India Total Peaceful Photojournal

[Minh Le]

Hello guys, after many trials and errors, I think I finally am able to win a total peaceful game on Deity as India (I lost 3 times already ). I admit that before I alway play rather aggressively, alway try to bully my neighbour as hard as possible by very early warfare and steal as much as possible from AI. In this photojournal, I will follow some rules and play totally peaceful and try to win. In my last 3 games, I find it very hard to be peaceful, much harder than playing aggressively, but we will see how it go.

Spoiler Rules :

Here are the rules:

• I must not declared war on anyone, city states included, even for the purpose of stealing a worker.
• I must not take any city.
• I must not send troops to enemy territory.
• I must not demand tribute from city states.
• I must not demand vassal on AI (vassal is enable).

Spoiler About India :

• Why I decided to play as India?
  Because I have never actually play as India in VP and there are some interesting discussions about strategy when playing as India, so I decided to try my own game.
• UA: Font of Dharma
  Starts with a Pantheon and Great Prophets require 35% less Faith. Each Follower of your majority or founded Religion in a City increases Religious Pressure and Growth in that City. Cannot build Missionaries.
  India UA give you advantage in the very early and late game. Free pantheon at the start give you a strong early boost, combo with 35% discount on Great Prophets means you are likely to found a religion first relatively easy, or you can try a non-faith Pantheon and still being able to found just by building shrines in your cities. Religious Pressure and Growth scale with population of your cities and become stronger as the game progress.
• UU: Naga-Malla, replaces Cuirassier.
  Its a monster. It has +7 CS, +4 RCS compaired to Cuirassier which it replaces, and comes at 3 techs earlier with only 1 less movement. Very strong and easily the strongest unit in its era. IMO, the most interesting aspect of the Naga-Malla is the tech in which it is unlocked. Chemistry also gives a very nice and important wonder: Leaning Tower of Pisa. So it is worth to beeline to get anytime.

• UB: Harappan Reservoir.
  Its an Aqueduct replacement which further boost Growth for India. It provides 4 Food, 2 Production while Aqueduct only give 1 Food. It also boost farms +2 Food to farms make farm very strong for India.

Spoiler Strategy :

My plan is to play a total peaceful game and win science/culture, so my strategy will focus on that.

• Policies:
  - Tradition vs Progress: My choice is Progress. I think Progress is more suitable for India because: 1. The main strength of India is Growth, which mean you dont really need extra growth from Tradition, you will mostly end up with many labourer draging you down by adding unhappiness and mediorce yield, while extra growth for Progress mean extra citizen proc and stronger cities overall. 2. Progress provide much needed workers improving speed to improve tiles for those extra citizens to work on. 3. Progress have more happiness overall. 4. I have stronger cities with progress. 5. Progress is much easier to defend compared to Tradition thanks to extra Production and Gold for build/buy units.
  - Fealty vs Artistry: My goal in late game is to be able to work as many specialist as possible, so my choice is Artistry. Fealty gives me even more Growth (not needed), faith (not really needed) and city defense (unnecessary), while Artistry gives me +25% Great People Rate in all cities (very strong and much needed), lots of Golden Age Point (much needed), Culture and Tourism (very important).
  - Then I go for Rationalism and Freedom because obvious reasons.
• Religion:
  - Offensive vs Defensive Spread: after many tries, I could say that India is not that good playing offensive spread because India cannot build missionary. AI on Deity will just spam Missionary and Inquisitor to push back your passive spread like notthing. In one game, Ive tried to time Hagia Sophia with a Great Prophet and send them both to my neighbour to convert all 8 cities of him, just to be reconverted by hordes of Missionary of another AI. So I decided to play Defensive, spread to my cities, use one Great Prophet to convert a non-found to be able to Reform.
  - Belief: Religion will play a very important part in my game, so I must plan my strategy very carefully.
  Pantheon: Its the most important part, because I have a Pantheon immediately after I settle my Capital with very limited information about the area Im in. Ive tried all sort of Pantheon selection, and find out that the most beneficial pantheon you can pick are those give immediate Culture. You dont really need faith because you can found a religion easy enough. So the most useful could be: 1. Goddess of Protection: immediate 2F, 1C in your Capital, speed up the first policy considerably, and the ability to heal at faster rate is very useful in future defensive wars. 2. Goddess of the Hunt: Strong yield if you start in forest/tundra and have Camp base luxuries. 3. Goddess of Nature: Free food and Gold, easy enough to spot mountain range on turn 1, if you manage to settle a Nature wonder then it becomes very strong. 4. Earth Mother/ God of Craftsmen: worth a choice. Dont pick Goddess of Love, its terrible.
  Founder: I try to pick the most yields Founder Belief which are: Way of Transcendence, Holy Law, Theocratic Rule, Divine Inheritance.
  Follower: As for follower, I try to pick 2 buildings to increase my pressure and benefit from their bonus. The most desirable should be: 1. Mandir: 10% food combo well with my super Farms, poverty reduction is nice, and prevent enemies to assassin my Great People is much needed. 2. Synagogues: Production, Science and reduce distress is very nice. 3. Mosques: Culture is always needed. 4. Mastery: I will have a lot of Specialists. 5. Cooperation: My cities growth fast. 6. Inspiration/Diligence/Asceticism: if I miss all of those above, I consider these.
  Enhancer: Iconography is the most desirable, ignore policy requirement is very strong now IMO. Other good choice should be: Prophecy: I will have more and stronger holy sites. Mendicancy: good yield and good internal TRs.
  Reformation: To the Glory of God is most desirable since I will go Progress and I want to be able to buy Great Engineer later to rush key wonders, yield from expend Great People is nice too. Knowledge Through Devotion is also not bad since I will have many holy sites. Defender of the Faith is useful when I have to face some kind of crazy strong late game warmonger.
• General game plan: I will try to settle 7 to 9 cities because I want at least one guild in each city, I also try to cover most land as possible and have the most defensive posstion as possible. In the late game, I want to be able to work all the Guild slots, Scientiest slots, Great Diplomat slots, Engineer slots in all of my cities and generate as many Great People as possible. These are key to victory.

