India

[JamesNinelives]

India has been doing better in my recent games. I think the buff to Tradition is a significant part of that, although improved AI decision making w/ regards to religion may have helped too. That said I've yet to see them get any early wonders... or actually lead the game in anything. So I content they could still use a buff.

Edit: I was shocked to find India building not just Stonehenge but also the Masoleum of Halicarnassus today. I had to investigate, and found he had spawned in a hills-plains area with a monopoly on Lapiz Lazuli!

Notably this game didn't feature Ethiopia or Arabia, and Russia was able to grab the Great Library.

Spoiler Ghandi the mountain man :

 

[cerk]

But why would gandhi even need stonehenge when he gets a free pantheon.

 

[Gazebo]

But why would gandhi even need stonehenge when he gets a free pantheon.

the faith you get is just an instant yield, so it’s still free faith.

g

 

[JamesNinelives]

Also gives a free council, some culture, and great engineer points if I remember correctly, so a solid investment I guess.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Unfortunately just after that game I played one where Ghandi started between the Huns and Songhai and got totally crushed. He had a decent start too, but so did they. Felt like he had no chance really .

 

[CrazyG]

India taking Goddess of Beauty and building Stonehenge is quite strong. You can get a religion by turn 85 without building a single shrine. With that said, the Pyramids can fill a similar role while being overall much stronger.

 

[JamesNinelives]

India taking Goddess of Beauty and building Stonehenge is quite strong. You can get a religion by turn 85 without building a single shrine. With that said, the Pyramids can fill a similar role while being overall much stronger.

For India anyway. For other civs building Stonehenge might be the difference between founding and not founding. But yeah, India might be better off with an extra city instead of the faith at that point in the game. I have unfortunately never seen India spread their religion to their neighbours as an AI. There's always someone with missionaries who is more aggressive.

 

[HungryForFood]

For India anyway. For other civs building Stonehenge might be the difference between founding and not founding. But yeah, India might be better off with an extra city instead of the faith at that point in the game. I have unfortunately never seen India spread their religion to their neighbours as an AI. There's always someone with missionaries who is more aggressive.

I think part of it is that even non-founders are very aggressive in using Inquisitors.

I feel that the religion AI is one part of VP that should be looked at, as right now it is very basic.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Wanted to share that I've played a game with the strongest India AI that I've seen so far. I'm pretty confident what allowed them to do so well was that they started next to two very passive/defensive players - myself and Venice.

They were actually in the top spot for a fair while, before I got a tech lead and The Huns started eating up their neighbour Austria.

Despite border tensions India and I made it through the entire game without ever being at war with one another .

Spoiler India among the leaders :

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Wanted to share that I've played a game with the strongest India AI that I've seen so far. I'm pretty confident what allowed them to do so well was that they started next to two very passive/defensive players - myself and Venice.

They were actually in the top spot for a fair while, before I got a tech lead and The Huns started eating up their neighbour Austria.

Despite border tensions India and I made it through the entire game without ever being at war with one another .

Spoiler India among the leaders :

View attachment 536537

1. I cant see that much from Indias territory, but those few cities with only few citizens tells me that either their whole land only consists of desert or the AI is playing terribly its traits.
HOW in gods name is the AI with one of the best grower civs able to end with only 14 or 16 citizens?

2. What have your automated worker or you drunk to do such a railway layout?
Iam really wondering, often I see people being able to beat the AI on deity military wise but their empire or infrastructure management looks so terrible.

 

[JamesNinelives]

1. I cant see that much from Indias territory, but those few cities with only few citizens tells me that either their whole land only consists of desert or the AI is playing terribly its traits.
HOW in gods name is the AI with one of the best grower civs able to end with only 14 or 16 citizens?

2. What have your automated worker or you drunk to do such a railway layout?
Iam really wondering, often I see people being able to beat the AI on deity military wise but their empire or infrastructure management looks so terrible.

Bite I don't really get how you talk to people. It's so abrasive. What kind of response are you expecting? Your tone is so condescending I'm inclined just to ignore you.

For what it's worth though, here's my 2 cents: apart from transport, railroads have another main function: to buff town and villages. If you look closely you will see that most of the railroads in this picture are actually direct connections between two cities, and in doing so add gold and production to the yields of the tiles being worked. Something you also may not be aware of is that trade routes follow roads and railroads. You can effectively direct incoming trade along tiles where your towns and villages lie in this way. The combination of this and the utility of rapid transport means these railroads come pretty close to paying for themselves. The rest is purely for aesthetics.

