India Ideas

Here in this thread I gather some of my newer ideas about India which would otherwise be buried in longer threads and forgotten (by me).

== New India UHVs ==

The main purpose of this UHV redesign is to make India playable in the 600AD Scenario.

(1) Have a combined Shrine income of at least 35 by 850 CE (idea from RFCA).

(2) Control 30% of the world's population in 1200 CE.

(3) Allow 33 Priest Specialist slots in your cities in 850 CE (new idea).

---

The number 33 corresponds to the 33 devas in Hinduism. It's doable in game, too:

- 20 from 20 Temples.

- 6 = 3 + 3 from two Shrines.

- 3 from Angkor Wat/a 3rd Shrine.

- 4 from 2 Cathedrals.

20 + 6 + 3 + 4 = 33.

---

The year 850 AD corresponds to the peak of Pala Empire (the last great pre-Islamic Indian empire) under Devapala.

---

UHV (1) encourages different play styles for 3000 BCE and 600 CE India.

In 3000 BCE you have sufficient time to found a 3rd religion which makes it a lot easier. This represents the various other Dharmic religions, and is a callback to the founding multiple religions UHV of original RFC.

In 600 CE you are encouraged more to conquer weak and Independent Persia to gain access to its Shrine.

== New India UU ==

Bamboo Longbowman

The main purpose of this UU is to give India an UU which does not suck. Fast Worker is only good for REXing or warmongering since all it does is building new improvements and rebuilding pillaged improvements quickly. In DoC India is mostly a builder civ. They need something else.

A Bamboo Longbow UU is also historically appropriate.

Replaces Longbowman.

---

Tech Requirement: Archery, Calendar, Construction

Cost: 55 (regular Longbowman costs 65)

^ These are designed to be on par with Chokonu.

Strength: 6

1 First Strikes

^ These are the same as regular Longbowman.

Can enter Jungle

^ This allows you to use this unit in the same stack as elephant units.

No City Defense or Hills Defense bonuses. Instead:

+30% vs. Mounted units

^ This allows you to use this unit aggressively against Barbarian/Tamil/Khmer Mounted units.

I've read a bit more about Indian architecture and came up with a few ideas. Unfortunately they suit the Mughals and the Tamils better, rather than India. I'll list them here anyway.

First is an adjustment to the Mughal UB.

== Mughal UB: Fort ==

"Mausoleum" is a generic name not specific to India or even South Asia. Instead, the Mughal UB should follow its CiV name, Fort. There are plenty of actual examples of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agra_Fort
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahore_Fort
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Fort

Replaces Jail.
Requires Engineering (+Music?).

Extra effects:
- +2 Great Person Points (Great Artist)
1 Free Artist is far too OP and hard to balance.
- +5% Great General Birth Rate
This reflects the military purposes (some are still used by the Indian military today) of Mughal Forts.

Second is a possible candidate for new Tamil UB. Sangam, while cool, is generally considered to be legendary rather than factual. Something real would be this:

== Tamil UB: Cave Temple ==
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rock-cut_architecture#Cave_temples
^ While generally considered to be Indian architecture, rock-cut temples are mostly found in Southern India, especially Tamil Nadu. Hence they are more suitable as a Tamil UB rather than an Indian one.

Replaces Amphitheatre.

Extra effects:
- +1 from Buddhism
- +2
- 1 Merchant slot, 1 Artist slot

Why do you always have to make every new threat with the exact same formula? Symbol near the title, a ==TITLE== to begin, then you begin numbering ideas and making them bold and numbering the ideas of those ideas.
Next time, make your font pink and comic sans.

Royal Tenenbaum said:

Why do you always have to make every new threat with the exact same formula? Symbol near the title, a ==TITLE== to begin, then you begin numbering ideas and making them bold and numbering the ideas of those ideas.
Next time, make your font pink and comic sans.

Click to expand...

''Patent pending''

Royal Tenenbaum said:

Why do you always have to make every new threat with the exact same formula? Symbol near the title, a ==TITLE== to begin, then you begin numbering ideas and making them bold and numbering the ideas of those ideas.
Next time, make your font pink and comic sans.

Click to expand...

== TITLE == is a habit from editing Wikipedia.

Numbering and boldness is just how I always like to write everything. Numbers make me feel safe.

I didn't realize this site supports multiple fonts. No wonder its servers crash every so often.

Pink is fine. I like pink. My favorite color is green though.

iOnlySignIn said:

== TITLE == is a habit from editing Wikipedia.

