Zigzagzigal's Guides - Arabia (R&F)

Powerful at science, strong at religion and decent at war, Arabia offers plenty of options. Here, I detail Arabian strategies and counter-strategies.

Legacy Guide

If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Introduction

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

Though faith, the arts and the sciences, we have achieved an enviable position in the world, yet this state is threatened by ignorance and blind retribution - the acts of the Crusaders. Let us not return their intolerance with the same, but lead by example. We shall protect the civilians caught in the crossfire and protect their free exercise of faith. Nonetheless, do not see this as a weakness. When our realm is threatened, we shall react accordingly. We have the expertise. We have the faith. And we have determination to protect our golden age.

How to use this guide

This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Glossary

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

Outline

Start Bias

Arabia has no start bias.

Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet

• When the second-to-last Great Prophet is claimed, you automatically receive the final Great Prophet.
  
  • This does not take effect if you earned a Great Prophet previously by any other means.
    
  • This ability reserves a religion for Arabia. If Arabia is eliminated before they can obtain a Great Prophet, there will still be a Great Prophet reserved for Arabia in case they are brought back to the game.
    
  • Founding a pantheon is still necessary to found a religion, as is having either a Holy Site district or the Stonehenge wonder.
• Gain +1 science for every foreign city that follows your religion.
  
  • This is added at the empire level, not the city level, and as such will not be modified by bonuses such as Oxford University or Saladin's worship buildings.

Saladin's Leader Ability: Righteousness of the Faith

• Worship buildings belonging to Saladin's religion cost 90% less faith to purchase.
  
  • This bonus applies to all cities following Saladin's religion, regardless of civilization.
    
  • This stacks additively with reductions to faith purchasing costs; for example, the Theocracy government makes Saladin's religious buildings free to purchase.
• Worship buildings of your own religion provide the city with a 10% boost to science, culture and faith in addition to their normal yields.
  
  • This does not affect cities held by other civilizations.

Unique Unit: Mamluk

A medieval-era heavy cavalry unit which replaces the Knight

Research	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Cost	Maintenance	Resource needed
Stirrups Technology Medieval era	Combustion ** Technology Modern era	Heavy Chariot (180 )	Tank (460 )	180 or 720 or 360 *	3	None

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

**If you have no access to oil, you may continue to train Mamluks even after researching Combustion.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
48	N/A	4	N/A	2	None	Ignores Zone of Control Heals every turn regardless of whether it takes an action or not

Positive changes

• Does not require iron
  
• Heals every turn regardless of whether it takes an action or not

Unique Building: Madrasa

A classical-era Campus building which replaces the University

Research	Prerequisites	Required to build	Cost	Maintenance	Pillage Yield
Theology Civic Classical era	Campus Library	Research Lab	250 or 1000 or 500 *	2	25

*Purchasing this building with faith requires the city to follow a religion with the Jesuit Education follower belief.

Fixed yields	Other yields	Citizen slots	Great Person points	Miscellaneous effects
5 1	The quantity of science produced by the Madrasa's Campus district via adjacency and city-state bonuses is also added to faith.	1 Scientist (2 if filled)	1	None

Neutral changes

• Requires the classical-era Theology civic instead of the medieval-era Education technology

Positive changes

• Generates 5 science, up from 4
  
• The quantity of science produced by the Madrasa's Campus district via adjacency bonuses is also added to faith.
  
  • This is boosted by any modifiers to the Campus district's adjacency bonus, including the Natural Philosophy economic civic card.

Victory Skew

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.

Leader	Culture	Domination	Religion	Science
Saladin	5/10 (Decent)	6/10 (Decent)	9/10 (Ideal)	9/10 (Ideal)

Culture is the one victory route Saladin is not particularly equipped for. A 10% culture bonus from worship buildings might sound good for getting through the civics tree, but the effect is relatively minor. Arabia's good faith generation can help with buying Naturalists, and having a shared religion with another civ can boost tourism, but on the whole you're better taking a different route.

Instead, Arabia has three main victory route options which can be attempted in turn; if one isn't enough for victory, you can move on to the next using some of the advantages of the previous one. The first victory route Arabia can make a good attempt at is domination, primarily driven by the powerful Mamluk UU. Typically, you won't be able to win with Mamluk wars alone, but it will help you to capture plenty of Holy Sites.

Next up is religion. Arabia comes with a guarantee of a religion and a strong faith output (albeit one that takes longer to arrive than it does for some other religious civs). Even if you don't think winning a religious victory is viable, it's worth playing the religious game for the scientific opportunities.