Now given your approach to this subject so far, I don't expect you to actually believe me. For that reason I'm going to clarify something for you: I'm not interested in debating the most efficient methods of empire of infrastructure management with you. Not because the subject doesn't interest me: over the literal thousands of hours that I have spent playing this particular mod in it's various iterations I like to think I'm pretty good at it. The reason I'm going to ignore whatever critique you respond with is that you have convinced my that you are incapable of practising empathy. That is to say: I don't believe you are ever going to understand me.

Here's something to think on though, in the hopes that such a thing is possible. Aesthetics. It's subjective. Surely you can grasp that what looks good to you is not what looks good to everyone else. Try to integrate that into you world view before you insult what someone else has invested their time and effort into.

 

[azum4roll]

One thing I've never tried: if you build railroads over all your territory, does every tile count as a city connection tile or only the shortest path between cities?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Bite I don't really get how you talk to people. It's so abrasive. What kind of response are you expecting? Your tone is so condescending I'm inclined just to ignore you.

For what it's worth though, here's my 2 cents: apart from transport, railroads have another main function: to buff town and villages. If you look closely you will see that most of the railroads in this picture are actually direct connections between two cities, and in doing so add gold and production to the yields of the tiles being worked. Something you also may not be aware of is that trade routes follow roads and railroads. You can effectively direct incoming trade along tiles where your towns and villages lie in this way. The combination of this and the utility of rapid transport means these railroads come pretty close to paying for themselves. The rest is purely for aesthetics.

Now given your approach to this subject so far, I don't expect you to actually believe me. For that reason I'm going to clarify something for you: I'm not interested in debating the most efficient methods of empire of infrastructure management with you. Not because the subject doesn't interest me: over the literal thousands of hours that I have spent playing this particular mod in it's various iterations I like to think I'm pretty good at it. The reason I'm going to ignore whatever critique you respond with is that you have convinced my that you are incapable of practising empathy. That is to say: I don't believe you are ever going to understand me.

Here's something to think on though, in the hopes that such a thing is possible. Aesthetics. It's subjective. Surely you can grasp that what looks good to you is not what looks good to everyone else. Try to integrate that into you world view before you insult what someone else has invested their time and effort into.

Iam sorry, this wasn't meant offensive.
I hoped in first place you could clarify the situation at India and say me, if those cities may have suffered from occupation and reconquering or are all build in pure desert. If the India AI isn't even able to get cities as close as big as humans cities, we should ask, is the AI able to handle its traits?

To roads and railroads:
I know that all, and if you simply like the look by flavor, that's up to you, I will not say anything against your style.

But defending this build as effective isnt realistic. Extra railways can be counterproductive, cause the trade route may choose the wrong path and didn't cross your villages. Cause there have to be every time atleast one tile between two villages with a maximum of +4 gold for connection and trade route, no railway over villages can be ever more productive cause you have already to pay 4 gold for 2 railway tiles. (a connection between 2 cities with only 3 tiles difference and 2 villages is the only exception)

If you want examples:
The coastal tiles and the natural wonder east of The Deepwoods have no village, the roads between Anchor and Buffalo Island end in nothing, between the hidden most northwest city and anchor are every tile with railways, not being able to direct any trade route over a village, the road over the 2 coastal pastures at blackwall could be done with only 1 railway over the hill instead of 2,...

One thing I've never tried: if you build railroads over all your territory, does every tile count as a city connection tile or only the shortest path between cities?

Only the shortest.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Iam sorry, this wasn't meant offensive.
I hoped in first place you could clarify the situation at India and say me, if those cities may have suffered from occupation and reconquering or are all build in pure desert. If the India AI isn't even able to get cities as close as big as humans cities, we should ask, is the AI able to handle its traits?

To roads and railroads:
I know that all, and if you simply like the look by flavor, that's up to you, I will not say anything against your style.

But defending this build as effective isnt realistic. Extra railways can be counterproductive, cause the trade route may choose the wrong path and didn't cross your villages. Cause there have to be every time atleast one tile between two villages with a maximum of +4 gold for connection and trade route, no railway over villages can be ever more productive cause you have already to pay 4 gold for 2 railway tiles. (a connection between 2 cities with only 3 tiles difference and 2 villages is the only exception)

If you want examples:
The coastal tiles and the natural wonder east of The Deepwoods have no village, the roads between Anchor and Buffalo Island end in nothing, between the hidden most northwest city and anchor are every tile with railways, not being able to direct any trade route over a village, the road over the 2 coastal pastures at blackwall could be done with only 1 railway over the hill instead of 2,...


