India

[Democ]

There are several reasons , one being my previous experience on civ is mostly on 6 player pangea map , in which the more city you found is the less for the others , so the early game is mostly about setting your land , then you need to either defend it , or get a better one if your early land is not enough , then it's late game and the use of your tools to get a victory condiftion , it might sound not really immersive i understand but that's how i play most of my games.

Regardless I understand the strengh of using very high pop city as something that can allow you to produce more yields with the same land as specialist are not on the terrain , but i think you can also use the per-city yield to do that , i had great success in immortal so far with the incans , but to stay on topic i will consider India :

The faith light strategy I understand , and would typically choose mastery and diligence with India , why diligence and not cathedral or asceticism because i would aim at having my city pop 25 30 max , the growth bonus I'd use it along with internal caravan for food , to grow the city to their " cap " despite the lack of heavy food tile , one by one receiving 3 caravan for example , and changing all 3 to the next city once the first is grown enough.

This approach work on this size of map I think because of the relation between trade route number and the number of city you own , it would probably be ridiculous on very large map.


Very populated city, as you suggest, find its strengh in this approach such as even if you don't have " lot of land " or let say many tiles under your borders , typically less than 1/6 of the pangea on a 6 player map , the average value of each tile can be considered higher than for someone with less populated city. When i say average value of each tile , i consider one's empire total output and divide it by the number of tile.

In that regard , having pop 60 city every 5 tile can be better than having pop 30 city every 3 tile for the same overall total of let say 200 tile. And allow you to compete with those great expansionist/militarist .( The idea of turtling , you can't turtle if you don't have tools to win inside your border , science , culture , gold , prod ).

India has this ability i have no problem with that , that's the idea of highy populated city , or tall or whatever , .

Though I didn't want to go for that

Everyone agree that 60 pop city every 3 tile is better than 30 pop city every 3 tile , but it is way harder to do , India for me , can try to do it ( in theory ) has the growth bonus let you reach the population cap of a city based on the number of tile it has faster. The concept of building city close to each other has some synergy with growth bonus too in my mind ^^


This would allow me to work more specialist slot per tile in my border in the industrial modern era not those very late era when everyone starts eating so much , it could also work with building many city as India , no problem , you build villages as much as possible , your city grows at the same rate of someone who would work more farm, giving you gold advantage during the whole game that's what people would called wide i guess but if you work full specialist then it becomes what ? theres no real tall vs wide , it's more like cottage vs specialist economy in civ 4 , wether your yields are distributed on the terrain or come the the city tile.

Growth bonus can leverage the terrain for sure better if you put farm everywhere especially for the hospital I have to consider that again for scientific India, if I was considering trying an ICS kinda like with India it's because i had good result using those concept to make some strats , i'm still trying to get a good grasp on India and felt that the UU was a handicap rather than a boost , but if India has this flavor toward highly populated city , it is linked to science advantage usually synergizes with the elephant and makes sense in a general view , even the fact that you have to feed elephants , rather than just empowering the soldiers you would feed anyway can only come up from an empire in which food is not scarce , it has a general logic.

It's just that abstract math says that hammer or apple are just variable that you need , if you have a bonus toward one, you have that much less investment to do to get the reasonable amount you need and therefore have more margin to focus your attention toward getting the other one , even if it's growth and not apple thanks to the caravan / city state / religious / building yields.

I am going through lots of mistakes ofc ^^ maybie i will never find a way to make it work with india , and i will then advise my buddy to play it extremly tall but next time I find a computer to play I will sure try again to find the sweet number of city to make on a 6 player map , and i will try 10 and 9 and 8 or this idea in mind to find the most confortable spot maybe it will end up being 5 or 6 and then i would agree with you than trying to play them the way i try is not very good as other civ can suit my playstyle better , that would not qualify India as weak.