And that leads onto the last path, science. Playing as Saladin, three out of your four uniques have some kind of contribution to science output. A lack of production advantages might make it a bit trickier to complete Space Race projects and certain eurekas, but Arabia is still one of the best-equipped civs in the game for such a victory path.

Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet

Always receive the final Great Prophet

Arabia can guarantee a religion without needing to make a big initial investment into their faith. This means unlike other religious civs, you can dedicate your earliest turns to more general development.

Some useful things to invest your early production in include:

• Settlers - Settling a few cities early on maximises your empire-wide yields; you'll be able to produce more and research more. That'll really help you to prepare for Mamluk wars.
  
• Campuses - Getting some Campuses up and running early will help you research key technologies like Stirrups sooner, and they'll be necessary later for your Madrasa UB.
  
• Heavy Chariots - Heavy Chariots can be upgraded to Mamluks for 180 gold. While expensive, it does mean you'll get Mamluks immediately after researching Stirrups rather than a few turns later. Heavy Chariots are also decent defensive units until then.

Of course, you shouldn't neglect other things like Builders (especially if you start in a forested area and can benefit from the production from chopping them down) and Traders - those three things listed are just things you should emphasise more than you might normally with other civs. Building an Encampment or two may be helpful if you think you can secure a Great General to complement your Mamluks, but this isn't mandatory.

Eventually, another civ will found the penultimate religion, giving you a Great Prophet. However, to found a religion, you need a pantheon and either a Holy Site or Stonehenge. There's a couple of ways of managing this:

• On maps with smaller numbers of civs, consider building a Holy Site after settling 2-3 cities to secure a pantheon and so your Great Prophet can found a religion there.
  
• On maps with larger numbers of civs, you might not get a Great Prophet until you've already started with Mamluk warfare. As such, consider holding off building Holy Sites until you already have the military units you need.

With a religion founded, what beliefs should you take? That will be detailed in full in the Administration section of this guide, but one belief in particular is very helpful and worth mentioning now: Jesuit Education. It allows you to build Campus and Theatre Square buildings with faith, allowing you to tie together your religious and scientific advantages very effectively.

+1 science per foreign city following Arabia's religion

One city converted, one extra science yielded!

Arabia will have a religion of their own every game, while the Madrasa UB (and eventually Saladin's leader ability) offers plenty of faith. No matter your intended victory route, invest some of it into spreading your religion! The science offered per city is fairly small, but it can add up nicely if you can convert a few civs and city-states.

Conclusion

Religion and its associated gameplay will always be a key part of the game as Arabia, no matter which victory route you take. Arabia has a key advantage that they can get all the benefits of religion without the drawback of needing to invest heavily in it early on. Thanks to the conquests of Mamluks and the significant faith output of Madrasas, you'll have a strong enough infrastructure to catch up with other religious civs. And if you can't win a religious victory, you can use your religious advantages to strengthen your science.

Unique Unit: Mamluk

Knights are strong, fast, ignore zone of control and aren't too hard to research at a reasonable pace. But their need for iron makes the opportunity to train one somewhat subject to the whims of the map, and repeated attacks will wear them down. Mamluks don't have those problems, letting you consistently train a unit with an immense presence on the battlefield which will be tough for your enemies to stop.

Preparation

Though all you need to train Knights is Animal Husbandry, Archery, Horseback Riding and Stirrups, be sure to make detours to Writing and Wheel (and Astrology on smaller maps if you need to build a Holy Site) before you research Horseback Riding. Writing is needed for Campuses, which will ensure you get enough science to research everything else at a reasonable pace, while Wheel lets you train Heavy Chariots which can be upgraded to Mamluks.

Getting some early Campuses built can also help you grab some early Great Scientists - the medieval era Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi is particularly useful. He makes military units within his radius heal 20 HP per turn faster - combined with the heal-every-turn bonus of Mamluks, you'll be able to recover from even heavy rounds of fighting!

You'll also want to figure out who to attack first. Usually, you'll want to go for your closest neighbour - it helps avoid the problem of losing loyalty over captured cities, and injured Mamluks can simply retreat into your owned lands to heal up faster. If there's two or more civs close by, consider targeting which ever one has the most Holy Sites - you'll eliminate a religious rival while seizing their faith output for yourself.

