More India civs

I brought this up in the suggestions, but I think there should be some more discussion of this openly. I think the Maratha rebirth should be a playable Civ in the manner of Iran and Mexico, and maybe there should be one more civ. For that, I suggested the Malwa, but it was shot down as being too small. Anyone have any suggestions, as well as for UU, UP, and UBs?

More? One of them, India proper, ends up marginalized anyway, which means that we really don't need more unless we use the Rome/Italy mechanics for them.

That might make sense, actually. I don't know what goals they would have for a modern India, though. Maybe largest city again. Maybe build Hollywood?

Lone Wolf said:

More? One of them, India proper, ends up marginalized anyway, which means that we really don't need more unless we use the Rome/Italy mechanics for them.

Click to expand...

THIS. I will never understand why Leoreth decided to add a bazillion new civs to India. Yes, it has ample food. Yes, it is usually empty in the 600AD scenario. Does this warrant adding two new "Indian" civs in ADDITION to the already existing India? What for? In vanilla RFC, "India" represented whatever civ would have made sense at the time, and now it hardly appears at all. Here's how it could have turned out:

India controls everything - Mauryan Empire, Republic of India, etc
India controls the south - Marathas, Chola, etc
Muslim India in the north - Delhi Sultanate
Muslim India controls everything - Mughal Empire
India as a vassal of England - British Raj

That's all you have to do. The fact that Leo added in all new dynamic names would make it even easier. But no, instead he threw in two other civs PLUS all of the trading company civs, making controlling India as ANY civ (including India) a useless proposition, because it's virtually guaranteed that even if you beef up your defenses you'll lose half of your cities to a respawn anyway. If anything, it would have made sense to have the Indians respawn as "The Mughals" with gunpowder and a bunch of Islamic missionaries, similar to the scripted Italian and Iranian respawn. Then they could tango with the trading companies. This would have achieved the desired effect without gumming up the game and making it run slower than it already does by pointlessly introducing two new civ slots.

In any event, more determinism and brute-forced Indian civs is NOT the answer.

EDIT: For comparison, just imagine if China had to deal with "The Manchus" and "Nanzhao" in addition to the Mongols.

India proper would get resurrected (like Iran or Mexico) into Marathas. Because TC is possibly getting moved to Rifling, that would not make it so India's techs are just taken. India is supposed to be a subcontinent, and at the moment, there are rarely more than two Indian civs there at a time. Iberia fits three civs at once on a 33 tile peninsula, while India only has two at a time on a 59 tile subcontinent. A third civ could easily be fit, and even a fourth one wouldn't need too much effort. Malwa could have a conditional spawn around 500 AD, but a different civ would probably be better.

Moshe Dayan said:

EDIT: For comparison, just imagine if China had to deal with "The Manchus" and "Nanzhao" in addition to the Mongols.

Click to expand...

There is no comparison at all.

23% of the current population of India speak Dravidian languages. Out of the 1.5 billion people in China, less than 100 (yes, one hundred) speak the Manchu language, and less than 0.1% speak the Bai language. Pakistan and Bangladesh remain linguistically, culturally and religiously distinct from India, with comparable population sizes and international influence. China in all these respects is monolithic.

The Mughals and the Tamils represented some of the greatest (some would say the Mughals are the greatest) heights of civilization in South Asia and left an indelible mark on it. The Manchus and Nanzhao contributed very little to civilization in East Asia by comparison.

If you are going to compare the Mughals and Tamils to anything, you should compare them to Tibet and Korea, which have already been added by Leoreth as extra civs to the game. If you say Mughals and Tamils do not deserve to be full civs, then I say surely Korea and Tibet deserve to be nothing more than single Independent cities waiting to be conquered by China and Japan.

Inb4bnorthandsouthkoreashouldsplit

In addition, the Tamils were independent of north Indian rule for the entire history of South Asia until the modern, post-colonial era. Even at their peak, the Mauryas, Guptas, Palas and all of the other great empires of northern India never conquered the Tamils. Nor did the Mughals manage to do so as non-native north Indian conquerors.

That's quite different from the history of minor satellites of China like Nanzhao or the Manchus. Both of those have long been peripheral to and subsumed into Chinese domains, and also existed for only a few centuries at most as notable civilizations (while the peak of the Tamils runs from about 400 BCE to 1400 CE, nearly two millenia).