For the war part relating to the very begining of this post , if you can settle only 2 city , or 3 , war might become mandadory if there happens to be someone following the same path/ wonders / structure of empire but that has 1 or 2 more city than you , he might stay sligthly on top of you for everything , war is a way to change a bit the odd by taking a city state , or and island , just to equilibrate the odds , here again an option , not core but still something that on a 6 player pangea map you have to do quite often as the ai forward settle you regularly ( don't you washington ). Again on a 6 player map if you have 2 neighbours , plus you it represent 50% of the world that is at war if they declare war on you, war is much more present, also if there is a runaway cultural you need to kill worst case is you need to get 2 people before him usully, making it more potent on small map , and if it is a military runaway , best case is you have 2 AI meatshield usually , if i can say so , not like 4 or 5 , it can reach your doors very fast , and if you realize it will reach you doors at a point where you will have to fight in industrial era with 1/3 of your opponent city , you can consider that in this game you need pre-emptive strikes , the later the UU the more fitting in my mind , as early UU aims to me at gaining advantage by gaining control of more land than " all the others " , while later UU have less impact because what you gain with them will be of your use less time ( less snowball )

So for India it is hard to translate maybie to support a strategy with a turning point , like you plant 3 city plus your cap and capture 2 more when the Naga-Mala is at its peak , the opportunity cost of the thing might not happen later once it is clear than it is needed , the idea of pre-emptive strike pushed a bit further , war it's just other means for politics right ? ^^

 

[tu_79]

You don't seem to know how happiness and cost per city works.
First happiness. With hyper tall you surely have your cities working heavily on specialists and they are all very well developed cities. This means they can support a very high population before unhappiness begins to kick. More cities will grow faster in the early turns, but by mid game, tall population is much higher.
Then, consider that policy and tech costs increase per city more than linearly. Every city you add makes it more difficult to advance, though it may be useful to gain access to resources and a bigger army to defend yourself.

You don't need to deny the neighbours their cities. Overexpanding is an issue for some civs. Sometimes you don't need to settle additional cities as they only burden you, specially when going with great people and trade routes.
That said, I'd suggest you to try India the way CrazyG plays, it works quite well for a scientific and cultural victory. India is most fit for a tall gameplay (just try to grab St Basel).

 

[Democ]

maybie I explained poorly , maybie it will make more sense for someone else, I shouldn't have talked about what I do I was just trying to know if India was considered a strong civ and if yes for what reason because the reasons for no are obvious to me but I wanted to broader my view ;

and also saying that I find the unit underwhelming , while trying to know if it was because I was using it wrong or if it was by design that India is not a civ defined by its UU .

thanks for the answers i should have read the whole topic more carefully i didn't get that it was a hot topic

 

[tu_79]

maybie I explained poorly , maybie it will make more sense for someone else, I shouldn't have talked about what I do I was just trying to know if India was considered a strong civ and if yes for what reason because the reasons for no are obvious to me but I wanted to broader my view ;

and also saying that I find the unit underwhelming , while trying to know if it was because I was using it wrong or if it was by design that India is not a civ defined by its UU .

thanks for the answers i should have read the whole topic more carefully i didn't get that it was a hot topic

Don't worry. The forum is pretty active, and we love to discuss topics.
Gazebo, the main developer, takes care of AI balancing, so India AI stays at a similar level than the others. We usually rant when we find the civ boring or not balanced in human hands. It's long to explain how India has changed all this months.

Right now India has founding a religion almost granted, but very difficult to reform. India has an excess of Great Prophets, but it's difficult to enhance them with the great temple unless you go wide. There is food, there is growth, there are farms. All that shout out specialists. This is a very powerful strategy when staying very tall, but you don't notice it until mid-late game, when specialist slots are aplenty, you can work all of them, while the other civs can't, giving you a fair advantage. My last won game I spammed five scientist in a row, pushing me from the third position to the first in less than 20 turns (that was Inca, another high growth civ).

