If you have the Rise and Fall expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Rise and Fall expansion.

Note: This guide only covers content released prior to the Rise and Fall expansion. Content from any DLC pack released between the base game and Rise and Fall is marked as such.

Welcome to the shining beacon of discoveries both physical and spiritual. Arabia demands a playstyle that makes use of both religion and science together, but also has a powerful medieval-era unique unit that offers another way. It is your choice to decide whether you want to emphasise a strong early religion, or emphasise military might, and your choice whether you want to aim for a religious victory or change course towards science. Success as Arabia depends on your ability to make your uniques complement each other, while failure will result if you are too slow to take advantage of such strengths.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Civic cards - Another name for policy cards; you fill up your government with these for additional bonuses and can switch them for free every time you unlock a civic.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arabia has no start bias.

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

• Worship buildings belonging to Saladin's religion cost 90% less faith to purchase.
  
  • This bonus applies to all cities following Saladin's religion, regardless of civilization.
• Worship buildings of your own religion provide the city with a 10% boost to science, culture and faith in addition to their normal yields.
  
  • This does not affect cities held by other civilizations.

A medieval-era heavy cavalry unit which replaces the Knight

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Theocracy government, which in turn requires the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic. This number does not take into account Theocracy's 15% discount on faith purchases.

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


Positive changes

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

A classical-era Campus building which replaces the University

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


Neutral changes

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

Positive changes

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

In this section, the civ is graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Any score of 3 or above means the civ or leader has some kind of advantage to the victory route above a hypothetical civ with no unique features. A score of less than 2 means some kind of aspect of the civ actively discourages a particular victory route. All values are subjective and may be edited in future.


Culture is the one victory route Saladin is not particularly equipped for. A 10% culture bonus from worship buildings might sound good for getting through the civics tree, unlocking cultural wonders and civic cards, but the need to build both Campus and Holy Site districts to make full use of Arabia's uniques means getting a reasonable number of Theatre districts might take until rather late in the game.

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

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

And that leads onto the last path, science. Playing as Saladin, three out of your four uniques will have some kind of contribution to science output. Saladin does lack any production bonuses, however, which is the other crucial ingredient for getting the spaceship built.

Arabia is a Civ with two important decisions to make: How to start the game, and how to finish it. At the start your choices are:

• Rush an early religion and take advantage of the extra science, worship buildings and suchlike sooner. I'll refer to this method as the early religion approach. This is mostly useful if there aren't any other civs nearby.
  
• Focus on getting Mamluks up and running sooner, and rely on the Civ Ability to get a free Great Prophet. I'll refer to this method as the early Mamluk approach. This is the more consistently effective route out of the two and should be the default option.

The former strategy offers an edge at early religious spread and a reasonable boost to early science, but the latter allows you to do a decent amount of medieval-era conquest giving you an advantage that lasts the rest of the game.


It might seem a shame to cut out a major part of your Civ Ability if you're following the early religion approach, but +1 science per foreign city is more powerful the sooner you can get it. By expanding quickly and building a few Holy Sites, along with using the Revelation civic card (unlocked at Mysticism), and/or the Divine Spark pantheon, you can grab a religion before most civs can.

There's a couple of key beliefs to pick up:

• Papal Primacy (founder) - Powerful if there's a few scientific city-states around; it'll make them give you more faith. No, that wasn't an error, I didn't mean to put "religious city-states" (though the bonus faith from them is nice as well). For a more in-depth explanation, go to the the Madrasa or Administration sections of this guide.
  
• Jesuit Education (follower) - Allows you to purchase your Madrassa UB using faith, which you'll soon have lots of.

It's a short hop from there to the Theology civic, which gives you access to Temples, Worship buildings and Madrasas - in other words, a massive boost to your faith output. Get these built quickly and you could have the biggest faith output in the game - perfect for religious victory.