As for the Mughals, Mughal India was a clear and dramatic transformation from the early, Hindu-ruled empires that had a distinct cultural history. Calling them the same as the Hindu empires that came before would be a bit like calling the Byzantine and Ottoman empires the same civilization simply because they ruled more or less the same territory. (We won't get into debates over the modern distinctiveness of Pakistan and Bangladesh from India--suffice to say that it is of modern manufacture, but that Pakistan and Bangladesh owe very little of their cultural heritage other than religion to the Mughals anyway).

In general, India has had a far more disunited history than China, and it is appropriate that this be reflected in the game with the presence of multiple civilizations in India.

There are a handful of potential other India-based civilizations that could be included, including a more complete version of the Marathas (morphing into modern India, I guess... that's not terribly satisfactory, though), a Vijayanagaran civilization perhaps as a respawn of the Tamils, and the Indus Valley civilization. But I'm not sure if many/most/any of those are worthwhile.

I'm thinking about how many tiles there are in China or even Siberia...

We don't need more Indian civs.

In fact, I'm of the opinion that after we get all the decol civs out of the way,
the priority should be to make extraneous civilizations conditional.

Moshe Dayan said:

THIS. I will never understand why Leoreth decided to add a bazillion new civs to India. Yes, it has ample food. Yes, it is usually empty in the 600AD scenario. Does this warrant adding two new "Indian" civs in ADDITION to the already existing India? What for? In vanilla RFC, "India" represented whatever civ would have made sense at the time, and now it hardly appears at all. Here's how it could have turned out:

India controls everything - Mauryan Empire, Republic of India, etc
India controls the south - Marathas, Chola, etc
Muslim India in the north - Delhi Sultanate
Muslim India controls everything - Mughal Empire
India as a vassal of England - British Raj

That's all you have to do. The fact that Leo added in all new dynamic names would make it even easier. But no, instead he threw in two other civs PLUS all of the trading company civs, making controlling India as ANY civ (including India) a useless proposition, because it's virtually guaranteed that even if you beef up your defenses you'll lose half of your cities to a respawn anyway. If anything, it would have made sense to have the Indians respawn as "The Mughals" with gunpowder and a bunch of Islamic missionaries, similar to the scripted Italian and Iranian respawn. Then they could tango with the trading companies. This would have achieved the desired effect without gumming up the game and making it run slower than it already does by pointlessly introducing two new civ slots.

In any event, more determinism and brute-forced Indian civs is NOT the answer.

EDIT: For comparison, just imagine if China had to deal with "The Manchus" and "Nanzhao" in addition to the Mongols.

Click to expand...

Delhi/Mughals are culturally distinct from India and Dravidians, that path also blocks the representation of major chunks of Indian history.

I'd like to point out that Dravidians at their peak controlled 7 cities in game terms for a while at their peak which is more than:
Babylon
Egypt
Phoenicians
Ethiopians
Koreans
Maya
Aztecs
Inca
Safavids
Argentina
Tibetans
Moors
Mandinka
Italians

PS, Spanish is more closely related to Hindi than Tamil is, additionally Tamil has a very strong cultural and literary tradition.

1) This is about civilization, not kingdom or even state.
2) Malwa is a state, so does the Bahmani, Rajputs etc that's in SoI
(I presume it's from SoI you learnt about Malwa? )
3) Maratha can respawn. It's already coded in Const.py
4) Again, Portugal & Spain are supposed to kill the Moors and Portugal should only have 1 city (Lisbon) in Iberia.. which is only 6 tile... unless you built Porto and Faro as well which is crappy.

What I mean is a new civ with its own UP, UU, UB, and UHV that is in the turn slot of the old civ.

Also, 100th post! Party!!!!!

I feel so noob next to everyone with several thousand posts.

China works because Tibet/Korea/etc aren't all vying for the same territory, although you could make the case that the Mongols ARE China's version of trading company civs (I can't recall if Portugal gets TC conquerors in Macau). Same with Iberia, although we'd be kidding ourselves if we pretend that doesn't get crowded too (seven cities in Iberia...yuck).

I agree that representing unique cultures is important and worthwhile in this mod, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Having an Israeli or Armenian civ would be amazing, but there's no reason to cram more civs into an already-crowded Middle East. That's why it made sense to give Babylon an Assyrian dynamic name with its capital in the north, even though the two cultures are distinct from one another. As incredible as it would be to include a level of detail on par with SoI for example, gameplay must be considered as well, and IMO having too many civs crowding India, while certainly historical, can make playing as any Indian civ needlessly difficult.