 

[CrazyG]

maybie I explained poorly , maybie it will make more sense for someone else, I shouldn't have talked about what I do I was just trying to know if India was considered a strong civ and if yes for what reason because the reasons for no are obvious to me but I wanted to broader my view ;

and also saying that I find the unit underwhelming , while trying to know if it was because I was using it wrong or if it was by design that India is not a civ defined by its UU .

thanks for the answers i should have read the whole topic more carefully i didn't get that it was a hot topic

No worries.

The one thing I saw from your strategy that strikes me as a odd in particular was your use of trade routes. Keeping one going to all cities seems more efficient that doing all the same city at once. Especially because India has access to a lot of food, it makes sense to use production routes or international routes for gold instead of food

 

[Democ]

I will try to draw a parrallel that I find amusing

When you send production trade road between Indian's city , it is because India lacks production , or because it already has enough growth.
When I try to make a strat based on authority over tradition with India , it is because India lacks production , or because it already has enough growth.

This illustrating the idea I tried to explain earlier that as player we take decisions to improve a balance over 2 variables , hammer and apples.

Sending trade roads with production on India , increase the empire's production. And on the other hand you make a lot of farm.
Sending trade roads with food on India , increase the empire's Growth. And on the other hand , you make more villages on the terrain.

when i say villages it could also mean mine , as i count villages while you try to maximize the production bonus you have on them if they are on a road counting toward city connexion

but it is just saying that we have different tools available and we could use them in theory in anyway, only practice tells which one works on which context ect.

If you have cities you put on a defensive position , sometimes you know it will be a bad city in terms of Food and Production. other example is a city with a lot of forest.

Now both of those city will undergo the same phenomena , the symptom is they will always take 20 turn to grow , and they will never be able to whistand a population superior of 40 people , even worse if specialist heavy.

They will never be able to whistand a population superior of 40 people : This is also true for when you settle very compact.

In one case it is the lack of heavy food tile ; all tile have 3 food max ,you rely heavily on the yields from the buildings , city states , fealty everything that is not on the terrains since the terrain is either just poor either cover with forest you don't want to chop because they are a good defense.for example.

In the other case , you have to share the heavy food tile , and at some point you don't have any tile to work in the city and you have + 20 food left.

The + 20 food mean that you could potentially work 10 more mine tile , but what will happen is that you will work 1 and then it will be +18 , +16 for the second and you will never work the 10th ^^

For the forest example , the city could work 32 forest, sure but they are only 2 food , and the city have only a granaray that give +2 food so when it is pop 3 it has net +2 food , pop 4 same , pop 10 same , at some point it will take forever to grow.

It is very shematic and oversimplified almost to the grotesque but i hope you get the ideas

I have mixed all those example because it is the same idea for all that makes me like the idea of sending group of trade roads to the same city.

let's just say each caravan gives + 10 food or 10 production and you send 3


City with forest : 3 food caravan : will have a net + 32 for some turn , it will grow a lot , i am not sure how the food from the caravan is calculated in vox populi if it is added before of after for the Indian's UA, it is regardless though i hope it will not be flat food added to the total after the UA has been calculated. It will reach anyway a decent size faster.
When the caravan stop , the city is not in famine , it will come back to +2 food and take forever to grow again , but it's ok it will have its production earlier and will build good infrastructure.


City in desert / hills ect that only have acces to non-fresh water tile maybie plain , and it's scarce so no good farm cluster ect : will have + 30 food for some time , and work only terrains with hills and mine ,so it build the infrastucture very fast during the food caravan , and after you switch the mines to the specialist for science and sometimes gold , and start working the farm with the pop growth you had even if the farm are only 2 food , they don't need to provide excess food , just maintain the actual population before the next round of caravan , or before featly , or the city state food ect


City with very close settling : will have + 50 or 60 food , by this i mean you can add the heavy food tile on top while the neigbour city stop growing and just maintain its population , the idea here is to make the city grow very fast up to the point where it is no longer needed for it to grow , even dangerous; if the city grows too much it will face famine when the caravan stops , and you also need a margin of food to work the specialist increasing cost, but you will also have more building that will provide food , it has some equilibrium here.