Well, hope you guys can get through this wall of text and my horrible English. And now to the game:

Spoiler Setting :

• VPP newest version, no mod-mod.
• Deity Difficulty, Epic game pace.
• Standard Frontier Map Script, sea level set to low, Resource set to Strategic Balance, I add 2 more AIs to compensate the extra land.
• No Events, No ruins, No tech trading/brokering, No Research Agreement.
• The rest are Default.

Spoiler My start :

And here is my starting location. Look solid enough for me, so I decided to settle on spot.

Spoiler Pantheon :

I decided to pick Goddess of Protection because of reason I explained above.

This is it. I hope you guys will enjoy .

 

[Grassland Farm]

Dont pick Goddess of Love, its terrible.

Why must you hurt me like this...
I'm playing a fairly defensive India too (though I didn't shy from razing a few Ottoman cities when they attacked me) and I felt like goddess of love was giving nice outputs of faith early on, so I could grab religion quicker, enhance it quicker and then get holy sites.
I'm in medieval era roughly right now - Went Tradition-Fealthy and I definitely agree with you going progress->artistry. I have WAY TOO MUCH food in my capital, and not enough production in general. I haven't been running laborers in the capital, but close enough...
I managed to get both salt (10% food) and citrus (+2 science per tile, 3 tiles) monopolies fairly quickly so I'm happy. But there's a Japanese AI that's eating everybody around it! I just hope I can win.

 

[Minh Le]

Why must you hurt me like this...
I'm playing a fairly defensive India too (though I didn't shy from razing a few Ottoman cities when they attacked me) and I felt like goddess of love was giving nice outputs of faith early on, so I could grab religion quicker, enhance it quicker and then get holy sites.
I'm in medieval era roughly right now - Went Tradition-Fealthy and I definitely agree with you going progress->artistry. I have WAY TOO MUCH food in my capital, and not enough production in general. I haven't been running laborers in the capital, but close enough...
I managed to get both salt (10% food) and citrus (+2 science per tile, 3 tiles) monopolies fairly quickly so I'm happy. But there's a Japanese AI that's eating everybody around it! I just hope I can win.

