Well, Vortix just made a tier list and puts Abbasid in Bottom D.
Tier list Sept 2025 Vortix|690x415
In 1v1, in short, I’d say the problem is that they lack incentives to fight in the Feudal Age. Their “Camel Archer” costs too much and is very slow; it’s a better Castle unit than a Feudal unit. Aside from that, the Military Wing, giving more HP to Spearmen and Archers in Feudal Age, isn’t enough.
Overall, I’d say the real problem started in 2021:
1) Limited Unique Units
When the game was created, many civs had a limit of “3 unique or early units” as a maximum.
And the Abbasids, their third unique unit was the Imam, and it had nothing unique except its name, since “It was neither a monk nor a scholar.”
Let’s discuss each unique unit separately.
Iman: Proselytism doesn’t work as intended
Regarding the Iman, it was thought that the “Proselytism” ability would make it special, recalling the monk conversion in AoE2. The problem: It was an Imperial Age (IV) ability, and it’s too difficult to mimic this ability in Post-Imperial, when armies are huge. If it had been available since the Feudal Age, it would be a different story.
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In fact, in AoE2, the monk conversion worked because at that time the unit limit in vanilla was 75 max population. It’s worth considering that initially, civs only had 40 or 30 soldiers, so converting one unit with monks behind walls was actually “profitable.”
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In Conquerors, it went up to 125 MAX, and in DE it’s already larger (200, 400), which, by increasing the number of “trash units” like Hussars to insane levels, made any attempt to use monks for mass conversions quite bad, first because they cost a lot of gold, and gold, unlike in AoE4, is even more scarce in AoE2.
There’s another problem with proselytism. Technically, Christianity was a proselytizing religion long before Muslims themselves (600 years earlier), but the fact that the Abbasids only got the technology in Imperial, and “only them,” I feel was unfair and a historical misrepresentation, just because they didn’t come up with more abilities for Iman. It’s actually thanks to this technology that it’s an unpopular mechanic, and many people haven’t criticized it because they didn’t even get around to developing it in Post Imperial.
Camels
The other two units were camels. In fact, the civ has “Camels” as one of its keywords.
The problem is that, historically, camels were part of the Abbasid army and the early Islamic conquests of the Umayyads, but they weren’t the key element in all of them, nor were they as hyped as the game makes them out to be. They were more of a support unit than anything else.
In fact, they worked well as support, but therein lies the problem:
"Most unique units from other civs weren’t support units, but rather an addition to the civ’s war power (Royal Knight, Longbowman, Streltsy).
For this very reason, the Camel Archer was “slow” to produce, but very strong, and you weren’t expected to mass-produce so many of them.
The Camel Rider is good against knights, but so weak against everything else that if the enemy has archers or spearmen in addition to knights, the Camel Riders are horribly underpowered. On top of that, they cost too much for their low role.
2) House of Wisdom of Season Zero (0) and S1 reveal many “Issues”
When they started, the Abbasids had a lot of problems in the Feudal Age, especially because unlike other civs, which had Defensive Buildings (China) or increases in military unit production (French, English), the Abbasids only acquired “1 unique technology” in the Feudal Age.
I feel like the idea is that if you let them advance to Imperial, the Abbasids would become too powerful, but this is compounded by the fact that in Feudal, it made them “terribly weak”.
And that’s despite the fact that in the early days, the Military Wing didn’t give you free troops, the Trade Wing didn’t give you merchants, and the Economic Wind only gave you Fresh Fodstuff, which gave you cheap villagers. Was that all?
3) House of Wisdom now S11
We currently have a House of Wisdom with more balanced technologies… but for Castle Age!!!
Because in Feudal, the only bonus that works is the Economic Wing for 2TC. The rest simply don’t work properly or aren’t as effective:
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Why do I want a Military Wing in Feudal, if my troops still cost the same and take the same amount of time to produce, and they only get an HP bonus?
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Why do I want a Trade Wing in Feudal, if the Economic Wing with 2TC is better, with cheap villagers?
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What good is a Culture Wing in Feudal, if the technologies that supposedly “work” I get in Castle Age?
Honestly, I think many of the Abbasid technologies are good, but “They’re not enough” for the aggression you can suffer in the Feudal and early Castle Ages.
4 Historicity and Age Advancement.
At least historically, the Abbasids are supposed to have created an empire “faster” than the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and the HRE itself, between 750 and 900 AD.
The fact that they have problems in the Feudal Age with the “Raids” part is not good at all.
The Byzantines, for example, they can raid Feudal age (II) without any problems, with their limitaneis and ultrapowerful Cheirosiphon, and increased military unit production
5 Discussion
Apparently, for 3v3 or 4v4 team play, EcoWing + 2TC or 3TC is efficient, if you know your allies are going to defend you.
But for 1v1, Beasty, Vortix, and Marinelord already said: They’re not good.
Now, I have “several” suggestions, quite a few, and they wouldn’t fit into this single thread, so I’ll leave that for another post.
’y this Abbasid civ has been in the past, and ever since it got nerfed I felt happy it’s win rates were in the mud…
