[R&F] Civ of the Week: India

[Archon_Wing]

That is remarkable. They may not be dominating the battlefield anymore but to still be useful for so long is pretty good.

Late game, you can send the varu to sea escorted by ships. (Yes, the debuff works on ships)

 

[AmazonQueen]

Late game, you can send the varu to sea escorted by ships. (Yes, the debuff works on ships)

I never thought of India as a naval power before

 

[AmazonQueen]

I do like it when Civs have a unit that can be useful for long stretches of the game. Heffalumps are a good example of that thanks to their passive debuff.

A problem with the “one unique unit per Civ” approach is that many Civs only briefly feel unique in the battlefield. Rome is like that - it’s great when you have Legions, but then it’s over. Worse, sometimes your unit is so slight, it barely feels like you have a unit. Germany is like this - I love the little Das Boot, but it’s rare I get much use out of it.

One way FXS gets round this is to just give some Civs two units, but that has mixed success. It doesn’t work for England, because with Sea Dogs being so lame (seriously, just build Frigates), the Red Coat feels like their only unit. America has the same problem. But the mechanic works well for Alex (even if his both come along at the same time) and Harold.

Heffalumps last the whole game really, particularly with corps and armies (although I assume a corp or army gives you a flat -5 notwithstanding it's meant to be multiple combined Heffalumps). The Keshig is also like this as is the Jong.

Other Civs get around this by instead making a whole unit class their ‘sort of’ unique. Sythia does this with Lt Cav. Alex sort of does this with Heavy Cav, because he can get such highly promoted Heavy Cav units.

There is a lot to like about India. But gee-whiz that Dharma ability really lets them down. Has anyone managed to get any real use out of it?

I pretty much ignore it. Although I have built Stonehenge with India more often than anyone else, presumably because if you play India you take out one of the prime competitors for it.I play Chandragupta and treat India as a domination civ. Mostly I don't like going for domination victories and play for culture/science but India I like for domination.

 

[Disgustipated]

There is a lot to like about India. But gee-whiz that Dharma ability really lets them down. Has anyone managed to get any real use out of it?

I'm still trying to figure this out. What counts as a follower belief bonus? For example, my city of Mysore has 3 Catholicism followers which means I should get follower belief bonuses. When I look at Catholicism in the religion tab it lists: All world wonders provide +4 faith, Allows construction of Synagogues, Defender of the Faith +10 combat strength, and Church property +2 gold for each city. I think I might be getting the world wonders one since I'm getting a lot of faith right now (see post # 2172 on page 109 on the quick questions/answers thread for my screenshot showing my faith per turn), I'm guessing at least some of this faith is from world wonders along with my +5 for civs at peace. I only have like 4 holy sites. Despite playing India, I still have trouble building these. There are so many other important things to build. I only built 2, the other two came from a city flips. My faith is at 233 per turn right now at epic speed. My gold isn't very high right now, so I don't think I'm getting church property. I know Civ5 they called the additional beliefs something else, but checking the Civ6 wiki right now, the additional 2 beliefs are still called beliefs.

So which ones am I getting?
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6)

 

[acluewithout]

I'm still trying to figure this out. What counts as a follower belief bonus? For example, my city of Mysore has 3 Catholicism followers which means I should get follower belief bonuses. When I look at Catholicism in the religion tab it lists: All world wonders provide +4 faith, Allows construction of Synagogues, Defender of the Faith +10 combat strength, and Church property +2 gold for each city. I think I might be getting the world wonders one since I'm getting a lot of faith right now (see post # 2172 on page 109 on the quick questions/answers thread for my screenshot showing my faith per turn), I'm guessing at least some of this faith is from world wonders along with my +5 for civs at peace. I only have like 4 holy sites. Despite playing India, I still have trouble building these. There are so many other important things to build. I only built 2, the other two came from a city flips. My faith is at 233 per turn right now at epic speed. My gold isn't very high right now, so I don't think I'm getting church property. I know Civ5 they called the additional beliefs something else, but checking the Civ6 wiki right now, the additional 2 beliefs are still called beliefs.

