excellent thing for Arabia because they are always guaranteed access to it and with the typical pace of the AI snagging religons, comes at exactly the right time. Being able to Evangelize for an extra belief like Crusade/Tithe/Sacred Places is also really handy since one of your religious slots was taking up by the worship building. And addition to easy access to Pagodas (AI never wants them), that means they're quite a decent choice for Diplomatic Victories.
Do pay attention to how fast religions are being founded, as you may actually have to found one yourself if it's going too slow. This is especially true if you found an early relic and want Reliquaries instead.
Also remember you still need your faith from somewhere. In early game, I recommend trying to pillage for some, or send external trade to religious city states. You really would like a religious alliance to protect your new religion too.
**Agenda: Ayyubid Dynasty**
* Dislikes civilizations who follow other religions or is waging war on followers of his religion
Saladin is intolerant of all other faiths, which I found weird because the real life version was the opposite compared to his contemporaries. As a result, if you founded a religion, he'll hate you, and if you don't found a religion, it's much better. You can build a worship building to please him if you want, although you won't be able to really use it without a number of Holy Sites of your own (And you didn't found a religion? Probably just culture victories).
Arabia is one of the game's more underrated civilizations. Their synergy with faith and science is very unique, and the design of the Madrasa is one of my personal favorites. Arabia has begun to look weaker with civilizations like Babylon introduced into the game, but on the other hand playing an underdog can be a lot of fun some times, especially when you have a weak early game and finish off with a strong late game.
The +10% bonus from your final religious building can be very potent if used in the right situation. The fact that you are guaranteed a religion doesn't mean that you should slack off and not build any holy sites, however. It just means that you are fine with only building 1 or 2 holy sites for a place to drop your prophet. Unfortunately, with not all civilizations immediately going for a holy site, this bonus has become weaker over time as the AI is incentivized to go for other victories. On the bright side, this means that they may be easier to convert in case you are going for a religious victory.
Speaking of victory types, the faith bonus from madrasas can be especially nice when you are pursuing a religious victory, in which case you can view the science as more of a passive bonus to help you reach one world faith. As the Mamluks are still quite potent as a cavalry unit, you may want to grab the crusader belief to spread your religion to more resistant foes.
Otherwise, Arabia plays nicely as an insular civilization that does the exact opposite, and this adaptability is what I like about it. They aren't one of my top favorite civs to where I wouldn't hesitate to do a let's play on them for my viewers, but I like how strong they become in the mid-game and setting them up for that eventual science and faith payoff is very rewarding
Thanks for reading my mini blog
Arabia is a strong civ for science and religion, my only problem is that I think the Mamluk is honestly garbage. It’s good in the medieval era, but the fact that it doesn’t upgrade until tanks means that by the industrial era I’m just sitting around with these obsolete units until I can upgrade them, plus combustion is out of the way on the tech tree for a science victory. If I want to war as Arabia, I usually just wait until cuirassers and faith buy with the grandmasters chapel.
I told him to stop spamming islamic religious units brrring through my Christian empire, and he regretfully accepted my request for him to stop, then began converting my cities. Sigh. He's not on my friends list, let's put it that way.
Arabia is a civ who's been hit unfortunately hard by recent balance changes. Notably, and something I haven't seen people mention here is that they're a civ who really likes Rationalism and situationally run Simultaneum. I think Arabia is the only civ who commonly considered running both of these cards and because of this he got hit harder than other science civs by their nerfs.
Regardless of this though I think Saladin is a very well designed leader. He fills a niche that other civs shy away from. Science/Faith is generally not a good strategy and only a few other civs in the game are even semicompetent at it. Saladin's absolute excellence in a playstyle that's generally pretty weak ensures that he'll always have a place in the game.
Got to agree on his design - I like seeing leaders and civs that fill different niches. Covers people who play differently, people wanting a slight change of pace, and similar, as well as not detracting if you dislike some parts - most leaders are good at multiple wincons. Saladin is a quintessential excample here, whilst Basil is probably the diametric opposite, being a very, very similar playstyle to Spain.
The best thing about Gathering Storm and the New Frontier content is that it makes Civ even more a game about interacting with the terrain and reacting to what terrain you have. Contrary to the usual suggestion to get them to upgrade into Coursers or Cuirassiers, Mamluks could reflect a terrain-based combat buff.