Haha sorry but Love just isnt Gandhi's thing. India growth bonus is not there until it has a religion and good number of followers. IMO, religion for India is a tool to get other yield, I dont really need to focus on faith to get a religion. Love is better for other tradition Civ who struggle to found.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Nice to see a india game, and additionally one with rules against warfare. Cause its mainly that way how I play my games.
Some hint: If you go for 8+ cities, I would suggest to stabilize your secondary cities at 30 pop at industrial, 35 population in more than 8 cities is kinda uncontrollable at that time of the game. Researching a tech alone can lead to happiness swings of 25+.

Rationalismn is a bad choice. Having very big cities and going into tech lead can cause tremendous unhappiness due to tech-median modificator. And theres nothing special in the rationalismn tree you really need.
In most cases I pick atleast partially imperialism. Colonialismn is awesome, especially if you have some +% monopoly (like you will have with silk, +10% gold). Martial law is mediocre, but atleast give some happiness and save some gold. Exploitation strenghtens the same improvements as urbanization from freedom, so you will not want to destroy them by GPTI, and makes ocean tiles an acceptable tile to work (increase yields from coast tiles by +40%). Regimental system increase the amount of generals, which can be spend to increase your territory (more tiles) and helps defending, while spending admirals gives luxuries which help in fighting unhappiness. The opener and scaler is helpful for any civiliazation, no matter which goal you have, and the finisher is able to increase happiness by great admirals and decrease unhappiness by aircrafts.
Also industry is a much better pick than rationalismn. Lots of percentual bonuses increases the efficiency of your giant cities, which is the key to play india. More production and gold is a good counterweight to your already high food generation and helps in fighting distress and poverty, which can get easy out of hand in big cities. More trade routes can help in siphoning science and culture from leaders. And the finisher is pretty nice, more happiness by luxuries and more yields by specialists is a great improvement, cause you will have to focus on those greatly.

I'm in medieval era roughly right now - Went Tradition-Fealthy and I definitely agree with you going progress->artistry. I have WAY TOO MUCH food in my capital, and not enough production in general. I haven't been running laborers in the capital, but close enough...

The main advantage of tradition is the tile cost reduction. Fast growth need fast a lot of tiles, and if your squeezed on a large continent, grabbing more tiles before your enemy means more workable tiles.
And don´t underestimate the growth bonus from tradition, your UA needs some time to get strong and this modifier helps very good in the early game, and never lose its usefulness even in lategame. If you stack the UB, exploitation from imperialismn, agribusiness and urbanization, total of +9 food, the tradition modifier alone improve one farm tile by +2.7 food. As much as fraternity from progress gives you per city. But I can understand your choice and see it also as valid.

 

[Owlbebach]

Some time ago i had a very successful game for India with offensive spread. Maybe i post a similar one with a new version, would be interesting to see who done it better. But as i mentioned in the other thread - you need to build a lot of roads fast to make it work. And you actually do need a lot of faith in that case.

 

[crdvis16]

It's always interesting to see other's choices on how to play a given civ. I'd never play India as anything other than Tradition personally.

Tradition excels when you have a large population that can make use of all of those specialist slots so civs with bonuses to food always seem like the perfect time to go tradition.

Progress excels when you have good reasons to play wide, like UBs or UIs that give good science/culture to overcome the tech/policy cost increases.

To me, India clearly has synergy with Tradition but doesn't really have it with Progress. If you don't go Tradition with India, who would you go Tradition with?

 

[crdvis16]

Some time ago i had a very successful game for India with offensive spread. Maybe i post a similar one with a new version, would be interesting to see who done it better. But as i mentioned in the other thread - you need to build a lot of roads fast to make it work. And you actually do need a lot of faith in that case.

I tried recently and had bad results. I went with 2x follower buildings and orthodoxy for maximum pressure and built roads to my neighbor's borders. I had anywhere from 250-500 pressure in their cities (compared to like 25-75 of their own, can't remember exactly) but they were perfectly happy to constantly use their faith on inquisitors to remove my followers.

Perhaps if my neighbors weren't defending their own religion the story would have been different, but from that game it seemed extremely difficult for passive pressure alone to overtake another religion. I probably needed to use a few prophets at the same time on a few cities in order to overtake them for good.

 

[Owlbebach]

To me, India clearly has synergy with Tradition but doesn't really have it with Progress. If you don't go Tradition with India, who would you go Tradition with?