So which ones am I getting?
http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Religion_(Civ6)

Church Property is the Founder Belief. I’m not sure you’d actually benefit from that though because it only applies to cities following that religion (which I assume means it’s the dominant religion). I think that’s really one of the core problems with this ability- it’s very hard to see what it’s actually giving you at any point. Added to that is that it’s hard to actually control what religions are in your cities. It’s a really terrible ability.

 

[liv]

I do like it when Civs have a unit that can be useful for long stretches of the game. Heffalumps are a good example of that thanks to their passive debuff

On deity I do think the Varus are better than horses in longevity but they do expire. AI will have early swordmen, crossbows, and kights very early. Varus are so slow so I feel like I need to build warcarts for knights as usual to speed up warfare.

Using trade routes to create roads to your next target is very essentials with these big clumsy elephants.

As far as being useful later sure maybe but the main issue will be taking cities as AI will not prioritize units in mid game if you are warmongering. And for taking cities Varu will be weaker. Their slowness will also mean that they are less helpful for knights to weaken units in an offensive position but not totally useless of course. Macedon's horse is much more powerful due to its upgrade path. And so due to how fast you can build them or chop them are Scythias horses I think

Late game, you can send the varu to sea escorted by ships. (Yes, the debuff works on ships)

Hallo. This sounds like fun. It will be some version of Life of Pi. I think all my gallies will have attached Varu from now on. Something to do with them in later game too.

Not sure about Dharma. I think lots of the follower beliefs require Holy Sites and maybe even buildings ? so I cannot use that. Will try to pay attention in my game. I think the main religion spreading in my game now has lay ministry as its founder belief. I cannot really get any benefit from that now as I have no theatre squares or holy sites. The other one is Church Property and I am unclear as to if I get any gold from that. The city that has one follower of that religion but no majority religion is not making any gold according to the reports (but who knows how accurate that is)

 

[Sostratus]

Not sure about Dharma. I think lots of the follower beliefs require Holy Sites and maybe even buildings ?

Every religion, once fully codified, has a founder belief, a worship belief (building), a follower belief, and an enhancer belief. The text of Dharma says "Receive the Follower Beliefs of all religions that have at least one follower in a city, not just the majority religion."
These are all the follower beliefs (from the wiki):

Choral Music: Shrines and Temples provide Culture equal to their intrinsic Faith output.
Divine Inspiration: All world wonders provide +4 Faith.
Feed the World: Shrines and Temples provide Food equal to their intrinsic Faith output.
Jesuit Education: May purchase Campus and Theater Square district buildings with Faith.
Religious Community: Shrines and Temples each provide +1 Housing.
Reliquaries: Relics have triple yield of both Faith and Tourism.
Warrior Monks: Allows spending Faith to train Warrior Monks, medieval land combat units with a unique promotion tree. May only be purchased in a city with a Temple in its Holy Site.
Work Ethic: +1% Production for each follower.
Zen Meditation: +1 Amenity in cities with 2 specialty districts.

Some of these would combo well- especially the culture/food/housing from shrines and temples. +6 food, +6 culture, +2 housing from every holy site? Uh, yes please!
Work ethic is not so useful for Dharma because it's only +1% per follower of that religion specifically; it's an amazing belief for big cities, but to maximize it you usually have to use inquisitors on your populace, which wipes out the other stuff.

The main issue is that you can't really control what the AI picks and how it spreads, so most likely, you will just end up with warrior monks. You don't get the founder belief, and any city with majority religion can get the building - but you can only have one anyways- and some enhancer beliefs are just inherent to the religion (scripture, holy order, monastic isolation, religious colonization) but I'm unsure about burial grounds, and Crusade/DotF. I'm inclined to believe that's a founder only power. Does anyone know differently?

