India slightly better?

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Roxlimn

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I just played India using Tradition snagging the Hanging Gardens. It feels more powerful than before. The reason for this isn't because happiness is more prevalent. It was already that way in G&K and that relatively relaxed India's early game concerns.

No, the reason I found India a bit stronger in BNW is because of Food Caravans. As always, I stacked the growth stuff - as much as I could get - anywhere I could find it. Fertility Rites, Feed the World, Maritime CSs - you name it. But this time, I also got to add +8 more food per turn to the capital via Food Caravans. In the Medieval period, this goes up to +10, +12, and so on. It feels really strong. The excess happiness from large cities didn't feel superfluous.

Does this strategem, in fact, strengthen India in a meaningful way?

Note - early game plays 3-cities Caravan opening, modified. Send out Caravans from Delhi to start, send them back once the expansion cities have Granaries. Alternatively, build HG in Delhi, Granary in Mumbai (strong hammer site needed), and then send Caravans from the 2nd city to the capital and 3rd.
 
To only go for 3-4 cities, even for the AI, have also become more optimal and commonplace. A 3 city India won't have to go up against a 24 city Iroquis or Russia or, if they do, they will have a good tech lead.
 
At the end of the game, does it matter if capital is 31 pop or 34? I don't think so, so I don't go for every growth bonus I can find. So I do'nt take fertility rites because there are other usefull choices. And I don't rate Temple of Artemis for the same reason. I often have Trad growth bonus, and as you say, food ships to the capital does alot. So I use those too.

I don't think you need to go all out on this one aspect.
 
India has been slightly buffed by BNW, thats for sure. They're still far from a top tier civ but at least they're not bottom-of-the-barrel anymore. The ability to support earlier huge cities is ripe for amazing snowballing with the science boost and all.
 
King_Course said:
At the end of the game, does it matter if capital is 31 pop or 34? I don't think so, so I don't go for every growth bonus I can find. So I don't take fertility rites because there are other useful choices. And I don't rate Temple of Artemis for the same reason. I often have Trad growth bonus, and as you say, food ships to the capital does alot. So I use those too.

I don't think you need to go all out on this one aspect.
Click to expand...

The idea isn't to have the biggest city ever. The idea is to jump start growth in the cities so they get to a good size as fast as possible, especially in India's capital where population unhappy is 4:1 with Monarchy. Once the food gains start becoming marginal (typically past 20+), the food caravans go to the next city.

With all the growth stacking going on, I can get a city to size 31 in the mid game - mid-Medieval Era, I think. It gets to size 40+ near the end of the game (about turn 300ish).
 
Maybe the biggest buff for India was still Gods & Kings, when Tradition and War Elephants both got boosted, CS's became easier to ally due to more quests and Commercial CS's were introduced - an early alliance with a Commercial CS will compensate for India's unhappiness penalty.

With BNW the food from trade routes will obviously help, but the CS's have become more difficult to ally again, so I think it's a bit of plus and minus this time around.

In Vanilla India was pretty awful, although even then they could be phenomenal once you got past their tricky start.
 
For most of this I would tend to agree. But on the Hanging Gardens; in BNW (like the other wonders that require opening an ancient era policy) it's going to be game specific as to weather or not you can build it at high difficulty levels.

In my first game, almost none of the AIs opened Tradition first (they largely went for Piety in that one). In my current game, most of the AIs opened Tradition first and Hanging Gardens went quickly.
 
Optional said:
Maybe the biggest buff for India was still Gods & Kings, when Tradition and War Elephants both got boosted, CS's became easier to ally due to more quests and Commercial CS's were introduced - an early alliance with a Commercial CS will compensate for India's unhappiness penalty.

With BNW the food from trade routes will obviously help, but the CS's have become more difficult to ally again, so I think it's a bit of plus and minus this time around.

In Vanilla India was pretty awful, although even then they could be phenomenal once you got past their tricky start.
Click to expand...

Actually, I'd say G&K NERFED India by introducing easy-to-obtain-happiness, you didn't have to do anything for it anymore. This made India's bonus a lot worse then it was in Vanilla, surprisingly. That's not to say that India was particulary spectacular in Vanilla, they were just better in it then they were in G&K.
With BNW making it harder again to obtain oodles of happiness especially in the early-to-midgame, India became a bit better again. The slight buff on the Mughal Fort helps as well, as little as it is, it's still there. This combined with internal food trade routes makes India into a potentional gargantuan population-wise. Which in turn allows for some nice flexibility.
 
