Indians, What are they good at?

Prof. Platypus

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Hi, I'm weird in the way I don't chose what victory i want before choosing a civ, i choose a civ and THEN choose a victory that suits them best. I've won a game on most civs and now it's time to do the Indians. I've done the math and it seems that the double unhappiness from cities overshadows the happiness gained from halve unhappiness from population, i may be wrong though, I've never played as them. But what victory could suit this seemingly awful civ.
:D
 
I played them once. Was only on emperor, I think in vanilla jut before g+k. Prioritized settling horses and ivory, never had to build a coliseum.
 
Yeah, alot of people say india sucks, but i think many of them have never played them. Their start bias is great too, as plains and desert I don't like. Desert capitals are great, but the surrounding land is usually trash. Also, it frees me of the disappointment of losing petra and desert folklore to an AI.
 
Prof. since nobody choose to actually answer your question yet I would say the super tall cities lend themselves well to a science victory. Focus on getting the population as high as you can and really use those specialists. Domination is obviously going to be a no go and culture really favors wide civs with BNW so it depends what version of the game you're on. Pre-BNW I would say culture is doable. Diplomatic isn't much of a win (sadly since I love diplomacy) but it is of course doable and a smaller empire would actually probably benefit AI relations.
 
india is for a science game, in bnw, you must settle 3 cities asap, all on coastline, look for fish heavy city spots. Then try to get 6 cargoship and all sending food to the other cities. Once you have 2 more TR, you can found another city if you have a potential lands left. Collosus is a target wonder, as so does hanging garden, but collosus is ultra important.
 
actually India is good for semi-wide strategy, the catch is that you have to have at least 6 happiness per city first. once happiness buildings are up, you'll have more than enough smiles to place new cities. also mughal forts are best for wide, with the extra culture and gold. India is good on late game, really.

edit: with monarchy policy, the capital generate NO unhappiness!
 
IIRC there's an achievement for getting a specific victory with India without ever having more than 3 cities. You could do that.

its the Bollywood achievement.
My son and I where looking at my achievements yesterday, and we noticed I did not have the Bollywood, the win on Warlord, and the win as India achievement (seems I have not played him since I uninstalled all my mods). So I OCC'd a 287 turn CV and picked up the 100 happiness achievement too. I just wonder whored my way through the whole game, never even made into the atomic era before I won.

So India is good for achievement farming lol
 
edit: with monarchy policy, the capital generate NO unhappiness!

False: bears, beats, battlestar galactica. They generate 1/4 unhappy per person, meaning you get back less happy per pop in the capital. So from the happy perspective, monarchy is weaker for india, but the gold aspect of it is stronger since you will never be unhappy and stop growing.

Ignore these fools who speak of coastal cities and food ships, india needs the maximum number of workable tiles in her cities' radiae. If coastal is what you have to work with, work with it. You need gpt routes so you can afford to buy luxes to trigger we love the king in the capital. I'll also point out that monarchy gold is added to your capital city tile yield, meaning it dramatically increases the value of external trade routes.
 
India is awful for a tall empire. Tall empires only need happiness in the very beginning when they are trying to quickly expand. Expanding in the early game when your happiness is limited is what India happens to be worse at than every other civ in the game.

The strength of India is that they cheat the global happiness system, allowing your Circuses and Coliseums to contribute more happiness than the required population contributes unhappiness. This makes India good as a wide empire, since the circuses in your initial cities can help cover the penalty for the later ones. You can't really get the expansion going until the midgame though, which makes India worse at going wide than the civs that were intended for it rather than being good due to poor game design.

At least its not Indonesia!
 
I haven't tried them in BNW but they used to be good as wide mid game. I want to say 6 pop city is where they start giving less unhappiness than a regular civ. Those first cities are painful but they get easier after initial shock. I've heard late game dom is easier to keep larger cities but that was vanilla. UU is pretty powerful but bad promos for upgrade path (chariot archer).
 
Yeah, alot of people say india sucks, but i think many of them have never played them. Their start bias is great too, as plains and desert I don't like. Desert capitals are great, but the surrounding land is usually trash. Also, it frees me of the disappointment of losing petra and desert folklore to an AI.
I won't be playing with start bias.
 
Ignore these fools who speak of coastal cities and food ships, india needs the maximum number of workable tiles in her cities' radiae. If coastal is what you have to work with, work with it. You need gpt routes so you can afford to buy luxes to trigger we love the king in the capital. I'll also point out that monarchy gold is added to your capital city tile yield, meaning it dramatically increases the value of external trade routes.

first, please don't call anyone a fool, especially since you haven't play india since BNW.
And, i have proof that my india game went to 480 bpt by turn 200 using my strategy. A standard benchmark on immortal game.
 
Do a religion that would help growth, make 4 large pop cities, go Tradition obviously. I played a game as India once, I had 4 cities, an extra -12 happiness from the cities, I had a population of 60-70 upon entering the modern, I saved a lot of happiness. Not to mention I was making over 360 science a turn :)
 
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