Zigzagzigal's Guide to Morocco (BNW)

Out of diplomatic nations, Morocco arguably defends the best and unlike Civs like Greece, Sweden and Arabia, tends to remain peaceful throughout the game. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Moroccan strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



Greetings to you, great leader of Morocco! Your people's history since the mid-8th century of the common era has generally been that of fierce independence - influenced by the outside world but not controlled by it. Come the 16th and 17th centuries, Morocco managed to repel not only the Ottomans, but also the Spanish and English as well. Under the leadership of Ahmad al-Mansur, they brought down the vast and once mighty Songhai Empire, but these lands could only be held for a few decades. By the 19th and early 20th centuries, the French and Spanish saw opportunity and carved up the Moroccan state for themselves.

This wasn't to last. Rebellions within Morocco and concerns about the morality of colonisation in Europe returned independence in the 1950s, earlier than many other nations in similar situations. Your people's history is a testament to their resilience; the route your nation takes is the one you choose, not that forced upon you by outside powers. In a brave new world, can you prove as resilient? Can you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than domination. This is Morocco's route.
CS - Short for City-State.
DoF - Short for Declaration of Friendship
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
ITR - Short for International Trade Route. Not a common acronym but used to prevent repetition in this guide. International Trade Routes in this guide refer to ones NOT used to deliver food or production to other cities in your empire.
Tall Empire - A small number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UI - Unique Improvement (also referred to as Unique Tile Improvement) - A special form of worker tile improvement that can only be built by one Civilization. Unlike unique buildings and units, it doesn't replace anything else.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied.
Wide Empire - An empire with a large number of cities with a low population each. An extreme version of this is ICS, or Infinite City Sprawl.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.
ZOC - Zone of Control - A mechanic that makes a unit use up all its movement points if it moves from a tile next to an enemy to an adjacent tile next to the same enemy.

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Morocco has a desert start bias. Usually, this means you can build Kasbahs near your capital and take full advantage of Berber Cavalry's combat bonuses. Plus, the desert you start in may very well be big enough to support a few more cities that will be easily defended in the late-game.

Uniques

Morocco has an industrial-era Unique Unit together with a medieval era Unique-Improvement. The Unique Ability is most powerful in the early-game, but is still useful later on.

Unique Ability: Gateway to Africa

• Each International Trade Route with a different Civilization or City-State gives you a bonus 3 and 1.
  
  • The gold and culture is separate from the displayed Trade Route yield, so some Trade Routes may be better than they appear.
    
  • Trade Routes from other Civs to Morocco can still award the bonus.
    
  • More than one Trade Route involving the same Civ (whether to or from them) will only award the bonus once, not multiple times.
    
  • Internal routes (delivering food or production to another of your own cities) will not award this bonus.
• Other Civs gain +2 for every International Trade Route sent to Morocco. This stacks.

Unique Unit: Berber Cavalry (Replaces Cavalry)

A mounted melee unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Military Science Industrial era 1st column (10th column overall)	Combustion Modern era 2nd column (13th column overall)	Knight (220 )*	Landship** (260 )*	225 *	740 *	1 Horse

*Assumes a normal speed game.
**Requires 1 Oil resource.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
34	N/A	4	N/A	2	No defensive terrain bonuses 33% combat penalty when attacking cities	Can move after attacking 25% combat bonus in friendly territory (Homeland Guardian) 50% combat bonus in desert (Desert Warrior)

Positive stay-on-upgrade changes

• 25% combat bonus in friendly territory (Homeland Guardian)
  
• 50% combat bonus in desert (Desert Warrior)

Desert tiles in friendly territory therefore award a 75% bonus.

Unique Improvement: Kasbah

Technology	Enhancing Technology	Terrain Requirement	Base yield	Misc bonuses	Enhancement Effect	Final yield
Chivalry Medieval era 2nd column (7th column overall)	None	Desert*	1 1 1	+50% defence to units on the tile	N/A	1 1 1

*Flood plains, flat or hilly desert are all valid, but not oasis tiles (they cannot be improved except by roads or railroads anyway.)