I'm not sure I understand you completely. Although I can see other civs can get a religion and with beliefs like Ceremonial Burial and Pagodas can grow like India and not get any happiness problems like India. So India may have lost some of its niche with Gods & Kings because of this.
But I'm not sure if that's what you mean, since you're not specifying which sources of happiness you're talking about. And if you're saying India became beter again in BNW because happiness became harder to obtain again in the early-to-midgame I'm not following you at all. Before India's towns reach an average of 6 citizens per settlement they suffer from a happiness penalty and any happiness boost would be a welcome relief for India, or not?
 
My own take on it is that while India's initial happiness issues were solved with G&K's additional happiness sources, their happiness advantage starting at 6 pop is blunted because there were limited ways in which to take advantage of the extra happiness. Even with a few Maritimes and all the food beliefs, the growth did not fill the happiness limit.

With BNW, that is no longer the case. Despite India's ridiculously high happiness limits past 6 pop, you can actually chase that down with enough TRs delivering enough food. You gain back some of the lost income through city connections and the remaining TRs your massive capital sends to other cities.

To put it succintly, Tabarnak's proposed Food Caravan Tradition opening can run into happiness issues for growth in the late early game, forcing the player to devote resources (usually religious beliefs) to control happiness. India can not only forgo those resources, it can actually turn around and use those same resources to boost growth further. It's really remarkable, especially on near-coast starts.
 
Their late game happiness is pretty nice. Even with being Influential vs. Exotic...still couldn't punch through their happiness wall. Started spamming settlers and handing out cities, after putting 4 (and India capturing a colony from Egypt), they were still at a nice 28 :c5happy:, so I gave up.
 
Yup, my capital had 40 pop before any other city on the map had more than 20. only used 2 land caravans for food at that (so it could have been much higher), and missed out on hanging gardens (so it could have been MUCH higher). Emperor difficulty. It got so bad that by the time I teched hospitals, it was pointless to actually get them as I'd almost filled all specialist/useable tile slots, was no longer sending caravans, and the natural growth would still cause me to cap out on pop well before the game ended.

India's grassland start is really what sells it. If you don't re-roll starts (lame tactic) and just play the game, having a guaranteed good growth start is pretty awesome.

The difference in BNW is that the rest of the civs slow down to India's natural expansion pace, so you don't actually fall behind significantly in the beginning due to your UA. This, combine with food routes, really lets India shine.
 
India is surprisingly decent. I have an ongoing game right now and i never had to worry about unhappiness or growth management. With other Civs, sometimes i have to manually prevent myself from growing to avoid incurring unhappiness. India? No such problem.
Plus the food caravans/ship are a fantastic boon for them. I have 3 tall cities in the 20+ pop range.

Piety if you can get it early is good for them. I got Fertility rites,Artemis, HG and the 15% food growth when not at war belief. Never have been so happy to see my empire grow:)
 
King_Course said:
At the end of the game, does it matter if capital is 31 pop or 34? I don't think so, so I don't go for every growth bonus I can find. So I do'nt take fertility rites because there are other usefull choices. And I don't rate Temple of Artemis for the same reason. I often have Trad growth bonus, and as you say, food ships to the capital does alot. So I use those too.

I don't think you need to go all out on this one aspect.
Click to expand...

No but if you play the entire game 2-3 pop behind your potential --- 12 instead of 15 ; 17 instead of 20 ; 29 instead of 32 over hundreds of turns, it's going to make a difference.
 
I disliked playing India prior to BNW, but just played a game and loved it...being able to fill the extra slots for GWAM guilds without worrying about sacrificing science/production all in one city, and never sweating the happiness.
 
Ok, I was the one advocating India needs buff in BNW. After playing it I could tell for sure, India got the buff :)
 
I love India, I have no idea why anyone would consider it weak. (In fact it was the first Civ that I wanted to replay with and did it several times) Playing for 40+ pop cities is a game of its own. I really love having a 54+ capitol with all specialists and tiles worked. The cumulative bonuses tend to get incredible.

And yes, with the caravans and locked Hanging Gardens India should be considerably stronger than before.
 
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