Numbering and bold is just how I always like to write everything. Even with handwriting. Numbers make me feel safe.

I didn't realize this site supports multiple fonts. No wonder its servers crash every so often.

Pink is fine. I like pink. My favorite color is green though.

Click to expand...

You will seem more intelligent and eloquent with this clever use of style.

EDIT: HA! You actually changed the post. I love it.

In all seriousness, I don't much like the idea of the Indian UU entering jungles, as the point of the jungles is to separate India and Indochina.

Besides that, I like the ideas.

If Leoreth decides not to change the UU, I think I will add it in my 2nd UU modcomp, although probably in a slightly altered form. The current War Elephant replacement is just lame. (But I didn't came up with something better)

Royal Tenenbaum said:

In all seriousness, I don't much like the idea of the Indian UU entering jungles, as the point of the jungles is to separate India and Indochina.

Besides that, I like the ideas.

Click to expand...

You can't expect me to rush Khmer & China with only War Elephants now.

(Well, if it were China, I'd use mercs and go the long way, but that won't be an option for long...)

I like the changes, although I wonder if India will realistically be able to research construction and music (for cathedrals) before 850CE. So you risk denying the player their UU in order to reach their UHV. Tho' the new UU may remove the need to get iron working, which might help.

Perhaps the Indian UB (can't remember the name - the aqueduct with the food) could also be given a priest slot. That way you have a number of ways to play the game, with a greater change to balance pacifism (build 9 cities with temples and aqueduct), warmongering (capture another shrine), and teching (get another religion / focus on music).

As it stands, warmongering would be difficult as it would be very hard to get the priest slots without cathedrals, and you would struggle to tech that fast if you're also geared towards conquest.

Also maybe the population goal should be more challenging? With the flood plains on the Gangees and the Indus and the huge number of bonuses, I almost never fail to get around 40% of the population playing as India.

EDIT: Alternatively you could extend the deadline to 1100AD to reflect the revival of the Palas under Ramapala (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramapala). Perhaps not as historically accurate, but then it would be in line with other civs like Byzantium, the Arabs and the Ottomans, where the goal is to be more powerful and longlasting than in RL.

Royal Tenenbaum said:

In all seriousness, I don't much like the idea of the Indian UU entering jungles, as the point of the jungles is to separate India and Indochina.

Click to expand...

You'd be able to do that with War Elephants anyway. It's quite easy to take over Southern China when playing as the Khmer, using nothing but your UU. Which is another reason why Vicinity Bonus is useful for the game.

The Jungles are more to block the more powerful units (Knights, Macemen, Bombards, Muskets) than anything else.

Swarbs said:

I like the changes, although I wonder if India will realistically be able to research construction and music (for cathedrals) before 850CE.

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure AI India does this on a regular basis (3000BC, Emperor, Normal). Often with just a single Shrine. The Human player with double or triple Shrines can get some absurd tech speeds, leaving China completely in the dust.

Tho' the new UU may remove the need to get iron working

Click to expand...

Sadly no. You need Iron Working to be able to Mine Jungles. There is one Jungle Gem near Varanasi which is quite essential to India's early Happiness. Although the Jungle could be removed if need be.

Perhaps the Indian UB (can't remember the name - the aqueduct with the food) could
also be given a priest slot.

Click to expand...

That would be too easy IMO. But the UB could be more interesting - I just don't have any good ideas about it.

Also maybe the population goal should be more challenging? With the flood plains on the Gangees and the Indus and the huge number of bonuses, I almost never fail to get around 40% of the population playing as India.

Click to expand...

I agree 40% is completely doable. But that UHV is more about withstanding the boredom (Barbs and Seljuks are quite tedious) till 1200AD than anything else, IMO.

Which is why I set the other 2 UHVs to be more challenging with implicit Tech requirements so that you cannot simply go on a rampage and conquer the entire Middle East and/or Southern China.

Perhaps set the threshold to 30%?

Updated 3rd post with ideas about UBs for the Mughal and Tamil civs.

I think India should get ironworking back, they can't research ironworking by 1100 BC in game like in history.

Forts are of course something that only exists in Mughalistan.

rename it to Qila

or this one, it's more Mughalistan than fort I think, even Wikipedia use prefix Mughal in front of it : Mughal gardens

BenZL43 said:

rename it to Qila

or this one, it's more Mughalistan than fort I think, even Wikipedia use prefix Mughal in front of it : Mughal gardens

Click to expand...

Qila/Qala isn't really specific to the Mughals either, pretty common across the Middle East and South Asia

How about Charbagh?