A 4UC Vox Populi Guide: Arabia

These are an updated set of guides for the Vox Populi mod meant to help players learn the details and how to play each civ in the game. Whether new to civ entirely, experienced in civ but new to Vox Populi, or even well experienced with the mod and just looking for a refresher, these guides are designed to be useful to all. These guides were inspired by Zigzagzigal's guides, as they helped me learn a lot about the game when I first started playing it over a decade ago, and I wanted to provide a similar experience for the Vox Populi mod, which has become my go to way to play civ v, and is my favorite strategy game. For those looking for the download for the mod, it can be found here[forums.civfanatics.com]

With that out of the way, onto the Arabians!

Before getting into the specifics of the civ, a few terms that I may be using during this guide will be defined here

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.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. All Naval and Air units gaining a promotion increasing their strength as they take damage from Imperialism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% GWAM generation, +10% culture generation during golden ages and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Scaling with Era - Any trait scaling with era will double in the medieval era, then increase by the same amount every era afterwards (For example, a +1 bonus scaling with era would increase to +2 in the medieval, +3 in the renaissance, etc. until a max of +7 in the information era)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
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.
UGP - Unique Great Person - A replacement for a great person that only one civilization can generate
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
WLTKD - We love the king day.
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 - Stands for "Zone of Control" which is the effect that causes units to use all their movement if they move from a space adjacent to an enemy unit to another space still adjacent to that same unit

Arabia has a desert start bias. This may be one of the worst start bias in Vox Populi as Arabia has no real bonuses to desert terrain. It does at least allow you to have a much greater chance at Petra, which is a valuable wonder to Arabia
When you complete a historic event, your capital gains +1& as well as 15% towards a random great person

A mounted ranged unit

Positive One-Off Changes

• Does not require Horses
  
• Higher combat strength (19 instead of 17)
  
• Higher ranged strength (16 instead of 14)
  
• Obsoletes at Military Science rather than Metallurgy

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Deals 5 damage to all enemy units adjacent to the target unit within range when attacking(Splash I)
  
• Double movement in desert. +25% combat strength in desert(Desert Raider)

A melee unit

Positive One-Off Changes

• Does not require aluminum
  
• Unlocks at Combustion, rather than Ballistics
  
• Does not obsolete rather than at Mobile Tactics

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• Withdraw from melee attack once per turn if there is an open tile behind this unit
  
• Pillaging costs no movement. Deals 15 damage to any adjacent enemy units when pillaging improvements(Garland Mine)

Positive Changes

• +2 & +2
  
• When any Trade Route originating here and targeting another Civilization is completed, trigger a Historic Event.
  
• Increases the Range of this City's Land Trade Routes by 50%.

Positive Changes

• +3
  
• +1 to all specialists
  
• When purchasing a unit or building with gain & equal to 15% of it's cost

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Arabian uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking


Arabia has a very interesting military opportunity in that their UUs are on the same unit upgrade path, allowing for a sort of super UU by upgrading Camel Archers into Hashemite Raiders, giving them a solid late game army.
Culture is probably Arabia's strongest route, as it is the most synergistic with their wonder/historic events playstyle. Their UA gives strong culture output, and between that and the Bazaar they have good tourism
Science is also something Arabia does quite well at mostly due to the UA. The Bimaristan also gives some extra science as well as a decent amount of food
The Bazaar and the extra merchants give Arabia a little bit of extra gold, but moreso due to adopting a playstyle that gives a bit more gold then others. Arabia lacks any advantage towards diplomacy save for maybe generating an extra great diplomat or two if you're lucky
The Bazaar is a very strong faith generator. It may not come quite early enough to help much with your pantheon but it will go a long way towards founding your religion

And so the first night begins.

Every time Arabia achieves a historic event, their capital gains a permanent +1 culture and science in their capital, as well as 15% progress towards a random great person. Now even fairly experienced players of Vox Populi may not exactly know what a historic event is, so, what actually is a historic event? Whenever you achieve certain things, you get a lump sum of tourism with all met civs based on your current tourism and culture output. The list of possible historic event triggers are as follows

• Earn a great person
  
• Build a World Wonder
  
• Win a war(At least +25 warscore)
  
• Enter a new era
  
• Complete a trade route with a major civilization from a city with a certain building(Caravansary, Harbor, Etc.)
  
