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)



In the crossroads of the world between three continents lies Arabia, and in the years following the founding of Islam in the 7th century of the common era, it would build the largest empire yet seen - as far west as what is now Portugal, and as far east as Pakistan. While parts would be lost, Arabia would still rule a vast amount of land, and for centuries they would lead the world in all manner of sciences while Europe stagnated in a dark age. But in the 13th century, the Mongols would invade, destroying much of the infrastructure and bringing a sudden end to one of history's greatest empires.

And so, Arabia was to be ruled or heavily influenced by outside forces, including the Ottomans and colonial empires of Europe. Eventually, in the 20th century, the nations of the Arab World would gain independence - around the same time oil production was expanded. With the growing global demand for petroleum, some states are able to make a great deal of money, becoming some of the richest in the world, but corruption is a major obstacle to social and economic progress from that wealth. Such a problem was the catalyst for revolutions across the Arab World from the end of 2010 onwards. The state of the Arab World, and the wider Middle East is volatile. The people want to bring down the regimes that have held them back, and it is up to you to unite them and deliver a stable future to once again bring the Arab World to the forefront of science and of culture. It is up to you to build a civilization that can 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.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Builder Nation/Empire - A generally peaceful nation seeking victories other than domination.
Equilibrium - In the context of City-States, I'm referring to the influence resting point.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
Meatshield - Soaking up damage on behalf of something else. This can be on the small scale (like a Swordsman taking damage for an Archer) or on a large scale (protecting a capital city with less important cities.) This guide generally uses "meatshield" to refer to the small-scale version.
Melee Units - Throughout this guide, "melee units" typically refers to all non-ranged military units - whether on the land or sea. "Standard melee units" refer to Warriors, Swordsmen, Longswordsmen, Spearmen, Pikemen, Landsknechte and replacement units for them.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Spotter - A unit which allows a ranged unit (usually a siege unit) a line of sight with its target. Typically, siege units have a higher maximum range than their sight radius, hence the need for spotters.
Tall empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
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 - A high number of cities with a low population each.
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.

Arabia has a desert start bias. This makes it easier to make use of the powerful Desert Folklore tenet, as well as the Petra wonder. Oases (which your UB adds 2 gold to) can only be found in deserts, and later in the game, deserts are one of the main locations you can find oil in (which your UA doubles the quantity of and your UB also adds 2 gold to.)


Arabia's UB is in the classical era and their UU is in the medieval era, but Arabia's bonuses to oil helps to give them another boost to power later in the game.

• Caravans have a 50% increased range
  
• Your trade routes spread the home city's religion (the majority religion in the city the trade route was sent from) twice as effectively
  
• Oil resources you're personally producing provide double their normal quantities
  
  • Resources from trading or from allied City-States are not doubled in quantity.
    
  • This stacks with the Third Alternative tenet from the Autocracy ideology to create quadruple quantities of oil.

A mounted ranged unit

*Assumes a normal speed game.


Negative changes

• No melee attack
  
• 17 strength, down from 20 (-15%)

Positive one-off changes

• Ranged attack (21 ranged strength, 2 range)
  
• No city attack penalty

Miscellanious changes

• Classified as standard ranged unit rather than mounted melee, hence uses ranged promotions, has no extra vulnerability to units with a bonus against mounted units and can be constructed faster with the Temple of Artemis, rather than Stables.

A building of the Gold line

*Assumes a normal speed game.


Positive changes

• Provides 1 extra copy of every improved luxury resource near the city (in your land and within a three tile radius)
  
• 2 gold generated per turn, up from 1
  
• Increases gold yield by 2 for every oasis or oil tile worked by the city

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: 9/10
Scientific: 5/10

Arabia works brilliantly at both domination and diplomatic ends, but doesn't really perform that well at culture or science. Your UA can provide a little money and your UB a lot for a diplomatic route, or you can use the gold to back up conquests with your powerful UU.


Overall

Morocco is the other diplomatic Civ with desert-based bonuses. Morocco can make better use of deserts than Arabia, but lacks the significant war-time advantage of Camel Archers.

Same start bias

Arabia's desert start bias is shared with Morocco. As such, they're highly likely to be competitors for the Desert Folklore Pantheon and the Petra wonder.

Similar to the UA

Bonuses to trade routes can also be found in the UAs of Morocco and Portugal, as well as Germany's Hanses. Bonuses to religious pressure can't be directly found in any other Civs uniques; the closest thing to it is perhaps Byzantium's ability to take both Religious Texts and Itinerant Preachers. Like Arabia's UA, this offers a better way to spread the religion without needing to spend faith.

Double oil quantities is similar to Russia's UA, which offers doubled quantities of iron, horses and uranium. In both cases, the resources you produce are doubled in quantity meaning you have more resources available to trade if need be.

Similar to Camel Archers

The obvious comparison is Mongolia's Keshik which also replaces the Knight with a fast ranged unit that can move after attacking and has no penalty against cities. You can find a full comparison between Keshiks and Camel Archers in the guide to Mongolia.

Other Knight UUs include Spain's Conquistadors, Songhai's Mandekalu Cavalry and Siam's Naresuan's Elephant.

Similar to Bazaars

The doubled luxury quantities offered by Bazaars have some similarity to the Dutch UA. Arabia can sell more luxuries before causing any happiness issues, and the Netherlands can sell more luxuries than other Civs for less severe happiness penalties than would otherwise be the case.

One of the most important points to remember about Arabia's UA is this: It's not the main focus of your strategy unlike most UAs. It has its uses, but it's by no means the strongest UA around. That's fine, though, as both your UU and UB are very, very good.

