India changes?

[nanomage]

Look at it this way. Early happiness hit is manageable though constraining, but never having to worry about happiness late game and an amazing conquering elephant are worth it aren't they?Souldn't we be evaluating civs as a whole, not just isolated UAs?

 

[stealth_nsk]

1. Religion is not the only way to get happiness. When I play (not so much India, but anyway) I usually have a hard time with happiness in the classic era - medieval era shift or something like that and if I don't get a Religion, somebody else have and I have noticed that they usually love to spread it to you. And if all the religion slots are taken before you have then the chance that they are spreading it to you will be high and if not, CSs, luxuries & trade still exist.

This was a reply to a point how unhappiness helps spreading religion.

2. If I am really in need of a religion and wants to ICS I will try to get the liberty finisher and select Prophet (during the first 50 turns you know of this is going to be a religion race game or not). If I want to do a slow ICS (sound good for India) I will combine Tradition with Liberty or just Tradition (yes you can ICS with Tradition).

Ok, but at the point there you get negative happiness with regular civs, you get less than -10 with India. And if you want to try standard ICS, you could end up with rebels.

Overall. I'm not saying India is unplayable, no. It just have much more tough start. In vanilla it was paid off later when other civs become struck with happiness limits. Since G&K this doesn't work anymore as other civs don't suffer from unhappiness that much.

EDIT:

Look at it this way. Early happiness hit is manageable though constraining, but never having to worry about happiness late game and an amazing conquering elephant are worth it aren't they?Souldn't we be evaluating civs as a whole, not just isolated UAs?

Yes, we should evaluate civ as a whole and as a whole India is rather weak since G&K.

 

[DemonMaster]

First you need to adjust your playing style according to what civ you play, terrain, your neighbours. I have played all civs (except two) with G&K and the only problem I got is with civs that are strategic resource dependent early on (Rome). I usually is extremely unlucky when it comes to playing those. But then again, my point is that you (most often) can't force a playing style upon a civ. If you like extreme ICS, then perhaps India is not for you. If you thinks that a moderate ICS (or no ICS at all) is a suitable style then India is better.

Then I can admit that the India UA is quite boring, but theirs are not the only one.

 

[stealth_nsk]

First you need to adjust your playing style according to what civ you play, terrain, your neighbours.

Which difficulty level you're playing on? Even on Emperor India is a trouble, even though I like playing tall and it was one of my favs in vanilla.

And yes, it's quite boring as just going tall isn't a new strategy. But that's a problem of many vanilla civs.

 

[Viregel]

India isn't so bad though, you just have to keep small right? I haven't really been paying attention to Brave New World up until now, but doesn't Venice have a negative ability too? Why is India's drawback bigger than Venice's? I only ask because from what I've seen so far, people like Venice a lot.

I don't like India as much as I don't like Venice, but it could do with a rework. Not counting Venice, no other civilization has a drawback to its expansion unique to it, and India's ability only kicks in when your cities have 4 or more population. A 25% unhappiness cut from population mightn't be as good as its current ability, but it wouldn't limit expansion, giving India a better playstyle.

 

[nanomage]

Frankly, I don't get your reasoning behind saying India is weak. You nave enough happiness to start the game and when you would've settled your 4th or 3rd city wth other civ, you have better options with India - elephants.
Here, please take a look at IC2 India.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=493098
There was also an EC something India, but I can't find it atm. The most impressive of the thread, Moriarte's t113 domination, woudn't have been possible with pretty much any other civ.

 

[DemonMaster]

Which difficulty level you're playing on? Even on Emperor India is a trouble, even though I like playing tall and it was one of my favs in vanilla.

And yes, it's quite boring as just going tall isn't a new strategy. But that's a problem of many vanilla civs.

I play most of the time on King. Higher than that is mostly about warmongering I have noticed (not my cup of tea). But difficulty levels affects AI civs (mostly) anyway so the basic strategy for a civ is the same other than that you need to modify it so you can counter if a runaway comes in your direction. But sure, some civs are harder than other on higher difficulty levels (or need more thought behind certain decision and/or lucky start).