• Complete a golden age(Artistry Only)
  
• Complete an archeological dig(Artistry Only)
  
• Complete a trade route with a city state(Statecraft Only)
  
• Complete an Internal Trade Route(Fealty Only)

The 3 most important ways to trigger a historic event are building a wonder, earning great people, and completing trade routes. You'll want to build as many wonders as you can, especially early game. Focus on working specialists, Arabia's UA creates a bit of a feedback loop as the great people you are generating from historic moments trigger more historic moments. If things align just right you could chain multiple historic moments in a row on the same turn. Finally, get up buildings that can trigger historic moments from trade as soon as possible, and then start trading as much as you can.
The amount of culture and science I was generating around the late Modern. More then any other single source in my capital, although less then 10% of my total output. Later in the game the great people generation is what's much more important, though it's not like they're mutually exclusive

For other civs, being able to generate historic moments from trade requires a fair bit more investment, caravansaries in late classical for land trade, and harbors in the late medieval for sea trade. Arabia is able to get both, much earlier

Scheherazade will be most pleased of new tales from Assyria. Ashurbanipal's own greed and desire for conquest should prove a good lesson for King Shahryar

Bazaars allow all trade routes to give historic events, allowing you to start getting them pretty much from the moment you are able to start trading. Along with an increased 50% range to your land trade routes it should guarantee you will have a few partners to trade with.

Along with the trade bonuses, the Bazaar also gives 2 faith. Markets come a little bit too late for this to help much in founding a quick pantheon, but Arabia can easily be one of the faster religion founders.

Second religion, sub turn 100, not too shabby. It's just a shame that literally everyone else on my continent later founded a religion as well this game.

Do note I have the tradition policy halving specialist food consumption in the capital

The Bimaristan brings a bit of a food edge to Arabia, which is welcome given their penchant for working specialists and their lack of any other infrastructure boosts. The first and arguably most impactful is giving all specialists +1 food. This will not completely erase the food cost of specialists, even in your capital with tradition, but it does make it a lot easier to work more of them while still allowing your cities to grow a bit better.

Whenever you purchase something with faith, you gain food and science equal to 15% of the faith cost in the city. Unless you end up going Zealotry, which I wouldn't particularly recommend for Arabia, this is mostly going to be triggering from purchasing missionaries, which will mostly be in your capital. Considering your capital is likely by far your strongest city, especially given Arabia has good reason to go tradition, this isn't strictly a bad thing.

The Assyrians march from the north. Do not fear, the camel is here!

Camel Archers are a funky little unit. Their most important attribute is simply that they do not require horses, allowing Arabia to get a normally resource locked unit on the field much more easily. Heavy skirmishers are a good unit but I often find them competing too much with knights for resources, and as knights are in my opinion the best unit of medieval it isn't really a favorable comparison. However, Arabia doesn't have to worry about that, and can if they desire have a very mobile medieval army

Camel Archers deal 5 damage to any units adjacent to their target and within range when they attack. The within range part is the important bit here, as usually splash is a promotion given to siege, who have 2 range. Camel Archers only have one, so it can be tricky to get even 1 unit within range of this ability without putting your unit in a dangerous position. I wouldn't really think much of this ability, and just use Camel Archers like you would any mounted ranged, just occasionally dealing chip damage to other units.

Finally, Camel Archers get double movement and 25% combat strength in desert. Given Arabia has a desert start, this can give camel archers a nice strength boost, but it can be surprisingly finicky to get the strength bonus since most units aren't going to want to move through the desert. However, this means Camel Archers have pretty much uncontested movement through the desert. Use desert to retreat and/or as an unexpected angle of attack.

• Deals 5 damage to all enemy units adjacent to the target unit within range when attacking(Splash I)
  
• Double movement in desert. +25% combat strength in desert(Desert Raider)

While I do consider the ability to build Camel Archers without resources the most important aspect of the unit, don't think this means you should neglect settling horses. You will want to upgrade your Camel Archers, even moreso then most civs would want to promote their unique units, although it isn't quite for the same reason as any other civ...

Snow may by definition be desert probably, but that doesn't mean the Hashemite Raider belongs here

The Hashemite Raider is the only unique unit in the game that can be upgraded into from another unique unit (excluding military city state gifts but that's different). This means you can have a unit with 4 unique promotions. Build as many Camel Archers as you can before they obsolete, even if you don't have the horses for it since the Hashemite Raider doesn't require resources either, you can upgrade all your Camel Archers into Hashemite Raiders... eventually. It will take a bit if you can only upgrade a few at a time due to lack of horses. Since the Hashemite Raider comes earlier then the light tank it replaces, whether or not you did build a lot of Camel Archers to upgrade into it, the Hashemite Raider can be a surprisingly effective power unit.