Dharma would be a lot better if it included "You also get the founder belief of any religion which is followed by at least one city in your empire" so there was a bit of a push towards having a heterogeneous religious landscape. Anyone playing RV will wipe out all other faiths anyways, so it's more of a nice to have.

 

[acluewithout]

So, just to be clear, India gets the follower beliefs, not any of the founder, worship or enhancer beliefs.

(I think I may have got this confused in my head with Kongo (which gets the founder belief of its majority religion, not just follower belief).)

India’s ability does still seem very weak to me. You get one follower belief anyway from your majority religion, so this is only netting you a few more beliefs at most. And as has been pointed out you have little control what religions are spread to you, what follower beliefs the AI chooses, and few of the beliefs are that powerful (choral music is quite good, food and housing are okay). The fact your incentivised not to have just one religion in your cities also means you’re discouraged from founding your own religion. That’s not a bad thing per se, but is a bit odd. I guess save your faith for builders, settlers and heffalumps.

I don’t know. Perhaps Dharma is maybe-sort-of-kinda-okay. It seems to me to be more just flavour than a particularly useful ability, and instead you need to look to India’s other abilities. There India does better - their unit and improvements are very good and both leaders have decent powers.

Perhaps Dharma just needs a small buff. Like no loyalty penalties from religion, or all shrines provide +2 loyalty.

 

[Disgustipated]

Finished my Gandhi game. While my overall ranking at the end was much higher than most of my other games, I got #3 Lincoln, that was mainly because a massive number of future civics and techs. It took a while to build culture over Greece. In hindsight, a space victory would have been faster I suppose. But I was already committed by that point to a certain victory path. Religious victory makes the most sense, and perhaps I should have pursued that. Poland wouldn't have been easy, she was pushing Apostles hard early on, though she kept running through the mountain passes (see my screenshot later in this thread) right into my holy sites and defensive inquisitors and I took out a lot of Apostles and even managed to convert some nearby cities and she hated me the rest of the game because of that. Poland being so close would have made it easier to convert her over, and once I got her, religious victory would have been easier after that.

I really can't give them higher than a D- at this point. Only Norway do I consider worse. India does have a decent uu which makes them slightly better. I don't plan on playing a game with Chandra, but I did shortly after R&F came out, I'd rank them higher at a C-. I really can't go higher with Gandhi because of the really late victory year I won in. Granted, Gorgo expanding this big was unexpected in my game, and didn't happen in my other games, but I was happy with a little more challenge to get the win. Turn was epic speed 528 (actually 529), for comparison another low ranking civ I got a cultural victory with was Egypt at 505. Compare that to Pericles at 347. My Norway cultural victory was actually faster at turn 464, but I still rank them lower mostly on my experience with the true start location Europe map (a game I didn't finish).

My biggest city was Rome at size 29. Not my biggest city ever, my biggest had the help of Kilamanjaro, but Rome did it all on its own. I got some pretty big cities this game. Delhi was size 28.

I like that my Empire shape looked a lot like real life India. Kind of cool how that worked out. Check out these cool mountain passes North of my capital of Delhi. Made for an interesting war with Jadwiga since I wasn't expecting it and didn't have them all plugged up. Only 2 had Varu's, but they had to pull back to heal against superior units. That cavalry corps I mentioned above took a hit from a musketmen, and then my Varu, then a a Varu corps to finish it off. But it proved Varu can hold out somewhat with a little help. Their fast units took out a few trade routes, but I eventually got musketmen and a pike and shot to plug those mountain passes.

Delhi mountain passes screenshot. Also managed to get Hermitage and Broadway along with my art museum and Natural History Museum with Reyna promoted to Curator. Though the AI kicked her out of my city several times, even with a defensive spy in place. Not sure Curator is doing that much for me since my victory took so long.