Warfare

Mamluks start with 48 strength, which will give them a huge advantage over Swordsmen and other pre-medieval era threats. Against cities without walls, you don't really need to take any other units with them, but be prepared to build a Battering Ram, Siege Tower or Catapult soon enough - enemy civs won't be without walls for long.

Units heal at the start of your turn. This is important to remember as any Mamluk that's just attacked (and hence lost health) will be at risk of being attacked (and hence losing more health) before they have the chance to recover. Of course, judging when's a good time to attack and when's a good time not to is tricky, but consider these points:

• How many enemies are in the area that could viably attack that specific Mamluk?
  
• If all those units attacked your Mamluk, approximately how much damage would they deal?
  
• If you attacked something with your Mamluk, how much health would it lose in the process? (To find this out, hover over the thing you want to attack - the glowing area on the Mamluk's health bar indicates the average amount of health you can expect it to lose).
  
• And finally, would the amount of health lost from that attack put the Mamluk on a lower amount of health than necessary to survive the enemy counter-attack?

You don't need to worry too much calculating specific numbers - just think of this in approximate terms. Maybe your Mamluk is on about three-quarters health, and you know that attacking a city centre will put them on half-health, and enemy units could put them on less than one-quarter health. Attacking that city might put your Mamluk at risk of being killed before they have a chance to heal! You might want to stop attacking the city for a moment to clean up nearby enemy units.

It also helps to know how much you can expect Mamluks to heal each turn:

• In an owned city, it's 20.
  
• In friendly territory, it's 15.
  
• In neutral territory, it's 10.
  
• In enemy territory, it's 5.
  
• If the unit has a Medic, an Apostle with the Chaplain promotion, or the Great Scientist Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi on the same tile or an adjacent one, add +20.
  
• If you've retired the Great Scientist Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi, add +5.
  
• If you have the God of Healing pantheon, your Holy Sites and adjacent tiles add +30.
  
• Next to the Dead Sea natural wonder, units heal all their health.

5 health per turn in enemy territory isn't a lot, so it's a good idea where possible to attack cities that border another you currently control so you can retreat injured units there. Alternatively, if your enemy isn't close, pick off one of their weakest cities first so you have somewhere to retreat to. If you can get all the way to the Breakthrough promotion, Mamluks can, in addition to attacking twice a turn, move after attacking. This can be used to deal damage to enemy units and retreat to friendly lands in the same turn for additional healing.

Aside from direct warfare, Mamluks make decent pillagers. While lacking the ability to pillage cheaply like Horsemen with the Depredation promotion, Mamluks nonetheless can slip past enemy zone of control, pillage enemy improvements and districts, and retreat to neutral or friendly hands to quickly heal up before coming back again. Good strength and mobility makes any Knight a hard pillager to catch, but the ability to rapidly recover from injury makes Mamluks particularly good at harassment strategies.

Obsoletion

Once other civs start getting Musketmen and especially Pike and Shot units, Mamluks are no longer the highly powerful UUs they used to be. At that point in the game, it's a good idea to finish off your conquests and switch to a more peaceful approach, emphasising both religion and science.

Unique Building: Madrasa

While the unique unit offers conquest potential, and getting a guaranteed religion means you can dedicate more resources to preparing of the unique unit, the Madrasa UB along with Saladin's leader ability helps to set up the rest of the game with both religious and scientific advantages.

Getting to Madrasas

Unlike regular Universities which are unlocked at the late-medieval Education technology, Madrasas are unlocked at the late-classical Theology civic. This does mean you can potentially build them significantly earlier than other civs can get Universities, but remember that emphasising Mamluks does make it hard to maximise your culture yield early on, slowing down your civic accumulation. Consider also that Madrasas are expensive relative to other classical-era buildings, though you could offset that partially by using Governor Magnus (the Steward) and chopping some woods for instant production.

While you could attempt to beeline Theology, it's generally better to pick up Political Philosophy (for a tier one government) and Military Tradition (for the Manoeuvre military policy card, allowing you to train Heavy Chariots faster ready for upgrading to Mamluks later) before heading to it. That'll also allow you enough time for your civ ability to take effect letting you found a religion and get Theology's inspiration boost with it.

Madrasas must be built in cities with a Campus and Library already. Building some Campuses early in the game will be useful to cut down the time needed to research Mamluks, and you can fit in Libraries later once you have enough spare production.

An Early, Better University

Universities offer +4 science, +1 housing and a Great Scientist Point. They're reasonable buildings for their time, and any scientific civ will want plenty. The housing boost isn't enough to get cities over the threshold for a new district by itself, but it'll certainly help.