I would also send 3 production caravan in a city that has massive floodplain , 4 wheat , 5 deers , 3 bananas ect , ( 1 of those qualify no need for ALL ) with the same idea, it would depend

This city that receive the 3 production caravan , it less likely to be a defensive spot , they tend to be hilly , forest ect , but it could totaly be the case for a city in the middle of the empire , the same logic would apply , execpt that you cannot queue the buildings you don't have the tech yet , while you can totaly grow " in advance ".


This has also came up from warmongering , when you conquer a city , you can send 3 trade routes to it right away and production makes total sense , but sometimes food too as you need to modify the terrain if you conquer a city from someone that was having a lot of food bonus. And when the city terrain is appropriatly covered with the correct pattern of villages/farm the caravan are no longer necessary.

The fun game is to get the timer for the caravan to be synced , i even sometimes purposedly lose some turn for that wich definitely isn't efficient !

but it provides other advantage , as you can focus a costal city for the navy with 3 production trade road and switch back to 3 food to the city you just conquered with that navy , the time you rebuild the granary lighthouse , workboat ect , and then 3 production for that city so it builds the troops to further establish the presence. You also can prepare for wonders , it works well with the heroic epic and all buildings that are uniques and gives special ability to the units , fountain of youth qualify too

Later on the game you have the gold you can use to emphasize an aspect of development somewhere in your empire , grouping trade routes is a fun tool to do that a bit , not a 100% rule i always do , but for some games it feels good when you know this is the turn , the day 0 of the swarm , the day where it all begins , the turn you send your 3 roads to the same city and it start producing units in 1 turns.

but other games it is very bad as you prefer buyings units as there are 4 fronts and you don't really know in advance where and which kind of reinforcment will be needed

Most of this apply no matter the Civ , in the case of India's UA it makes it appealing because it seems to me the very sense of "faster growth" , an Indian city with 3 food caravan will grow from pop 11 to pop 20 while another civ's city would have grown from 11 to 18 for example , the number of food from the caravan being the same, only the city itself making more of it. I like this idea

It makes my decision of which city i focus more impactful , and I hope my decision are better than an AI's or more appropriate to the context than what an algorythm no matter how good can do. Hopefully it can give me an edge toward a human too , as i can try to anticipate , rather than just having a passive +XX% boost , enough with the no missionary already, India reclaim some proactivity there. i also like this idea.

again i'm just describing what i am doing not saying its better , not even saying it's good , it's just what i do

(that was Inca, another high growth civ).

I might be obtus in some way but I did the exact same authority small pop close city with the incas with enough pleasure that i dare mention it

 

[CrazyG]

Now both of those city will undergo the same phenomena , the symptom is they will always take 20 turn to grow , and they will never be able to whistand a population superior of 40 people , even worse if specialist heavy.

They will never be able to whistand a population superior of 40 people : This is also true for when you settle very compact

I've had cities with more than 90 population as India. The unique building gives 2 food to all farms within the city, which makes growth extremely easy. I've had a city that earned more than 2,000 food a turn. If the game goes long enough even crappy cities can hit like 60 population

The reason I send production rather than food is because the math will work out to something like 5% more food, or 25% more production. The choice is easy when viewed this way.

Also, if you have some tourist influence, international trade routes also give a bonus % to growth, which for India can rather easily become larger than the raw value of an internal trade route

 

[pza]

can we talk about india again? i feel the specialist nerfs from the recent past has supernerfed india. I just played a (friendly, coop-like, as usual) game with my friend, and, although i had a great start, great terrain and no wars on me, i couldn't handle my citiy size and happiness level after medieval and well into renaissance. i was 4-6 techs behind my friend, who was playing spain, 2-3 policies away from him and constantly at around -20 happiness. well it can happen, i see, but i don't know how you can profit from indias perks, if all they give is growth and therefore unhappiness and almost no benefit from specialists.