Many civs. Arabia, Korea, America for example.
It only seems that India has a lot of synergy with Tradition, but in fact it does not (imo of course). India is much more geared towards scientific victory, it works great with fealty and Rationalism, also with Tradition you'll have hard time using your Elephants and they are very strong. It is silly not to use them (unless it is your personal challenge, as in this example)

I tried recently and had bad results. I went with 2x follower buildings and orthodoxy for maximum pressure and built roads to my neighbor's borders. I had anywhere from 250-500 pressure in their cities (compared to like 25-75 of their own, can't remember exactly) but they were perfectly happy to constantly use their faith on inquisitors to remove my followers.

You probably made something wrong, you need to do it as early as possible. In my game i went Monument-> Worker started building road to my 2nd city before my Settler was done. The goal is to convert your neighbors with passive pressure before other civs come with Missionaries. It is complicated but doable.

 

[John.B.C]

I very much like this since I like to play quite peaceful most of the time, since I get really bored by domination victories (feels like a chore). They are to easy to achieve IMO; at least on immortal.

 

[crdvis16]

Many civs. Arabia, Korea, America for example.
It only seems that India has a lot of synergy with Tradition, but in fact it does not (imo of course). India is much more geared towards scientific victory, it works great with fealty and Rationalism, also with Tradition you'll have hard time using your Elephants and they are very strong. It is silly not to use them (unless it is your personal challenge, as in this example)

You probably made something wrong, you need to do it as early as possible. In my game i went Monument-> Worker started building road to my 2nd city before my Settler was done. The goal is to convert your neighbors with passive pressure before other civs come with Missionaries. It is complicated but doable.

If I was going for a science victory as India I'd still go Tradition. And I would most certainly go Tradition as the other civs you listed as well. Civs with specialist, growth, or early wonder bonuses have synergy with Tradition IMO.

Agreed on the passive spread strategy. I went into the game assuming that two follower buildings, orthodoxy, some roads, and India's UA would just spread out of control without much effort. I probably needed to really go overboard with the roads early on rather than waiting to get neighbors converted before their religions start getting established.

I also got unlucky that I was on a continent where my neighbors all ended up with a religion. Denmark initially didn't have one and I converted all of his cities easily but then he conquered Mecca and systematically converted his like 20 city empire to Islam... between that and seeing 500+ pressure fail against constant inquisitor purchases I was thwarted.

 

[Minh Le]

If I was going for a science victory as India I'd still go Tradition. And I would most certainly go Tradition as the other civs you listed as well. Civs with specialist, growth, or early wonder bonuses have synergy with Tradition.

Well I must disagree with you on this. I think civ with growth and food bonus synergy much better with Progress rather than Tradition especially when aiming for science victory. Tradition only provide you 1 more scientist specialist in your capital, while with (only) 2 more cities playing as Progress, you easily get 10 more scientist specialists. Its very big different. The problem is the food to feed those specialists and food bonus of India fix that problem while those bonus just gonna be excessive for Tradition, Tradition already have more food and reduce food consumption of specialist.
As for spreading, I think its just a waste of resource, I want a strong religion, and I want to keep it for myself. I will spread enough to Reform, then let AI do what they want. My passive pressure is enough to make my neighbor spend tons of faith on inquisitor and its good enough.

 

[Owlbebach]

As for spreading, I think its just a waste of resource, I want a strong religion, and I want to keep it for myself. I will spread enough to Reform, then let AI do what they want. My passive pressure is enough to make my neighbor spend tons of faith on inquisitor and its good enough.

That depends on your beliefs. I took Holy Law and it grants you enourmous amount of Science. Also you spend faith on Great Scientists and Gold on buildings with Progress's wonder

 

[BiteInTheMark]

In my opinion Tradition and Progress are a both valid picks for india.
I think Tradition is better till a city number of 6 (this is a good amount of cities, cause you can reach the 176 population luxury treshold in industrial, when some happiness problems appear).
But with more than 9 or 10 cities, progress is better. More cities decrease the effect of luxuries and starting from around 180 population, you get more happiness by the equality policy than by national wonders. The extra production for buildings and the gained culture and the gold for citizen birth has for sure more more impact, the wider you play.

The problem is the food to feed those specialists and food bonus of India fix that problem while those bonus just gonna be excessive for Tradition, Tradition already have more food and reduce food consumption of specialist.