I don't see how India is crowded currently with three native civs, one of which doesn't even appear in the 600 AD scenario.

What I can understand is that the transition from Mughal-controlled India over European-controlled India to a dominating Hindi state doesn't work right. The Marathas are currently too weak, and maybe it's better to make a modern India respawn that covers a larger area.

THIS. I will never understand why Leoreth decided to add a bazillion new civs to India. Yes, it has ample food. Yes, it is usually empty in the 600AD scenario. Does this warrant adding two new "Indian" civs in ADDITION to the already existing India? What for?

Click to expand...

I think that the North-South distinction in India is important and interesting enough to warrant the Tamils. Large Indian empires controlled the South only barely and for a relatively small amount of time. I do think that the Mughals can be removed without losing anything.

I don't see how India is crowded currently with three native civs, one of which doesn't even appear in the 600 AD scenario.

Click to expand...

India proper always ends up marginalized, which is quite weird (and leads to weird dynamic names, like something which is clearly the British Raj being called "Dominion of Pakistan" or, in rare cases "of the Tamils").

As for the Mughals, Mughal India was a clear and dramatic transformation from the early, Hindu-ruled empires that had a distinct cultural history. Calling them the same as the Hindu empires that came before would be a bit like calling the Byzantine and Ottoman empires the same civilization simply because they ruled more or less the same territory.

Click to expand...

Byzantium, however, is supposed to often be totally destroyed and never reborn post-Ottoman spawn. "India proper" isn't. That's the main difference between the Ottoman/Byzantine and Mughal/India situation. That gameplay reason is why I am for abstracting all cultural differences between Hindu and Muslim north India into one civ, while Muslim and Christian Balkans can have two and a half (Greece respawn, which still leaves enough place for the Turks).

Besides, this allows a Tamils in 600AD from the beginning or a Tamils-as-Vijayanagar respawn, which currently doesn't work because India proper respawns on the same land.

The "Maratha" AI respawn faces many problems from the start. Its cities are not very productive and almost all of them are in European Trading Company range (including their initial capital), while the Mughals always have enough strategic depth to be at least vassalized. Pushing the Euros to Rifling, while quite a good idea, doesn't solve this particular problem. I dunno how would you make them replace the Mughals without some severe semi-scripting. Besides, Hindus-replacing-Muslims-replacing-Hindus is, while historical, is quite unelegant.

and maybe it's better to make a modern India respawn that covers a larger area.

Click to expand...

When will it respawn (1947?) and will its respawn completely screw up the Mughals (whether they've beaten off the Trading Company, or are vassalized to it)? That's not very elegant, either. We're trying to make two civs competing for one area to thrive while constantly replacing each other - it's not really possible.

Why constantly? Either would replace the other once over the span of almost the whole game, ideally with the Mughals surviving in Pakistan. Of course that doesn't happen right now, but that's a whole other issue.

If you play 600 AD it's even just India replacing the Mughals at some point.

Giving the two of them the Rome/Italy treatment in some form might be a good idea though. Ideally the Mughals collapse in some form in the 18th century and only then a Hindu India respawn becomes possible. The Mughals could the respawn in areas outside the Indian historical area regardless of their presence, i.e. Pakistan.

I will also work on an easier system to add more conditions to the dynamic names of vassals because the current system is really awkward in places (not only India). So that the British Raj would be whatever native civ that occupies India at the moment while vassalized to England.

Of course that doesn't happen right now, but that's a whole other issue.

Click to expand...

And there're reasons why it doesn't happen, like I said. How would you deal with them? The Marathas need to very quickly defeat the Mughals, pushing them out of Delhi, before the Trading Companies arrive and proceed to make mincemeat out of them. They just can't play the role of Turkey to Mughal "Byzantium".

As I said, that's why it's probably a better idea to ditch the Marathas and let India only respawn after the Mughals are dead. And to make sure the Mughals have a decent chance of collapsing.

Maratha India only respawns after the conquerors have already arrived in most of my games, by the way.

and let India only respawn after the Mughals are dead. And to make sure the Mughals have a decent chance of collapsing.

Click to expand...

The latter would be quite difficult. Their AI doesn't do anything collapsable at all (they also have an additional privilege of early Jails-Mausoleums).

Maratha India only respawns after the conquerors have already arrived in most of my games, by the way.

Click to expand...

I've pushed them to Rifling.