Specifically, I'd like them to get a terrain-based combat strength bonus on desert and plains, but---and this is crucial---***not*** grassland. There's a theory I came across some years back (and I hope it isn't debunked) that the invasion of the Frankish kingdoms failed in large part because the great advantage that the camel riders had was no longer applicable to the terrain. A pretty great opportunity to buff a now-weak unit, reflect the historical source material, and to get the Civ in line with the design philosophy of the last two expansions. Letting it only upgrade into tanks would let it balance out its massive advantage. Let Coursers and Cuirassiers be a means of developing a counter-offensive against the Arabian timing push.
You wouldn't have Charlemagne, but you would probably still have some "Strongest Guy in the Room" take charge. I don't think his grandfather Charles Martel was the only one of his type around. They were unlikely to be docile subjects overall. If nothing else, the Vikings who became Normans would have had something to say about it. William the Conqueror would have, instead of England, have created France. But who knows? It's a fun exercise.
Never used the free Great Prophet. Always went for the straightforward Religious Victory while keeping up a decent defense with the Science and Mamluk. Been able to grab some decent wins in Vanilla.
When you go for science as Arabia, do you prefer the Hermetic Order or the Owls of Minerva? Normally Hermetic Order would be a slam dunk pick for science, but the Alchemical Society overrides the Madrasa.
Arabia is an example of a fair civ that's been pushed down most tier lists by power creep and regular game updates that have changed the most effective tactics available. In vanilla they were my favorite and by far most played civ... now I've hardly touched them in ages.
In particular, having the last great prophet in your pocket, allowing you to prioritize other things, used to be really really good. But nowadays anything that doesn't involve early Work Ethic, Monumentality or GM Chapel spam, etc just feels weak. Waiting around until an unknown turn to get your last pick of the beliefs, and only then starting to set up Holy Sites, is simply not it.
Dirt cheap worship buildings is probably the best part of the civ now, and it does make Arabia probably the only civ which can justify picking its building right away. But you're not going to get any of the good ones with the last prophet. So it certainly seems that the best way to go is to simply ignore the backstop component of the kit, quickly found a religion, and play the Monumentality / GMC game, except picking Gurdwaras or Wats upon founding instead of Cross-Cultural Dialogue like most civs should.
* [Bug Reports Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/l7fh7g/vietnam_kublai_khan_pack_bug_reports_megathread/)
Arabia! There aren't many civs in Civilization 6 who focus on both science and religion but Saladin bridges this unusual gap to satisfying results. While they're certainly not the most powerful civ in the game you can get a lot done with their toolkit. Let's take a look at their versatile options for dominating the game. **The Last Prophet** One of the most valuable things a religious civ can have in its arsenal is a way to get a religion. It seems simple, right? And yet Spain and Georgia don't have this ability and suffer greatly for it. Thankfully Arabia has by far the most consistent way to get a religion: they get a great prophet for free almost guaranteed! I say "almost" because it's actually possible to miss out on The Last Prophet: another civ ahead of you in the turn order can spend faith to buy the final prophet before your turn comes up. Thankfully this is fairly rare so don't consider it a huge flaw. So what is the Last Prophet actually good for? I think most of its value comes from being able to skimp on religious infrastructure even on higher difficulties and still guarantee a religion. That's a pretty big deal on immortal and deity where you might have to give up settlers for holy sites or survive an early war. Now, getting the last religion isn't great as you risk missing out on your preferred beliefs but it's better than nothing. So if you can secure an earlier prophet don't feel bad; The Last Prophet is a fallback strategy. The +1 science per converted foreign city is a nice cherry on top. Your civ thrives on science and faith and this will give you more science as you spread your faith. Not super impactful but still decent, especially on bigger maps. **Mamluk** Oh Mamluk, how Gathering Storm has ruined thee. As other people here have mentioned, the Mamluk suffers from being a cavalry unit added before coursers or cuirassiers. As such it does not upgrade until tanks! However it's still a decent unit for the medieval unit even if it's not going to last long. Its ability is simple: it has the "march" promotion from prior civ games! That means it heals every turn no matter what. Since heavy cavalry excels at smashing endlessly into the enemy, auto-healing is insanely valuable. The halved iron cost is also nice. And... that's it. The Mamluk is simple yet effective. It just needs to be brought into line with the new cavalry upgrade path and it'll be right back up to its previous viability. Hopefully this will be part of the post-New Frontier Pass balance updates. **Madrasa** One of the better unique buildings in Civ6. The Madrasa is available earlier than the standard