Arabia gets all that, with an extra point of science on top, a whole era early. Depending on how fast you can research and build, that might be 20-40 turns sooner than you're able to build Universities while playing as other civs. Building 2-3 early Madrasas can put you the equivalent of an extra technology ahead of non-scientific civs by the time they reach the Education technology, and the advantage to Great Scientist Points will be helpful, too.

Campus science added to faith

This Campus has two adjacent mountains, two adjacent districts and an adjacent Government Plaza for a total +4 bonus. With the Natural Philosophy policy card, that doubles to +8. The Madrasa therefore is granting me +8 faith - not bad for a single building!

The biggest feature of Madrasas is their ability to add faith based on the adjacency bonus of their Campus. At first, this is useful as an interim source of faith until you have Holy Sites developed, and later on it remains a powerful complementary source of the yield.

To maximise Campus adjacency yields, it helps to first understand all the sources of adjacency bonuses:

• +1 per adjacent mountain
  
• +1 if a Government Plaza is adjacent
  
• +1 per two adjacent districts*
  
• +1 per two adjacent rainforest tiles*

*These bonuses do not mix together - having three adjacent districts and three adjacent rainforests will create a +2 adjacency bonus, not the +3 you might expect.

The best locations are usually those with lots of mountains nearby. If you can't find such spots early on, and you don't have any rainforests, try building up a cluster of districts between a few cities so they can all provide adjacency bonuses to each other. Areas without mountains and rainforest won't produce so much science (and therefore faith), but at least it'll provide more open terrain for your Mamluks to rush through - so it's not all bad.

Natural Philosophy (which requires the late-classical era Recorded History civic) doubles campus adjacency bonuses, by extension also doubling the faith contribution of Madrasas!

This large boost to faith can really make up for neglecting Holy Sites early in the game, allowing you to spread your religion throughout your empire just in time for you to build lots of Holy Sites, Shrines and Temples. You'll need cities with Temples and following your religion to benefit from Saladin's leader ability and the super-cheap worship buildings it offers. With all that infrastructure in place, you'll have some of the game's best faith generation.

Even if religious victory doesn't appear to be an option, you'll want to use at least some of your faith for spreading your religion outside your home territory for the science boost your religion offers. You can also use your excess faith for Great Engineer/Scientist patronage, purchasing military units (with the Grand Master's Chapel Government Plaza building), and purchasing Campus or Theatre Square buildings (with the Jesuit Education follower belief).

Summary

• Work towards the Theology civic as soon as you're done with Political Philosophy and Military Tradition.
  
• Madrasas are expensive - get the Jesuit Education belief or use Builders to cut down foliage to get them up reasonably fast.
  
• Get the Recorded History civic soon after Theology so you can use the Natural Philosophy civic card and double the faith contribution of Madrasas.

Saladin's Leader Ability: Righteousness of the Faith

With the Mamluk wars underway, a religion founded and Madrasas being built, it's time to build up some Holy Sites and develop them with a Shrine, Temple and finally a worship building. Saladin makes worship buildings extremely cheap to purchase and more powerful, letting you exceed the normal potential of Holy Sites in less time than it takes other civs to complete them.

Worship Beliefs and Buildings

Let's first examine how exactly worship buildings work.

Religions have four different types of belief: founder, follower, enhancer and worship. Religions can have up to four beliefs in total, and no more than one from each category. When you found a religion, you are able to select two. To unlock your last two beliefs, you'll need a Holy Site with a Temple in one of your cities (requiring the classical-era Theology civic). Then, you'll need to purchase an Apostle with faith there. Finally, use their "Evangelise Belief" option.

Worship beliefs determine which worship building may be built in cities following your religion; it's a good idea to favour whichever building is most relevant for your general gameplay. Constructing a worship building requires the city to have a Holy Site with a Temple already, meaning that effectively all worship buildings require you to have the classical-era Theology civic before you can build them. As a consequence, although you can choose your worship building when you first found a religion, you might want to take a more impactful follower or enhancer belief instead, and spend faith on an Apostle for the worship belief as soon as you are able.

All worship buildings cost 190 production (for comparison, Temples cost 120). However, unlike Shrines and Temples, they may also be purchased via faith - this costs 380 faith each time.

Choosing the right worship building

There's a variety of worship buildings on offer, but you can only choose one to incorporate into your religion. Here's a list of them all with notes regarding how relevant they are for Arabia.