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Routes

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 5/10
Diplomatic: 9/10
Domination: 5/10
Scientific: 5/10

Kasbah and Trade Route gold makes a diplomatic victory a good choice. Anything else is merely average. Don't forget that on top of these scores, Morocco is a strong defensive nation later in the game, so you can spend more time focusing on gaining gold rather preparing for wars with invading forces. Your UA puts people off attacking you, your UI offers defensive bonuses and the Berber Cavalry are incredibly strong late-game defending units.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

Arabia is the obvious choice. Although they receive fewer direct gold bonuses than Morocco and can't get as much out of deserts, they have a very strong UU in the form of the Camel Archer (which is excellent at fighting pretty much anything in the medieval era) and can spread their religion quickly via trade routes.

Same start bias

Morocco's desert start bias is shared with Arabia.

Similar to the UA

Morocco's UA acts somewhat like the reverse of Portugal's. Both make international trading more lucrative, but while Portugal gives you bonuses for sending out your trade routes to a range of foreign cities, Morocco's UA becomes more effective if you manage to receive lots of routes from a range of other Civs.

In order to maximise gold potential, Morocco should trade with a range of City-States. Germany similarly should trade heavily with City-States, but in their case, the diversity of City-States doesn't matter, and the unique bonus is to production rather than gold and culture. It's also tied to a UB - the Hanse - which takes quite some time to arrive in the game.

Similar to Berber Cavalry

Other uniques that replace Cavalry include Austrian Hussars, Russia's Cossacks, and Shoshone Comanche Riders.

Both Berber Cavalry and Comanche Riders have bonuses to help defend in friendly territory (in the case of the Shoshone, it's via their UA rather than being an intrinsic part of the unit.) Comanche Riders have a much smaller bonus, but they have mobility and a cheaper cost to help make up for it. In comparing the defensive potential of the two UUs, Berber Cavalry are better if you can build them ahead of an anticipated attack, while Comanche Riders are better for responding to an imminent or in-progress invasion.

Berber Cavalry are the only unit to have a desert bonus, but other terrains have their corresponding units or abilities. For snow and tundra, there's Denmark's Norwegian Ski Infantry. For forests and jungles, there's the Aztec Jaguar and the Iroquoian Mohawk Warrior. For hills, the Incan UA has that covered. And for mountains, there's Carthage's UA.

Similar to Kasbahs

Making desert tiles more viable to work is also a feature of Arabian Bazaars (which add gold to oasis and oil tiles) and Dutch Polders (which can vastly improve the yields of flood plains.) Polders, like Kasbahs offer food, production and gold. Polders have considerably higher yields than Kasbahs by the renaissance area, but they're much more restricted in their placement and lack the fort-esque defensive bonuses.

Kasbahs become considerably more effective in a Golden Age, where their ability to be built in high numbers combined with the fact their gold yields will be doubled. Polynesia's Moai can also exploit this later in the game, and Brazilwood Camps are reasonably good at this role if you have a jungle-heavy region.

Unique Ability: Gateway to Africa

Above: Notice that "21 from traits" gold bonus.

The Moroccan UA is one that requires you to think carefully about International Trade Routes. As the screenshot above shows, the gold bonus is not included as part of displayed Trade Route yield, hence making it somewhat misleading.


Above: The culture bonus also isn't tied to a city - it's only good for Social Policies and Ideology tenets. It's a very mild advantage only really useful for filling out early-game Social Policies.

The idea with Morocco is to have Trade Routes with as many different Civs as possible to get the maximum bonus. The latter of the two screenshots shows a bonus of only 3 culture despite me owning 7 ITRs. That's because I ended up having multiple routes with the same Civ. In that case, a City-State boycott meant I couldn't use my UA to the full potential.


Above: Moving the Trade Route from Erdine to any non-Ottoman or Iroquois city will award me more gold thanks to my UA.

Because other Civs sending ITRs to you can award the gold-and-culture bonus, it's a good idea to make your cities desirable for trading with. Markets should go in all your larger cities (and they'll increase gold from Kasbahs later on.) Build the East India Company sooner rather than later. Your UA also offers other Civs 2 gold for routes with you to help encourage such trading.

Now, if another Civ is trading with you, you don't have to trade with them. That's the trick to the UA. Trading with City-States can work effectively as they can't use the cash against you, they won't suddenly set up a ITR with you making your route less useful and come the late-game, it works well with the Treaty Organisation tenet in the Freedom Ideology.