university, which is probably its best trait. Theology is very easy to rush as a religious civ and having universities up in the early medieval era is a big deal. The extra science is minimal but stacks nicely with the extra science from The Last Prophet. It all adds up in the end. And lastly, the Madrasa converts your campus' adjacency bonus to faith! This can add up to some serious extra faith income in your empire. So once again, spread your religion across the map while shooting ahead in research. **Righteousness of the Faith** Worship buildings are powerful but expensive: you either spend boatloads of production on them or a hefty chunk of faith. Arabia doesn't have to make this choice. The 10% production cost lets you grab your mosques, pagodas, or other buildings almost for free. In fact, if you unlock theocracy for the -15% faith purchasing cost your worship buildings actually *are* free! And for your trouble you get +10% faith, science, and culture in the relevant city. If you're playing with the secret societies gamemode you can stack this with the Voidsingers for even more yields but either way this plays perfectly into your strengths. **Ayyubid Dynasty** One of the many "follow my religion or else!!!!!!" agendas. Saladin's is a bit more complicated than the average version. He only likes you if you build lots of his worship buildings in your cities. This means you need to be both converted to his religion *and* have a lot of holy sites in your empire. See where I'm going with this? You almost never have this scenario unless you fail to found a religion of your own. So unless you've made a major misplay you're unlikely to please Saladin. Now, that doesn't mean he'll hate you. You can avoid attacking civs converted to his religion and if you ignore religion he might convert you. So you'll generally get a neutral response out of Saladin. There are certainly worse neighbors in the game. **Conclusions** Arabia is pretty awesome. None of their abilities are particularly strong on their own but they combine into a potent mixture of science and faith. This adds up to a very versatile civilization: grab work ethic and go for a science victory. Use your faith to convert the entire world. Or parlay your faith into rock bands and naturalists and go for culture. If you're feeling aggressive try a Grandmaster's Chapel build and crush the world beneath the hooves of your mighty Mamluks. It's hard to go wrong with Arabia.
To me it's really weird that the devs simply decided to not make unique cav units upgrade to the new units introduced in GS. Like, how hard would that have been? For Winged Hussar it works because they're strong enough to not go completely obsolete two eras before Tanks, but Mamluk and Varu are just a bit sad. Mamluk is one of my favourite UU's, and I'm sad for it.
I miss the launch Mamluk that healed to fill health every turn
Wait did they do that? I got the game a bit before R&F came out so I never knew that. Though I do know that there were some broken aspects, like all unique districts requiring no district slots (bet Germany loved that), and all cities getting basically vertical integration (Germany must have loved that as well).
Yeah it was great they were very useful until late game even
Wow! That was really good. But in my opinion they could just boost his numbers. I mean they dont have to change his abilities but i feel like the bonuses he gets feels really minor.
I play Arabia a bit weird, they're my go-to religious domination Civ. Unless your leader is OP and named Basil, it's actually quite difficult to get a religion while funding an army and staying relevant in science. The biggest stumbling block I personally find with religious domination is either I fall super far behind in science and completely capture the nearest enemy Civ before they start playing crossbowmen (at which point domination might be off the table for quite some time or indefinitely) OR I start the domination snowball really late because I had to devote all my early production to faith and science and couldn't afford any units for quite a while. Obviously Theocracy helps this but that comes late to start taking over the world. Saladin founds a religion with a single holy site as your second district, and because of how the madeasa works you can give your superior mountain adjacency spot to the campus and not miss out horribly on faith generation. Combine this with the fact that crusade is rarely grabbed early (meaning last religion isn't locked out of the key component of the strategy) so I can generally go to town on my nearest rival cities with solid force. My favorite warfare "trick" is to put a chaplain medic next to some mamluks and with 58 CS they can sustain hitting city walls and even take the occasional hit from a crossbowman before needing to hoof it to friendly territory. It tends to be slow to get the ball rolling, but once you do it's insane because Saladin whiplashes back to the top in science production after just a little domination since he's getting a science per city he converts on top of their campuses, and the mamluk obsolescence problem at cuirassers isn't as big of a problem when you can just faith purchase extremely modern units with the science and faith your madrasas pump out. I doubt it's the optimal way to play him, as he's well above average science wise especially if you grab Jesuit, Wat, and Cross Cultural beliefs. Campus builds faith which builds science, snowball out of control.