The early Mamluk approach sacrifices some early religious potential for a powerful warmongering option. Instead of building Holy Sites early on, you'll need to get hold of Commercial Hubs (or Harbours) to maximise internal trade and hence early production. Campus districts will also be useful.

At first, get to the Wheel and Currency technologies quickly while rapidly expanding your empire with Settlers. It's fine to research Animal Husbandry or other necessary early improvement technologies to fill in time before you have the Eurekas for any of the technologies. After that, you can start working towards Stirrups. Try to get, if possible, three cities with Commercial Hubs and a few Heavy Chariots before Mamluks arive. Don't bother working towards the Eureka for Stirrups (you almost certainly won't get it any time soon); just research it all the way to completion.


Above: By saving your gold until you have Stirrups, you can upgrade multiple Heavy Chariots to Mamluks and have a powerful army in an instant.

So, if you're not building Holy Sites yet, how do you found a religion? The answer is to take those Mamluks and throw them at an unprepared enemy civ who's kindly built one for you. Someone reasonably close has usually founded a religion by the time you have Mamluks ready, so you can invade them and take that Holy Site city for yourself. Then, use the "relocate to another city" button on your Great Prophet to send them to your newly-conquered location and have them found a religion there.


Why bother going to the effort of building a Holy Site when someone else can do it for you?

When you found a religion, the faith will only appear initially in cities with a Holy Site. It may be useful to conquer a couple of additional Holy Site cities rather than simply founding the faith in the first Holy Site city you capture for this reason.

One problem with this strategy is that you'll end up with your Holy City being quite some distance away from your core cities, meaning you'll need to invest in some Missionaries to get it spread to the rest of your lands. Get Madrasas built in your core cities to help generate faith to help with this task. When your core cities are large enough, you can start building Holy Sites in them as well and really get the religious game rolling.


Although you can win a domination victory with Mamluks if you're lucky in the early Mamluk approach, generally you'll want to push for a religious victory, then science in that order. Arabia is unusual in its ability to switch victory path late in the game while still being able to keep much of the progress already made. Mamluk conquests help you to capture powerful enemy cities and potentially shut out a couple of rival religions, which aids with religious victory. Spreading your faith far and wide will reward you with science, so even if a religious victory isn't possible you'll have a nice edge for a scientific victory.

Remember that the domination > religion > science sequence for Arabia works best in that order. It's harder to switch from a scientific victory to a religious victory than the other way around, and the same goes for the relationship between religious and domination victories (well, unless you're making good use of the Crusade enhancer belief). Switching from science to domination works reasonably well, but by that point in the game you won't have the advantage of Mamluks.

• Choose whether to emphasise early religion or medieval warfare; the latter of the two is generally better.
  
  • For early religion, get Holy Sites up quickly
    
  • For medieval warfare, get Commercial Hubs and Campus districts up quickly, then capture a Holy Site city from another civ with the help of Mamluks so you can found a religion
• If Mamluk domination doesn't work out, use your existing advantages to help at religious victory
  
• If religious victory doesn't seem feasible, switch to a scientific victory path.

Worship buildings are ridiculously cheap to buy if you follow Saladin's religion. There's no reason not to get them as soon as you have a Temple built in a city.

While Arabia's Civ Ability will ensure you get a religion, Saladin's Leader Ability ensures that religion will be useful no matter your aims. Once you have the Theology Civic (which helpfully also offers the Madrasa UB) you can build a Temple in a city with a Holy Site, buy your worship building for dirt cheap and enjoy a 10% bonus to science, culture and faith generated in the city. Proportional bonuses are pretty rare, and getting three different ones all in one place is very welcome.

Before you get to that point, however, you need to be able to build Holy Sites, Shrines and Temples. That can be quite a hefty production investment early in the game when you add Campus districts, Libraries and Madrasas on top. The Jesuit Education belief allows you to shift the burden of building Libraries and Madrasas from production to faith, and if you've been emphasising Commerical Hubs/Harbours for internal trade route production to help build Mamluks the cost should be manageable, but if you have neither, be prepared to use Builders to clear forests and jungles for quick one-off boosts to construction.