In fact, despite the peaceful UA and UB, Arabia plays rather like Mongolia in the mid-game due to the similarity between Arabia's Camel Archer and Mongolia's Keshik. Both are absolutely amazing at killing units and taking out cities without being hurt themselves, and merit a beeline to Chivalry once Worker technologies and Writing are out the way.

In the time before Camel Archers, you won't be short of things to do. They'll need horses for construction, so get Animal Husbandry early to find where they are so you can found cities near them. (Horse Archers don't need horses, but Camel Archers do? Weird.)

You'll also need gold to support the unit maintenance of Camel Archers, but thanks to your UA and UB, that won't be a problem.

Thirdly, you'll need happiness to support Camel Archer conquests, and that's where religion comes in. Your desert start bias makes it easy to make use of the Desert Folklore Pantheon to help secure you an early religion. Try to found your religion in a coastal city (not just in a small inland sea, make sure it's a large body of water) - I'll explain why later.


So, the main focus of Arabia's early-game is preparing for Camel Archers. And while your UA isn't particularly amazing, it will be a bit of a hand up to help get your economy and religion going early on. Increased Caravan range is usually enough to reach another Civ when otherwise you may only be able to trade with a City-State, which is very useful for getting science off Civs taking a different tech route to you.


This aspect of the UA allows you to spread your religion fairly effectively without having to use Missionaries, freeing up your faith for other uses. This is quite powerful if you can found a religion early on, so try to get the Desert Folklore Pantheon as soon as you can.


Above: Default religious pressure from trade routes on a normal speed game is 6. For Arabia, it's 12, which is the same as having two cities of your religion adjacent to their city.

It takes 100 religious pressure, which may be spread over multiple turns, to convert a follower. An single Arabian Trade Route with no other sources of pressure can do this in 9 turns.

Be careful about sending trade routes from cities you own of rival religions, as it'll send that religion more effectively. On the other hand, you don't need to worry about your Trade Routes bringing too much religious pressure back, as your UA's double pressure only works one way.

Stacking bonuses

Aside from your UA, there's three possible other bonuses to religious pressure, all of which you can potentially pick up.

• Grand Temple National Wonder: +100% (Must be built in your holy city, only affects that city's religious spread)
  
• Religious Texts Enhancer belief: +25% or +50% with Printing Press
  
• Religious Unity Enhancer belief: +100% (Only affects friendly City-States)
  
• World Religion World Congress vote: +25%

All of these stack with your UA, but in a very powerful way. Rather than stacking additively, (which would be 375% non-Arabian pressure with all the above factors bar Religious Unity or 425% on City-States with all bar Religious Texts), they stack multiplicatively (which works out as 750% for the former and 1000% for the latter.)

If you can use Desert Folklore to found an early religion, getting Religious Texts shouldn't be too hard. The Grand Temple requires a Temple in all your cities, so it's worth puppeting any cities you capture with Camel Archers to help make that process easier.

The World Religion vote is somewhat harder, but all that faith from all those Temples you had to build for the Grand Temple should help with buying Missionaries and Great Prophets to quickly spread your religion to more Civs to convince them to vote yes to it. Alternatively, plant diplomats in the cities of major Civs and use your gold and luxuries to bribe them into a yes vote.

Remember when I advocated building your holy city in a coastal city? That's because only your holy city can build the Grand Temple, and (obviously) only coastal cities can have sea-based trade routes. Combine the two, and you can bring a very high religious pressure to distant rival cities without having to risk sending Prophets or Missionaries over.

The Holy Sledgehammer

You can essentially shut out a city from being converted by sending it a large number of trade routes. If you're feeling particularly evil, try sending lots of trade routes to a rival religion's holy city. Instead of trying to convert other Civs, faith-buying buildings or Great People, rival Civs will be focused on stopping one of their most powerful cities being converted.


Above: Enough stacked pressure bonuses and you can use very few trade routes to make a huge impact. Note that your UA doesn't affect trade routes sent towards your cities, but other pressure bonuses will; they've sent a Caravan and are receiving a fair amount of extra religious pressure thanks to me having the World Religion and Religious Texts.

If you're feeling particularly evil, send in some Missionaries or Great Prophets in so they have a hard time converting their cities back. Targeting lots of trade routes on a single Civ may give them a fair amount of money, but it can completely ruin their religion.

Above: That oil well left of the City-State diplomacy screen produces 3 oil resources, or 6 thanks to Arabia's UA. This City-State is giving me 3 oil resources per turn, which is not doubled.

You've made your Camel Archer conquests, and you've used the aftermath to help crush rival religions. So, what now? Arabia's late-game has two main options - either use your good economy to win by diplomacy, or go for world domination. Double oil quantities can help with either of these. Oil commonly spawns in desert areas, so there's a good chance you'll have some once you research Biology.


Above: I just made that Great General make a Citadel, grabbing me that oil which would be difficult to get otherwise. Accessing oil just outside your lands is a good use of any excess Great Generals you have from Camel Archer combat.

Oil is central to modern and atomic era warfare (in the information era, aluminium takes over.) All these units need it:

• Triplane
  
• Great War Bomber
  
• Battleship
  
• Landship
  
• Bomber
  
• Fighter
  
• Tank

Battleships and bomber-class aircraft are brilliant for wearing down cities' defences, while armoured units are great at getting the last hit on cities to capture them. As such, being able to build more will really help conquests out, but the high demand for oil at this stage of the game means you could make a decent amount of money out of trading it away. Remember that Camel Archers will eventually upgrade to Landships, so ensure you keep enough oil to allow for that.

