Indians Strategy

[MorteEterna]

Hi there, again.. I wanted to give indians a try long time ago, and I played them enough to know how to play them, I think.

Let's talk about how you should use them.


Indians:

Start with: Access to all resources
Ancient: era No anarchy
Medieval era: Knowledge of Religion
Industrial era: Half price Settlers
Modern era: Half price Corthouses


Now, it's hard to tell you everything due to access to all resources, but I will try to explain as well as possible. You start with +1 bonus in ancient and every era you get +1, until it is possible. It means fish will give you 1 food in ancient and 2 in medieval, then in industrial you won't get another +1
This is nice to give you a boost. I think the best to start are oak, rubber, dye. Also +1 food is good but I prefer having oxen or the other resource from feudalism

You can settle where you start, but if you can move one or two turns to have better resources like oak/dye, it's better. Double oak/rubber or dye is really good if possible. I would build 2 warriors first, but you can still horse rush. If you got oak/rubber and dye, you can horse rush really easy.

If that happens, you should build a warrior in 2 turns, working on two trees (oak or rubber), then work on horseback for 4 turns. If you got enough gold this should work, or you can try oak/rubber + dye, getting 21 hammers and 21 beakers. Obviously you can customize it, change the production 1 or 2 turns. If you can't horse rush easily, then build 2 warriors then grow, unless there are rushers in the game. Horsemen can be stopped with 4 warriors. After they attack, if they are wounded, attack them. If they are not wounded or you can't kill them, build another warrior and wait. If you meet zulu, a warrior army is enough. Arabs, well, still 4 warriors but it's a problem if they press you too much.

However, if you were going for the horse rush, build the horsemen and try to take a capital. AI or human is not a real problem, but if you meet Americans or Chinese and you know you can kill them, then do it. After warriors or horsemen, grow to 3 population, hoping you got 100 gold.
Start building settlers. Now, it's hard to know if you got only two trees and two grasslands or special resources. Then, I will tell you only that to build a settler and make it worth, you should bank 8 food at least. Build settlers only if you got 3 population. If you got more, it's better to wait for code of laws.

Expand where you see good spots, any special resource should be good, and defend new cities. If there are zulu in the game, or still horsemen, or you fear them, then put archers before you move settlers. Your tech path should be:

Horseback riding (only if you want to horse rush)
Bronze working
Pottery
Masonry
Irrigation

I suggest you irrigation if you got at least 3-4 cities. Now if you got 5 technologies you will get religion for free. If there aren't arabs in the game, you will get +1 culture per city and fundamentalism. I would suggest you to switch to fundamentalism if you got the horsemen army and it is still alive. If it is veteran you can use it to press the enemies. Before you switch, I also suggest to be next to the city, so that your enemy won't be able to defend when you attack. You can rush a library if you got a nice science city, but I suggest you to build more settlers with that gold unless it can be worthful. You can also use the ancient era bonus, you still produce in anarchy. This means you can attack in fundamentalism (libraries and universities don't work), then at the end of the attacks you switch governement. Before the turn ends, it's like you are in despotism and you can now use libraries. Then you can use fundamentalism again and do this. I suggest expanding to 7-8 cities if possible with irrigation, but remember, build settlers if you got 3 population, then, let's continue with the tech path:

Alphabet
Writing
Code of Laws
Literacy
Iron working (to counter attack)
Monarchy
Mathematics
Navigation
Engeenering
Invention

Then, you should be in industrial era. You get now 1/2 price settlers, and you should use this to expand to islands. Maybe 4 cities is enough, but if you want to build more, better for you. After you built these cities, you can switch from republic (you could bank hammers and food in fundamentalism and then switch one turn tu republic) to democracy.

If you got enough science, and perhaps a great scientist, I would suggest working on banking then rush Industrialiation.

University is another technology you should work on, and Feudalism is useful as well to defend or use knights to finish enemies. If you got a great builder you can rush East India company. For other great people, it depends on your aim, perhaps great explorer for gold city (or get gold), great leader to build elite units, great artist to flip cities, etc..

If you survived until here, you should be ahead enough in the game to do a good job. You could rush Magna Carta if you got another great builder in modern era, then you can start building corthouses that will work like temples, obviously giving you more tiles to work. It's another nice bonus, however, the tech path should be then, after Invention:

University
Feudalism
Steam Power (this could help moving your knights or you can find Atlantis faster)
Gunpowder (upgrade units to riflemen where need, building them. If you need gold you can sell archers but more units to defend is better. I would skip pikemen because they only get +1 and you can counter-attack)
Combustion (if you want to build tanks)

Then, you can rush Leonardo's Workshop if you want and if you already got some legions armies or knights armies. The culture should help you defending your cities, and getting more GP, but remember, the first building you should build is a library, build them if you need science unless you can't get more than 12-15. Now you can't get bonuses anymore, then you should use the ones you got. You can still build settlers, or build corthouses, that's still going to help. You only need 1-2 turns to build a settler in republic and after industrial era, than, it shouldn't be a problem expanding

I hope this helps, ask me anything, I will try to improve this strategy

 

[Sn1p3rk1ll3]

I always forgot the fact that you can be fundamentalistic in a turn, and before it ends, the anarchy still lets you use your libraries

That really helped me a looooot

But Morte, in the industrial age, all good settler spots are mostly occupied...
BUT (yay for buts, lolz) you can turn hammers to food using Indians!
-10 production for a settler (worth 20 food) can be worthwile for a new sort of Mega-city
--Just a suggestion, which I'm going to try in an hour or 4.


Keep up the good work Morte!

 

[MorteEterna]

I always forgot the fact that you can be fundamentalistic in a turn, and before it ends, the anarchy still lets you use your libraries

That really helped me a looooot

But Morte, in the industrial age, all good settler spots are mostly occupied...
BUT (yay for buts, lolz) you can turn hammers to food using Indians!
-10 production for a settler (worth 20 food) can be worthwile for a new sort of Mega-city
--Just a suggestion, which I'm going to try in an hour or 4.


Keep up the good work Morte!

I have wrote a lot of strategies that you can't see in this forum but I will put all them. I have already talked about the Mega City Strategy with Indians and I will write it soon.. However, it's funny to have a Mega City with Indians and crushing a top player perhaps. Not hard to do if you play well. The hardest thing to do is defending

 

[Sn1p3rk1ll3]

The Mega-city is indeed not hard to get online, since most players leave India alone (they think it's weak), so abuse their toughts and exploit it the best you can ;D

Defending a problem?
-Lots of cities
-Mega city being able to gain LOOOOTS of gold
--------rush your defenses?

 

[MorteEterna]

The Mega-city is indeed not hard to get online, since most players leave India alone (they think it's weak), so abuse their toughts and exploit it the best you can ;D

Defending a problem?
-Lots of cities
-Mega city being able to gain LOOOOTS of gold
--------rush your defenses?

Uhm, you just said what you can do with it

However, I agree, but good players never let the enemy expand or doing weird things. Uhm, if you see 20 cities with the Indians boarders, would you think it's a noob?

 

[Sn1p3rk1ll3]

If you don't get at war with the Indians because you have more serious threats (Americans, China, English, Japanese, Spanish, ...) you can be up for a nasty surprise.

I have to say, it has potential to put India up quite some ranks on my personal favorites ladder!

 

[Heretiv]

Just tried Indians, and the early production, trade or food bonus for cities can be very handy.
When you only have 3 people working the tiles, having one tile return 3 times as mush food is a big difference.

I guess if you can get your capital near a trade hot spot you could get some very effective early science rush going. Or indeed a production rush to churn out warriors/horsemen.