 

[pilot00]

The bad thing with India UA is that it cause a lot of problems with early expansion and conquest. And by the time you have excess happiness, all the land around is settled and elephants aren't that good.

In vanilla this was compensated by huge city growth later, but in G&K happiness is much less a problem, so India doesn't have significant advantage. After all they don't have any bonuses to growth speed, just to happiness.

Bold text is where (IMHO OFC) you are mistaken. India is a fine puppet/warmongering civ. In fact I would go as far as to say that they are geared for it. Just settle one or two cities and conquer the rest. When you hit the tech, build Nuchnestein and watch the mugal fort become one of the best UBs in the game.

 

[Aaron90495]

Bold text is where (IMHO OFC) you are mistaken. India is a fine puppet/warmongering civ. In fact I would go as far as to say that they are geared for it. Just settle one or two cities and conquer the rest. When you hit the tech, build Nuchnestein and watch the mugal fort become one of the best UBs in the game.

Maybe they're a fine warmongering civ - still a stretch IMO - but they're certainly not good. Problem is, puppets are usually under 6 population; since city population is cut in half upon conquering, the cities you need to conquer must be size 12 or more for the Indian UA to not hurt you. And if they're that large, chances are it's too late in the game for your elephants to be effective in capturing them.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that India is without merit, but the problem is how hurt they are at the beginning of the game. Pretty much any advanced player will argue that the first 100 turns usually decide a game, and when you're severely hampered in those crucial turns, it's not a recipe for success. I'm sure India WORKS at lower difficulties, but at the upper difficulties - where a Civ's true strengths and weaknesses show - there's no job India can do that another civ can't do better.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

Even in the happiness Department India is pretty bad.
They run even at size 6 vs Vanilla civs, size 10 With civs that have happy UB, size 12 vs the celts With there Happy UB.
Not to mention that they have a severe penalty at getting a religion.
Grassland starts and slower exspansion does not help you get a religion.
Not a recipe for victory.

Now haveing average size cities of 10 and 12 is quite late in the game.
now add onto the fact that you often miss out on the happiness religion and that is another 0-6 happyness per city that you miss out on.

in civ 5 patch 1.0 they could exspand very fast early on. there was no slowdown. the luxuries payed for it and 2 pop. they also broke even alot eariler at size 4.
and they could easily get a colloseum and 6 policies so they got 2 happy per city. And in Vanilla happiness was harder to come by.

In other words India has recieved the biggest nerf of any civ in Civilization 5.

 

[nimzo28]

I like India at Immortal level; they are one of the strongest civilization for capturing a series of big cities (>6) late in the game without be slowed by unhappiness. For me, the logical addition for India would be to add at their UA a +10% Growth Rate. Thus, their penalty early in the game would be shorter, and the benefit of their current UA, longer. For the moment, only the Siams have a UA that can give them more food...

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Actually, when you think about it, the food-producing domestic trade routes should help India grow their cities up to the higher populations faster, so they can benefit from their UA better.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Actually, when you think about it, the food-producing domestic trade routes should help India grow their cities up to the higher populations faster, so they can benefit from their UA better.

Yes, but this doesn't come without cost - this means that you'll not spent the same trade routes for production or international trade. I don't see any advantage for India here.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Yes, but this doesn't come without cost - this means that you'll not spent the same trade routes for production or international trade. I don't see any advantage for India here.

Strategy is about making sacrifices to prioritize one thing over others. For India, the proper strategy may be to prioritize food DTRs over production DTRs or gold ITRs. They really want India to have those big cities, and using food DTRs is the way to make that happen.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Strategy is about making sacrifices to prioritize one thing over others. For India, the proper strategy may be to prioritize food DTRs over production DTRs or gold ITRs. They really want India to have those big cities, and using food DTRs is the way to make that happen.

Yes, I understand that it could be really good strategy for them. But the fact that this strategy appears doesn't make India relatively stronger as other civs have at least the same number of trade routes and they have their strategy with them.

 

[adwcta]

Bold text is where (IMHO OFC) you are mistaken. India is a fine puppet/warmongering civ. In fact I would go as far as to say that they are geared for it. Just settle one or two cities and conquer the rest. When you hit the tech, build Nuchnestein and watch the mugal fort become one of the best UBs in the game.

