Rhye's of Civilization Expanded - Arabian strategy
From Rhye's Mods Wiki
If you want to build a small, highly efficient civilization, controlling trade, being diplomatically efficient and culturally dominant, the Arabs are an excellent choice.
The Arabs begin with an interesting position. They have no fresh water within range of their core and abundant desert tiles offer little production value. But to balance this off, there are many natural resources and luxuries within easy reach. In addition, the Arabs have few barbarians close by, and a large unproductive desert separating them from their nearest neighbors.
As Abu Bakr, you must figure out how to harness the resources and isolation while overcoming slow population growth and meager production. The lack of neighbors is one clue: plan on putting a lot of early effort into expanding onto the Arabian Peninsula. The spread of good resources offer another clue to a development strategy: plan on having many small cities scattered around the coast, to make better use of the productive squares.
The Arab trait combination of Religious and Expansionist is ideally suited to your location. As Expansionist, your scouts should get out and grab an early settler and/or a few techs from the nearby huts. Look to grab the huts between Persia and Babylon and north of Egypt (beware the barbarians!), in addition to the one south of Mecca. As Religious, quick and early monuments and cheap temples make going for the cultural win extremely viable. If you choose this route, research the religious techs early, so that you get a good shot at the religious wonders
The culture-win route is made even easier with the Arab’s first UU, the excellent Saracen Bowman. The Saracen defends as well as a musketman (2/4/1, def bombard) is available earlier, costs less to build, and does not require saltpeter to make. A small garrison of Saracens in each city will scare off any early invader with designs on your territory without requiring an expensively large military.
Regardless of your strategy, your first goal as Caliph is to begin securing the abundant supplies of incense and horses that dot the Arabian Peninsula; the Egyptians, Persians, and Ottomans can be excellent trading partners. Your many surplus luxuries and resources will enable you to trade your way into diplomatic friendship and technological parity as the game wears on. Without conquest, Arabia is well situated to be a major broker of incense, horses, and camels early, and oil later. And with small conquests, this trade domination could extend into saltpeter, dyes, elephants and even iron.
If you do decide to go the conquest route, Persia, Israel, and Babylon are your best targets. Egypt is close, but its fertile land does not offer much production power. Israel provides a gateway to the Mediterranean Sea and has several saltpeter in their territory. Together with Babylon’s Dyes, the capitals of these two civs can really boost your trading power.
On the other hand, Persia’s capital is an excellent manufacturing base and is also the gateway to India and plentiful rubber. An early push on Persia, before Immortals become too plentiful, can give you a high production center. The reason you want a high production center is the Arab’s second unique unit, the Ansar Warrior. It is a 5/2/3 knight with the potential to rule the Mesopotamian, but too expensive to produce in high numbers with just the core Arabian Peninsula cities.
In sum, the Arabs are a top builder civ (5/5), with a great combination of traits and a UU to make it an easy run. As a militaristic civ, they are a bit harder to use well (3/5), requiring a good deal of planning to produce sufficient numbers of Ansar Warriors at the right time. Overall, 4/5.
Author: Enkidu Warrior