The extra food and growth in capital and the consumption reduction for specialists enables the capital to hold a fast growth while working specialists too. For a smaller empire, working that specialists have a greater effect than gaining flat yields from the progress policies for every city.

India is much more geared towards scientific victory

But what do you get from rationalismn, what you really need?
The main advantages of the rationalismn tree is gaining more science and food, an increase of growth and some happiness.
While the extra growth from tradition in the early game is very useful, additional growth multiplier in that state of the game isnt necessary (saved food and growth didnt help with fighting distress). The saved and gained food is very nice, but if you go for freedom, have the UB and maybe agribusiness, you will and want to work those farms, camps and plantations. In this case exploitation gives you more, cause it improves all urbanization buffed improvements and add hammer to it. The buff to coast tiles makes them workable, and in my opinion, paying 2 and gain 4222 is much better than paying a specialist for 5 to gain 81
It mainly only focus on those advantages, while hammer, culture and gold is relativly ignored. And the amount of additional happiness you can gain is extremly limited, while industrialismn and imperialismn have an open end limit for additional happiness by luxuries.

 

[Owlbebach]

The buff to coast tiles makes them workable, and in my opinion, paying 2 and gain 4222 is much better than paying a specialist for 5 to gain 81

No it is not. You aim for scientific victory, starting from Modern era you don't need anything except science. You don't need buildings. You don't need army. You don't need gold. You don't need culture. This is exactly why you take Rationalism. I would actually consider taking science per specialists instead of many ideology tenets.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

No it is not. You aim for scientific victory, starting from Modern era you don't need anything except science. You don't need buildings. You don't need army. You don't need gold. You don't need culture. This is exactly why you take Rationalism. I would actually consider taking science per specialists instead of many ideology tenets.

Tell that the need modifiers. With a 30 citizen city, increasing the lead by 2 more techs means an increased modifier at the strength of a 100% need reduction building, doing that with a 44 citizen city means, you need around a 230% need reduction building. Ive tried that.
Also, finishing buildings much earlier thanks to industrialimn branch enables you to set your construction to process. 500 hammer converted to 100 science would need 10 scientiest with some modifiers to reach that amount. In one city. And you got your buildings and the research.

 

[crdvis16]

Well I must disagree with you on this. I think civ with growth and food bonus synergy much better with Progress rather than Tradition especially when aiming for science victory. Tradition only provide you 1 more scientist specialist in your capital, while with (only) 2 more cities playing as Progress, you easily get 10 more scientist specialists. Its very big different. The problem is the food to feed those specialists and food bonus of India fix that problem while those bonus just gonna be excessive for Tradition, Tradition already have more food and reduce food consumption of specialist.
As for spreading, I think its just a waste of resource, I want a strong religion, and I want to keep it for myself. I will spread enough to Reform, then let AI do what they want. My passive pressure is enough to make my neighbor spend tons of faith on inquisitor and its good enough.

I don't typically pick my ancient era policy tree based on my intended victory condition because all 3 trees can reasonably be used for any victory. I pick my ancient era policy tree based on whether I will focus on tall, wide, or conquer based play.

As for your example that progress/wide is better for science victory than tradition/tall, you're leaving out some important facts. Yes, having more cities means you will have more overall science specialists. But having more cities also means your tech costs are higher by some %, so even if you can work more science slots it might not make up for the increased tech costs. Because of the increase in great person costs every time a great person is spawned, it's also possible that the extra cities you have working science specialists slot will never actually spawn a great scientist making those GPP useless.

Speaking of specialists, a Tradition capital is typically going to spawn more great people overall even if a Progress empire is working lots of specialists in more cities. The majority of wonders that give GPP will be in your capital along with the National Monument. Tradition also gets +25% great person rate from Majesty. Stacking all those extra GPP and %modifiers in one city (not to mention those extra specialist slots in the early game when Progress probably has no specialists) means the Tradition capital can probably out-produce multiple Progress cities in terms of spawning great people.

Progress has things going for it as well in terms of science. I think both trees are capable of science victories, it's just a matter of going wide-science or tall-science. That's why I think the decision is more "do I want to go wide or tall?". For me, tall India is what makes sense.

