Winning Strategies for Civilisation IV - Choosing The Arabian Empire - by John Sinitsky

Civilization 4
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Introduction

Civilizatin IV - a sequel of Cilization series, have been released about 3 years ago (in October 2005). Even now the game is very popular. With the victory options and most the pre-game selections (choosing the map, the climate and sea level, game speed and world size, Difficulty Levels (A,B)) having already being covered in previous articles, we are now reviewing the aspects of civilization choice.

Each playable nation in Civilization IV yields certain traits and can help guide a winning strategy. In this part of the series into the CiV IV game, we’ll explore the Arabian empire.

Arabian Empire Overview

The Arabian nation has the Camel Archer as its unique unit, which replaces the Knight unit. The advantages over Knight are obvious – neither horses nor iron are required, making you independent of those resources, and the unit can withdraw from combat (25% chance).

The Camel Archer, however, requires Archery along with the standard Guilds and Horseback Riding (also required for Knight). Those (relatively early technologies) should be discovered as soon as possible, meaning Feudalism and Machinery will be studied “by the way”.

The starting technologies are Mysticism and The Wheel, meaning it would be wise to discover Polytheism or Meditation (founding Hinduism and Buddhism respectively) right away, and afterwards turn to Masonry and Pottery (with Fishing or Agriculture).

The civilization has only 1 leader – Saladin.

The Leader - Saladin

Saladin is defined as “Philosophical” and “Spiritual”.

“Philosophical” means that you will have a bonus of Great People appearance (+100% birth rate). However, doubling zero is still zero – so you should either build wonders or create specialists in your cities. Universities (that speed up your research by 25%) are built with double speed, so discovering Education and building Libraries (required for University) is very logical.

“Spiritual” will give you an edge of “No anarchy” during revolution. This means that you should change your civics and/or religion frequently (there is a general limit of 1 revolution in 5 turns however). Of course, when doing so you must take into account the effects of the chosen Civics and Religion. Temples are constructed at double speed, meaning that you should discover priesthood and maybe think of founding several religions (discovering Polytheism is beneficial as it gives you both the Hinduism Religion and the path to Monotheism technology (with Masonry), which is required for Judaism).

You should also consider building missioners to spread religions, as it will lead to more happy people when switching to “free religion” civic in modern times.

This post is part of the series: Civilization IV - Guide To Sid Meier’s Civilization IV PC Game

This series on Civilization IV tells you how to get the best out of the classic Sid Meier PC game. Game strategy and options are reviewed and disscussed

  1. Mastering Civilization IV - Victory Conditions
  2. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game Part I – Selecting a Map (A)
  3. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game - Part II – Selecting a Map (B)
  4. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game - Part III – Climate and Sea Level
  5. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game - Part IV – Map Size
  6. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game - Part V – Difficulty Levels (A)
  7. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game - Part VI – Difficulty Levels (B)
  8. Mastering Civilization IV – Starting the Game - Part VII – Game Speed
  9. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing the civilization - Overview
  10. Mastering Civilization IV – The American Empire in Civilization IV
  11. Mastering Civilization IV – The Arabian Empire in Civilization IV
  12. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Your Player Nation – Aztec Empire
  13. Mastering Civilization IV – Playing As The Chinese Empire - Choosing Your Playable Nation
  14. Mastering Civilization IV – Playing as the Egyptian Empire in Civ IV
  15. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Your Nation – English Empire
  16. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Which Nation to Play – French Empire
  17. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Playable Nations – German Empire
  18. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing A Playable Nation – Greek Empire
  19. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Which Nation to Play – Incan Empire
  20. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing the nation – Indian Empire
  21. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Which Nation to Play in Civ IV – Japanese Empire
  22. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Which Nation to Play – Malinese Empire
  23. Mastering Civilization IV – Mongolian Empire in Civ IV - Choosing the Nation to Play in Civ IV PC Game
  24. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing Playable Nations – Roman Empire
  25. Mastering Civilization IV – Choosing the Nation to Play in Civ IV – Russian Empire
  26. Mastering Civilization IV – Playing as the Persian Empire in Civ IV - Player’s Guide to Choosing their Nation in Civ IV
  27. Mastering Civilization IV – Selecting Playable Nations in Civ IV – Spanish Empire