Civ Discussion - Mughal India

[bengalryan9]

Next up in the modern age is Mughal India. The Mughals are an economic and expansionist civilization with a starting bias towards flat terrain. Their associated wonder is the Red Fort, which gives a base +4 gold and production, counts as a fortified district, and gives +50HP to this tile and all city centers. They can be unlocked by playing as Persia, Abbasid, or Chola earlier in the game, by choosing Ibn Battuta, either Ashoka, Genghis Khan, Laksmibai, either Xerxes, or Hatshepsut as your leader, or by improving 3 salt tiles or having at least 4 trade routes with unique civilizations.

Their unique ability is Paradise of Nations, which gives +75% gold from all sources but -25% to all other yields.
Their unique military unit is the Sepoy, a line infantry replacement with the ability to launch a bombard attack.
Their unique civilian unit is the Zamindar, a unique settler that gives +1 population upon founding a town.
The unique infrastructure is the Stepwell, which gives base +2 gold and +2 food from adjacent farms, but can only be built on flat terrain and can’t be adjacent to another stepwell.

Mughal Civics:
Zabt – unlocks the Stepwell and the Jins-i Kamil tradition, plus gives +1 gold on farms
Jagir – unlocks the Qilachas tradition and gives +1 happiness on farms, and at mastery gives +1 production on resources and +1 settlement limit
Mansabdari – unlocks the Red Fort and Gunpowder Empire tradition, plus gives +25% gold towards purchasing infantry units
Gardens of Paradise – unlocks the Mayurasana tradition and allows Wonders to be purchased with gold

Mughal Traditions:
Jins-i Kamil - +1 gold and food on farms for each adjacent plantation, and on plantations for each adjacent farm
Qilachas - +2 gold on quarters with walls
Gunpowder Empire - +3 CS on all units
Mayurasana - +25% gold towards purchasing anything

Thoughts on the Mughals? Are they strong, weak, or just right? Any favorite strategies you like to employ when playing as them, or any areas you tend to struggle? Which other civs and leaders pair well with them? Discuss!

 

[bengalryan9]

I've seen some people suggest that the extra gold isn't worth losing the other yields but I don't know if I agree with that... just take all that gold, convert more of your settlements to cities, buy science and culture buildings, and IMO you've more than made up for whatever science/culture you would've missed out on. +75% is a huge boost, especially for such an important yield as gold, and the Mughals also get tons of discounts on spending it.

Being able to buy wonders is neat, though I'm not sure it's super worth it this late in the game. Zamindar is a nice way to jump start your last bit of settling. I don't think I've ever had to use the Sepoy. Red Fort is pretty unexciting. Stepwells strike me as an improvement that could be really strong, but you'd have to plan around them early on and unless you're planning on going Mughal from the start you may not really be able to take advantage of them.

 

[Lord Lakely]

I think they're nuts. It's a slower start, sure, but the acceleration once you have accumulated enough Gold per turn is not small. It does not take long before your Gold turnover bloats to a four digit number.

I believe that in my own Mughal game, I got around 8K per turn without really trying, and managed to easily snag an Economic win. By the end I was buying 3 factories and 2 artillery per turn, at least on the turns where i wasn't buying World Wonders.

 

[tedhebert]

They're great imho... the gold is fantastic

and hard buying world fair is probably the biggest boost to VC of any modern civ

 

[pjotroos]

It will be interesting to see how viable that still feels in 1.2.5, but on current version, my gold yield is always significantly higher at the start of modern than my science and culture - so the memento that converts 4% of your gold income into science and culture goes a long way towards offsetting their malus. And past the early turns, what matters is how quickly you can churn out railroads & factories to plug in those multipliers, and how quickly you can churn out the explorers if you're going for culture win. Mughals can do it faster than anyone else.

So they're tangibly strong. They're also noticably different to play, which is another rarity in the modern era. That puts them in my top three, with Americans and Meiji. And that's despite the fact their unique improvement is inconsequential, and their unique infantry is quite weak. And if your modern era goes long enough that researching Gardens of Paradise is feasible, buying wonders is just fun, and buying World Fair is fantastic.