 

[Minh Le]

Speaking of specialists, a Tradition capital is typically going to spawn more great people overall even if a Progress empire is working lots of specialists in more cities. The majority of wonders that give GPP will be in your capital along with the National Monument. Tradition also gets +25% great person rate from Majesty. Stacking all those extra GPP and %modifiers in one city (not to mention those extra specialist slots in the early game when Progress probably has no specialists) means the Tradition capital can probably out-produce multiple Progress cities in terms of spawning great people.

In the early game, yes. In the late game? No. Its true in case of GWAM because guilds are litmited, but not true in case of GS, because you basically have scientist specialists in every cities. The increase in cost can be compensate by extra science the cities produce, and with progress, my secondary cities are produce bigger than 80% of my capital, some even better. The point is in modern era, with more cities, you will have many more Great Scientists compared to Traditions and with bonus from Rationalism, you can pop them to jump ahead in tech for a science victory.

 

[CrazyG]

In the early game, yes. In the late game? No. Its true in case of GWAM because guilds are litmited, but not true in case of GS, because you basically have scientist specialists in every cities. The increase in cost can be compensate by extra science the cities produce, and with progress, my secondary cities are produce bigger than 80% of my capital, some even better. The point is in modern era, with more cities, you will have many more Great Scientists compared to Traditions and with bonus from Rationalism, you can pop them to jump ahead in tech for a science victory.

Count the number of scientists in your games. This sounds right on paper, because long term, Progress would eventually beat Tradition in everything (except GWAM), but games are usually ending before your 8th city has any great scientists.

 

[Minh Le]

And... here comes my first part.
I have about 150 turns in, and the game is very interesting so I will try to go slowly and explain in detail of my decision.

Spoiler 1. Scouting around :

The most basic thing you do in the early game. In the first part, you already see my capital, I decided to research wheel so I can see banana then pottery for settler (gonna spam a few), then Calendar for my lux, I decided to get Pyramid as my early wonder this game. It gonna be my only wonder for a while though.
As for scouting, normally I push my pathfinder on one direction until I spot a neighbor Capital, and then try to steal its worker. In this game, I do quite differently, I move my scout around to reveal the area around for spot to settle.
Ive found Fountain of Youth, good wonder, not too far from my capital, Im definitely getting this. Build order in my capital is Monument -> Shrine. I have +2 Culture from the start instead of +1 thanks to my Pantheon and it spead up my Opener A LOT. It will be very important as Progress, you will see later. And I meet Korea and Polynessia.

Spoiler 2. Open Progress :

I got Progress Opener in turn 25, on Epic speed, which is almost 20 turns faster than normal (I do have a jungle hill in the start so by settle I chop those tree to speed up my Monument). Take the opener, I immediate researched Pottery and it net me some culture.

Spoiler 3. First settler :

Shrine finished in turn 27, my capital has 3 pops, I decided to start a settler right away. Im saving my gold for now, if I see barb close, I will buy a warrior, if not, I will by a worker and save for an archer later, archer is much better dealing with barbs than warrior. More Civs met, Morocco and Venice.

Spoiler 4. First city location :

Its turn 42, My settler is out in 1 turn, Ive scout around and spot Seoul, not too far from my capital, I must decide my city location. I have a river, some mountains and hills between me and Korea, then I must play it to my advantage. I decided to settle 3 cities on the 3 blue circle in the picture. Its one tile away from the river, which mean Korea melee troop must take one more turn to cross the river to attack my city, and my defence force will make quick work of them. I want land, and by securing more land, I piss my neighbor off, then I expect war to come, so I must prepare my defence from the very start.
On the side note, I have one more turn till finish Calendar (just in time). I will build pyramid right away. But hey, I need 1 more policy to be able to build it. Its nice Im close to my next policy. Because I have that extra culture at the start, over 42 turn, its 42 culture, it worth 21 turn of culture the monument produce, which basically your only source of culture in the early game as a Progress player. Thanks to that, I get the wonder for sure, Im sure I get the tech first. I have enough money for a warrior and a worker now, no barb showed up. I will buy both and chop a jungle to speed up my wonder (and improve my lux too ofc).