Above: Social Policy bonuses help too. Out of all the cities shown in this screenshot, Zanzibar is the joint-most desirable ITR for gold as I'll get the 3 gold and 1 culture bonus on top of that (I already have routes with the Ottomans and Iroquois) raising it to 19 gold. Overall, it's the best route as I won't be giving gold and science away to Civs that can use it against me.

To summarise this and place it in context of an overall strategy, focus on technologies awarding extra Trade Routes. Unless another Civ has multiple valuable potential ITRs, it's best if you don't send two ITRs to the same Civ. Don't initiate wars (except to free captured City-States) in order to win favour with other Civs and encourage them to trade with you. In the late-game, send all or nearly all your routes to City-States for the Treaty Organisation tenet.

Unique Improvement: Kasbah

Above: Note the already-built Kasbah behind the choose-production icon
[/screenshot]
Kasbahs don't make desert tiles exceptional, but they do make deserts more viable spots to settle in. With a little food, production, gold and defence, it offers a good range of bonuses unlike other improvements that tend to focus on just one - hence great for giving smaller cities a leg up.

Desert hills and flood plains can have Kasbahs on besides the regular flat desert tile, though you can't build them on oases (like any improvement besides roads and railroads.) Hills will give 1 food, 3 production and 1 gold while flood plains will give 3 food, 1 production and 1 gold. Not as good for a single yield type as other tile improvements, but overall a +3 yield is pretty decent.


Above: Petra is a must-have wonder for Morocco. This screenshot's in a Golden Age. If I had the Desert Folklore Pantheon as well, every flat desert tile in the city's radius would have a total yield of 7. 2 food, 2 production and 1 gold on the same tile's good anyway as it's a self-sustaining source of of the latter two yields.

Dedicating lots of desert tiles to Kasbahs is a good idea. Come a Golden Age, you'll make an enormous amount of money out of it which wouldn't be so much the case if you divided desert tiles between farms and trading posts.

Because Golden Ages are particularly effective, it's very much worth it to dedicate a city to Great Artist generation. As Great Artists are on a separate counter to other Great People, why not focus on multiple ones in the same city? Get a high-population city to focus on them and give it the National Epic.

On top of the decent overall yields, Kasbahs also offer a defensive bonus equal to that of a fort (though unlike forts you can't build them outside your land) making them excellent for defending your lands. If anyone tries to invade your desert lands, they'll have to face a huge number of units taking advantage of a 50% defensive bonus! Ouch.

Summary

• Kasbahs should be built in large numbers near desert cities.
  
• In large numbers they can be more effective than dividing your land between mines, farms and trading posts.
  
• Golden Ages are very powerful with them, hence generating Great Artists is a good idea
  
• The defensive bonus means you don't need to give up a potentially good tile for a fort and makes life hard for warmongers
  
• Kasbahs are just as important, if not more so than your UA for diplomatic victory.

Unique Unit: Berber Cavalry

One of the game's best defensive UUs, Berber Cavalry ensure no-one is going to take your desert cities. A good deal of your land should be desert for the sake of Kasbahs and all the gold they bring. In such lands, Berber Cavalry recieve a total 75% combat bonus - just half a point of strength below a Landship!

Because the bonuses together are so huge, it's in your best interests to have plenty of these to keep threats out your lands. If you lack horses, simply focus on allying City-States that have them. Settling in deserts makes it likely you'll have plenty of oil to upgrade them into Landships later.

If you are attacked, put ranged or front-line units on your Kasbahs (for defensive bonuses) and carry out hit-and-run attacks with Berber Cavalry to minimise damage. After hitting an opponent, pull the Berber Cavalry back behind those Kasbah-defending units.

It's generally not a good idea to take Berber Cavalry on the offensive - while they have a 50% bonus in deserts, it doesn't apply to desert cities and the normal 33% penalty still applies. They may be good at clearing a few units, but typically their bonuses are best used defensively.

Ultimately, Berber Cavalry are a deterrent, similar to the main role of the Korean UUs. A very high bonus discourages others from going to war with you in the first place.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

• Homeland Guardian (25% strength bonus in friendly territory)
  
• Desert Warrior (50% strength bonus in deserts)

Berber Cavalry promote into high-strength armoured units. Here's a list of them, with their base strength, the Homeland Guardian, Desert Warrior and both together resultant strength respectively.