Played them a few times, enjoyed each of those.

 

[Leucarum]

The trouble with a slower start is that modern is such a flash in the pan that any delay is too much of a delay. What makes it worse is that Mughals trade the delay in for the most plentiful yield. Nobody struggles for what they are offering anyway! Being able to buy Worlds Fair helps but by then they've already lost the race, so it's not enough.

Easily the worst civ in the game and by a massive margin. Maybe the game changes around them and they become a reasonable choice... But at present they really aren't on the board.

 

[bengalryan9]

The trouble with a slower start is that modern is such a flash in the pan that any delay is too much of a delay. What makes it worse is that Mughals trade the delay in for the most plentiful yield. Nobody struggles for what they are offering anyway! Being able to buy Worlds Fair helps but by then they've already lost the race, so it's not enough.

Easily the worst civ in the game and by a massive margin. Maybe the game changes around them and they become a reasonable choice... But at present they really aren't on the board.

Not going to lie, I completely disagree with this.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

I have used Sepoys. They're alright. You don't necessarily want a unique Infantry unit in this game, period, but if you're:

• 1) Transitioning from an Exploration Age where you already had lots of them (say you were playing as Ming where you're encouraged to station garrisons in every Settlement)
• 2) Looking to do some cost-effective conquering in the Modern Age and you really don't want to wait for proper artillery
• 3) Already fielding lots of Cavalry but also have a bunch of Infantry in the frontlines for some reason

Then they can be sort of handy. Not my favorite unique unit but I also haven't overloaded them with combat strength bonuses yet so I can't speak to their peak power level.

 

[Leucarum]

Not going to lie, I completely disagree with this.

If gold becomes scarcer then my opinion could change as early as tomorrow's patch. Until that happens, I find it tough to rate them as anything beyond trash. Trading scarcer yields for the most plentiful is a bad idea.

 

[Stepbr]

I strongly disagree with this too!

Perhaps I should say that my aim in Modern is not to complete it in under 9.59 seconds, but to finish all four legacy paths (to level up my leader) before the AI wins. Sometimes that's a challenge on deity!

But the point of Mughal, surely, is that you can always buy your way out of trouble. Behind on Science? Buy a load of schoolhouses/laboratories. Convert a few towns to cities if needs be. DoW-ed? Buy an army. Or an air force or navy. Or all three, over a dozen or so turns. Seen a remote artifact? Buy an explorer in the nearest settlement and you'll probably beat the AI to it. And random overbuilding usually generates a few artifacts anyway (though that is RNG dependent, obviously).

I play deep enough into Modern most games to notice the huge impact of Mayurasana too.

Sepoys' bombard ability is moderately useful, so don't write them off.

Stepwells are, admittedly, a pretty useless UI.

But overall? A Maya/Abbasid/Mughal run can't be topped. At least, that's my tuppence-worth!

 

[uppi]

I like that their ability actually changes how you play the Modern age. That said, I am not convinced they are good.

If you have high science and culture output, anyway, and have researched multiple future techs and civics in the previous age, then I can see how they might be able to get those buildings up faster. Even then, I am not sure that it is worth it, because you will be worse off when all the buildings have been constructed. But if you are struggling to research the first few techs to unlock any science or culture buildings, you will struggle even more.

Wonder buying helps you buy the World's Fair or the Manhattan project, but is otherwise just a gimmick. By the time you unlock the ability, the wonders you could buy don't help you that much anymore.

The Sepoy is fine but not very game changing.

The settler is quite useless. Who builds settlers in the Modern age? And if you would play a Modern age start, their ability will be at its worst, so I don't think the settler will rescue you.

 

[disjointaccount]

Having lots of gold is fun and buying wonders is very fun.
I barely even consider Mughal from a strategic standpoint; I just like them because they're fun. Strong contender for most fun gimmick in the game.