The Hashemite Raider is a very obnoxious unit to deal with, even if you don't have the Camel Archer promotions. They withdraw from melee once per turn, assuming they have a tile to retreat to. As long as you don't have them behind enemy lines, they will be difficult for enemies to kill, even if they can get within melee range. Hashemite Raiders also hold good use offensively though, as they can pillage for free and deal 15 damage to adjacent units when they do so. Combined with the splash from Camel Archers Hashemite Raiders can deal a surprising amount of damage to units they aren't even directly attacking, and with the Camel Archer's Desert Raider, they can be an absolute nightmare to kill, especially in Arabian territory.

Squirrelly little guys. Fitting considering their actual history

• Withdraw from melee attack once per turn if there is an open tile behind this unit
  
• Pillaging costs no movement. Deals 15 damage to any adjacent enemy units when pillaging improvements(Garland Mine)

Arabia should go Tradition into Artistry to maximize their great people generation. From their, it depends what victory they are aiming for. Industry for a culture game, and Rationalism for a science game

Opener: The extra population you need to hopefully pop out an early wonder or two

Justice: Extra production with which you can help get your infrastructure and wonders going quicker

Ceremony: A bit of happiness but more importantly a good amount of science.

Splendor: You're going to be generating more great people then pretty much anyone else, so this is a lot of culture

Sovereignty: Faster border growth and a bit of faith. Pretty nice

Majesty: You're likely to be working a ton of specialists especially in the capital, so this helps assure your capital is still growing.

Finisher: Even better yields for your capital, and also better yields on all the great person tile improvements you're almost certainly placing down

Opener: Faster GWAMs for more historic moments.

Refinement: You'll be working more then a fair few specialists. This makes it easier and more profitable

National Treasure: A free great person for a free historic moment. I'd recommend a great diplomat to help out a bit for the world congress

Humanism: Golden ages are good, getting them faster is good as well, especially for when you finish this tree

Heritage: A nice bit of tourism, especially good if you're going for that but not entirely unwelcome if not

Cultural Exchange: Nice bit of production and culture, plus some more tourism if that's your jam

Finisher: Arguably the biggest reason you went Artistry, some nice extra ways to get historic moments

Side tangent, but why not go Fealty or Statecraft instead of Artistry since both provide additional methods of getting historical moments? Fealty does somewhat synergize with Arabia's religious edge but internal trade giving historic moments isn't actually better then just doing international trade. Statecraft is a bit more tempting, sometimes it is easier to get city state trade going compared to trading with major civs. Still, Artistry gives way more bonuses to generating great people, which is actually going to give way more historic moments then any of the three unique ways of doing it.

Opener: Helps your gold go a good bit farther

Subsidies: A decent boost to your science and gold, can't complain

Mercantilism: The real reason you're here in industry. 2 trade routes is a massive deal

Division of Labor: A nice boost to culture and production, the latter of which Arabia definitely appreciates

Entrepreneurship: A good boost to the myriad of towns you've probably placed down

Gold Standard: Some better gold investing and a bit of extra gold and culture. Can't complain

Finisher: Can't complain about more happiness and better tile yields

Opener: Extra food is always welcome on Arabia, plus better scientist specialists is nice

Employment Law: Makes it even easier to work more specialists, exactly what Arabia wants

Liberalism: Better specialists, and more great people during golden ages. Literally what else could you ask for on Arabia?

Mass Education: Feel free to take this earlier if you have an opportunity to grab an expensive ahead of time tech and/or are ready to start building public schools en masse

Emancipation: Bit more food, plus some other yields, not bad

Secularism: All those academies you probably have are really gonna be amazing now

Finisher: Makes it a bit harder for spies to steal your stuff.

As a tall, great person centric civ, Freedom is a no brainer for Arabia, whether they're going culture or science

Avant Garde: More great people. Literally what else do you want as Arabia?

Civil Society: You're also working tons of specialists, so make them much easier to use. Some bonus food on top of it from around the empire

Economic Union: More trade routes means more historic moments which means more great people which means more historic moments which means...

Creative Expression(Culture): A nice extra bit of tourism and culture

Capitalism: Once again making your specialists easier and better to use.

New Deal: You've likely got a ton of both great person improvements and landmarks, so this makes them significantly better

Transnationalism(Culture): You're trading a ton so this gives you even more corporation offices to spread around.