• Berber Cavalry: 34 - 42.5 - 51 - 59.5
  
• Landship: 60 - 75 - 90 - 105
  
• Tank: 70 - 87.5 - 105 - 122.5
  
• Modern Armour: 100 - 125 - 150 - 175
  
• Giant Death Robot: 150 - 187.5 - 225 - 262.5

You'll notice on your own desert terrain you can fight units a tier of technology above you (and Berber Cavalry promoted into Landships can take on Modern Armour in that situation.) However, you become pretty vulnerable if you're defending non-desert terrain to advanced opponents. Expanding too much into non-desert areas could be risky if you're up against a skilled America, Germany, Korea, or Babylon (the former two have strong late-game UUs, the latter two are likely to have a tech advantage over you.)

Social Policies

Start with Liberty - building wide will let you get lots of Kasbah gold later. You can alternatively take Tradition if there's a lack of desert land avaliable. Mixing and matching some of these policies is alright - the finishers are useful but it's okay to delay them a little if you feel a policy from the other tree would be more immediately useful.

Afterwards, Patronage is obvious being a diplomatic nation, and Commerce is a good idea too (or Piety if you've managed to get Desert Folklore.)

Liberty

Opener

Liberty'll let you expand faster and hence bring in some cash. The opener gets you culture for every city, allowing them to automatically expand borders.

Republic

Your desert start bias probably gives you plenty of flood plains and the odd desert hill. The problem with this is it lacks any tiles inbetween the two - ones offering both food and production. Hence, your cities might lack production in the very early game. A small production boost could go a long way.

Collective Rule

An area full of desert hills makes an excellent spot for a Moroccan city - Petra or no Petra. It's good to be sure no-one steals such a location thanks to the free Settler. Additionally, fast Settler building will be good to seize land quickly.

Citizenship

It'll probably be a while yet until Kasbahs, but it's good to be ready for lots of building. The free Worker saves production for other important things like Caravansaries, Markets or Wonders.

Meritocracy

City Connections are a good source of cash. Now, they slightly help to support your potentially wide empire. Your taller cities (such as a Petra city or the Great Artist/Merchant city I mentioned before) will hold you back happiness-wise a tiny bit less (though the 5% difference is barely noticable.)

Representation

It might be worth holding off on this policy until you have a few Kasbahs, as the free Golden Age goes a lot further with it.

Finisher

You could extend Representation's free Golden Age with a free Great Artist, but probably the best moves are to get a Great Scientist to keep up with the tech race or a Great Engineer to get important wonders.

Patronage

Opener

Slower influence decay. Great for holding alliances, and in the late game with the Treaty Organisation tenet in the Freedom tree makes influence rise faster in City-States you have a trade route with.

Consulates

You should probably take Consulates before Philanthropy seeing as even gold-focused nations may have trouble buying their way to alliances at this stage of the game - the raised resting point will be more immediately useful. Use of the Papal Primacy founder belief means pernament friends.

Philanthropy

Now, you should be able to buy your way to alliances much more easily, particularly with that Consulates-boosted starting point.

Scholasticism

As with any Civ, it's important not to fall behind technologically - particularly to a wide-building Civ with no bonuses to science. This policy will help you with just that.

Cultural Diplomacy

At this time, the oceans will likely be opening up for exploration and expansion. More happiness will help you achieve that. Building coastal colonies on new continents to take advantage of diversity bonuses (and getting in range of City-States for ITRs) isn't a bad idea. Of course, there's also new deserts to seize.

Merchant Diplomacy

Morocco does well to send at least some ITRs to City-States to exploit the 3 gold and 1 culture bonus from your UA. Now, it's a bit more practical to carry on doing that into the midgame as City-States are worth more gold to trade with.

Finisher

Great People for free! You can't argue with that.

Commerce

Opener

Your desert start bias lets you build plenty of Kasbahs near your capital. Hence, a 25% bonus goes a long way.

Wagon Trains

City Connections make cash. Roads and Railroads take cash. This policy cuts the amount of cash taken. Thus, more cash made. Land-based International Trade Routes also give you more cash. Together with your UA and Merchant Diplomacy, all City-States are worth at least 9 gold per route (provided you're only sending one Caravan to them each.) Don't neglect sea routes; they're still often worth more than land!

Mercenary Army

Need defence? Landsknechts are super-cheap to buy (if somewhat expensive to upgrade to Lancers) and are just as good as Pikemen, though you'll need to pick up this policy early for maximum effect. They also never obselete, so you can use their special promotions (no movement cost to pillage, double gold for capturing cities) more easily.