• Build wide at first to get lots of horses ready for Camel Archers
  
• Choose the Desert Folklore Pantheon in order to grab an early religion
  
• Try to found your religion in a coastal city (to build the Grand Temple there)
  
• Take some happiness-boosting beliefs in your religion, and try to take the Religious Texts Enhancer belief
  
• Use your economy to try and push through a World Religion vote in the World Congress
  
• You can use lots of Trade Routes on a single city to essentially stop it from being converted
  
• With double oil, either trade it to help with a diplomatic victory, or build lots of units with it for a domination victory

On the way to Chivalry, there's one of the game's strongest UBs. Bazaars will provide you with the economy you'll need to support Camel Archer conquests, and then some.


Let's start with the smallest bonus. Bazaars produce 2 gold per turn rather than the 1 Markets generate. While fairly insignificant late in the game, 2 gold on a fairly cheap building is great when you've founded or captured lots of cities, and really helps to cover the maintenance cost of Camel Archers.


Oases can be found in desert areas, and there's a decent chance there'll be one in range of your capital. While you can't build improvements (besides roads and railroads) on them, they're still decent tiles, providing 3 food and 1 gold. With a Bazaar, they provide a total yield of 6, which is certainly not bad for this stage of the game.


Above: Desert Folklore and Petra make Oases even better, together making a yield of 4 food, 3 gold, 1 production and 1 faith.

While this doesn't make desert settling as effective as it is for Morocco, it helps fairly new cities to produce a decent amount of cash early on.


Here's where the Bazaar shows its value. All the luxury resources within a 3-tile radius of a city with a Bazaar have double quantities. This is only useful if you trade those luxuries (so be careful not to anger too many Civs while conquering with Camel Archers) but the excess means you can trade a lot more than normal. At first, trade your excess for cash and horses to help support your army. During and after Camel Archer conquests, trade for luxuries to prevent unhappiness becoming a major problem. In the late-game, trade for cash for upgrading units, buying new ones or getting lots of World Congress delegates.


Above: Do not neglect trading your extra luxuries - it'll can you more money than the rest of your uniques combined.

If someone threatens to ban your luxuries at the World Congress, try trading some to them and other Civs with high numbers of delegates to help convince them to vote otherwise. Be careful not to just recklessly trade high numbers of luxuries to an expansionist Civ however - trade with a diverse range of Civs so none have too much of an advantage.




Desert areas are likely to have oil in, and you've already got a bonus to oil through your UA (doubling your oil resources) but here's another bonus. The gold is a relatively minor amount at this stage of the game, but it's better than nothing.


The Bazaar is a very powerful UB due to its double luxury ability, but the fact you have to trade with other Civs to take advantage of it may be at odds with high Camel Archer expansion. Balance the two - don't conquer so much everyone turns against you, but don't neglect your highly-powerful UU.

Note: A lot that is true about Chariot Archers is also true about Mongolian Keshiks, and vice versa. Click here to go to the Keshik section in my guide to Mongolia. It includes a comparison between Keshiks and Camel Archers.



It's stronger than a Crossbowman. It has double the moves. It can move after attacking. It has no weakness to Pikemen (though this is almost certainly unintended.) Camel Archers are near-unstoppable.


Arabia's early game is all about preparing for Camel Archers. Aside from Worker technologies, Writing (and maybe Philosophy if you think you can get the Grand Temple up and running early,) you should aim to get Chivalry as soon as you possibly can.

To speed up your attack, build plenty of Chariot Archers prior to getting Chivalry so you can upgrade them to Camel Archers as soon as you research the technology. Extra cash from extended Caravan range, and Bazaar gold should help you to afford that.

Build some Horsemen (2 is a good number, though more is fine if you have the horses) as well to help you get the last hit on cities, as Camel Archers can't take them. Horsemen can upgrade to Camel Archers, but most melee promotions don't work on ranged units (Blitz is a notable exception), so resist the temptation to upgrade them for now.



Above: My Camel Archer's currently firing on Seoul, but can move away after firing so it can't be attacked back.

If having a ranged strength equivalent to the Longswordman's strength wasn't enough, Camel Archers can move in to a place, fire and move out again, avoiding being hit back. This makes it very easy to keep your Camel Archers outputting the maximum amount of damage possible rather than losing potential due to losing health.

Still not enough? Camel Archers have no penalty against cities unlike normal Knights. That really lets you peel apart city defences, though unlike Knights, Camel Archers can't take cities as they lack a melee attack. That's why it's a good idea to bring a couple of Horsemen along. Keep them out of harm's way until you're ready to take the city, as Horsemen are rather squishy compared to your Camel Archers.


Above: Militaristic City-States are a way to get regular Knights. In addition to making a good pun, Arabian Knights will be more able to take an attack from a city or two before reaching the enemy city to get the final hit.

Cities surrounded by rough terrain may give you problems. Deal with other cities first, and try to take out as much of the enemy army as possible so all you have to face is the city's ranged attack and defending unit. Rush in lots of units and retreat those that get injured, so they don't get stuck in rough terrain with low health in range of the city's attack.


Above: Look at the terrain carefully around rough-terrain cities to see if you can find a safe route around for your last-hitting unit. If I place my Horseman on one of the mines west of Medina, it should be able to get the final hit on the city without risking being hit beforehand.


None. Use your Camel Archers while you can!

Camel Archers can see off even industrial-era attacks, but by the modern era, it's worth upgrading them to Landships. Your doubled oil quantities will help with that. Unfortunately, most ranged promotions do not work on melee units, with the exception of Logistics. Promotions melee units can get anyway (e.g. March) will still work.

Arabia's choices of Social Policies can vary quite a bit, but you should generally take the Liberty tree first to make it easier to take horse spots and support a wide empire. If you're already near horse spots, then you could take Piety's opener first to help build a Shrine faster, but even then Liberty is probably the better choice.

After Liberty, take either Piety to strengthen your religion or Commerce if your religion is weak (or non-existant.) If you're playing diplomatically, take Patronage or if you're warmongering, take Rationalism to make sure you don't fall behind technologically-speaking.