At the absolute minimum, a city with a worship building will be making 9 faith per turn, and considering how easy it is to get at least a +1 adjacency bonus from Holy Sites, that raises it to a nice round 10, increased to 11 with the bonus on top. That might not sound like a lot, but this combined with the low faith cost makes any worship building pay for itself in just eight turns (or even faster if the city is receiving extra faith from other sources like Madrasas). Cathedrals pay for themselves in six turns or less, while Synagogues take just five. This means buying worship buildings needn't come at the cost of you holding off your plans to buy Apostles, Missionaries, Inquisitors or Gurus.

The science bonus is perhaps the most useful. Although it won't boost the +1 science you receive from spreading your religion to foreign cities, it will make the heavy Campus focus encouraged by your UB that little bit better. The culture bonus is less useful in comparison because Arabia lacks good synergy with it, but it will help make up for the fact you'll most likely be putting off building Theatre Squares in order to get lots of Campus and Holy Site districts. Unlike faith, you can gain science and culture from the population inside your city, so the 10% bonus will stretch a bit further than you might think.

There is one slight downside to this ability, however. While other civs won't receive the 10% bonus to faith, science and culture, they will be able to construct your worship building for a tenth of the cost. Considering the civs with lots of Holy Sites are likely to be religious civs themselves, and Saladin's worship buildings pay for themselves very quickly, if you're not careful you could end up handing your enemies a whole lot of cheap faith. To minimise this risk, try to spread your religion first to civs that don't have one of their own. Those cities are less likely to be converted to another faith, so you'll get the science bonuses from converting them for longer.


Later on, you can pick up the Theocracy government - and you should! It offers a discount on faith purchases, including the worship building. Stacked with Saladin's Leader Ability, it makes them free to purchase! Furthermore, it makes your religious units stronger at theological combat which should give you a nice edge when attempting to convert rival cities.

• Get the Theology civic reasonably early
  
• Use internal trading or cut down forests/jungles for production to help get Temples built
  
• Always buy your worship building when it's available. The faith investment will pay for itself very quickly.
  
• The Theocracy government makes worship buildings free to buy.

In good hands, Mamluks are practically invincible. You can grab them relatively early in the game, they have far more strength than anything they're likely to face for quite some time, and they can rapidly recover their health.


If you're pursuing the early-religion strategy, you'll mostly be using Mamluks defensively. In friendly terrain, they'll heal 15 health at the start of every turn making them rather good at repelling any kind of threat. If you're up against Pikemen, just use the superior movement of Mamluks to surround them and make use of flanking bonuses.


Now for a much more interesting use of Mamluks: the early-Mamluk strategy. Here, you should aim to get a small Mamluk force built early on and use it to rush the nearest enemy civ with at least one Holy Site. A good-sized force could even be enough to take out a couple of civs entirely, but be careful you don't leave it too late!

Mamluks are pretty costly to build early on, so you'll want the Wheel technology early to build some Heavy Chariots that you can upgrade to Mamluks later. You'll also need plenty of production to build new Mamluks, so you'll need production quickly. Build at least a couple of Settlers early on while aiming to grab the Currency technology early so you can build Commercial Hubs fast. Send the trade routes between your cities and you should have sufficient production to build Mamluks at a reasonable pace.

Work out which civ nearby has Holy Sites. The easiest way to check this is to see which civs have founded a religion, but otherwise, religious victory-inclined civs like Spain, India and Russia are good targets. Capturing at least one Holy Site city lets you found your religion without having to dedicate any production to building one yet, so that should be your absolute minimum goal. A bigger objective is to capture their Holy City, which can make it much easier to deal with the corresponding rival religion. The ultimate goal is eliminate the civ entirely, but this isn't always viable.