Mercantilism

For those times you're not bribing City-States with your cash. And the science helps you keep up with other Civs who aim to take you out before Berber Cavalry makes that much harder. Also note that those cheap Landsknechts will be even cheaper.

Entrepreneurship

A city with plenty of flood plains wheat resources and/or your Petra city grows nice and tall, thus is a great candidate city for making Great Merchants. Generating them faster will let you make a little more cash and influence, particularly as this policy also doubles their Trade Mission yields.

Protectionism

Happiness limitations needn't slow down your expansion now. Dominate those untouched deserts! Spam Kasbahs! Start a Golden Age! Be rich! Throw all that money at City-States!

Finisher

You probably won't be building many Trading Posts as Kasbahs have the role of gold generation. It does however let you buy Great Merchants with faith, which is quite powerful for your diplomatic goals.

Piety

Piety is an alternative to Commerce if you have Desert Folklore due to the handy Reformation beliefs.

Opener

Because desert tiles will give you so much faith, it may not be worth building more Shrines or Temples after the first few due to the maintenance costs involved (at least, until Theocracy.) Still, this opener is important for a faith strategy.

Organised Religion

Again, useful for boosting your faith potential, though desert tiles may make move of that.

Religious Tolerance

This allows you to prioritise the best beliefs to enter your lands.

Mandate of Heaven

With all that desert-faith, you should really be able to spam Missionaries and maintain Papal Primacy or Church Property/Tithe. Ultimately, though, this is on the way to Reformation.

Reformation

Charitable Missions will make your gold stretch much further, hence allowing more alliances with City-States later on. Even earlier in the game, alliances with City-States can give you horse resources to build mounted units with, which you can later upgrade to Berber Cavalry.

Theology

This policy typically doesn't offer much straight away, but getting a 25% bonus on all that Kasbah gold ain't bad. Because you won't have many Temples earlier on, and putting off Reformation may cost you a good belief, it may be best to take this one last.

Finisher

This is an opportunity to spread your religion far and wide. Holy Site bonuses aren't that great for Morocco thanks to all that desert faith, but it's a possible use of excess Great Prophets.

Ideology

Freedom will be best for Morocco.

This guide shows the best choices for the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets (3 from level 1, 2 from level 2, 1 from level 3)

Level One Policies - Freedom

Capitalism

A wide empire is good for cash. Raging unhappiness from a wide empire with each city growing tall is not. Because of Kasbah gold, you'll probably have at least Banks in most cities, if not Stock Exchanges. Lots of happiness means you can grow cities taller to work more Kasbahs for more gold.

Avant Garde

I've already mentioned that dedicating a city to Great Artists and Merchants is a good idea. Faster Great Person generation to get them faster can't hurt.

Covert Action

Although it's a good idea to keep Spies as Diplomats in other Civs' capitals, (seeing as you should be friendly with many of them and hence able to influence World Congress votes,) sometimes you may have one spare to rig City-State elections with. This tenet increases the chance of success, particularly good if an opponent also has a Spy in the city.

Level Two Policies - Freedom

Arsenal of Democracy

In the late-game, there's often not much to build. Now, you can get your cities building military units and giving them away for a nice boost to influence.

Universal Suffrage

While you may not have an exceptional number of specialists, it's the 50% Golden Age bonus that makes this policy worth having. Double Kasbah gold for longer!

Level Three Policy - Freedom

Treaty Organisation

Your UA means that using Trade Routes with City-States won't lose you much cash if any compared to trading with full Civs. Hence, Treaty Organisation is the way to go here.

Religion

Grabbing Desert Folklore early gives you a really strong faith base for making one of the world's strongest religions. However, keep in mind that two powerful wonders for Morocco - the Colossus and Petra - are on opposite ends of the tech tree to religious techs (and away from the money-focused Currency and Guilds) so on higher difficulties, you may have to ignore religion and focus on other things.

City-States sharing your religion have a 25% slower influence decay rate if it's above the equilibrium point, and regain influence 50% faster if it's below the equilibrium point.

Pantheon

Note that highly-situational Pantheons (including most faith Pantheons) aren't listed here.

Desert Folklore

I've probably explained this enough already. Oh well, once again: Kasbahs only go on desert tiles. You'll be working lots of them. Hence, working a lot of tiles generating faith with this Pantheon.