Opener

Having more cities increases Social Policy costs, but this Opener offsets that a little, and allows all your new cities to expand their borders immediately without you having to build anything.

Republic

Helps new cities to develop faster. 1 production may not sound like a lot, but in the earlier stages of the game, it's a significant difference.

Collective Rule

A free Settler helps you take a good spot for horses before someone else does. Faster Settler production might be good for another city or two, but thanks to Camel Archers, you can conquer your way to a wide empire rather than settling cities to do that.

Citizenship

Those horse pastures won't build themselves, so having a bonus to Worker speed will come in handy. As well as that free Worker. It's also useful for repairing improvements you may have pillaged in newly-conquered areas.

Meritocracy

This policy will help prevent your unhappiness from spiraling out of control as you capture more cities. The happiness bonus for city connections applies to any kind of city, and while the reduced unhappiness from population won't apply to occupied cities, (until a Courthouse is built,) it will apply to puppeted cities.

Representation

By this point, you may not be founding that many new cities, but the gold, production and culture boost of a Golden Age is still good, as well as the finisher for this tree.

Finisher

If you haven't got it already, rushing Petra with a Great Engineer is a powerful move here, but there's other wonders as well which would be fairly useful to you (see the Wonders section.) Alternatively, use a Great Scientist to keep your science rate competitive.


The powerful Reformation beliefs make a good reason for going into Piety. I'd generally recommend going here second, so it's not too early that you hurt your infrastructure potential (Piety doesn't really offer much in the way of infrastructure help unlike Liberty) but not too late that you miss out on a good Reformation belief.

Opener

If you want to get the Grand Temple's double religious pressure going, you'll need to build lots of Temples. This opener lets you build them twice as fast, making that so much easier.

Organised Religion

You can get humongous amounts of faith from having a wide empire, lots of Shrines and Temples and Desert Folklore, in addtion to this policy. With your UA allowing you to save a lot of faith, you can really make use of Reformation beliefs.

Religious Tolerance

It's fairly random what extra bonuses you'll end up with from this policy, but at least nothing bad comes from this. Faith and culture bonuses are two of the most likely.

Reformation

Arabia's fairly free in its choice of how to reform their religion - see the Religion section of this guide for more details.

Theocracy

With a Temple and a Bazaar, you've got a 50% gold multiplier for a low production cost. That's particularly useful if you're trying to maximise gold output by making cities work lots of Trading Posts.

Mandate of Heaven

Great if you've taken a religious building or the Jesuit Education Reformation belief in your religion. Otherwise, it's a little less useful, though cheap Missionaries and Inquisitors will be helpful for converting newly-conquered lands to your religion. If you control an enemy holy city, you can remove its holy city status forever by using an Inquisitor on it.

Finisher

Great Prophets are useful for pushing your religion in areas under heavy bombardment by rival Missionaries, but planting a Holy Site can make a rather effective tile, too. It depends on how strong your religion is at the moment.


Opener

If you're going down the diplomatic route, take Patronage as second or third Social Policy tree (or mix it with policies from either Piety or Commerce.) It may be worth taking the opener early, however, to make use of the slowed down influence decay rate for City-States.

Consulates

Raising the influence resting point makes it easier to get to allied status.

Philanthropy

And making your money buy more influence makes better use of all that gold from trading luxuries, oil or the direct gold bonuses from Bazaars.

Scholasticism

Now, the rest of the Patronage tree is about holding on to long-term alliances. Scholasticism gives you a decent amount of science from City-State allies, which helps you to keep your technology rate up even when building wide.

Cultural Diplomacy

This policy helps with increasing happiness from luxury resources (which is useful for supporting your wide empire) as well as increasing the quantity of strategic resources. You can't trade City-State gifts, but if a City-State is giving you a resource you have already, you can just trade away your original copies.

Merchant Confederacy

Not the strongest policy around but trading with City-States is a good way of pushing your religion into them. City-States with your religion have a 25% reduced influence decay (as well as a 50% increased influence regain rate if it somehow ends up below the resting point) so that can be worth the often-lower amount of gold compared to trading with full Civs.

Finisher

Free Great People! It's hard to make a strategy for this as they're random, but it's still good.

Generally speaking, Commerce is an alternative to Piety and Rationalism an alternative to Patronage for Arabia. Commerce will typically come second as a Social Policy tree choice (unless you're taking Patronage as well) and Rationalism will generally be third due to being the latest Social Policy tree.


Opener

Capitals start with luxury resources nearby, and with your desert start bias, maybe an oasis or two. So, a 25% gold bonus can go a fairly long way. Don't forget that gold output of cities influences (slightly) the yield of International Trade Routes involving the city.

Wagon Trains

With your bonus to Caravan range, they'll be more profitable to you than most Civs and even more so with this policy. Wide empires can have high road/railroad maintenance costs, so halving it can retrieve quite a lot of cash.

Mercenary Army

A possible weakness of Camel Archers are Knights, but the inexpensive Landsknechte can help to deal with them. As they can move immediately after being bought, you can spam lots of them in a city. When upgraded to Lancers, they make excellent replacements for Horsemen as a unit to get the last hit on cities, due to their doubled gold yield from city captures.

Mercantilism

Good for making your strong economy even more effective. All your Bazaars, Mints, Banks and Stock Exchanges will generate science, too, which is rather useful as it doesn't scale with city population unlike many science bonuses.

Entrepreneurship

Not a spectacular policy, but Great Merchants are useful for getting a load of gold at once, or getting just a little extra influence with a City-State. Remember that they share a Great Person Point threshold with Great Engineers and Scientists - generating one will raise the cost of the others.

