A general strategy for India (BNW)

Continuing my series of Civ V BNW strategies, I have just published a guide for a legacy civ that received minor updates: India. Please check it out at:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2014/11/05/Civ-V-India-strategy.aspx

I was hoping to release this strategy last month (around Oct 2) in honor of Bapu's birthday and the "International Day of Non-Violence", but I was delayed considerably.

As always, I appreciate any feedback, so please comment, share, or rate the post as you see fit. I also welcome any discussion about the strategy guide or India strategies in general in this forum topic.

Additional strategies for the BNW civilizations can be found at:
Assyria the tech thief
Brazil the jungle king
spicy Indonesia
Moroccan gatekeepers
Poland the progressive warhorse
Portual borrows luxuries
Land-snatching Shoshone
Blindly managing Venice
Beware Shaka's loincloth of DOOM!

Additional BNW strategies for updated legacy civs:
French tourist trap
Spreading faith with Arabian Ships of the Desert


I will also be posting a similar thread on the official 2k forums.

BTW, I really wanted to get a screenshot of a diplomacy screen with Gandhi saying "Our words are backed with nuclear weapons.", but I couldn't provoke him to say it. He just skipped the threat, declared war, and nuked me. If anyone has a screen of this, could you please post it for me? I would still love to include it in this article. Thanks!

I could have photoshopped it, but I didn't have a screen of any other leaders saying that threat either, and I prefer not to manipulate the images on the strategy unless it's to show multiple widgets or tooltips at the same time... :/

megabearsfan said:

BTW, I really wanted to get a screenshot of a diplomacy screen with Gandhi saying "Our words are backed with nuclear weapons.", but I couldn't provoke him to say it. He just skipped the threat, declared war, and nuked me. If anyone has a screen of this, could you please post it for me? I would still love to include it in this article. Thanks!

I could have photoshopped it, but I didn't have a screen of any other leaders saying that threat either, and I prefer not to manipulate the images on the strategy unless it's to show multiple widgets or tooltips at the same time... :/

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I'm not sure there is one in Civ V. I think you may have to go back to a Civ II screenshot for that exact text. Civ III was something about fearing whatever their most advanced unit was even if it was weaker than yours.

On the article:
Yes, the happiness chart is correct. I find it quicker to get past the bad portion by only self founding a few cities and having any later expansion be via conquest.

Even after the Holloween patch, I can't see Piety providing a bigger bonus than choosing some other tree.

Of the mentioned food pantheons, India is somewhat more likely to be able to use Sun God (Wheat) than Goddess of the Hunt (camps) with most camp resources being in forest. However even there, the civs with Jungle bias are more likely to get better use of Sun God (Citrus & Bananas)

On Petra, India actually has a grassland bias, which makes it less likely you'll be able to build it than as a random civ.

Civil Service is actually a high priority for every single civ, not just India, because it's on the way to Education.

Hum, India actually has less need of additional happiness tenets than most civs (by then every single one of your cities should be well past the cut off point)

The gifting of AI extra cities actually falls apart on higher difficulty levels due to the AI's happiness bonuses.

joncnunn said:

megabearsfan said:

BTW, I really wanted to get a screenshot of a diplomacy screen with Gandhi saying "Our words are backed with nuclear weapons.", but I couldn't provoke him to say it. He just skipped the threat, declared war, and nuked me. If anyone has a screen of this, could you please post it for me? I would still love to include it in this article. Thanks!

Click to expand...

I'm not sure there is one in Civ V. I think you may have to go back to a Civ II screenshot for that exact text. Civ III was something about fearing whatever their most advanced unit was even if it was weaker than yours.

Click to expand...

I've seen this threat from other leaders in Civ V; just never from Gandhi. I'm usually friendly with Gandhi in my games, so he's never hostile enough with me in the late game to want to threaten me.

joncnunn said:

The gifting of AI extra cities actually falls apart on higher difficulty levels due to the AI's happiness bonuses.

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True.

Something that I'm not sure about: can you gift cities to other players in MP without them having to accept the deal? I don't play enough MP to know if this would work against a human player or not. Though, it would certainly be a dick move if it does work...

Some thoughts:

If I was India, I would want to get as many cities going and growing as fast as I can, so I want to know how long its going to take me to get to size 6. I scanned through the article, but I didn’t see anything in there about how long it takes to get a new city to size 6. Instead I saw a lot of discussion about Happiness, but not from Faith I think all the +1 Happiness from religion must be good for them, so bring on Love Goddess and +1 from Shrines etc.

I think India has a lot of synergy with The Wheel and should consider a bee-line to that tech. You might want Pottery first depending, but I think you really want the +2F +1H from the Mill going in the cap to help you get to size 6 asap. So, I would like to see some charts about pop growth in new cities under varying conditions;

No extra food
A 3 food tile
A bought Granary and or Mill
A food caravan
etc

One strategy might also be a OCC to NC while you grow and make Elephants and save to 500 gold to buy the settlers. You can also attack with the Elephants to gain more cities. I think they are very underrated as a UU.

I didn't give specific turn times for growing cities to size 6 because that's so dependent on difficulty, game settings, and map. If you have deer, bananas, or wheat, then Granary is probably better than going to the Wheel (you get it sooner). But if you don't have any Granary resources, then I can maybe see going straight to the Wheel as being preferable. Of course, you'd also be sacrificing the ability to build an early Shrine...

Yeah, it can be a tough choice, but Pottery>Wheel isn't too bad. Then go to Philo.

That puts an archer and a caravan in play pretty early.