Messenger of the Gods

If you fail to get Desert Folklore, but still found a Pantheon, here's a decent choice. Building wide means you get more out of this, and all that science helps get you to Kasbahs and international trade route technologies faster.

Sacred Waters

Cities founded adjacent to rivers have a bonus to international trade route yield. Now, that extra bit of happiness lets you found more cities!

Religious Settlements

The best tiles for desert cities may be quite spaced out - incense luxuries in opposite directions, for example. Faster-expanding borders ensure you get those precious tiles a little faster.

Founder

Papal Primacy

Together with Consulates from the Patronage tree, you can be permanently friends with City-States following your religion. Plus, it gives a higher starting point making bribing City-States more effective.

Church Property or Tithe

Extra cash either way. If another religion is likely to be dominant, it may be better to go for Papal Primacy as it's easier to get just the City-States to your religion than everything else. The specific choice of Church Property or Tithe depends on whether other Civs are building tall or wide.

Follower

Pagodas and/or Mosques

A great use of lots of faith. More happiness helps you build wide. Cathedrals aren't such great buildings seeing as you'll probably be using your Great Artists to make Golden Ages, not Great Works, hence not using the buildings to their full potential.

Religious Centre

With a bonus to Temple production and a 25% gold bonus for them from the Piety tree, they're beginning to look quite good. 2 happiness on top of all that makes a versatile building indeed.

Asceticism

An easy source of more happiness.

Enhancer

Religious Texts

Your UA both encourages you to make lots of international trade routes, and for other Civs to trade with you. The religious pressure you may spread from such routes (along with regular religious pressure) is increased with this Enhancer belief.

Religious Unity

With Consulates and Papal Primacy, you can keep City-States in permanent friendships helping to spread the faith rapidly to them.

Missionary Zeal

The Piety tree gives you cheaper religious unit purchasing, making Missionary-spam more practical. While sending Missionaries to other Civs is likely to anger them (plus without Open Borders, Missionaries lose strength every turn) you can just send them to City-States instead and more quickly convert them.

Reformation

Charitable Missions

As a gold-based diplomatic nation, a 30% bonus is very useful indeed, which goes nicely with Patronage's Philanthropy.

To the Glory of God

This allows you to purchase Great Artists with faith, which you can then use for Golden Ages. Not as good as Charitable Missions for Morocco, but an alright bonus overall.

World Congress

Before the Industrial era, it's in your best interests to ally plenty of City-States in time for all those delegates. You may not be first to Printing Press, but lots of alliances ensure you can hold on to the World Congress later.

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If someone wants to embargo City-States, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea to put Embargo City-States on the table. Note also that voting choices can vary depending on your game.

Arts Funding

Low priority
Vote no

You can get a fair bit out of Great Artists, but Merchants, Scientists and Engineers are all good.

Cultural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no

Embargo City-States

Very High priority
Vote no

More than any other Civ, you cannot let an embargo happen at any point. It'll significantly weaken your UA's potential.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote no

International Games

Medium-High priority
Vote yes

You want at least the silver contribution bonus here for the influence bonus. Try for gold to deny anyone else the tourism boost.

International Space Station

High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low priority
Vote no unless you have a Natural Wonder of your own

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes

Berber Cavalry and their promoted variants are useless against Nuclear Missiles.

Scholars in Residence

High priority
Vote yes unless you're the leader technologically speaking

Sciences Funding

Low priority
Abstain

While more Scientists, Merchants and Engineers are useful, Artists are nice too. Abstaining prevents possible controversy.

Standing Army Tax

Low priority
Vote yes

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote yes

Golden Age points and the free Social Policy could come in handy, but other Civs may gain more out of it than you.

Wonders

Here's a selection of the best World Wonders for Morocco to build. Your game's situations may make certain wonders more or less viable than normal.

Ancient Era

Pyramids

Faster worker speed is useful to get all those Kasbahs built quickly, though your should prioritise the Colossus and especially Petra over this Wonder.

Classical Era

Colossus

The Colossus may not be as good as Petra for Morocco, but you get a lot out of it. If you have it and the East India Company in the same city, you've got somewhere that lots of other Civs will want to send their Caravans and Cargo Ships, thus giving you that +3 gold and +1 culture without having to send routes to them.