Spoiler :

After Warsaw loyalty flipped to me, I saw the opportunity to liberate Mojenjo-Daro splitting their empire into 2 halves. That was pretty cool. I wasn't happy with losing my free envoy I got from Mohenjo-Daro when Poland conquered them early in the game. Took most of the game, but I got my revenge.

Poland split into two screenshot: 3 of their cities flipped, but the free cities tended to reinforce each other with loyalty, and didn't flip to me. I could have moved Armani up there and ran more bread and circuses, but I just wanted to punish Poland, I didn't care about the cities.

Spoiler :

and for some reason I never got the message for meeting Zanzibar until very late, maybe because I never came across any of their units? 2 turns after I finally got the message for meeting Zanzibar city-state they were conquered by I think Sumeria.

Spoiler :

Every religion, once fully codified, has a founder belief, a worship belief (building), a follower belief, and an enhancer belief. The text of Dharma says "Receive the Follower Beliefs of all religions that have at least one follower in a city, not just the majority religion."
These are all the follower beliefs (from the wiki)

Makes sense, I do think I was getting Divine Inspiration from Catholicism (Poland's religion) with the amount of faith I was pulling in as I built a lot of wonders in the 2nd half of the game as I usually do (I ignore them the first half of the game usually). My only 2 cities with Feed the World (Judaism) did not have any holy sites, so no gain there. I had several cities with Taoism, but their belief was Jesuit Education. I don't think I got this into my cities until late, and by then I already had those buildings, so I'm not sure if I was able to purchase them with faith.

Save is turn before cultural victory if anyone wants to peruse for achievements. I think I ended up with 5 National Parks. Even with Wish You Were Here, it still took a while to get the victory. I could have built more, but wasn't that keen on pulling up more of my improvements.

 

[Disgustipated]

I know I said I wasn't going to play Chandra, but I wanted to give India a chance to redeem itself after its poor performance last game.

I did learn one thing, not a big deal, but slightly interesting. Chandra's movement ability lasts even after the war has ended from the civilization being eliminated. It seems like it lasts longer than 10 turns, surely I did not defeat *deleted* in 10 turns did I? I know it was fast, but not that fast. Is this game speed dependent? Seems like it may be.

I had no real close neighbors, but one wasn't too far away. I waited until military training before declaring. It went fast as I mentioned above. Now a real test how long these Varu can hold out. I may not finish this game, but I will play for a while at least.

edit: unable to meet the conditions for war or territorial expansion on my second war. Kind of disappointing, but I can see why they wouldn't make the requirements too easy.

edit: Also should note the movement bonus doesn't start until the turn after you declare war of territorial expansion.

Spoiler :

 

[Haig]

Havent actually played India in Civ 6 yet.
I might be inspired to try them now, I like Gandhi's ability more than Chandra's, on paper at least.

 

[Disgustipated]

I have to say playing Chandra compared to Gandhi is like night and day. Granted, I could play Gandhi as a warmonger, but it doesn't feel right. And of course his conquest will be slower. I ranked Chandra far too low above. I just remember playing him after Rise and Fall came out, and while he was good, I didn't think he was all that. But in that game I did not have the conditions for war of territorial expansion in any of my wars, not one. But in this game I got it in every single war except against Korea. I have to say they are tier 1 in my book. A-, at least regarding domination victory and if you can get those wars of territorial expansion. They are good at what they do, and that is killin'. I have to say, they give Macedon a run for their money for speedy domination victories. That's why I revised my ranking so high. But on some map types such as huge maps, I would rank them lower since they would be unlikely to meet those CB conditions. For comparison my Macedon dom. victory was turn 273, and this one was 294. I'm playing similar map size and speed in all my games, it will be interesting to compare when I play other domination suited civs.