Spoiler 5. Waiting for that policy :

Researching calendar net me some culture, but Im still 3 turns short on the next policy, I work farming for now and move my settler to the first location. Tech order after Calendar is Trapping, because I need archers now, barbs camp will spawn handaxes soon and this guys are pain to deal with without archers. Next is Animal husbandry because I need horse, I plan to have some chariot archer (later upgrade into skirmisher then ELEPHANT) to defend. Next gonna be Military theory, I want to build barrack soon because of my pantheon, barrack supprisingly has really good yield.

Spoiler 6. 2nd Policy :

Obviously I pick Organization as my 2nd Policy. +2P is useful for my early wonder and settler spam, and I want Expertise ASAP because of culture.

Spoiler 7. Mumbai Founded :

I found Mumbai on the exact spot I decided, I bet Korea will like it . It has a oasis, a wheat and a luxyry tile to work immediately, very good city. My pathfinder is now free to do more scouting. In the mean time, Ive met China and Iroquois, I dont like this too much, China is a super power and snowball really hard in my experience, normally I just take her out early before her UU come online, but this game I cannot do that. However, her bonus will decline as new era comes, while I will be stronger and stronger over time, so I think I will be able to catch up. Iroquois is infamoust forward settler and I dont like that too.

Spoiler 8. Everyone go Progress... :

Strangely, Every Civs Ive met when Progress, including Korea. I wonder why..?

Spoiler 9. Another good location. :

Yes. I found a very good location. 3 Tobaco, a Gem and a Citrus. Im drooling, I must have this city. It gonna secure me from AI expansion too. Im gonna settle where my pathfinder is, on the hill, I have hill and desert in the front to hinder enemies movement then this gonna be another good spot for defence.

Spoiler 10. A defensive line :

I decided to set my next defensive line here in the picture, with hills, desert, river protecting me. Here are 3 other city locations Im gonna get. After Pyramid, my capital will focus on produce settlers. I build a monument and a shrine in Mumbai then build settler in it too. Im a bit behind in tech, Venice has entered classical, but its fine, as long as I can get my cities, I will be fine.

Thats it for this part, I have more pictures but I will upload later. Thank you guys for reading.

 

[Minh Le]

Today I have some free time so I decide to upload another part of the photojournal.

Spoiler First wonder :

Pyramids is done on turn 70, It actually shows why I say that India can make use of strong Progress. As other civs (except China) you wont have the late Ancient Era wonder like that when playing Progress. Because the second policy will lag it for a few turn unless you have immediately source of culture early (incense..). But with India/ China it possible because you have at least guarantee +1 Culture from the start. It seems small but its actually big. As Progress, you will be lagging in tech and culture alot in Ancien and Classic Era because your cities are busy getting those settler out, so no growth, no building being built. But you will catch up very fast in Medieval and Renaissance and finally pulling ahead in Industry and Modern Era if you play it right.
The important part is having enough cities and have strong enough defensive locations.

Spoiler The spam begin :

I send my Pyramids settler to the 4 Tobacos area right away because its so good. My capital focus in making settlers. I want 9 cities.

Spoiler Vjayanagara Founded :

What a name.... I settle on top of the hill, exactly the location I choose in previous part. This city will be very strong, it has a lot of resources. I build a monument and shrine in here.

Spoiler Next city :

Another settler out, I buy an archer to escort it. I will settle a city at the blue circle in the picture, because its a nice location with resources and it will clear the barb camp and complete 3 city state quests.

Spoiler Expertise unlocked :

Expertise unlocked turn 82, my capital just build monument and shrine, my second city is still buiding a shrine, all other city have'nt have any building yet. So I can have its full potential.

Spoiler Pataliputra :

...was founded, its in the middle of 3 city states and have jungle and forest around, pretty safe location.

Spoiler Next city :

Next im gonna settle that hill, I dont want Korea to mess up my cities plan. Oh, and Korea settle a city trying to steal my Marble, so I buy it. I continue making settler in my capital and Mumbai.

Spoiler Varanasi :

5 cities, 4 more to go. Damn that juicy fresh worker. I take it for sure if I didnt set the rules.

Spoiler Tech path :

Military Theory is done. And here my tech path after it. Important tech is Mathematics, because I will need skirmisher to defend, then Engineering because of my UB.

Spoiler Oh Sh*t :

This is something I dont like too much. Well, my settler is almost done, I will settle on that hill and buy those floodplain. I guess Polynesia will like it .

This is it, I will upload more later. Thank you guys for reading