On top of that, you get an extra International Trade Route, which in the late-game helps to squeeze in yet another City-State alliance with the Treaty Organisation Freedom tenet.

Petra

No-one gets quite as much out of Petra as Morocco. Desert Kasbah tiles are now worth 2 food, 2 production and 1 gold, which is a pretty decent yield. And that's just flat desert terrain - hills are up to 2 food, 4 production and 1 gold. Be sure to spam Kasbahs all around the city for a strong overall bonus.

For maximum impact, find a good city spot and rush the wonder with a Great Engineer. Usually, unless another Civ starts in desert, there's little competition for this wonder allowing you to do that.

Like the Colossus, Petra also gives you a free International Trade Route, as well as a free Caravan so you can use it straight away.

Medieval Era

Chichen Itza

Any tile with at least one gold gets one extra during a Golden Age. With all those one-gold generating Kasbahs, a Golden Age adds a considerable amount of cash to Morocco, hence extending their length is a good idea.

Great Mosque of Djenne (Piety Only)

When you're generating a lot of faith, it's not hard to make plenty of Missionaries. The Great Mosque of Djenne essentially makes Missionaries 50% better, thus allowing you to more effectively spread your religion.

Machu Picchu

Wide empires tend to have a lot of gold from City Connections. Why not make that more?

Notre Dame

A great boost to happiness in an often happiness-starved time. Good for maintaining wide expansion.

Renaissance Era

Forbidden Palace (Patronage Only)

A must-have for any diplomatic player. Extra delegates will likely be the push needed to get the World Congress in your hands for the Industrial Era. A cut to unhappiness helps further expansion.

Taj Mahal

Building wide, you probably won't generate many Golden Ages the conventional way. So, one for free is rather welcome to get that Kasbah gold bonus.

Industrial Era

Big Ben (Commerce Only)

Not all your gold will go into City-State alliances, chances are. Cutting purchasing costs means more can.

Modern Era

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only)

Although production isn't greatly useful in late-game diplomatic play, a free Social Policy is still on offer here.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Morocco's bonuses can be misleading. That 1 culture for International Trade Routes can make people think "I know! I should go for a cultural victory!" Here's a few slip-ups you should avoid.

Not getting faith going early

A mistake I made in the Morocco game shown in the screenshots throughout this guide. You'll work a lot of desert tiles. Your start bias is desert. Desert Folklore is powerful even to non-desert nations. You can really get a lot out of it.

Neglecting defence early on

Before Kasbahs, you have no defensive advantage other than the fact your land may appear fairly undesirable to other Civs. And Kasbahs alone won't be enough to defend you, seeing as they can only go on Desert tiles.

Settling only in deserts

You defend well in deserts, but they have worse yields than most other tiles. The best move is to find floodplain-heavy areas or hybrid locations - part desert and part plains/grassland.

Neglecting non-Kasbah improvements

Farms help to grow cities faster than Kasbahs can. Certainly, you should build plenty, but don't overrely on them.

Assuming Berber Cavalry are all the defence you need

As soon as Berber Cavalry are out of desert lands, they're much weaker. They're not great at intercepting attacks before they come, or counter-attacks.

Going on the offensive with Berber Cavalry

In non-friendly non-desert land (aka most of the map) Berber Cavalry are no stronger than regular Cavalry. Going to war will likely anger people and hence also makes it likely they'll turn against you in the World Congress. 6 DoFs on the wall, 6 DoFs, the Land of the Free denounces me, 0 DoFs on the wall...

Angering Ahmad al-Mansur: The Counter-Strategies

While Morocco defends well in the late-game, until then, you can turn their abilities against them - particularly their UA.

Playing against the UA: Gateway to Africa

The Moroccan UA is one of only two (the other being the Swedish UA) that gives you a bonus to interacting with it. Unlike the Swedish UA, however, it's not equal and you could really turn it against the Moroccans.

If there's no International Trade Routes between you and Morocco (either from you or from them) then sending a route their way will give them 3 gold and 1 culture on top of the displayed yields, so consider that carefully. However, if they already have a route with you, then you can trade with them like mad as they won't get any more bonus while you will! Be sure to check before you send a Trade Route that they aren't getting much out of it anyway.

So, if you play it right, you can really exploit Morocco's UA to your own ends. Don't forget to push for the World Congress to ban trading with City-States (unless you're a Freedom diplomatic player or a warmonger) for maximum damage to their UA without hurting your potential to exploit it.