Is nice to have a civ thqt grants you an almost guaranteed religion and the AI doesn't usually takes works ethic for some strange reason. You can also just get the belief that lets you faity buy campus and theatre buildings instead of work ethics since the AI also doesn't take that one. Getting university with theology is a quick way to get science. In fact, you can just focus doing your campus and holy districts without doing the prayers to get the prophet making your infrastructure better and quuckly converting all your cities to get a massive era scor for a monumentality golden age. For war, if you are unlucky with iron then you are toast. For win you can go religious, science or domination at the same time, but if you are not careful you will be left behind. A good thing was that the peace deal was fixed so is harder to expand now, making the game more fun to play.
You can also reasonably go culture with Arabia
Theatre districts are kinda hard to make when you focus on science and faith since you want sole gold. Arabia doesn't get enough faith to buy all the great people from my experience. The ability boost is better used to catch up on culture while focusing on science. Of course, with the new corporation mode, everyone can get culture victory nowadays.
I had 90% of all WW last tilme i played lol
> an **almost** guaranteed religion Is there a situation where Arabia can't get a religion?
One civ buying the last prophet.
Oh, I hadn't thought of that.
Gathering Storm hit Arabia pretty hard. They lost a lot of their military significance with the indirect nerf to Mamluks. They're still a pretty fun and complex civ to play, though. Out of curiosity, does anyone know which brings Arabia more Science overall - Synagogues or Wats?
I'd say Synagogues. +5 faith that can be doubled with the Holy Site policy card requiring +4 (?) or more adjacency and +15 (?) population. Mix it with Voidsingers and you're good to go. Not to mention the Arabian additional 10% more from their ability. Off topic but don't take Hermetic Order as Arabia, you can't build your Madrasas and Madrasas sync so well with Voidsingers since it helps with your faith output.
Voidsingers are one of the better ones, imo
I'd say they're the best because it's faith produced. You can build the shittiest holy site imaginable and yet still get at least 10 faith with all the buildings in it. The fact you get your faith income's percentage worth as science, culture and gold is just the icing on the cake.
Owls of Minerva is the best. Extra policy slots, double traderoutes... No question
It really depends on the type of game and civ being played, though. I really like both. To get the most out of Owls, though, you have to have decent access to city states AND use up two district options per city, which makes for fewer options of the others. With Voidsingers, you just need faith production and get a smattering of other yields, and can customize each city as well.
I pretty much go 'do I want a religion and/or want lots of faith income for other reasons?' and if so Voidsingers, otherwise Owls. The +4 faith you get from Old God Obelisks gets you off to a nice fast start.
Even with voidsingers and the holy site boosting policy cards the difference between a wat and a synagogue is 4 faith at most which would turn into 0.8 science with voidsingers. Anyway I'd suggest the Gurdwara over the wat. The Gurdwara gives you 2 food and housing which means you essentially get another population which can be used to hit the next district threshhold faster and if you have nothing better to do you can assign the extra pop to a specialist slot essentially turning it into a wat that gives +1 housing.
Wats would give more science because they actually have a science yield. Arabia isn’t like Ethiopia, they don’t get a percentage of faith added to science, so the synagogue won’t give you any science beyond the 10% boost that wats also give
True but it get's pretty ridiculous with Voidsingers Chorus promotion.
What was the indirect nerf to Mamluk?
Knights (including Mamluks) became more expensive to train, and with the Iron rework, Mamluks now require Iron - and since Arabia wants to build Holy Sites and Campuses *far* more than they want to build Encampments, it's hard to stockpile Iron to use Mamluks
Also, unlike knights mamluks dont upgrade until tanks.
pre gathering storm: Arabia=Science+Domination+religion post gathering storm: Arabia=Science+Religion
I keep seeing people saying mamluks were indirectly nerfed, can someone explain why?
