Hi there, Civilization Amino! Welcome to the first of what I hope is many guides covering both vanilla and modded Civs in Civilization V. Civilization V is something I’ve put a ton of hours into, and I feel like I’m knowledgeable enough about the game at this point to know what I’m talking about.

We’ll start off with Ahmad al-Mansur’s Morocco.

Morocco is a Defensive-Economic Civ. By that I mean, their bonuses are focused on generating gold, but also have a lot of defensive-centric bonuses, and we’ll go over them later.

Before I go on, I want to talk about Start Biases and Tiers.

Using FilthyRobot’s Tier System from when he used to play Civ V, the Tier system for rating Civs goes like this:

- Tier 1: God-tier Civs, strongest in the game with consistent bonuses.

- Tier 2: Consistent and Strong bonuses, or situational and game changingly strong.

- Tier 3: Consistent and Mediocore bonuses, or situational and strong.

- Tier 4: Consistent bonuses, but weak or situational and mediocore.

- Tier 5: Bonuses are consistently inconsequential or situational and weak.

- Tier 6: Joke Tier Civs with no real bonuses that aid them, or actually detriment them in some way.

Start Biases are the type of terrain a Civ usually starts on. When a map is being randomly generated, that Civ has a high chance of being placed along that type of terrain. Russia, for example, is likely to start on Tundra - because they have a Tundra bias. Some Civs even have a bias to avoid certain terrain as well.

With those explained and out of the way - Morocco is a Tier 4 Civ. They just aren’t that strong for me overall, and we’ll explain why. They do have a Desert Start Bias though, and that gives the potential for a nice Petra capital city if you can get to it. Of course, Morocco doesn’t have any production or science bonuses to get to Petra, so you have to hope and pray for that - but it can be beneficial to Morocco if you’re able to get that.

UA: Gateway to Africa:

- Receives +3 Gold and +1 Culture for each Trade Route with a different Civ or City-State

- The Trade Route owners receive +2 Gold for each Trade Route sent to Morocco

The Gold and Culture bonus for this is decent at best, really. It does help early on, but the amount of Culture and Gold it gives you by the late game is almost irrelevant to the grand scheme of things - although it’s nice to have that rather than not. In SinglePlayer, you can really take advantage of this bonus, especially if you have a lot of City-States in close proximity. Overall, it doesn’t add up to much, but it is nice early in the game.

The second bonus is more of a multiplayer bonus. It is a benefit to you, but indirectly. When you’re in Multiplayer, other players will be more inclined to send Trade Routes to you because they want that extra Gold bonus. In SinglePlayer though, the AI doesn’t value that bonus as much - as in, I don’t think they’ll prefer you over other Civs specifically. They’re not really smart enough to know about that bonus in my experience.

UU: Berber Cavalry - Cavalry Replacement

(* indicates Morocco-exclusive bonus)

Production Cost: 225

Combat Strength: 34

Moves: 4

Tech: Military Science

Required Resource: Horses

Upgrades To: Landship

Promotions:

- Can Move After Attacking

- Penalty Attacking Cities (33)

- No Defensive Terrain Bonuses

- Homeland Guardian: +25% Bonus in combat in your territory*

- Desert Warrior: +50% Combat Strength when fighting in Desert tiles*

The Berber Cavalry are an okay unit replacement. Not bad, not great either. This is partly why Morocco is a defensive Civ. If your empire is based mostly in desert, these units can prove pretty useful for defense. The Homeland Guardian bonus is nice in general, ignoring the terrain. It’s really nice to have on Defense.

The bonus for fighting in Deserts can be quite nice, but it’s too out there - as in, it’s not easy to plan to defend your lands in Desert from the get-go. It’s just too dependant on the lands the game decides to give you to be totally consistent, but it’s a decent bonus when you do have Desert.

These are okay, but not great.

UI: Kasbah

Requires: Chivalry

Constructed On: Desert Tiles

Effects:

+1 Food

+1 Production

+1 Gold

Gives a 50% defensive bonus

The Kasbah is fairly good, and can be used in conjunction with the the Berber Cavalry to Morocco’s benefit. It doesn’t replace anything, and can be built on any Desert tiles in your territory. The problem with the yields of the Kasbah is that it’s not that beneficial on flat Desert tiles unless you have Petra. The yields of flat Desert are just better off being improved by Farms, Mines, or Trading Posts instead of Kasbahs, since they bring way more value than this thing does. On Desert Hills, though, Kasbahs are wonderful improvements, and you should build as many as you can on Hills. It plays into Morocco’s Gold and Defensive bonuses, and prove to be very good in defending against enemy attacks.

Ideology and Social Policy Choice

First, let’s go over the order of how you choose policy tracks in this game:

- At the beginning of the game, you usually want to go Tradition or Liberty for your first filled social tree. You’re just at too much of a detriment when you don’t pick one of these.

- Then you can get into a filler policy tree out of Honor, Piety, Patronage, Aesthetics, Commerce, and Exploration.

- Then you want to go Rationalism ASAP. Science-related bonuses in this game are extremely strong, and there’s no reason to avoid Rationalism.

- Finally, your Ideology choice - Freedom, Order, or Autocracy.

As Morocco, you definitely want to go Tradition. There’s not really much potential for Liberty in there. If you see a city spot(s) with desert hills you should definitely go for it, but you shouldn’t go for Liberty to get to it.

Out of the filler policy trees, Commerce would be best to help fuel your Trade Route gold bonuses. You could potentially do Piety if you grab Desert Folklore, since you can build up a very strong religion - but that’s situational.

When it comes to Ideology, Freedom would most likely be best for you. Some of the policies in Freedom you’ll want to potentially grab as Morocco:

- Economic Union: +3 Gold from each Trade Route with other Freedom Civilizations (This one is situational obviously, but is a nice bonus if you’re able to do it.)

- Space Procurements: May buy Spaceship Parts with Gold. (Hopefully by this point of the game, you’ve built up enough Gold to buy parts. This bonus can be quite useful in building to victory.)

Wrap-Up

Morocco just isn’t that consistent of a Civ in general, mostly because of their reliance on the terrain they’re given. They are a fan favorite apparently, though, and I can see why. It is fun to have a Civ that’s very centered around Desert specifically, where Desert is not a detriment. If you can get Petra, they can be very good as a Civ for sure. I’d recommend playing very passively with them, and going for a Technological Victory as I mentioned earlier.

And that’s it! Thanks for reading everyone! If you have a specific Civ you’d like me to cover next, let me know. If not, I’ll move on to the next in the list - Alexander of Greece.