Playing against the UI: The Kasbah

To make the most of Kasbahs, Morocco needs plenty of desert land. Because generally desert land is terrible, it's impractical to found cities there yourself (possible exceptions are Arabia or The Netherlands.) But you can always place a city nearby and steal their land by planting Citadels.

If you're going into war with Morocco, rush in fast units to pillage the more strategically important Kasbahs (ones they're likely to use for the defensive bonus) before sending in your main army. Attacking before they have Berber Cavalry is crucial.

If you take tiles with Kasbahs, you can use them yourself. Morocco may be tempted to use Berber Cavalry to try and take the city back, so take advantage of Kasbahs' defensive bonuses to even out the fight.

Playing against the UU: Berber Cavalry

While Berber Cavalry are stupidly good defenders on their own desert lands, they're nothing particularly special off them. Pelting them from afar with Artillery may just lure them out of their safety zone, letting you move in with other units to finish them off.

Generally, if you want to take over the world by force, take out Morocco early. It'll be much easier seeing as they don't have much to defend with early on.

A point about Venice

Spamming International Trade Routes in Moroccan cities is a great way to exploit the 2 gold bonus, particularly in cities which don't yield much to them. Venice is particularly good at doing this due to having double the number of Trade Routes avaliable.

Of course, it must be pointed out that all those Trade Routes give Morocco free gold. But what good will that do when all their City-State allies are being bought out by Merchants of Venice? After all, Morocco doesn't have much to help them with non-diplomatic victories.

Strategy by Style

Early-game Aggressors - Morocco should be no problem to face.

Mid-game Warmongers - Pillage the more strategic Kasbahs before going in for the kill, as mentioned earlier. Locate and capture their Petra city if they have one. Losing it will be a huge setback for them. Take Morocco out before Berber Cavalry.

Late-game Warmongers - Either lure Berber Cavalry out desert lands with Artillery, or wait for nuclear weapons. Even the 75% bonus won't do much good when they're getting nuked.

Scientific/Cultural players - Because Morocco works best sending Trade Routes to a range of Civs, they probably won't leech off your tech advantage much if you're playing scientifically, but if you're cultural, it's quite likely you'll have that lovely tourism bonus on them for having a trade route, with minimal effort. You'll probably see little direct competition between the two of you.

Diplomatic players - Be careful exploiting their UA for gold. They'll get plenty back and may very well use it against you. Taking them out early by aggressive means before Berber Cavalry come along is an option, but you could also try banning trading with City-States in the World Congress.

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Meta-guides

These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

Civ-specific guides, in alphabetical order

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Max]

Something I noticed in a recent game... the berber cavalry doesn't get its desert attack bonus attacking into oasis. Oasis isn't actually desert if you hover over it. Perhaps it has some special tag to get yields from desert folklore and petra, but not the attack bonus

[Zigzagzigal]

It's possible. If you use Spies in city-states to carry out coups, you can turn around an influence disadvantage.

Another way is taking the Autocracy ideology and the Gunboat Diplomacy tenet. That gains you influence at a faster rate than Treaty Organisation does, which will often give you an edge over Venice (though they'll still usually have a stronger gold income).

As Morocco, making use of Golden Ages will be really helpful as well considering it will double your Kasbah gold output while in effect. Venice gets relatively little gold from terrain in comparison.

[coastzu (prof)]

Can I beat venice in a diplomatic victory without viloence, (out of curiosity)

[Zigzagzigal]

Venice is incredibly vulnerable to attack - if you don't want to do get your hands dirty, another civ will for a price.

[coastzu (prof)]

So am I just fucked if I have Venice in my game :p

[Zigzagzigal]

Try paying off someone to declare war on them - a war often means their trade routes will be pillaged.

[Acquilsen]

How do you deal with Arabia if they are in the game. Their religious pressure is very strong because of trade routes. Is it best just to give up religion in that case and focus on other things?

[Zigzagzigal]

Must have just had the Shoshone on my mind after mentioning them earlier in the section; thanks for the correction.

[Zehk Naerun]

"...and the Shoshone Mohawk Warrior."

The Shoshone have pathfinders and comanche riders. The Iroquios are the ones with the Mohawk Warrior.

[Zigzagzigal]

Thanks, that error pre-dated my use of a template for wonder sections in later guides.