Space Procurements(Science): Makes it so even your gold can contribute towards your spaceship. Should make it go much faster getting to the science victory

Media Culture(Culture): Just a bunch of tourism and culture to push you over the hump to victory

Containment(Culture): Might as well give yourself some extra delegates to make sure the congress can't easily screw you over

Terrain/resource specific pantheons are not listed here unless they have some other synergy with a civ's uniques, however they can often be a great choice if the terrain/resources you start with favors them

Goddess of Beauty: You're bound to build a fair few wonders early on, plus this is the earliest and easiest way to get extra great person points

God of Commerce: You're going to get lots of trade going early, so this gives some extra benefits to that, plus some more great person points

Goddess of Wisdom: Some extra science and faith if you're working early specialists, plus some great person points

Ceremonial Burial: You're making a ton of great people, get a ton of yields out of them it's the Arabian gameplay loop

Evangelism(Culture): A decent backup to Ceremonial Burial if you're going for culture, this can generate you a ton of tourism

Stupa(Culture): The best building for any cultural game

Mosques: A nice bit of culture to gain from your extra golden ages

Mastery: A lot of extra yields from all the specialists you probably have

Creativity: A nice bit of culture and a bit of faith too

Sacred Calendar: Mo' great people, mo' historic moments

Symbolism: A backup to Sacred Calendar, still gives a good amount of extra great people

Orthodoxy: Given all your trade, this should give a lot of passive pressure

To The Glory of God: See literally every bonus relating to great people for why this is good for Arabia

Divine Teachings(Science): The best reformation belief for any science civ, even lets you buy your Bimaristan in any cities that haven't been able to get around to it

Sacred Sites(Culture): The best reformation belief for any culture civ. Try to nab lots of follower buildings to compound the effects

Stonehenge: Bazaars can get you a fast religion but Arabia can still be slow to pantheon. This gets you early pantheon and a huge head start to a religion

Pyramids: Can be difficult to get alongside Stonehenge, but the synergy with your great people is hard to pass up

Petra: Extra trade route means more historic moments. Should be easy to get thanks to your start bias

Temple of Artemis: A good amount of extra food to support early specialists

Colossus: Another trade route, a bit harder to get then Petra for Arabia, but still a great one to grab

Nalanda: You're gonna be generating a lot of early writers, so this should be easy to get an early theming bonus from

Great Wall: All that wonder building and great people generation is gonna make you look like a juicy target. This makes invasion much less of a worry until renaissance

Hanging Gardens: Gives you the food you need to truly make a great capital

Oracle: Almost a full tech and policy worth of science and culture, how could you say no?

Great Library: Yes I'm aware I've named almost every wonder in the Classical, but they almost all hold good use for Arabia, how could you not want a free tech?

University of Sankore(Tradition Only): More yields from your great people, exactly what you want

Borobudur: Helps really get your religion going

Angkor Wat: A better religion along with a free great person (yes Great Prophets count)

Karlstejn: Either a reformation for you when you might not have gotten it otherwise, or denying it for someone else.

Leaning Tower of Pisa: Something something great people you know how it is

Himeji Castle: Should make it a lot easier to defend from potential invasion

Globe Theatre: More golden age points plus a free writer. Especially good for culture games

Uffizi A free artist plus a nice plus to store all the art you've presumably generated by now

Porcelain Tower: Your capital generates a ton of science, this multiplies it to an even great amount

Sistine Chapel: Porcelain Tower but culture, and empire wide

Louvre(Artistry Only): Two historic moments in one with a great artist and archeologist

Soho Foundry: Extra coal to hopefully get most if not all your cities with factories and coaling stations

Empire State Building: Something something specialist yields, something something free great person.

Statue of Liberty(Freedom Only): Even more specialist yields plus a free policy

Broadway(Industry Only): You can probably theme this wonder better then most, and this also gives a lot of culture.

Cristo Redentor(Culture): An incredible pick for any culture game

Bletchley Park(Rationalism Only): Spies messing with your stuff is no good, this makes it harder for them to do so.
CN Tower(Culture): Should be the final step you need to cinch out a culture victory, this giving a ton of tourism

Great Firewall: For a science game makes it almost impossible to effect one city with spies(probably your capital) and for a culture game if someone else builds this they could become near impossible to influence, so you need to take it so no one else can

Hubble Space Telescope(Science): A free great person, and a huge leg up on getting your spaceship going for a science game

CERN(Science): Two techs which should complete the tech tree, letting you get all the spaceship parts out at once

Arabia has a relatively straightforward gameplan, but that isn't to say there aren't some mistakes to be made