Worship Building	Effect	Arabia Notes
Cathedral	3 1	There are only 12 possible Great Works of Religious Art in the game, and they're typically better-suited for Art Museums in Theatre Squares. Arabia has little inclination towards cultural victories, so you're better off picking a different building.
Dar-e Mehr	3 +1 per era since built or last repaired	This has the most faith potential of any of the worship buildings, especially if you can get them built relatively early and avoid pillagers. A bigger faith yield goes nicely with Saladin's 10% faith boost.
Gurdwara	3 2	This might be helpful if you're cramming cities close together and lack space for farms, but you're often better off with a different worship building. Still more useful than Cathedrals, however.
Meeting House	3 2	Even a little production is useful to have around - especially in newer cities. While not as relevant to Arabia's bonuses as the buildings offering more faith or science, it's not a bad choice in any situation.
Mosque	3 Missionaries and Apostles purchased in this city have +1 charge	It helps your faith go much further, but this is a bonus that doesn't scale well to a large number of cities unlike other worship buildings. It's still good if you're heading for a religious victory, but if you're after science, you may want something else.
Pagoda	3 1	Has some limited synergy with the Madrasa's housing, and can help you on the way to securing more district capacity. Still, it's not as impactful as extra faith, science or spread-religion charges.
Stupa	3 1	A good worship building on the whole; it can help support Mamluk conquests and growing cities quite nicely.
Synagogue	5	A reliably good building for a civ that leans heavily on faith to begin with.
Wat	3 2	The faith/science combination is a great one for Arabia, making this one of the best worship buildings you can select.

Overall, the most appropriate worship buildings for Arabia are the Dar-e Mehr, Mosque, Synagogue and Wat. The Meeting House and Stupa are less directly helpful but are still useful.

Saladin's Bonuses

Saladin allows you to purchase your faith building for just 35 faith - or free if you have the Theocracy government. This means all faith buildings will pay for themselves in just 11 turns, and that's before considering their secondary yields or the Simultaneum economic policy card (requiring the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic) which boosts their faith output by up to 100%. As such, any city you have that has a Temple and follows your religion is one in which you should seek to immediately purchase your worship building.


With the building purchased, you'll make +10% faith, science and culture in the city. While a 10% bonus isn't a huge increase to your yields, it works well with the bonus science and faith from Madrasas.

While other civs won't receive the 10% bonus to faith, science and culture, they will get the 90% discount to your worship building. Considering the civs with lots of Holy Sites are likely to be religious civs themselves, and Saladin's worship buildings pay for themselves very quickly, if you're not careful you could end up handing your enemies lots of cheap faith. To minimise this risk, try to spread your religion first to civs that don't have one of their own.

Summary

• The Dar-e Mehr, Mosque, Synagogue or Wat are your best choices for worship buildings.
  
• Always buy your worship building when it's available. The faith investment will pay for itself very quickly.

Administration - Government, Policy Cards and Ages

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.

Governments

Tier One

Autocracy isn't a bad choice - it allows you to take the Manoeuvre and Conscription policy cards simultaneously while still having a wildcard left over for economic support. That allows you to train Heavy Chariots faster, and save money so you can upgrade them to Mamluks later.

The Warlord's Throne will help your cities produce more every time you capture a city. This is rather helpful as while your Mamluks go off on conquests, your core cities can get Madrasas built faster. Alternatively, the Ancestral Hall is helpful if you want to continue peaceful expansion - more cities means more Campuses and Holy Sites and hence more faith.

Tier Two

Theocracy is the obvious choice. Your religious buildings become free to purchase, religious units are cheaper, you get an edge in religious combat (very nice if you've been spamming Apostles with all the faith you'll be generating) and it has a decent balance of policy card slots.

The Grand Master's Chapel lets you use your strong faith output to help keep you defended, while the Intelligence Agency gives you an extra Spy so you can send them on counter-spy operations to preserve your technological advantage.

Tier Three

Democracy is reliably good for religious and scientific games alike due to its good number of economic policy card slots.

The Royal Society is a must-have for the scientific game as it lets you partially rush Martian colony components with Builder charges, while the War Department helps if you're aiming for a late religious victory due to the health-on-kills bonus applying for theological combat.

Policy Cards

Ancient Era

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) - Mamluks are expensive to train directly, so you'll usually want to train Heavy Chariots and upgrade them. However, the more you train, the more their maintenance will drain your coffers and the less able you'll be to afford the upgrade cost. That's where Conscription is useful - by reducing unit maintenance costs, you'll have more gold available for upgrades later.