 

[Giza]

I would assume that India got buffed indirectly, because their extra food and growth makes them able to work more specialists relatively to other civs. I did not actually play India since the change in specialists. However, I played a few games with a tall/growth strategy (Morocco for example) and I can tell you that the change is actually a buff to tall, growth oriented civs.

It is more difficult now for wide empires to work specialist spots or generate great people early (unless you have growth / food bonuses like Spain and Mongolia.. but even then).

 

[Deadstarre]

India routinely does poorly now, i dont know why.

 

[pineappledan]

Could we look at giving some love to the Naga Malla?

The unit has 1 less movement and can't move after attacking, unlike the unit it replaces. This cuts out a major part of battlefield tactics for that player; you can't rotate your units for multiple hits with the NM so they get in the way during a war. This is meant to be compensated for by its 'feared elephant' and increased combat strength, making it more of a front-line unit, but it's not enough. The unit still feels like a significant downgrade from a normal cuirassier.

It also doesn't carry forward any promotions, so it's a crummy CS gift

 

[randomnub]

I'd personally scale them all back to what they originally were, chariot archer replacements. Their placement in the tech tree and the fact they fight with freaking bows in the renaissance makes me go nuts, and for those hammers they're a poor alternative to a couple crossbowmen or a cannon anyway. That being said, they could use a bonus vs mounted.

I do have a feeling India performs poorly lately due to the tradition/specialists changes and having a better UU wouldn't change much, but an alternative for ancient warfare could be interesting.

 

[Gazebo]

I'd personally scale them all back to what they originally were, chariot archer replacements. Their placement in the tech tree and the fact they fight with freaking bows in the renaissance makes me go nuts, and for those hammers they're a poor alternative to a couple crossbowmen or a cannon anyway. That being said, they could use a bonus vs mounted.

I do have a feeling India performs poorly lately due to the tradition/specialists changes and having a better UU wouldn't change much, but an alternative for ancient warfare could be interesting.

India does really well.

Anyways use of elephants in combat on the subcontinent persisted into the 19th century, so the Naga-Malla is fine. India does quite well with it in terms of AI power.

G

 

[pineappledan]

I've got no issue with the NM's placement. It could be a replacement for anything from chariot archer to cuirassier and feel appropriate. If anything, chariot archer is the LEAST appropriate place for the unit, because the use of chariots figures prominently in the Mahabharata. If India did not get chariots, it would feel wrong.

My issue is the NM reduces the player's tactical options, and generally takes more than it gives. Its 'numbers' are good, but overall it's a pretty frustrating unit to have to use.

 

[randomnub]

Anyways use of elephants in combat on the subcontinent persisted into the 19th century
G

Not with bows.

RP-reasons aside, being an horse-less ancient UU would offer India a different early game approach (I actually liked War Elephants rushes in vanilla) while at chemistry it comes at a time where the bulk of your army is sorted and there're many valid alternatives, cannons above all. Naga Malla being a not-too-hot UU is imo a product of renaissance warfare moving from early skirmishes and rushes toward heavy sieges, entrenchment and naval dominance: I don't rate very high the skirmisher line past physics, but that's another (perceived) issue.

I don't know if the AI is having fun with India, but as a player I find it lackluster in the current incarnation: Tradition civs and early specialists (before the indian UA provides any meaningful food boost) got it rough lately, then the 'no farms on hills' edit greatly lessened the Harappan Reservoir power. The latest (read, after the last replies to this thread) change to difficulty scaling made it easier to get a religion at the highest difficulties, even getting an okay pantheon is alright with shrine 1st or 2nd in the building queue due to less frontloaded boni to the AI: that means the Indian free pantheon and cheaper prophets aren't one of the few ways to guarantee a top tier religion on deity anymore. That's a number of edits that impacted on India uniqueness, add to that a UU that always felt as a filler and you have something that, for a player, is not very interesting anymore.