 

[UWHabs]

I only tried them once, and I didn't really like them. Not sure if there were other situations at play, but I just know that all my cities were going to take like 22 turn to hard-build their city parks, and the hits to science, culture, and growth, all just combined to make it a very slow start to the era. The boost to gold wasn't nearly enough to make up for the other lost yields.

 

[Navelgazer]

I like Mughal. You have to be careful going into them (I've more than once absolutely hosed myself by taking the Treasure Fleets golden age to keep all my previous cities while going into Modern with Mughal, thus starting out the age with negative gold in addition to the lower yeilds on everything else. That's a tough eight-ball to get out from behind.) But if you've got the good gold generation, you can more than make up for the malus to other yields very easily. Especially with the Mayurasana tradition slotted. Another success in Civ7 making India tons of fun and interesting and without the bland stereotypes of previous entries.

 

[untitledjuan]

Why are the Mughals a "Modern Era" civilization? Their empire began around 1520 and reached its largest extent around 1700, rapidly declining afterwards. By 1760, the Mughals barely controlled the area of the former Sultanate of Delhi and weren't a major power in India anymore. I think the Maratha Confederacy would have been a much better choice for a "Modern Era" Indian civilization.

On the other hand, Spain only began existing in 1714 and it reached its largest extent around 1800, yet they included Spain as an "Exploration Era" civilization. Castile was the nation that actually sent Columbus and did all the exploration usually credited to Spain. Spain was only a thing after the Nueva Planta Decree that merged the Cortes (Parliaments) of Castile and Aragón in 1714.

 

[socratic]

Why are the Mughals a "Modern Era" civilization? Their empire began around 1520 and reached its largest extent around 1700, rapidly declining afterwards. By 1760, the Mughals barely controlled the area of the former Sultanate of Delhi and weren't a major power in India anymore. I think the Maratha Confederacy would have been a much better choice for a "Modern Era" Indian civilization.

On the other hand, Spain only began existing in 1714 and it reached its largest extent around 1800, yet they included Spain as an "Exploration Era" civilization. Castile was the nation that actually sent Columbus and did all the exploration usually credited to Spain. Spain was only a thing after the Nueva Planta Decree that merged the Cortes (Parliaments) of Castile and Aragón in 1714.

Well, Spain is a special case. Despite only technically being existing in 1714, most historians view the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand II as the true start of “Spain”. Hence why Isabella is cited as Spain’s first queen.

The Mughals are definitely an odd inclusion, especially since the Marathas Confederacy/Empire existed and have more than enough to build a kit around. However, I think the Mughal’s connection with the Mongols, Turkic tribes, and Persian culture make them a better option for transitions.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Well, Spain is a special case. Despite only technically being existing in 1714, most historians view the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand II as the true start of “Spain”. Hence why Isabella is cited as Spain’s first queen.

I'd like to add that all the overseas possessions have always been called part of the Spanish Empire as well. I've never heard anybody call the lands in the Americas and Asia as part of the Castilian Empire.

The Mughals are definitely an odd inclusion, especially since the Marathas Confederacy/Empire existed and have more than enough to build a kit around. However, I think the Mughal’s connection with the Mongols, Turkic tribes, and
Persian culture make them a better option for transitions.

This is another instance where I believe gameplay trumps history. The Mughals are definitely one of largest and most important empires that have never been included in the game before Civ 7, for reasons. You could put them in Exploration, but the Chola definitely fits that theme better. So, Mughals would go into Modern by default. The Ottomans, another Gunpowder Empire seem to be in a similar situation, but at least they lasted into the 20th century despite their decline.

This is one instance where a separate Medieval Age might have worked. If the Chola were in Medieval then Mughal could go into Exploration and Maratha could have been Modern.

Also, you're right in regards that it's easier if they can come from Mongols, an Exploration Turkic or Persian civ from Exploration.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Also, Wikipedia lists Mughal historical era as "Early Modern". Not important for history geeks, but enough reason for a video game.