I'm liking the Varu more and more. My Varu army had no trouble dispatching a Japanese Samurai in one shot. My Varu army is stronger than one of my single musketmen. I wiped out 8 civilizations with the Varu. How is that for staying power? Granted, I'm only on King, but still I think that's impressive. I can't think of many other UU's that can hold out like that on King. Obviously later on you want to get more corps and armies. And while I did rush buy a few bombard armies, the Varu were still doing the brunt of the work combined with a battering ram. I had only built one, I should have built 2 battering rams, as I have such a big army now I can split my forces into two operational groups. The 2nd one has to rely on the bombard armies. This is a unit that just keeps on giving.

And like I said, while you can go all warmonger with Gandhi, the movement bonus of Chandra is very very powerful. I'm really realizing it now with my bombard armies with 4 movement. Took over 9 Scottish cities in under 10 turns (I wasn't counting, but I still had my movement bonus). I also conquered 1 Japanese city in that same time frame.

Interestingly I got the same ranking as my Gandhi game, #3, Abraham Lincoln. I could have gotten a faster victory, but I was going for total kills. With the exception of Germany who I had trouble finding their last city (and they eventually settled one more), everyone else were total kills which is my preferred method of Domination Victory. Turn 294. I also delayed taking America and Russia because they were building Petra, and I wanted them to finish it for me. But I think they patched the AI so they switch production. In the past they would stupidly keep building the wonder even while they were under attack, but it seems like they switched to unit production, I waited for a while since it looked like they were close, but they never finished.

Spoiler :

 

[Mr. Shadows]

Chandra's ability is extremely strong . Varu's are absolute murder with 4 movement. Also (correct me if I'm wrong) but I believe his siege units can move and shoot as long as they have two movement points left. Stepwell's are neat because you can found anywhere without worrying about housing. The follower beliefs are incredibly situational, so much so that it can't be counted on. Ghandi's abilities are interesting but don't really gel into a clear path to victory. As an aside I've had a hard time getting enough faith from being at peace to get the achievement.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Chandy + Giant Heffalumps = Death to all neighboring civs.

Add in a Great General and you've got 5 movement 45 strength Varu in the Classical Era. Crunch! They also have the best unit sound in the game.

 

[Disgustipated]

Definitely love that unit sound. Have to give them points for that alone.

 

[Archon_Wing]

CQUI is back, cool. What's even cooler is you don't need the mod to open save files with it. I actually did it because the city screen is too cluttered for screenshots (can't hide those panels.

This time I went with Chandragupta. I can never reach defensive tactics fast enough, so it seems like his territorial war is more of a mid-game 2nd war sort of thing.

The Start

I chose to settle on the cotton for some early gold (sold it for even more gold) though it probably was better to settle near the coast.

The land wasn't too good; only had space for 2 good cities and a filler one. I actually went Audience Chamber and settled a random city because otherwise I couldn't even fulfill the CB for Terrotorial Expansion. :S Built Audience Chamber since I had so little cities.

Spoiler :

I honestly love how you can slide Varus across the map with this bonus.

Also went after Harald, though he actually stopped me with Frigates and I didn't have navy there, though grabbed his best cities first. At this point I wanted to attack Qin since he was my cultural rival though he declared on me first, and this counters Chandragupta's ability hard. :S

I countered with the elephant navy

Best propoganda ever

Spoiler :

Also, 1000 culture. I didn't even realize it got so high, and I think it's my highest. The only CS that actually mattered was Nan Madol though I didn't think it'd help that much.

Spoiler :

Oh yea, I noticed that the Territorial War bonus doesn't work if you joint war. Not sure if that's a thing with CQUI.

 

[Disgustipated]

I thought it might be helpful to have links to all the civ of the week threads for easier reference. Especially for those who find the search feature annoying. I was thinking of this when trying to figure out which ones we've done and which ones we haven't done. These aren't in order, I'm just getting them as I see them.

