Arthur (Civ6)

Arthur is a Hero in Civilization VI. He is exclusive to the Heroes & Legends game mode, introduced in the Babylon Pack.
* Attributes:
** Has 4 Charges.
** Counts as a heavy cavalry unit.
** Cannot earn experience or s.
** Does not end his turn after using his active ability.
* Abilities:
** Arthur's Accolade: Target an adjacent land military unit you control. Arthur transforms the unit into a Questing Knight: a unique heavy cavalry unit with increased Combat Strength and 12 Lifespan. Costs 1 Charge and 1 .
== Strategy ==
Like all Hero units, Arthur's Strength increases with the progression of the eras, as shown in the table below.
Era 	Combat Strength
Classical 	50
Medieval 	64
Renaissance	72
Industrial 	80
Modern 	94
Atomic 	108
Information	120
Future 	132
Arthur is a Hero designed for one thing only: rushing an enemy civilization within a very limited time frame. Among the twelve Heroes, he is the one with the fewest "tricks" up his sleeve; his only ability transforms an adjacent unit into a Questing Knight, a unique heavy cavalry unit with a limited Lifespan. The Combat Strength of a Questing Knight depends on the current game era, regardless of the original unit, so it is actually beneficial to knight obsolete units instead of advanced ones. Right after being knighted, the Questing Knight is able to move and attack in the same turn, even when the original unit has already done so. Arthur has 4 Charges, which can result in a small army of 4 Questing Knights. However, a huge downside of this ability is that a Questing Knight only exists for 12 turns and dies without turning back into the original unit afterward. Every time you use Arthur's Accolade on a unit, you only improve its Combat Strength for 12 turns and then condemn it to death. The later it is into the game, the higher the cost of this ability is, since you have to turn more and more expensive units into Questing Knights. Moreover, since the Questing Knight's Combat Strength depends on the current World Era, Questing Knights are underwhelming if you are very technologically advanced and able to unlock units way ahead of their respective eras. Its Combat Strength starts at 34 in the Ancient Era and scales upward roughly 10 more Combat Strength per era, so it is only as strong as a unit of the era immediately after. If your enemies have slightly above average , the Questing Knight is by no means unstoppable. And if you are so ahead of your opponents in terms of , you will win with your advanced units anyway, making it pointless to recruit Arthur. 
Arthur is an extremely strong early game focused unit for domination-focused civs who is good (and exceptional with Basil II) at snowballing early game where the most difficult part of many games is conquering the first enemy civ and getting caught up. On higher difficulties, the AI is not smarter, it merely has a huge starting advantage over the player and as soon as the player equalizes, the game is essentially over. Arthur is one of the best ways to equalize with the AI. He boasts the highest Combat Strength in the game for many of the eras you can recruit him in and his 5 movement far more than doubles the extremely common 2 movement units of the ancient era. Between the high stats and absurd movement for the era, Arthur can feel like playing a Modern Era tank army in the Ancient era and not many civs can stand up to a bunch of 4/5 movement cavalry units even well into the Information era. Especially on higher difficulty settings like Deity where the AI starts with a sizeable tech, unit and production advantage over the player, Arthur is one of the best ways to begin conquering enemy civs without committing massive amounts of resources into building an army of heavy chariots or warriors.
While Questing Knights only lasting 12 turns is less than ideal, if you are able to capture a city with it then it is easily worth it. A city at the absolute minimum takes 1 settler to build so sacrificing a scout for a settler will always be a good deal. With a leader like Basil II who can ignore walls, 12 turns is often enough to conquer an entire early game civilization. Trading long term resources such as a scout for short term power spikes is a viable strategy (sometimes overpowered) if it provides a way to jump start your progression such as commonly seen with Magnus chops. One strategy with Arthur is to buy 120 gold scouts and then turn them into Questing Knights to immediately bolster your front line. Not only does this get your army out faster than producing a bunch of 65 production heavy chariots, it also lets your cities focus on improvements instead of building an early game army for a smoother transition into the Classical and Medieval eras. Especially in early game wars, every turn matters because as soon as walls start going up, conquering slows dramatically.
Despite having the highest base Combat Strength himself (rivaling that of Hercules), Arthur's bag of tricks is a lot less diverse and useful than his counterparts, making him generally on the weaker side of the Hero spectrum. He's definitely not on the power of level of Hercules, Sinbad, or Himiko, whose generalist abilities can lend themselves to all victory conditions and are coveted by all civilizations. However, there are a few leaders and civilizations that love summoning Arthur if they happen to discover him. The best leader for Arthur is undoubtedly Basil II of Byzantium, whose cavalry units are a menace since they can deal full damage to walls and cities. You can also try to use Arthur's ability on levied units; Questing Knights can traverse rough terrain a lot faster, and you don't lose any invested when the Questing Knights go away. Therefore, Sumeria or Matthias Corvinus may find Arthur helpful (although when it comes to city-states and levying, Arthur cannot compete with Himiko if she is also discovered). To a lesser extent, Simón Bolívar and Genghis Khan may also find some use for Arthur, since cavalry units under these two leaders are faster and stronger, although 1 extra and 3 extra Combat Strength don't warrant picking Arthur every single game when you play as Gran Colombia or Mongolia. Overall, for every other domination-oriented civilization except Byzantium, unless you are unlucky with the discovery of Heroes, there are better Hero choices than Arthur.
=== Bugs ===
As of v1.0.8.4, Arthur can use his ability on naval, air, civilian, and support units (including Aircraft Carriers, , Himiko, and Sinbad). If a non-military unit occupies the same tile as a military unit and Arthur uses his ability on that tile, the non-military unit may be knighted instead of the military unit (depends on the sequence of stacking). However, Arthur cannot knight non-military units when they're standing on their own.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Trivia ==
* Arthur's Civilopedia entry references Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a British comedy film based on the Arthur stories. When preparing to use the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch against the Rabbit of Caerbannog, Arthur counts "One... two... five!" before being corrected by Sir Galahad.
* Arthur's Heroic Relic is a reference to the Holy Grail.
== Gallery ==
File:Civ6 Questing Knight In-Game.jpg|Arthur and a Questing Knight in game
== See also ==
* Arthur in other games
Category:Units (New Frontier Pass)
Category:Heroes & Legends (Civ6)