Anyone here use India?

[muttonwow]

I made a Prince game (only Prince as I practice new civs to play with my friends online), selecting random civ and India popped up. I quite enjoyed throwing up hanging gardens without worrying about Delhi becoming a miserable slum.

Anyway, being able to play as a nuclear-obsessed Gandhi amuses me, any tips? (first time poster, long time lurker by the way).

 

[sufficiency]

India is a fairly poor civ to play on higher difficulties, but on Prince it really does not matter too much.

The biggest thing about India is growth. After achieving 6 citizens, every extra citizen in an India city essentially provides you with 0.5 happiness. Therefore, growth is very cheap for India but expansion is not.

 

[Hambil]

Growth = Science (not directly but it makes a big difference). So when I occ I love to play Gandhi. Especially if I'm using CivUp where he gets even better food bonuses and starts with a worker instead of a warrior.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

not voluntarily, haha.

 

[muttonwow]

India is a fairly poor civ to play on higher difficulties, but on Prince it really does not matter too much.

The biggest thing about India is growth. After achieving 6 citizens, every extra citizen in an India city essentially provides you with 0.5 happiness. Therefore, growth is very cheap for India but expansion is not.

Well I guessed something like Ethiopia would be better against AI when they have ridiculous bonuses on higher difficulties, but I mainly do online with 3 friends and a few Prince level AI.

 

[sufficiency]

EDIT: never mind

 

[OwlRaider]

India is great at low difficulties since at those you can get wonders like Temple of Artemis and Hanging Gardens to get crazy growth in your capital right from the get-go. However in higher difficulties when these wonders are out of reach India becomes horrible since the UA is the only thing going for them, and without those wonders and insane early growth you just don't run into happiness problems nullifying the UA. Their elephants being pretty bad for defensive purposes(lack of terrain bonuses and being cavalry thus weakness to spears/pikes) and the Mughal Fort being useless unless you have a large puppet empire, which India generally doesn't get, as otherwise you'll never build castles in your own cities.

For Prince difficulty India is pretty good and can allow you for some ridiculously fast science victories if you get the above mentioned wonders as well as a growth focused pantheon/religion and good starting location for your capital. However don't expect that to prepare you for Emperor and above matches, as those will be completely different. If I were you I'd practice new civilizations on Emperor rather than on Prince, than when you're comfortable with them go into Immortal or Deity. Anything below Emperor doesn't really prepare you for Emperor and above games, and it can lead to misconceptions such as what I described here regarding India.

 

[kirbdog]

It's counter-intuitive, but India is able to expand like Hiawatha on crack with size 12+ cities all over the map that are happiness-neutral or happiness-profitable. This doesn't make him competitive at high difficulties or in multiplayer, but it's still an entertaining enough reason to play him at least once.

 

[Arachnofiend]

If you're going to do anything with Ghandi it's probably domination funnily enough. He doesn't take as much of a happiness hit from conquering large cities (read: capitals) as other civs do. There's really nothing else that he's better at than another civ, since happiness isn't really a factor in tall games other than the early game REX that Ghandi is in fact worse at.

 

[JanghanHong]

Rush The Great Library, > National College > Temple of Artemis, without building the second city. Rush Elephant Archers , you get 15% discount, 30% if you rushed stable, and take down the neighbor that has the Stonehenge. After founding a religion catered around growth, Fertility Rites, Swords into plowshares, Feed the world, combined with Piety's half-price faith buildings, conquer more cities from neighbors who are hated and then Turtle your way into Cultural Victory.

 

[sufficiency]

Temple of Artemis does not work on War Elephants.

 

[Browd]

And Swords into Plowshares isn't very useful to someone whose plan is to "conquer more cities from neighbors who are hated."

 

[joncnunn]

And Swords into Plowshares isn't very useful to someone whose plan is to "conquer more cities from neighbors who are hated."

Also not good a good plan in general since chances are the AI will DOW you anyway.
(You going for cultural victory -> gives AIs wonder envy; and probably city state envy as well and that's on top of your nearest neighbor having land envy.)

 

[Matthew.]

Sufficiency pretty much summed it up in the second post.

Kirbdog added the hilarity factor to India though. Not a competitive high-tier Civ, but can be amusing in the late game spamming massive cities everywhere.

 

[ssnitrousoxide]

It's counter-intuitive, but India is able to expand like Hiawatha on crack with size 12+ cities all over the map that are happiness-neutral or happiness-profitable. This doesn't make him competitive at high difficulties or in multiplayer, but it's still an entertaining enough reason to play him at least once.

I totally agree. I used to think India is a tall rather than wide civ until I tried to find out how "bad" it is to expand. However I got much better results since the unhappiness penalty always get negated by happiness buildings. Since pop growth is a function with diminishing return, getting a dozen of cities with ~20 pop is way more effective than just 3-4 cities with 40+pop. Another good reason to expand with India.

Another counter-intuitive fact about India is that it does not work well in OCC since happiness is never a concern.

 

[OwlRaider]

Well, India can certainly go hybrid, start tall with 1 or 2 cities and rush NC, than once you got some spare happiness start expanding as if you were REXing from the get-go. The results will be a semi tall semi wide empire, with as many cities as you can fit considering the late expansion having all those cities grow taller than the norm for wide empires. Agreeing with the others here that this isn't competitive in the higher difficulties, so as I mentioned earlier for Prince and anything else below Emperor for that matter this strategy, or the standard tall strategy both work fine. However India in Emperor/Immortal/Deity games is simply horrible.

 

[Syailendra]

I totally agree. I used to think India is a tall rather than wide civ until I tried to find out how "bad" it is to expand. However I got much better results since the unhappiness penalty always get negated by happiness buildings. Since pop growth is a function with diminishing return, getting a dozen of cities with ~20 pop is way more effective than just 3-4 cities with 40+pop. Another good reason to expand with India.

Another counter-intuitive fact about India is that it does not work well in OCC since happiness is never a concern.

theoritically, but when put to timetable? How do you plan to have 12 BIG cities?

 

[kirbdog]

It takes until roughly the early Renaissance to get going (Theaters, with Circus Maximus and preferrably Notre Dame, and a good happiness-focused religion), which is why it's more for fun than practicality.

 

[PimpmyCiv]

I totally agree. I used to think India is a tall rather than wide civ until I tried to find out how "bad" it is to expand. However I got much better results since the unhappiness penalty always get negated by happiness buildings. Since pop growth is a function with diminishing return, getting a dozen of cities with ~20 pop is way more effective than just 3-4 cities with 40+pop. Another good reason to expand with India.

Another counter-intuitive fact about India is that it does not work well in OCC since happiness is never a concern.

I used to think this.

And I think there are almost always better option than India in gneral, but my recent immortal OCC with India was one of my favorite games of all time. A city of 55 with 50+ hapiness per turn and Golden Ages out the wazoo, left me with numerous victory option available to me by the end.

 

[Fire0rb]

Just to add that India is not totally terrible, there was a Deity Challenge with India which some people solved in different ways

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=493267