This isn't a feature, it's a problem. India is a great warmonger-ing civ, because it deals with happiness better than any other civ in the mid-late game, and captured cities already have population, which is a real issue for other civs, but not as much for India.

So, the Ideal way to play India is to go for a Tradition/Liberty + Honor mixed start (yes, Honor), expand to a second city, and then gather your forces to start puppeting your neighbors. Then, when the happiness bonus from Honor really kick in, you can annex some cities to control their production. Then, in late game, go on a conquest spree without worrying much about happiness. Is this how anyone envisions India/Gandhi playing? The mechanic is underpowered (perhaps not the worst civ, but certainly on the lowest tier), and completely changes the civ's strategy from what I presume was intended.

Then again, maybe this is all just a grand inside joke to allow Ghandi to get good use out of those nukes.

 

[nanomage]

This isn't a feature, it's a problem. India is a great warmonger-ing civ, because it deals with happiness better than any other civ in the mid-late game, and captured cities already have population, which is a real issue for other civs, but not as much for India.

So, the Ideal way to play India is to go for a Tradition/Liberty + Honor mixed start (yes, Honor), expand to a second city, and then gather your forces to start puppeting your neighbors. Then, when the happiness bonus from Honor really kick in, you can annex some cities to control their production. Then, in late game, go on a conquest spree without worrying much about happiness. Is this how anyone envisions India/Gandhi playing? The mechanic is underpowered (perhaps not the worst civ, but certainly on the lowest tier), and completely changes the civ's strategy from what I presume was intended.

Then again, maybe this is all just a grand inside joke to allow Ghandi to get good use out of those nukes.

Well you don't need right side honor, only left as usual. Also, you raze (to rebuild later maybe) more than you puppet because mostly it's only capitals that are going to have decent size and pay for themselves happiness-wise. Other than that, you've pretty much summed it up. This may be seen as a joke, or as an inappropriate way to be Gandhi, but that's where India shines. And please don't call it underpowered before taking a look at the abovementioned IC2. Elephants make this strategy very powerful.

 

[adwcta]

Well you don't need right side honor, only left as usual. Also, you raze (to rebuild later maybe) more than you puppet because mostly it's only capitals that are going to have decent size and pay for themselves happiness-wise. Other than that, you've pretty much summed it up. This may be seen as a joke, or as an inappropriate way to be Gandhi, but that's where India shines. And please don't call it underpowered before taking a look at the abovementioned IC2. Elephants make this strategy very powerful.

When compared to a proper warring civ? (see closest example: China, which granted, is an overpowered civ) India is underpowered. India gets a good early elephant rush (which is almost 100% negated by China's GG bonus, and cbs upgrade into CKNs), and then +2 culture per city (instead of China's +2 gold, which also comes earlier). For domination, India is pretty much strictly worse than China (who also have a dominant CKN era and then the GG bonus is still there).

India is underpowered, not unplayable. I just outlined a strategy for India domination, so I know it works (no reading IC2 required, although I just read through that thread and it didn't really make me think much more highly of India). All the civs are workable in this game. The civs are not so different from each other (each civ has only 3 things unique about them) that any civ would be completely dead in the water.

What's troubling is that for standard settings on land/water balanced maps, most of the other weaker civs (Japan, Byzantine, Polynesia) are getting boosts with BNW mechanics (sea trade routes, piety start, world congress), and India doesn't seem to be. That's why there's more of a need to give India something extra, especially when it's current preferred play-style past classical era is almost certainly not what the civ was designed for.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If they want India to have a tall strategy, then they need to focus on growth bonuses....

That would naturally lead to tall since
-faster growth= more unhappiness from pop v. Cities
Tall civs are more growth limited than happiness limited.

 

[wigwam]

most of the other weaker civs (Japan, Byzantine, Polynesia) are getting boosts with BNW mechanics (sea trade routes, piety start, world congress), and India doesn't seem to be.

I don't follow. Are sea trade routes supposed to help Japan somehow?