Mamluks start with 48 strength, which will give them a huge advantage over Swordsmen and other pre-medieval era threats. Against cities without walls, you don't really need to take any other units with them, but be prepared to get some ranged or siege units ready once that starts being necessary.

It's worth noting the amount of health units heal per turn depends on the territory they're in.

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

Ignore the Mamluks at the bottom of the screenshot (they're healing faster than they should be thanks to a bug from God of Healing allowing it to work for Holy Sites you don't own) and look at the Mamluk healing up in the city I captured. It's an awful lot of health to recover in just one turn!

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

Apostles with the Chaplain promotion synergise very well with Mamluks, but it'll most likely take some time until you get one, if at all. On the occasion you get lucky, attach the Apostle to one of the Mamluks and move them in close formation (so multiple can benefit from the healing). Don't overstretch your Mamluks, though - even with rapid healing they can easily be beaten if your opponent focuses their fire on each one in turn.

Once other civs start getting Musketmen, Mamluks no longer are the highly powerful UUs they used to be. Musketmen are 14 points stronger than Mamluks and you'll need to stack combat bonuses to overcome that gap. At that point in the game, it's a good idea to finish off your conquests and switch to a more religion-focused playstyle.

Already, Arabia's civ ability and Saladin's leader ability encourage you to combine religion and science. The Madrasa does the same once again, only this time it's a faith bonus on something that usually provides science.

But before we get into all that, it's important to note the Madrasa is accessed via a different path from the University. Rather than needing the late-medieval Education technology, you just need the late-classical Theology civic; something you'll need for worship buildings anyway. Getting a science building with slightly more science and an era earlier sounds really good, but remember the production cost is unchanged. Unless you can acquire the Jesuit Education follower belief (which lets you purchase Madrasas with faith) you'll need to either chop forests and jungles with Builders to hurry production or make use of internal trade routes if you want them early.

Succeed, and you'll have strong science earlier than most civs, in addition to the Great Scientist point and a bit of housing. Having some housing available earlier might not seem like a lot, but every point of housing essentially allows another point of population, and every point of population adds culture and science.

Now that's out of the way, onto the key feature: The science adjacency bonus of a Madrasa's Campus district is added to faith. Because of the importance of getting lots of science, you'll want a good adjacency yield out of your campuses anyway. Here's the possible adjacency bonuses:

• +1 per adjacent mountain
  
• +1 per two adjacent districts and/or rainforest tiles.
  
• +2 per scientific city-state in the world you have at least three envoys at
  
• +2 per scientific city-state in the world you have at least six envoys at

You might be wondering "Wait, what?! City-state bonuses aren't adjacency bonuses!" And you'd be right - up to a point. When you build a new district, the output it tells you you're going to get is based on adjacent tiles (e.g. 2 science if you want to build a Campus next to a mountain and two rainforests). However, when you actually have the district built, the science bonus from city-states is added on top of the adjacency bonus. This resulting number is considered to be the adjacency bonus for the purposes of faith from Madrasas... but that's not all.

Natural Philosophy (which requires the late-classical era Recorded History civic) doubles campus adjacency bonuses - including the science added by city-states. This also doubles the faith contribution of Madrasas! If you're looking for even more faith, you won't find it from the Rationalism civic card (which doubles the science of Campus district buildings, but not any other yield) nor the Simultaneum civic card (which doubles the faith of Holy Site buildings, but doesn't affect buildings not in your Holy Site). Instead, make sure you chase down those scientific city-states!


+8 faith for simply chasing up science. Not bad, really. In really large maps, you're more likely to encounter a large number of scientific city-states you can focus on for huge science and faith boosts.

This large boost to faith can really make up for ignoring Holy Sites early in the game (if you took such a route), allowing you to afford Missionaries to spread your religion within your borders ready for the construction of new Holy Sites to hold all those Missionaries. Stacked with an array of other faith bonuses (the Theocracy government, Saladin's leader ability and so forth) you'll have some of the game's best faith generation.