Protectionism

Lots of happiness, letting your cities focus on other things for the time being.

Finisher

Get at least one trading post near most cities, and when you need the money you can switch them all to a gold focus to rake in the cash. Great if you need to support some late-game wars or for bribing City-States.


Opener

Be careful to keep your empire happy and you'll be rewarded with a 10% bonus to all science generation.

Humanism

Great Scientists are highly useful for pushing you towards strong, late-game technologies. The tech tree tends to be a bit more loose in the late-game, making it easier to rush technologies a fair bit beyond the level other Civs are currently at.

Free Thought

Pretty amazing if you've also got the Commerce finisher, but even without it, a good bonus to University science really helps you keep your technology rate ahead.

Secularism

While Arabia tends to build wide, you might have a good Petra city full of specialists (or maybe your capital will simply be strong by this point.) Now, you can make much more science out of it.

Sovereignty

You can retrieve quite a sizable amount of gold out of reduced maintenance costs, particularly if you're making use of the Jesuit Education Reformation belief to get lots of science buildings up.

Scientific Revolution

The world may view you as a warmonger for your Camel Archer conquests, making it hard to get the full potential out of this policy, but it may be very much worthwhile for Rationalism's powerful finisher.

Finisher

A free technology can make a massive difference if timed right, such as accessing a strong unit sooner. Generally, very-late-game technologies are fairly affordable relative to the amount of science you have, so finishing Rationalism earlier rather than later may be a good idea.

After the Camel Archer wars, that's a good time to decide whether to go for a diplomatic or domination victory. If going for the former, I'd advocate taking Freedom. Going for domination? Take Autocracy as all your Camel Archers will upgrade into armoured units, which the Lightning Warfare tenet makes very powerful, and it offers you a diplomatic backup if warmongering fails.

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)


Covert Action

While eventually you'll want to use your Spies as Diplomats for the delegate bonus with the Globalisation technology, until then, Covert Action makes it easier to gain influence with City-States using them.

Avant Garde

Great People are good for everyone, and Arabia is no exception. This policy only affects Great People generated through Great Person Points, so ensure you have a good Great Person farm.

Capitalism

While this won't add happiness to Bazaars, if you're trying to maximise gold output, it's likely you'll have plenty of the later gold buildings. Capitalism makes them a maintenance-free source of happiness, which is great for a wide-building empire.


Arsenal of Democracy

Diplomatic Civs tend to have more spare production than other victory routes, but now you can put it to good use by building units and giving them to City-States for influence.

Urbanisation

Provides local city happiness from buildings that help grow a city. True, that may seem counter-productive in a wide empire, but you can just build the buildings for the happiness and check the "avoid growth" box. Take Universal Suffrage instead if you feel you could make better use of longer Golden Ages, or maybe squeeze more happiness out of it.


Treaty Organisation

City-State influence decays slower when they have your religion, and thanks to your UA, it's easy to keep City-States in your religion by trading with them.


Fortified Borders

An easy, maintenance-free source of happiness to help support conquests.

Mobilisation

Need new units? Use your strong economy to buy more. Aircraft in particular will be something you'll want plenty of - Bombers can make mincemeat of city defences.

Elite Forces

Unlike the time of Camel Archers, most of your units will get damaged while fighting. Elite Forces helps to close the gap in strength between wounded units and ones at full health, to help offset that problem.


Lightning Warfare

Your Camel Archers will eventually upgrade to Landships, and the rest of the upgrades from there are also armoured units. Lightning Warfare makes them faster, ignore Zone of Control (making it easier to exploit flanking bonuses) and deal more damage when attacking, making them excellent at cutting through enemy units (or slipping through enemy defences to get the last hit on a city.)

Nationalism

Save some money so you can use it for buying even more units. After all, you might as well build on your strengths.


Clauswitz's Legacy

Don't take this tenet until you're ready to go to war, but time it right and this bonus could be the push you need to conquer the world.

A strong religion can be a great source of gold and happiness - useful whether you're warmongering or going for a diplomatic victory.

As mentioned before, City-States sharing your religion have a 25% slower influence decay rate if it's above the equilibrium point, and you'll regain influence 50% faster if it's below the equilibrium point. You can use Trade Routes on City-States to keep them in your religion to take advantage of that.

This guide shows the best choices (which aren't highly situational, such as most terrain-dependent Pantheons) for each kind of belief, in decending order of power.


Desert Folklore

With your desert start bias, you'll usually be able to get plenty of faith out of this, and hence get an early religion going. If you can't get this Pantheon, generally I advise attempting a different appropriate faith-giving Pantheon, and if that fails, try one of the options below.

Messenger of the Gods

Helps offset increased technology costs of having more cities.

Ancestor Worship

An easy source of culture, helping to offset the increased Social Policy costs from having more cities.

Sacred Waters

A straightforward, if limited, source of happiness.


Church Property or Tithe

Both are effective as an extra source of cash, though the exact choice depends on other Civs in the game as well as yourself. If there's a large number of cities of a small size, then Church Property will perform better, but in many other situations Tithe comes top.

Papal Primacy (Diplomatic Arabia favoured)

Thanks to your UA, it's easy to target a lot of religious pressure on a City-State and keep it in your religion. Aside from the reduced influence decay (and increased regain rate,) this belief also offers an increased influence resting point, and can allow permanent alliances if you have the Consulates Social Policy from the Patronage tree as well.

World Church

Reduces the issues with high Social Policy costs from having a wide empire. A decent option if your economy is fairly strong already.


Pagodas

Wonderful for happiness, but also offering culture and faith, Pagodas are very good buildings. The one problem - it's a very competitive belief to pick up as essentially every wide-building Civ wants it.