Manoeuvre (Military, requires Military Tradition) - Allows you to train Heavy Chariots faster, which can later be upgraded to Mamluks.

Classical Era

Natural Philosophy (Economic, requires Recorded History) - Grab this card and don't look back. Double campus adjacency bonuses is good anyway, but this also doubles the faith you get from Madrasas.

Scripture (Economic, requires Theology) - Some extra faith for Saladin's leader ability to build upon.

Medieval Era

Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Gives you a 50% production bonus while training Mamluks.

Renaissance Era

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - If you get the full bonus, Madrasas produce +10 science each instead of +5. That doesn't affect their faith yield, but that science boost is still good to have.

Simultaneum (Economic, requires Reformed Church) - Saladin's leader ability encourages you to have a high number of completed Holy Site districts. This policy card can as much as double their faith output.

Modern Era

Five-Year Plan (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - This replaces Natural Philosophy and has all of its advantages, but on top of that it also doubles industrial zone adjacency bonuses.

Age Bonuses

Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Given Arabia's incentive to build both Campuses and Holy Sites, this can be an extremely effective bonus - particularly in the medieval era where you will have had more time to set up the districts. The culture penalty can be partially offset via Saladin's leader ability.

Free Inquiry (Dedication, Classical to Medieval eras) - Build up Libraries and Madrasas and you'll be rewarded with era score.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Dedication, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Your incentive to spread your religion far and wide (both for worship buildings and for science from your civ ability) makes this a decent source of era score.

Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Make up for lost time establishing your religion with this Golden Age dedication which makes your Missionaries and Inquisitors faster and with more charges.

Monumentality (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - An excellent way to channel your faith advantages to general development. Particularly useful if you don't think winning a religious victory is viable at this point.

Heartbeat of Steam (Golden Age, Industrial to Modern eras) - Maximising your Campus adjacency for Madrasa faith? They'll also add production with this Golden Age dedication!

Administration - Religion and City-States

Pantheons

Divine Spark - A reasonable choice generally for the the bonus to Great Scientist points, and very useful for the early-religion approach if you need a Great Prophet fast.

God of Healing - Makes Mamluks heal up at super-speed. All they need to do is move next to a Holy Site in friendly terrain and they'll heal 45 health!

God of the Forge - Helps you train Heavy Chariots faster, ready for upgrading to Mamluks.

Religious Beliefs

You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.

Note that the Stewardship Founder belief adds science from Campus districts at the national level, so it won't translate to a faith bonus via Madrasas.

Also note that all worship buildings are also discussed in the section for Saladin's Leader Ability.

Cross Cultural Dialogue (Founder) - Get even more science from spreading your religion around.

Dar-e Mehr (Worship) - Can potentially result in more faith than any other worship building, though you'll need to have it around for at least three eras for that to happen. Saladin's 10% faith bonus from the building helps you get just a little bit more on top.

Jesuit Education (Follower) - Once you have some Holy Sites and Madrasas going, you'll have a great faith output. This belief helps you to rush through future Madrasas in cities less able to build them quickly (in addition to other science and culture buildings, but they aren't as important).

Mosque (Worship) - While the bonus doesn't accumulate well over multiple cities, it's still a very effective boost for religious games making it worth using.

Papal Primacy (Founder) - This founder belief lets you spread religious pressure to city-states every time you send envoys to them, helping you convert them. This in turn allows you to get bonus science from your civ ability without having to spend faith on conversions.

Pilgrimage (Founder) - You'll get +1 science per foreign city you convert from the Civ Ability, so the incentive's already there. Pilgrimage adds +2 faith on top, helping your religion to snowball in power.

Scripture (Enhancer) - Arabia's high science output and ease in which they can achieve Printing's eureka boost makes it easy to research that technology early and get this belief's full pressure bonus early.

Stupa (Worship) - Conquered a lot of cities? Thanks to Saladin's leader ability, this is an incredibly cheap source of amenities to help you handle that.

Synagogue (Worship) - A reliably good faith output, making this building one that pays for itself extremely fast.

Wat (Worship) - If you intend to go for a scientific victory, this will probably be your best choice thanks to its +2 science boost.

City-States

Geneva (Scientific) - A great city-state for Arabia to chase due to its ability to magnify your already huge science output. The one downside is the 15% science boost doesn't apply if you're at war, so don't go overboard with Mamluks.