But what if this all doesn't work? What if religious victory doesn't appear to be an option? Well, faith can also be used for Great Person patronage, and is generally more efficient than gold for that purpose. Use it to grab key Great Scientists and Engineers, and combined with your advantages to science generation, you'll have a reasonable edge at launching the spaceship.

• Get the Theology civic early
  
• Madrasas are expensive - use extensive internal trade routes, get the Jesuit Education belief or use Builders to cut down foliage to get them up reasonably fast
  
• Passing the 3 and 6 envoy thresholds in scientific city-states will also make Madrasas provide more faith
  
• Get the Recorded History civic soon after Theology so you can use the Natural Philosophy civic card and double the faith contribution of Madrasas.

The administration section covers the governments, policy cards, pantheons, religions, wonders, city-states and Great People which have particularly good synergy with Arabian uniques. Be aware that these are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options that you should consider more than usual if playing as Arabia relative to other civs.


Classical Era Governments

As good as Oligarchy may initially sound, the strength bonus doesn't work on Mamluks. Autocracy's double military card combination will be tricky to use if you've been beelining Mamluks as you can't get the Chivalry civic card (which boosts Mamluk production) until Divine Right, which offers a better government type anyway. Until then, you'll have to combine two less effective cards.

Instead, you might find Classical Republic more worthwhile; the bonus amenities are quite useful if your cities grow large via internal trading, and two economic cards allows you to use Natural Philosophy and Scripture simultaneously while still leaving a wildcard left over.

Medieval/Renaissance Era Governments

Theocracy is the obvious choice. Your religious buildings become free to purchase, religious units are cheaper, you get an edge in religious combat (very nice if you've been spamming Apostles with all the faith you'll be generating) and if you're still not done with warfare it can allow you to buy Mamluks alongside other units with faith.

Modern Era Governments

If you're still aiming for a religious victory, Democracy's bonus yields from district projects means you can get more faith out of the Holy Site Prayers project, allowing you to convert production into faith reasonably effectively.

If you want to switch to science, Communism offers a handy production bonus that will help you launch the spaceship sooner.


Classical Era

Diplomatic League (Diplomatic, requires Political Philosophy) - Reaching the three-envoy or six-envoy thresholds in scientific city-states will give you faith in cities with a Madrasa. If you don't already have an envoy in a City-State, this will help you get to that three-envoy target a bit sooner. Otherwise, pick Charismatic Leader for a more long-term bonus.

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

Medieval Era

Chivalry (Military, requires Divine Right) - Gives you a 50% production bonus while building Mamluks. You'll need a strong cultural output if you want to get this before Mamluks become outdated.

Meritocracy (Economic, requires Civil Service) - The need to build both Holy Sites and Campus districts (as well as probably plenty of Commercial Hubs and Industrial Zones to help with Mamluk production) doesn't leave much room for Theatre Squares. As such, Meritocracy will be very useful to provide an alternative source of culture, magnified by your worship building.

Renaissance Era

Rationalism (Economic, requires The Enlightenment) - Make the +1 science bonus from your Madrasas relative to Universities into a +2 bonus! Okay, that's not a lot, but a science boost is a science boost.

Modern Era

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


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

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

God of War - If you're taking the early-Mamluk approach, the faith on offer here helps make up for building Holy Sites late.


Note that:

• You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief.
  
• The Stewardship Founder belief adds science from Campus districts at the national level, so unlike the science-per-Campus-district bonus from scientific city-states, which counts as part of an adjacency bonus for the purposes of Madrasas, Stewardship's bonus science won't translate to a faith bonus.

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

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

Feed the World (Follower) - You'll want Shrines and Temples in all your cities so you can get the worship building bonus from Saladin's ability across your entire empire. As a side-effect, the food offered from Feed the World becomes very lucrative. You can work fewer farms and more specialist slots, for example.