Mosques

Less happiness but more faith than Pagodas. Makes a lovely feedback loop (high faith = more Mosques = more faith and so on) to expand your faith, culture and happiness as the game goes on.

Holy Warriors

If your faith production's strong, consider buying Camel Archers with it with use of this belief. True, it comes with the opportunity cost of a happiness-adding follower belief, but more Camel Archers means you can take down rival Civs faster.

Cathedrals

A backup for Pagodas and Mosques. The Great Art slot isn't particularly useful seeing as you should generally use Great Artists for Golden Ages when playing as Arabia, but the happiness, faith and culture's still alright.

Asceticism

An easy source of happiness, useful if your faith production is low or you can't manage to get the religious building beliefs.


Religious Texts

Aside from the standard religious pressure from having cities near to each other, this belief also affects faith spread from Trade Routes, and stacks nicely with your UA. It's very hard for an opponent to deal with Religious Texts-enhanced Arabian Trade Routes all piling on a small number of cities, and careful use of International Trade Routes can really ruin a rival's hopes at spreading their religion.

Religious Unity (Diplomatic Arabia favoured)

With the other pressure bonuses, your Trade Routes can spread your religion to allied City-States from your Holy City at ten times the rate of other Civs without any such bonuses - that's 60 pressure per turn on normal speed games, which means other Civs will have to make an active effort to try and get your religion off it, even if the City-State's surrounded by cities of their religion.

Just War (Warmongering Arabia favoured)

Targeting Trade Routes on a rival city until it's fairly securely converted to your religion, then withdrawing those Trade Routes and declaring war on the Civ in question makes it relatively easy to make use of the 20% strength bonus on offer here.

Itinerant Preachers

Good if you have a Founder belief based on followers such as Tithe or World Church. You can focus lots of Trade Routes on a city and convert it to your religion, and then that city will give off pressure to lots of other cities, meaning you can get quite a large number of followers even with a relatively low number of cities following your religion.


Jesuit Education

A wonderful way of offsetting the high science costs you get when building wide. A good idea in a new (or newly-conquered) city is to rush in a Missionary to convert it to your religion, buy a Library with gold and then just rush through the other science buildings with faith. Keeping a reserve of faith allows you to instantly get lots of science buildings as soon as you've discovered the appropriate technology (Education for Universities, Scientific Theory for Public Schools and Plastics for Research Labs.)

To the Glory of God

The Liberty, Piety and Patronage trees don't have an attached Great Person you can purchase with faith from them which may leave you with a lack of uses for faith in the late-game. This belief deals with that, meaning you'll always have a good place to put excess faith.

Charitable Missions (Diplomatic Arabia favoured)

Makes your strong economy go so much further.

Religious Fervour (Warmongering Arabia favoured)

Holy Warriors not enough? You can faith-buy things like Infantry, Tanks and Artillery with this belief. Keep in mind the costs are fairly high and not affected by things that reduce the gold cost of purchasing items.

Unity of the Prophets

If you've stacked pressure bonuses and you're trying to stop a rival religion by flooding their lands with Trade Routes, you can make your impact even bigger by weakening their Inquisitors' and Prophets' abilities to get rid of your religion. It also stops other Civs from removing your Holy City's special status if they capture it, though you shouldn't really be letting that happen.

No matter your victory route, your strong economy means you can buy your way to having a decent influence on the World Congress. Note that "priority" in this section refers to how high a priority it is to vote on each decision, not how high a priority it is to put the vote forward.

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

Medium priority
Vote no unless you captured plenty of wonders

Embargo City-States

Very High priority for diplomatic Arabia
High priority for warmongering Arabia
Vote no

If you're going diplomatic, you'll want to trade with City-States for the influence. If you're warmongering, you'll want to keep your Trade Routes on safe roads, which typically means trading with City-States.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote no

International Games

Low priority for diplomatic Arabia
High priority for warmongering Arabia
Vote yes if you're diplomatic
Vote no if you're warmongering

It can provide you with a little global happiness and a helpful boost to City-State influence, making it decent if you're playing diplomatically. Try to deny cultural players the tourism bonus. After all, World Congress projects can only occur once. If you're warmongering, it'll be a distraction from other things you need to build, so block it from happening.

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 for diplomatic Arabia
Medium priority for warmongering Arabia
Vote yes if you're diplomatic, got nuclear weapons but other Civs don't, or you lack uranium. Vote no otherwise.

Scholars in Residence

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

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Standing Army Tax

Medium priority for diplomatic Arabia
High priority for warmongering Arabia
Vote yes if you're diplomatic
Vote no if you're warmongering

World's Fair

Low priority
Vote yes

Keep in mind other Civs might get more out of it than you. Still, getting first place is an excellent defence against cultural Civs' influence.

While wide-building Civs are disadvantaged at wonder-building, (they make up for it with gold and faith potential, however,) there's still a few good ones you can pick up. Here's a selection of the best wonders, arranged alphabetically by era.


Pyramids (Liberty Only)

Faster Worker improvement-building makes it easier to develop new cities, and potentially saves you gold maintenance with a smaller number of Workers needed for the same task. This is a highly uncompetitive wonder, making it fairly easy to pick up.

Stonehenge

If you can't manage to get Desert Folklore for whatever reason, here's an alternative to get your faith production off the ground.

Temple of Artemis

An excellent wonder. It's uncompetitive, gives a universal 10% food bonus to all your cities (that's better than the "growth" bonus suggested by the wonder's tooltip) and even helps you build Camel Archers faster (due to their classification as a standard ranged unit.)


Colossus

Increases the Trade Route limit, which is incredibly useful. It also lets you get more money out of International Trade Routes sent to that city, but that's no more useful for you than it is for most other Civs, as your UA doesn't work for routes sent to you.