Jerusalem (Religious) - The nature of Saladin's leader ability strongly incentivises you to have a lot of Holy Sites. This bonus helps you maintain religious pressure in your empire, allowing you to use faith for other uses.

Mitla (Scientific) - Increased growth for all your Campus cities basically means increased growth for all your cities considering the importance of your UB. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Administration - Wonders and Great People

Wonders

Oracle (Ancient era, Mysticism civic) - Sometimes, a religious victory simply isn't possible. The Oracle understands your pain and offers some help. Now, you can use your faith to rush Great People (like those handy Great Scientists and Great Engineers) and use those advantages to get you to Mars sooner.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - Look out for whoever has this wonder when you make your Mamluk conquests. The huge amount of faith it can generate will really help get your religion off the ground. Requires the Nubia civilization pack.

Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - Two free Apostles will help ensure you can get your religion to a good start despite starting late. It also helps that you'll want Theology early anyway for worship buildings and Madrasas.

Great People

Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Arabian uniques, not necessarily the most effective options.

Classical Era

Hypatia (Great Scientist) - Extra science is very welcome, and a free Library will save you some precious early production.

Medieval Era

Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi (Great Scientist) - This Great Scientist has huge synergy with Mamluks, letting them heal 20HP per turn faster if they're adjacent or on the same tile. If your Mamluks are already far away, retire him and enjoy a +5 healing bonus for all units for the rest of the game.

El Cid (Great General) - El Cid can retire to create a Mamluks corps. An early Mamluk corps is pretty tough to beat, but make sure you have another classical or medieval Great General ready if you want to do that, as the bonus from turning one Mamluk into a corps isn't really enough to compensate for the lack of an area-of-effect strength bonus.

Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - Basically works like a reversed Madrasa, but that's not the reason I mention her here. Instead, what's important is the +100 faith at a time you may be just starting out with your religion and need all the faith you can get.

Renaissance Era

Isaac Newton (Great Scientist) - Ideal if you're setting up a new city and need a Madrasa fast. Also makes all Madrasas produce +2 science.

Modern Era

Albert Einstein (Great Scientist) - For even more Madrasa science.

Counter-Strategies

Arabia can be a threat on the medieval-era battlefield, but they can also be a religious-scientific powerhouse. They're a relatively versatile civ in that their religious and scientific advantages are closely interwoven, allowing them to move from one victory path to another without losing progress, but undermine their religious advantages and they lose much of their general strength with it.

Civilization Ability: The Last Prophet

It's guaranteed that Arabia will get a religion. Even if they're eliminated from the game, the last Great Prophet is still reserved for them. That doesn't, however, mean they'll have the strongest religion. If Arabia gets the last religion, they get the last pick of beliefs. Take the good stuff they're likely to want (Jesuit Education for example) and they become a lot less of a threat than they could be. If Arabia's last to a religion, they'll also be slow to spread it.

Arabia's science bonus from spreading religions is tied to cities and not population, so Arabia will getting the bulk of that bonus science from small, easily-converted cities. You can engage in a bit of religious combat near smaller border cities to weaken Arabia's religion, but if you really need to set them back, a bit of actual combat will work as well. Condemning religious units reduces their religious pressure - and hence Arabia's science output.

Saladin's Leader Ability: Righteousness of the Faith

Saladin's ability is one of the few uniques that can be used for the benefit of other civs. If his religion spreads to your cities, the worship building will be very cheap. If you feel you can take the risk, you can allow one of your Holy Site cities to be converted, buy Saladin's worship building and convert it to a different religion so he doesn't keep the +1 science from Arabia's civ ability. Or, just keep his religion if you want to get on his good side.

Saladin's Agenda: Ayyubid Dynasty

An computer-controlled Saladin will like you if you have his worship buildings in your cities, but will dislike you if you follow a different religion to him or declare war on someone following his religion. He also favours acquiring lots of worship buildings in his own empire.

If you're playing a cultural or science game that's not too hard an agenda to meet, but religious players will have to accept they're not likely to get along with him. If you're warmongering and want to target someone following his religion, try to target him first if possible. That way, it's less likely you'll be up against a second opponent.

Unique Unit: Mamluk

Invading Mamluks are only slightly better than Knights; they'll heal just 5HP a turn in lands belonging to their enemy. Anything you use against Knights will work just as well against Mamluks. Pikemen will deal more damage against Mamluks than they take, but if you lack the technology for them, you might have to settle for using promoted Spearmen or Horsemen in defensive terrain and pelting them with arrows from Archers in the mean-time.