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

Papal Primacy (Founder) - Converting a city-state to your faith will provide you with +1 science, and it'll spread your religion's pressure, making it worthwhile to do so anyway. But more to the point, with this belief, scientific city-states will offer 3 science per campus when you have at least three envoys present, rather than 2, and 6 science rather than 3 when you have at least six envoys. A +2 science bonus per campus is okay, but remember that Madrasas will add that science to faith, and it'll be doubled with the Natural Philosophy civic card. +4 science and +4 faith per Madrasa campus per scientific city-state is rather good. Just two scientific city-states with 6+ envoys each and four Madrasa cities, and you'll be looking at +32 science and +32 faith compared to normal. Not bad at all!

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

Religious Community (Follower) - Alternatively, get housing instead of food at a time where housing is fairly scarce.

Religious Unity (Founder) - Can't get Papal Primacy? Try this belief instead for some extra envoys.

Scripture (Enhancer) - Arabia's high science output and ease in which they can achieve Printing's Eureka boost makes this belief a little more powerful than normal.

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

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

Wat (Worship) - Gain 3.3 faith and 2.2 science, thanks to Saladin's multipliers. If you intend to go for a scientific victory, this will probably be your best choice.

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

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

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


Scientific city-states of any kind should be high-priority until you have six envoys present in each. That's because their bonuses to Campus science also adds to faith once you have Madrasas built, making them almost like two city-states in one.

Geneva (Scientific) - Perhaps the absolute top-priority city-state for Arabia to chase not just because of the 3-envoy and 6-envoy bonuses, but also in its ability to magnify your already huge science output. The one downside is the 15% science boost doesn't apply if you're at war, so don't go overboard with Mamluks.

Preslav (Militaristic) - A niche bonus at the best of times but slightly more useful for Arabia than most other civs thanks to the Mamluk UU.

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

Seoul (Scientific) - Saves you a bit of time getting through the tech tree.


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

Classical Era

Colaeus (Great Merchant) - If you've been focusing on Commercial Hubs rather than Holy Sites early in the game, the faith on offer here helps make up for that.

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

Medieval Era

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

El Cid (Great General) - Ignoring the fact classical and medieval Great Generals will be useful anyway for the strength bonuses they offer to Mamluks, El Cid is a good choice as he can make a unit into a corps when he retires. An early Mamluk corps is pretty tough to beat, but make sure you have another Great General ready if you want to do that, as the bonus from turning one Mamluk into a corps isn't really enough to compensate for the lack of an area-of-effect strength bonus.

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

Renaissance Era

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

Modern Era

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

An endless wall of Apostle spam from Arabia's high faith, or a highly advanced army from Arabia's high science might appear scary to face, but there's much you can do to slow them down.


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

Alternatively, if Arabia in your game wants a religion quickly, they'll be wasting part of their civ ability. On the other hand, it does mean they can spread their religion sooner and get a better choice of beliefs. Remember that their science bonus from spreading religions is tied to cities and not population, so Arabia will getting the bulk of that bonus science from small, easily-converted cities. You can engage in a bit of religious combat near smaller border cities to weaken Arabia's religion, but if you really need to set them back, a bit of actual combat will work as well. Pillaging religious units reduces their religious pressure - and hence Arabia's science output.


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


An AI Saladin will like you if you have his worship buildings in your cities, but dislike you if you follow a different religion to him or declare war on someone following his religion. If you're playing a cultural or science game that's not too hard an agenda to meet, but religious players will have to accept they're not likely to get along with him. If you're warmongering and want to target someone following his religion, try to target him first if possible. That way, it's less likely you'll be up against a second opponent.


Invading Mamluks are only slightly better than Knights; they'll heal just 5HP a turn in lands belonging to their enemy. Anything you use against Knights will work just as well against Mamluks. If you're behind in technology, Spearmen will be a cost-effective option. They'll be disadvantaged against Mamluks on a one-on-one fight, but are far cheaper to build.

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


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

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