Petra

With your desert start bias, you can often build it in your capital to make a particularly strong city - it makes desert hills worth 1 food and 3 production even before improvments, and with a Bazaar makes Oases worth a total yield of 8 (4 food, 1 production, 3 gold.)

More importantly, this wonder gives you an increased Trade Route cap. Together, Petra's more valuable to Arabia than any other Civ (except Morocco and Venice) making it a very high-priority wonder to build or capture.


Borobudur

Good for rapidly spreading your religion to cities that don't make as good Trade Route destinations.

Great Mosque of Djenne (Piety Only)

Generally the highest-priority of the three Theology wonders.

Piety exclusivity makes this a bit less competitive to build. With Missionaries in that respective city being 50% more effective essentially, (unless they suffer attrition,) you can spread your religion for even less faith than you'd normally need.

Hagia Sophia

You can use the free Great Prophet to convert enemy cities of a major rival religion, then use Trade Routes to make it hard for them to convert their cities back.

Machu Picchu

A good wonder for getting more money in a way that doesn't require building lots of buildings. The restriction to cities near mountains means if you can't build it yourself, you'll usually know who did build it, so you know where to target to capture it.

Notre Dame

10 points of global happiness. Brilliant for supporting conquests.


Forbidden Palace (Patronage Only, Diplomatic Arabia favoured)

Aside from the direct help towards victory with two free World Congress delegates, the Forbidden Palace also offers a decent reduction to unhappiness from the number of citizens you have, which is good for reducing the burden of your Camel Archer conquests.

Porcelain Tower (Rationalism Only)

While it may be hard to get Research Agreements going in the aftermath of your Camel Archer conquests, a free Great Scientist is still worth a good amount of science.

Taj Mahal

Golden Ages mean more culture, production and especially cash. This wonder comes at a good time, helping you with rebuilding efforts after Camel Archer conquests.


Big Ben (Commerce Only, Warmongering Arabia favoured)

Helps your cash go even further than it already does with all the other modifiers you probably already have. Great for purchasing lots of units, or quickly getting defensive buildings and Airports up in newly-conquered cities.

Brandenburg Gate (Warmongering Arabia favoured)

You can't solely use upgraded Camel Archers in late-game warfare - unlike back then, you're going to have to bring siege units. And probably plenty of aeroplanes. This wonder will help ensure those new units are up to standard - with a Military Academy, you can produce new units with three promotions, which is enough to get a new air unit to Air Repair, or a siege unit to March, or either of them to just one promotion off Logistics.


Cristo Redentor

With the high Social Policy costs wide empires have, it's useful to have something to offset that. Here's one way to do that.

Neuschwanstein

Makes Castles maintenance-free sources of gold, culture and happiness which is useful whether you're playing diplomatically or warmongering. Castles cost the same as Universities, which isn't too bad at this stage of the game.

Prora (Autocracy Only, Warmongering Arabia favoured)

It's not a huge source of happiness, but it's better than nothing, and you get a free Social Policy, too.

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only, Diplomatic Arabia favoured)

While less useful for diplomatic victories than culture or science, this wonder is nonetheless powerful for making the most of specialists or unemployed citizens. And then there's the free Social Policy on top to help out even more.


Pentagon (Warmongering Arabia favoured)

While upgrading units tends to be fairly affordable in the end-game, prices can still pile up if you've got a lot of units to deal with. The Pentagon will help lessen that burden.


CN Tower

Good for defending against cultural Civs by helping to boost your cultural production with free Broadcast Towers, and good for most things in general by giving you a unhappiness-free point of population for every city you have.

For a vanilla Civ, (one included in the base game,) Arabia is not the simplest Civ around. Here's a few mistakes you'd do well to avoid.


Arabia's UA has its uses, but it's weak compared to their UU and UB. Think of it this way: if a Civ had Greece's UA and Arabia's UU and UB, they'd be ridiculously powerful. Many Civs, like Babylon, Korea and Greece have very good UAs relative to their other uniques, but Arabia is the other way around.

What this means is you shouldn't go over the top focusing on religion to the point that you neglect to make the most of your UU and UB.


Camel Archers require horses, and you need to know where they are sooner rather than later. Plus, Animal Husbandry allows Caravans, which your UA makes stronger (and can make your economy stronger in the early-game than most other Civs.)


Flat desert tiles have no output useful to the city's development, except with the Petra wonder (but that can only go in one city.) You may get more gold out of oases and oil, and double oil quantities, but that doesn't really make deserts more habitable. You're not Morocco, after all.


Unless you're landlocked or in a map that lacks seas, be sure to get some Cargo Ships. Not only do sea trade routes make more money than land-based ones, but it's a good way of spreading your religion to other continents. Yes, your Caravans may have an increased range, but that fades in usefulness later in the game.


Your UA doesn't discriminate which religion gets double pressure from Trade Routes. Be careful to make sure most of your Trade Routes start in cities of your own religion, or else you'll be making your rival's job easier.


If you don't want to give too much happiness to rivals, it's okay to hold back on trading luxuries, but if you don't trade at all, you're not making use of the key advantage of your UB.


A mistake many newer players will make (myself included when I was new to Civ 5) is, once getting past the fact that UAs aren't always the strongest element of a Civ, assuming that the Bazaar dominates Arabian gameplay, and that the Camel Archer is a fairly ordinary standard UU. That's not exactly the case.

The Bazaar is still a good UB, but the Camel Archer is amazing at battering down city defences and helping you conquer land. In my screenshot game for this guide, I would have probably gone on to world conquest with my Camel Archers if it wasn't for the fact I wanted to show the oil-boosting aspects of Arabia's UA and UB in action.