If the Mamluks have some kind of medic with them, or you're in Arabia's territory, things get a lot tougher. Target individual Mamluks at a time so you can pick them off before they have a chance to heal. If the medic is a promoted Apostle, aim to kill them. Aside from stopping them rapidly healing up Mamluks, it'll also lower Arabia's nearby religious pressure. If the medic is the Great Scientist Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi, then all "killing" them will do is send them back to their home territory, but that could still be useful as a short-term measure.

Once you have Musketmen and especially Pike and Shot units, Mamluks are much less of a threat.

Unique Building: Madrasa

Arabia will get lots of faith both from Campus and Holy Site adjacency bonuses. Something they both have in common is a large boost from being next to mountains. Cut Arabia off from mountains and their religious potential is curtailed significantly (and reducing their science is nice as well).

Of course, that's often not an option. However, pillaging with promoted light cavalry is. A Horseman with the Depredation promotion can rapidly pillage a Campus with a Library and Madrasa, getting you 75 science in the process (150 with the Raid military policy card, requiring the classical era Military Training civic) and setting back Arabia's science and faith alike. Considering Arabia's big incentive to develop Campuses early, it makes them a very lucrative pillaging target at that stage of the game - at least so long as you can evade their Mamluks.

Other Guides

If you like these guides and want to send a tip, you can click here![ko-fi.com]

Rise and Fall

These guides are for those with the Rise and Fall expansion, but not Gathering Storm.

Compilation Guides

• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications
  
• Civ summaries

Individual Civilization Guides

• America (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Arabia (Religious/Scientific)
  
• Australia (Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination)
  
• Brazil (All)
  
• China (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Cree (Cultural/Domination/Scientific)
  
• Egypt (Cultural/Religious)
  
• England (Cultural/Domination)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Georgia (Religious)
  
• Germany (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Greece (Cultural/Domination)
  
• India (Domination/Religious)
  
• Indonesia (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Japan (All)
  
• Khmer (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Kongo (Cultural)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Macedon (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Mapuche (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Netherlands (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Norway (Domination)
  
• Nubia (Domination)
  
• Persia (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Poland (Cultural/Domination/Religious)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Cultural/Religious)
  
• Scotland (Scientific)
  
• Scythia (Domination/Religious)
  
• Spain (Domination/Religious/Scientific)
  
• Sumeria (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

Vanilla

The Vanilla guides are for those without the Rise and Fall or Gathering Storm expansions. These guides are no longer updated. You can find these by scrolling to the top of this page, clicking "Zigzagzigal's Guides" and looking near the end of the list of guides. The "Other Guides" section of every Vanilla guide has links to every other Vanilla guide.

[watermelon_bike]

Amazing guides! I find your guides a must read before playing with or against a civ that I've never played before. Thanks!

[Zigzagzigal]

I'd assume so, but I haven't tested it.

[MeniliteZ]

Another question: If Arabia is on a team with another civ, do the teammate's cities count as Foreign Cities for the purpose of the +1 Science if they follow Arabia's religion?

[MeniliteZ]

Thank you!
Keep up the great work on the guides! (I'm looking forward to Poland's GS guide!)

[Zigzagzigal]

You're correct they're rounded separately - I just had a look in the XML files. I'll tweak the guide accordingly.

[MeniliteZ]

I have a question about the adjacency bonus workings you wrote in the Madrassa section. From the wording it looks like a Campus with 3 adjacent rainforests and 1 adjacent district (non-Government Plaza) will have an adjacency bonus of 2… but I thought the rainforests and districts were rounded separately, which would give it an adjacency bonus of 1.

Which is correct?

[Tekhne]

Hey zig--I'm a somewhat new civ player trying to win my first immortal game (and playing Arabia because a} I just stubbornly want to and b} like the flexibility and history of the civ). Still getting bogged down by inefficient tech tree excursions and sub-optimal build orders, micro-decisions and all that...but just wanted to thank you for these guides. They are truly amazing; I find myself reading them all the time.

[CyberGamer15]

Nice guide!

Arabia might have to watch out in Gathering Storm though, as unique units will require Strategic Resources, which may slow down their Mamluk assults a bit.

They should still be a fun civ to play as though, although I don't think their victory paths will change all that much once the expansion arrives.

[Zigzagzigal]

Given both the age of the original guide, and the variety of changes in Rise and Fall, most of this guide was entirely rewritten. In my haste there might be a few errors here and there.