It may be tempting as Arabia to just entirely focus on building wonders and working specialists for more great people. You certainly do want to do those things, but you also need to be expanding your empire and actually building the infrastructure to allow you to build wonders and work specialists in the first place. It can be a tricky balance of how greedy you are running your cities, just don't go too overboard.
In the same breath, all those wonders and whatnot you're building can make you a juicy target, and you don't have any real military bonuses, even your UUs need to be built in the first place after all, so don't neglect an army.
Arabia certainly has a capital central focus, but they lack any real infrastructure bonuses, so in order to be able to both build all the wonders they want and work all the specialists, they will need at least a few strong cities.
Camel Archers into Hashemite Raiders can be a decently strong throughline for the Arabian army, but there is a reason that Arabia is the only civ with two unique units on the same line despite the Vox Populi devs generally stating they want to avoid that; Camel Archers and Hashemite Raiders just aren't that strong. Don't get me wrong they are effective enough especially when upgraded into another, but they aren't exactly a world conquering monster because of it. They can be the bulk of your army, but don't expect them to allow for easy world conquest. Just build what you need for defense/necessary war

Arabia has one of the best great person generations in the game, backed up by strong science and culture. But that's just about all Arabia really has going for them. Hurt them in any way not directly related to that and they'll have no real answer

Arabia can get a large amount of culture, science, and great people very easily if you let them. However, they have almost nothing to let them get that snowball rolling, and the three major ways they can do so can all be easily countered. Building wonders Arabia has no production bonuses to help with. If their capital in particular is a bad spawn, decently likely given the desert bias, Arabia is largely screwed, but even if they do have a solid start, if you have any solid production of your own you can easily steal wonders from them. Generating great people can be a bit more tricky to stop them doing, but the best thing you can do is to cut off Arabia from any good sources of food. If Arabia doesn't have food they can't work as many specialists and don't get as many great people outside of what their UA gives them. Finally trade routes. Just pillage them. Arabia doesn't have a particularly threatening military, so if you can send a decent force or better yet settle in between Arabia and their trading partners you can easily prevent them from finishing many trade routes. Later on a sanction will severely hamper their abilities.
Bazaars are what really allow Arabia to get their trade snowball going, but as stated above, it isn't too hard to stop that trade. Arabia will probably get a solid religion going due to the Bazaar, but in the long run while Arabia is all but guaranteed to get a religion it is otherwise fairly generic, and Arabia will get a strong or weak religion depending on other standard factors.
Bimaristans give Arabia decent amount of food and science, but it only really allows them to do better when they were already doing well. Disrupt their wanted loop of specialists and solid religion play and the Bimaristan isn't really going to be able to catch them up on its own
Camel Archers can be a major nuisance, but they lack the power themselves to really break through a strong army. Either refuse to engage Camel Archers near desert, only shooting them with range, or make sure you can engage with enough units to take them out before they can retreat to the desert. When not around desert, they are only barely better then a heavy skirmisher, albeit much more spamable
Hashemite Raiders are a slightly weird unit in that they can potentially have the strengths of 2 unique units. Keep everything in mind about Camel Archers, plus some additional notes. Do not chase down these units without proper support. Their withdraw from melee can easily leave your units out of position, but if Arabia isn't careful with their positioning, you can easily push a Hashemite Raider back into your own army. One of their strongest attributes however is the fact they come early. Given Arabia's solid science base you'll unlikely have units on the same tier as Hashemite Raiders when they first come out, so if you are being attacked, your best bet is to hunker down in cities and defensive terrain and try to pepper them down with ranged attacks. Again, easier said then done, but they should still be manageable, as on their own they still can't truly conquer.
Early Game Warmongers: Should be a breeze, Arabia this early has no military, infrastructure or gold bonus, and will likely have focused on wonder building, neglecting much of an army

Mid Game Warmongers: Camel Archers are annoying to fight, but Arabia will still likely have a small military. Just send an overwhelming force and there isn't much they can do.

Late Game Warmongers: Hashemite Raiders can prove a great threat especially on the right terrain. Attack from the sea or even better the air, and make sure any land force is mobile enough to support any unit that presses forward for an attack

Cultural Players: You're mere existence is a nightmare for Arabia, as while they want to build a ton of wonders, they lack the production to do so. Every cultural type wonder you take is one Arabia isn't getting

Scientific Players: Once again your big edge is in your infrastructure. Arabia may be able to keep up on science but will lose out on building crucial science wonders and in a competitive space race

Diplomatic Players: A sanction will absolutely cripple Arabia's tourism and historic moment potential. Getting other players to declare war on Arabia can also hinder them significantly

• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• Korea (Science)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination/Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Russia (Domination/Science)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Sweden (Domination/Diplomacy)