Camel Archers can't take cities, so you'll need some kind of melee unit. Longswordsmen are prone to being greatly damaged or killed before even reaching the city, so it's a good idea to keep a couple of Horsemen around. They can stay out of harm's way until the city's defences are completely eliminated, and then run in for the kill. Later on, you can substitute Horsemen for Lancers and Cavalry.


All you need are some Camel Archers, a Horseman or two and maybe a Great General to cause lots of trouble. Other military units are generally too slow to be of any great help.


Unless the city's surrounded by rough terrain, you should be able to use hit-and-run attacks to keep out of range of cities.


Arabia lacks happiness bonuses, and taking too many cities will really cause your economy to suffer. Make the most of Camel Archers, but if you're plunged into deep unhappiness, focus primarily on restoring happiness.


Camel Archers can potentially fight off even industrial-era attacks thanks to their hit-and-run ability - that's how effective they are. Rushing to get to Military Science and upgrading all those Camel Archers will leave you with units which will take damage every time they fight. Yes, Cavalry might be over 50% stronger, but they're far less mobile.

Once planes come along, however, it's probably time to upgrade Camel Archers as their mobility will no longer be as effective at evading attack.

Arabia is a powerful Civ if not kept in check. Their UA can crush someone's religious pressure if played right, their UU can crush empires and their UB can give them lots of money, but there's a few significant weaknesses in their overarching playstyle which if exploited, makes it hard for them to win.


50% increased Caravan range

Caravans travelling long distances are more prone to interception. If you've discovered the path of an Arabian Caravan, try luring some Barbarians over.

Double religious pressure from Caravans

This ability works regardless of which religion's in the city that's the origin of the Trade Route, so if you're getting bombarded with Arabian Caravans or Cargo Ships, try sending a few Missionaries or a Great Prophet to their lands. All of a sudden, they'll be spreading your religion instead of theirs, at a high speed!

In fact, denying a religion to Arabia really lets you exploit that aspect of the UA. An early rush will put their focus on defence - you don't have to capture anything, just threaten them - and hence give them a disadvantage to faith gain.

Can't manage to deny them a religion? You can at least attempt to avoid them getting pressure bonuses. Religious Texts is a good Enhancer belief for anyone, so even if it's not the exact best choice for you, denying Arabia that bonus can make it worthwhile. Work hard to block their World Religion attempts. Embargoing Arabia will wreck this aspect of their UA for them (and if City-States are also embargoed, this will be useless.)

Double oil

If you're friendly to Arabia throughout the game, you may be rewarded with strong access to a major oil supplier, and conversely attempting to attack them may make you on the receiving end of more Landships, Tanks, Bombers and suchlike than you can deal with.

But there is a powerful way of exploiting this part of Arabia's UA if fighting them - just pillage their oil wells. Because their oil wells will produce twice the oil of anyone else, getting them pillaged will cost them twice the oil of anyone else. That makes it easier to get them to negative net oil, which means a 50% combat penalty for all their oil-using units.


These things are nasty to play against. Don't just think Pikemen will do the trick - the 50% bonus vs. mounted units doesn't work on them. Instead, try using Knights, as they can run in, attack, and withdraw quickly if need be. The mobility of Camel Archers is their greatest asset - deny that by surrounding them. Again, Knights will be well-equipped for this task.

The main weakness of Camel Archers is their inability to take cities, so Arabia will have to bring a form of melee unit with them. Take out the melee units, and no matter how much they pillage or burn, they're never going to take your cities. Generally, they'll retreat if that happens.

If you're attacking Arabia, send in fast units to pillage their horse pastures. That'll prevent them building new Camel Archers, and existing ones will fight at a 50% combat penalty, making them much easier to deal with.


The +1 gold compared to Markets as well as the +2 gold for oil and oases isn't really something you can do anything about, but that doesn't matter as it makes a relatively small impact to Arabia in the grand scheme of things. Instead, focus on their double luxuries.

As is the case with double oil resources, double luxuries means pillaging the tiles has double the impact. If Arabia's been trading away most of their luxuries, it won't take much to start cancelling their deals by pillaging their luxury resource tiles. Even if they repair afterwards, that's a few turns without that useful arrangement, and has a powerful double effect, as the Civs they're trading with will lose happiness, too!

Embargoing Arabian luxuries will be difficult due to the fact they can just trade lots out to Civs with a high number of delegates, putting them off banning them. If you want to hurt Arabia, just embargo them directly.


Early-game Aggressors - Deal with Arabia before they can build their Camel Archers, and be sure to pillage their horse resources. They may have an above-average number of mounted units ready for upgrading, so take a Spearman with you.

Mid-game Warmongers - You should probably attack Arabia earlier or later on rather than invading them when they're at their strongest. If you do want to invade at this point, take plenty of Knights (or Lancers) and pillage their horse and luxury tiles.

Late-game Warmongers - The industrial to early modern eras are a weak point for Arabia, as their UU has lost effectiveness, but their oil production hasn't quite kicked in. Watch out for Arabia's high oil reserves in the late modern to atomic eras - once again, try to get them pillaged (Paratroopers are brilliant at this task.) Come the information era, the focus shifts to aluminium rather than oil, so their advantage dwindles in effectiveness.

Cultural Players - If you're highly influential over Arabia, their Trade Routes will give you science which will help put them off trading with you. Maximise tourism bonuses on them early on to exploit that fact.

Diplomatic Players - Either get Arabia embargoed or try to get someone to go to war with them later in the game. Try to convert any of their cities sending Trade Routes to City-States, so you can use that extra pressure to help convert them and take advantage of that reduced influence decay rate.

Scientific Players - Arabia can both impose their religion on you and leech science from Trade Routes, so it might be worth focusing on getting them embargoed. Plant Diplomats in other Civs to help get the vote to pass.

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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)

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)