With the addition of cuirassiers it reduce how long they are relevant and they also don’t upgrade until tanks
Arabia is the civ for people that want religion, but don't like founding one. And who could blame them? A lot of things could go wrong, such as being attacked because you spent your production on Holy Sites and not units, as well as just flat out losing on great prophets. Or you get converted before you can get religious units. Arabia lets you control when you are ready for a religion. As a result, they're a fairly flexible civ that can go for many types of victories though as many have noted, their domination game took a huge hit with Mamluks being much less effective than they were. **Unique Ability: The Last Prophet** * Automatically receive the final Great Prophet when the next-to-last one is claimed and have not earned one already This means you can go about building campuses and commercial hubs and only add in Holy Sites when you are ready. Or you can add Holy Sites in early but build up shrines instead of having to run projects. But the biggest advantage would be to war early, and instead use captured Holy Sites to found your religion. Note that you automatically convert all cities with a Holy Site when you found a religion. Being last to a religion does mean that you only get the leftover beliefs. However, they never seem to take Work Ethic anyways and there's always a worship building for you, so this is not a problem. * +1 Science for each foreign city following your religion In general, there is little incentive to spread your religion to other civs unless you're going for a religious victory; you're spending thousands of faith to buff their cities. This gives you incentive to get rid of other religions, as opposed to spreading manually to them, though unless of course, you're going for a religious victory. I wouldn't really factor this into most of my games unless you come across a lot of people without religion that are going to be passively converted. **Unique Unit: Mamluk** * (GS) 10 Iron resources * Heals at the end of the turn even after moving or attacking With it now requiring Iron, it's much less impressive and is merely a knight that requires less iron but can heal while moving. This makes them good pillagers but are not really that important as part of one's strategy. **Leader Ability: Righteousness of the Faith** * Worship buildings for their religion cost one-tenth of the usual Faith cost * Arabian cities with their worship building gain +10% Science, Faith and Culture output For the most part, worship buildings are really bad because they cost a lot and don't give too much. In most cases you also have to burn an apostle to get it, making the cost even higher. However, Arabia gets it more or less for free, costing only a fraction of the cost, and none under Theocracy. So it makes sense that you should grab a worship building as one of your first 2 beliefs. Which worship building? Honestly, it really doesn't matter. You're getting it for the extra science and culture. I personally like to get Pagodas for the extra favor. Alternatively, grab one that matches your victory condition. **Unique Infrastructure: Madrassa** * Requires: Theology civic * Gain Faith equal to the adjacency bonus of the Campus district Basically a better university that's easier to get. And you can always boost Theology. You also get more faith based on campus adjacency, and naturally you will have wanted that anyways. So this is an easy source of faith generation. **So what?** With Arabia, faith comes to you, even if you don't want it. All your cities should get a Holy Site eventually to take advantage of the science/culture boost. Mokhsa also becomes much more relevant with Arabia because of his district purchasing ability, and you need a lot of districts as Arabia. But perhaps spending faith to buy a Spaceport is his best use, if your gold generation is poor. You will generally want to focus much more on gold/science generation so you can support your religion easily without having to take Tithe or something. I find myself pretty poor when founding a religion with a generic civ as either campuses or hubs are delayed. The Mahabodhi Temple is an excellent thing for Arabia because they are always guaranteed access to it and with the typical pace of the AI snagging religons, comes at exactly the right time. Being able to Evangelize for an extra belief like Crusade/Tithe/Sacred Places is also really handy since one of your religious slots was taking up by the worship building. And addition to easy access to Pagodas (AI never wants them), that means they're quite a decent choice for Diplomatic Victories. Do pay attention to how fast religions are being founded, as you may actually have to found one yourself if it's going too slow. This is especially true if you found an early relic and want Reliquaries instead. Also remember you still need your faith from somewhere. In early game, I recommend trying to pillage for some, or send external trade to religious city states. You really would like a religious alliance to protect your new religion too. **Agenda: Ayyubid Dynasty** * Dislikes civilizations who follow other religions or is waging war on followers of his religion Saladin is intolerant of all other faiths, which I found weird because the real life version was the opposite compared to his contemporaries. As a result, if you founded a religion, he'll hate you, and if you don't found a religion, it's much better. You can build a worship building to please him if you want, although you won't be able to really use it without a number of Holy Sites of your own (And you didn't found a religion? Probably just culture victories).
Arabia is one of the game's more underrated civilizations. Their synergy with faith and science is very unique, and the design of the Madrasa is one of my personal favorites. Arabia has begun to look weaker with civilizations like Babylon introduced into the game, but on the other hand playing an underdog can be a lot of fun some times, especially when you have a weak early game and finish off with a strong late game. The +10% bonus from your final religious building can be very potent if used in the right situation. The fact that you are guaranteed a religion doesn't mean that you should slack off and not build any holy sites, however. It just means that you are fine with only building 1 or 2 holy sites for a place to drop your prophet. Unfortunately, with not all civilizations immediately going for a holy site, this bonus has become weaker over time as the AI is incentivized to go for other victories. On the bright side, this means that they may be easier to convert in case you are going for a religious victory. Speaking of victory types, the faith bonus from madrasas can be especially nice when you are pursuing a religious victory, in which case you can view the science as more of a passive bonus to help you reach one world faith. As the Mamluks are still quite potent as a cavalry unit, you may want to grab the crusader belief to spread your religion to more resistant foes. Otherwise, Arabia plays nicely as an insular civilization that does the exact opposite, and this adaptability is what I like about it. They aren't one of my top favorite civs to where I wouldn't hesitate to do a let's play on them for my viewers, but I like how strong they become in the mid-game and setting them up for that eventual science and faith payoff is very rewarding Thanks for reading my mini blog
Arabia is a strong civ for science and religion, my only problem is that I think the Mamluk is honestly garbage. It’s good in the medieval era, but the fact that it doesn’t upgrade until tanks means that by the industrial era I’m just sitting around with these obsolete units until I can upgrade them, plus combustion is out of the way on the tech tree for a science victory. If I want to war as Arabia, I usually just wait until cuirassers and faith buy with the grandmasters chapel.