Also, it a grass land bias so opening play has to adjust to that.

budweiser said:

Some thoughts:

If I was India, I would want to get as many cities going and growing as fast as I can, so I want to know how long its going to take me to get to size 6. I scanned through the article, but I didn’t see anything in there about how long it takes to get a new city to size 6. Instead I saw a lot of discussion about Happiness, but not from Faith I think all the +1 Happiness from religion must be good for them, so bring on Love Goddess and +1 from Shrines etc.

I think India has a lot of synergy with The Wheel and should consider a bee-line to that tech. You might want Pottery first depending, but I think you really want the +2F +1H from the Mill going in the cap to help you get to size 6 asap. So, I would like to see some charts about pop growth in new cities under varying conditions;

No extra food
A 3 food tile
A bought Granary and or Mill
A food caravan
etc

One strategy might also be a OCC to NC while you grow and make Elephants and save to 500 gold to buy the settlers. You can also attack with the Elephants to gain more cities. I think they are very underrated as a UU.

Click to expand...

Cities already built: Yes, grow those as fast as possible.

However remember that default happiness before you plant any cities is 9 as India and so the moment you found the capital, you are at 3.

Going negative even temporarily will slow down getting the existing cities their happiness bonuses from reduced pop unhappiness.

The best happiness belief isn't the pantheon (or the founder either) but instead is the follower beliefs.
Pagoda if you have the faith output (and can beat the AI to it)
The one giving happiness bonus to the regular temple if you don't have the faith output.
There are a host of 1 per city that can be taken as a second follower in addition to one of the above, but if you go Monarchy it probably won't be needed.

Specific to India on Monarchy: The way it stacks with UA isn't addition (which would eliminate all pop unhappiness from the capital) but instead multiplication (every citizen in the capital produces 0.25 unhappiness)

Food cargo ships are 2X as effective as food caravans.

budweiser said:

Also, it a grass land bias so opening play has to adjust to that.

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Grassland start with a river is outstanding food (4 food in flat grassland with fresh water post CS)

It can however have lower hammers than most starts if there's few hills, which may make getting world wonders in general more difficult than when playing other civs.

^^CE? Civil service and engineering?

Here is a link to some charts and math about food and growth from the civ wiki.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Mathematics_of_Civilization_V

I will have to read it a few times before I figure out what it all means.

Cool read. I would just add that befriending mercantile CS are much more important than maritime at the start of the game.
Despite temptation to grow cities early - it is better to hesitate with much of growth, until you settled all cool/available/needed city spots.
Let's assume you settled 3 cities and grew them til size 8 = you have 30 unhappiness. That means you will need 35 happiness to found 4th city and avoid unhappy empire. In contrast, if you grew only 4 pop in each city = you need 29 happiness to found 4th city. Happiness is very limited resource at start, especially for India and 6 happiness matter a lot.
And you shouldn't care much at start about science as India - that will catch up very fast once Indian empire is shaped and defended, so at start work on production/commerce tiles instead of food - until you settled all cities you wish to have.

Nice article. My clear take-away is that I should not bad-mouth India so quickly! Also, Tradition >> Liberty for India even if going wide.

Per the chart, wide play does not pan out until you hit 6+ cities. Assuming (1) standard map settings, (2) play at a sufficiently challenging difficulty level, and (3) Tradition being a must for India: Is attempting to settle 6+ cities sensible? I conclude that the math supports a domination run for India, but not peaceful wide play. Am I correct about this?

beetle said:

Nice article. My clear take-away is that I should not bad-mouth India so quickly! Also, Tradition >> Liberty for India even if going wide.

Per the chart, wide play does not pan out until you hit 6+ cities. Assuming (1) standard map settings, (2) play at a sufficiently challenging difficulty level, and (3) Tradition being a must for India: Is attempting to settle 6+ cities sensible? I conclude that the math supports a domination run for India, but not peaceful wide play. Am I correct about this?

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Yes, and in fact I would stop at self founding at 4 cities at most, sometimes even 3 as India if happiness luxuries were really scarce early and I didn't have enough to pay for the 4th city until it would be an era late (and thus be a big money pit to prevent from delaying all national wonders) And I mean money pit in the cash buy everything or have to use a route that normally would be external and use as an internal route for that late city.
Conquered cities don't have this issue since you can leave them as puppets until a time in which they won't interfere with national wonder construction.

Thanks Megabearsfan! Really good read and spot on! I've been telling people for years that India is an amazing Civ to play once you understand how to play them. I find the same problem that most people do not like or play them because they do not really understand how they work. I recall watching Madjinns India LP where he stated he really didn't like them because he felt they were broken in that they only need 1 Lux per 2 citites compared to 3 Lux per 2 cities for any other Civ. In my mind I love them since they play this way and have a huge advantage in the long run!

I completely disagree with avoiding Cathedrals if you intend to bulb artists for Golden ages. That's a great work of art OR ARTIFACT slot. I don't think Cathedrals are any more or less valuable just because you're India.

The mughal fort adds 2 tourism as a castle. In larger empires, that tourism could really add up especially if you have flight.

reddishrecue said:

The mughal fort adds 2 tourism as a castle. In larger empires, that tourism could really add up especially if you have flight.

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You need flight to get the tourism at all from Mughal Fort. It's culture you get from turn 0 with it. Also, Hotels / Airports won't increased tourism bonus from the Mughal Fort, but National Vistor Center / Hosting the Olympics / Internet multipliers apply.

Right.. the mughal fort does get that 2 tourism after flight has been researched. Getting neuchwestein with India will make mughal forts that much better after flight has been researched. Adding religious buildings with sacred sites? I don't see why not.