The Sufi Mosque is a native Asian religious settlement featured in Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties. Like all natives, they can be allied with by building a Trading Post or Tambo at their Trading Post site.
Unit[]
Qizilbash: Heavy Turkoman cavalry armed with lance and bow. Good against infantry.
Technologies[]
| Age | Technology | Cost | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
 Pilgrimage
|
250 food 250 coin |
Delivers 1 Fattened Goat for every 2 minutes of game time, up to 30 minutes |
 Fasting
|
200 wood 200 coin |
Villager hit points -40%; villager, fishing boat, and Abun gather work rate +10%; Hacienda auto gather work rate for food and coin +10% | |
 Sharia
|
100 food 100 coin |
Settler, Villager, and Hindu Villager train limit +10; Coureur des Bois train limit +8 |
Strategy[]
All Sufi technologies are economic.
Fasting gives villagers and fishing boats +10% gather rate, but villagers have -40% hit points. This is most useful in the late game if the player has strong defenses.
Sharia increases the villager train limit. This is especially useful for the French, Japanese, and Dutch, who have lower villager limits than other civilizations. It is also generally helpful, as the maximum villager train limit is noticeably lower than optimum, especially before all technologies are researched.
Finally, Pilgrimage provides 1 Fattened Goat (carrying 300 food) for every 2 minutes that has passed, up to 30 minutes (for a maximum of 15 Fattened Goats with 4,500 food). Generally, this is most useful to delay an expensive transition to Mills. Pilgrimage is especially useful for civilizations like the Chinese, British, Indians, Japanese, Hausa, and Ethiopians, who care more about livestock.
Militarily, it provides the Qizilbash. This is a heavy cavalry unit (it is especially important the player does not mistake it for light cavalry) and a lance cavalry with 2x bonus damage against infantry in melee combat. It has a decent ranged attack without bonus damage (especially important versus villagers). It is useful for all the things the player would usually use heavy cavalry for, especially countering light infantry.
Switching between the Quzilbash's ranged attack and hand attack modes depending on the situation will make the most use of it, as they are both very important for the unit. It is tagged as hand cavalry, so benefits from upgrades which affect them. Its hand attack has a small range of 3.75, especially useful versus artillery.
Overall, the Sufi Mosque is the strongest at around 30 minutes of game time, due to Pilgrimage.
Trivia[]
- All 3 technologies of the Sufi Mosque reference religion.
- The Sufi Mosque resembles the Shrine of Ali mosque and overall it appears to be based on the architecture of Shiite mosques.
- In the Sufi Mosque an elderly figure which looks similar to the Brahmin can be seen, although there is no correlation between them.
History[]
| “ | This Holy Site is identical to a Native Trade Site. Allying with Natives allows a player to train special Native units, usually warriors, and also grants access to a group of improvements to that tribe. Native units do not cost any population spaces, but can only be built in limited numbers. The word "sufi" first appeared in the 8th century and is considered to be a reference to the coarse wool garments worn by spiritual men who sought lives of spiritual harmony, free from bodily pleasure and in harmony with nature. The word "sufism" was first used in the 9th century, and became a blanket term for a variety of different forms of Islamic mysticism incorporating such disparate elements as Christian monasticism, gnosticism, and Indian mysticism. Because Sufism encompasses a number of belief systems, its origins can be linked to a wide range of geographic regions and periods. However, many consider Sufism to have begun with the practice of Shiite Muslims in the 7th century in what is now Iraq, although others claim that Sufism predates Islam and simply used the other religion as a vehicle for its teachings. Throughout its long history, Sufism has been criticized for its mystical elements. While it has made significant contributions to the spread of Islam and the development of Islamic culture, conservative Muslims still disagree with its abundance of non-Islamic customs. |
” |
Gallery[]