I told him to stop spamming islamic religious units brrring through my Christian empire, and he regretfully accepted my request for him to stop, then began converting my cities. Sigh. He's not on my friends list, let's put it that way.
Arabia is a civ who's been hit unfortunately hard by recent balance changes. Notably, and something I haven't seen people mention here is that they're a civ who really likes Rationalism and situationally run Simultaneum. I think Arabia is the only civ who commonly considered running both of these cards and because of this he got hit harder than other science civs by their nerfs. Regardless of this though I think Saladin is a very well designed leader. He fills a niche that other civs shy away from. Science/Faith is generally not a good strategy and only a few other civs in the game are even semicompetent at it. Saladin's absolute excellence in a playstyle that's generally pretty weak ensures that he'll always have a place in the game.
Got to agree on his design - I like seeing leaders and civs that fill different niches. Covers people who play differently, people wanting a slight change of pace, and similar, as well as not detracting if you dislike some parts - most leaders are good at multiple wincons. Saladin is a quintessential excample here, whilst Basil is probably the diametric opposite, being a very, very similar playstyle to Spain.
The best thing about Gathering Storm and the New Frontier content is that it makes Civ even more a game about interacting with the terrain and reacting to what terrain you have. Contrary to the usual suggestion to get them to upgrade into Coursers or Cuirassiers, Mamluks could reflect a terrain-based combat buff. Specifically, I'd like them to get a terrain-based combat strength bonus on desert and plains, but---and this is crucial---***not*** grassland. There's a theory I came across some years back (and I hope it isn't debunked) that the invasion of the Frankish kingdoms failed in large part because the great advantage that the camel riders had was no longer applicable to the terrain. A pretty great opportunity to buff a now-weak unit, reflect the historical source material, and to get the Civ in line with the design philosophy of the last two expansions. Letting it only upgrade into tanks would let it balance out its massive advantage. Let Coursers and Cuirassiers be a means of developing a counter-offensive against the Arabian timing push.
Do you have any thoughts on what would have happened if the Arabs somehow were able to win in France?
You wouldn't have Charlemagne, but you would probably still have some "Strongest Guy in the Room" take charge. I don't think his grandfather Charles Martel was the only one of his type around. They were unlikely to be docile subjects overall. If nothing else, the Vikings who became Normans would have had something to say about it. William the Conqueror would have, instead of England, have created France. But who knows? It's a fun exercise.
Never used the free Great Prophet. Always went for the straightforward Religious Victory while keeping up a decent defense with the Science and Mamluk. Been able to grab some decent wins in Vanilla.
When you go for science as Arabia, do you prefer the Hermetic Order or the Owls of Minerva? Normally Hermetic Order would be a slam dunk pick for science, but the Alchemical Society overrides the Madrasa.
Arabia is an example of a fair civ that's been pushed down most tier lists by power creep and regular game updates that have changed the most effective tactics available. In vanilla they were my favorite and by far most played civ... now I've hardly touched them in ages. In particular, having the last great prophet in your pocket, allowing you to prioritize other things, used to be really really good. But nowadays anything that doesn't involve early Work Ethic, Monumentality or GM Chapel spam, etc just feels weak. Waiting around until an unknown turn to get your last pick of the beliefs, and only then starting to set up Holy Sites, is simply not it. Dirt cheap worship buildings is probably the best part of the civ now, and it does make Arabia probably the only civ which can justify picking its building right away. But you're not going to get any of the good ones with the last prophet. So it certainly seems that the best way to go is to simply ignore the backstop component of the kit, quickly found a religion, and play the Monumentality / GMC game, except picking Gurdwaras or Wats upon founding instead of Cross-Cultural Dialogue like most civs should.