India: Chandragupta and Gandhi
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-india.634942/

Persia: Cyrus
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-perky-persia.634694/

Macedon: Alexander
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-macedon.634288/

Scythia: Tomryis
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-sythia.634451/

Kongo: Mvemba a Nzinga
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-kongo.634047/

Sumeria: Gilgamesh
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-gilgabro.633590/

Rome: Trajan
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-rome.633777/

Nubia: Amanitore
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-nubia.633278/

Norway: Harold
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-norway.633067/

Greece: Gorgo and Pericles
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-greece.632886/

Cree: Poundmaker
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-cree.632618/

Egypt: Cleopatra
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-egypt.632365/

Aztecs: Montezuma
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-of-the-week-aztecs.632133/

 

[kb27787]

Every religion, once fully codified, has a founder belief, a worship belief (building), a follower belief, and an enhancer belief. The text of Dharma says "Receive the Follower Beliefs of all religions that have at least one follower in a city, not just the majority religion."
These are all the follower beliefs (from the wiki):

Choral Music: Shrines and Temples provide Culture equal to their intrinsic Faith output.
Divine Inspiration: All world wonders provide +4 Faith.
Feed the World: Shrines and Temples provide Food equal to their intrinsic Faith output.
Jesuit Education: May purchase Campus and Theater Square district buildings with Faith.
Religious Community: Shrines and Temples each provide +1 Housing.
Reliquaries: Relics have triple yield of both Faith and Tourism.
Warrior Monks: Allows spending Faith to train Warrior Monks, medieval land combat units with a unique promotion tree. May only be purchased in a city with a Temple in its Holy Site.
Work Ethic: +1% Production for each follower.
Zen Meditation: +1 Amenity in cities with 2 specialty districts.

Some of these would combo well- especially the culture/food/housing from shrines and temples. +6 food, +6 culture, +2 housing from every holy site? Uh, yes please!
Work ethic is not so useful for Dharma because it's only +1% per follower of that religion specifically; it's an amazing belief for big cities, but to maximize it you usually have to use inquisitors on your populace, which wipes out the other stuff.

The main issue is that you can't really control what the AI picks and how it spreads, so most likely, you will just end up with warrior monks. You don't get the founder belief, and any city with majority religion can get the building - but you can only have one anyways- and some enhancer beliefs are just inherent to the religion (scripture, holy order, monastic isolation, religious colonization) but I'm unsure about burial grounds, and Crusade/DotF. I'm inclined to believe that's a founder only power. Does anyone know differently?

Dharma would be a lot better if it included "You also get the founder belief of any religion which is followed by at least one city in your empire" so there was a bit of a push towards having a heterogeneous religious landscape. Anyone playing RV will wipe out all other faiths anyways, so it's more of a nice to have.

Strange... I'm pretty sure a lot of those beliefs go into the "founder belief" slot when founding a religion (warrior monks, reliquaries, choral music, divine inspiration, I am positive are in the topmost slot--so you cannot pair them with things such as tithe, for example.
And yet in actual gameplay it seems their bonus is on a city basis, and not tied to the founder at all. You can adopt a religion with reliquaries and then the yield from relic in that city will be tripled.

I dare say civ VI's religion system is a mess (in BNW what was or was not a founder belief was very clear--founder beliefs gave global effects based on total followers/cities to the founder only) Pretty bad design IMO.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

I don’t like the India civ. I know allot of people do. My issues with India are simple. I don’t care for the restrictive nature of how the Chandragupta’s uniques synergize. He’s a warmonger that has trouble warmongering. The high population densities from Stepwells and slow moving UU’s leave me always wanting for either more amenities due to slower conquests & less ability to move my Varu to areas with new amenities, or wondering why my offensive has suddenly stalled out and why I’m taking allot of fire now. I should be able to charge over that hill, wipe out that crossbowman, then have my other Varu wipe out the other xbowman who’s targeting me. Instead I’m taking fire...twice. Oh yeah, the +2 Territorial Expansion casus belli must have expired. As for Ghandi, I’m not even going to comment.

 

[Archon_Wing]

You don't have to grow. Could just use stepwells for food deprived areas or just pantheon hunting.

Side note: I think India has some of the best music in the game.