 

[Gazebo]

Not with bows.

RP-reasons aside, being an horse-less ancient UU would offer India a different early game approach (I actually liked War Elephants rushes in vanilla) while at chemistry it comes at a time where the bulk of your army is sorted and there're many valid alternatives, cannons above all. Naga Malla being a not-too-hot UU is imo a product of renaissance warfare moving from early skirmishes and rushes toward heavy sieges, entrenchment and naval dominance: I don't rate very high the skirmisher line past physics, but that's another (perceived) issue.

I don't know if the AI is having fun with India, but as a player I find it lackluster in the current incarnation: Tradition civs and early specialists (before the indian UA provides any meaningful food boost) got it rough lately, then the 'no farms on hills' edit greatly lessened the Harappan Reservoir power. The latest (read, after the last replies to this thread) change to difficulty scaling made it easier to get a religion at the highest difficulties, even getting an okay pantheon is alright with shrine 1st or 2nd in the building queue due to less frontloaded boni to the AI: that means the Indian free pantheon and cheaper prophets aren't one of the few ways to guarantee a top tier religion on deity anymore. That's a number of edits that impacted on India uniqueness, add to that a UU that always felt as a filler and you have something that, for a player, is not very interesting anymore.

India’s UA/UB were borderline OP before recent changes, it is a good mid tier civ now (as all should aspire). A free pantheon isn’t just about religion, it’s about getting the pantheon you want and/or delaying shrines for more varied early builds. Cheaper prophets make this even more viable, and the added pressure makes conversion easy.

The Naga is a defensive UU, as India is not a civ geared towards conquest (both in theme and characterization in civ). I think it’s fine it won’t win any awards but it is solid for its role.

 

[Owlbebach]

Last time i played India it seemed to me that Naga Mala is very strong. Its main power is that they come MUCH earlier. It may seem that they come 1 tech earlier. but they actually come 5(!) techs earlier

 

[Owlbebach]

India’s UA/UB were borderline OP before recent changes, it is a good mid tier civ now (as all should aspire). A free pantheon isn’t just about religion, it’s about getting the pantheon you want and/or delaying shrines for more varied early builds. Cheaper prophets make this even more viable, and the added pressure makes conversion easy.

The Naga is a defensive UU, as India is not a civ geared towards conquest (both in theme and characterization in civ). I think it’s fine it won’t win any awards but it is solid for its role.

This is absolutely wrong, cause free pantheon leads to situation where you have to choose it without knowing what resources/neighbours/cities do you have. This leads to the fact that you have to choose a very allaround pantheon, such as Wisdom, which is just okay no matter what gameplan you have.
Also as i said Nagas are amazing in attack because even on Deity you can fight Nagas vs Knights and they really obliterate them.

 

[randomnub]

Getting the 'pantheon you want' before revealing resources or have the techs for any building/improvement makes for a pretty lame UA or, in a more typical situation, pidgeholes you to the same 3-4 pantheons. I'm fine with the UA as it is now but you're trying to sell it too hard

I also actively try to ally some military CS that'd offer me a Naga Malla or two when I play some other civ and want to beeline the next era, due to the handy aura and the early appearance. As India itself though, I never have a reason to avoid the upper part of the tech tree. I'd also take splash cannons over Naga Malla as defensive UU all the time :*


Edit: Jinx.

 

[Gokudo01]

Last time i played India it seemed to me that Naga Mala is very strong. Its main power is that they come MUCH earlier. It may seem that they come 1 tech earlier. but they actually come 5(!) techs earlier

I felt the same, extremely bulky for a skirmicher. it gave me the firepower to steam-roll china and korea while behind in tech ( 2 or 3 )