Only the shortest.

Thanks for your understanding. I suppose what I mean is simply that sometimes it feels like you think you are better than everyone else. And that if people do things differently, that must mean they are wrong (which is kind of arrogant).

The cities you see in the screenshot are perhaps smaller than the others because there is a lot of desert and hills there. I'm pretty sure the cities to the north, where the capital is (on grassland) were much larger. I don't have the save file anymore, but I do have the same image with the tile yields if that helps. Next time I'll try to get a good shot of the capital for you!

Spoiler Yields :

There are railroads on every tile in the western area because it is the intersection of several different paths. Roads that seem to go nowhere may lead to a disembarkment point (e.g. a peninsula).

Specifically, the tile the natural wonder is on is a straight line between The Deepwoods and Anchor. The tiles south and east of the natural wonder have railroads on them basically because I like to have roads along the coast of my landmasses so that ranged units can run up and down the and shoot ships. In this case the channel is enclosed so it's actually unnessecary. Generally speaking though I find it very frustrating that ships can move easily about on water to shoot at land units but the defenders are often impeded by terrain or limited by slower movement speeds.

You can kind of see the other half of that juncture here:

Spoiler Western Side :

As for which paths count as city connections, my experience is that's it's not always simple. As you say, the shortest path between two cities is the one that will register. Often there are two or more potential paths of the same length though (e.g. the sides of a parallelogram). Also, you can get a city connection along each axis - i.e. the closest cities are not the only ones that can provide a connection.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

[

Thanks for your understanding. I suppose what I mean is simply that sometimes it feels like you think you are better than everyone else. And that if people do things differently, that must mean they are wrong (which is kind of arrogant).

The cities you see in the screenshot are perhaps smaller than the others because there is a lot of desert and hills there. I'm pretty sure the cities to the north, where the capital is (on grassland) were much larger. I don't have the save file anymore, but I do have the same image with the tile yields if that helps. Next time I'll try to get a good shot of the capital for you!

Spoiler Yields :

View attachment 536660

There are railroads on every tile in the western area because it is the intersection of several different paths. Roads that seem to go nowhere may lead to a disembarkment point (e.g. a peninsula).

Specifically, the tile the natural wonder is on is a straight line between The Deepwoods and Anchor. The tiles south and east of the natural wonder have railroads on them basically because I like to have roads along the coast of my landmasses so that ranged units can run up and down the and shoot ships. In this case the channel is enclosed so it's actually unnessecary. Generally speaking though I find it very frustrating that ships can move easily about on water to shoot at land units but the defenders are often impeded by terrain or limited by slower movement speeds.

You can kind of see the other half of that juncture here:

Spoiler Western Side :

View attachment 536661

As for which paths count as city connections, my experience is that's it's not always simple. As you say, the shortest path between two cities is the one that will register. Often there are two or more potential paths of the same length though (e.g. the sides of a parallelogram). Also, you can get a city connection along each axis - i.e. the closest cities are not the only ones that can provide a connection.

Iam happy this could get cleared. Iam aware that Iam sometimes a bit too direct or my humor a bit too strange.

Roads on the coast is a good idea, if playing against humans, but in most cases, it should be fairly enough to do roads to or from cities to hold a city. Unless picking authority with the maintenance reduction, railroads can get very expensive, so I try to minimize the amount of them and only create more of them at cities with a lack of hammers. Looking at gold, you can only lose, if you try to get more of it by railroad/village connection, but the extra hammers may be a salvation, if your city cits on a flat land.

I dunno which difficulty you play, but I know you are a core player. And like ive said, Ive also have seen save games from high difficulty players, which were able to beat Immortal/Deity AI but were looking terrible at management (this wasnt a statement directly to you). I play only on emperor, cause I dont want the time consuming/tedious effort to play deity and simply enjoy building my perfect empire, which I think Iam pretty good at. You know, Deity difficulty is for me the difficulty you have to excell at every aspect of the game and doing mistakes kinda automatically leads to damnation. Seeing some people not doing everything perfectly but still "winning" looks a bit strange to me. But maybe all you mostly need is to beat the AI military wise and your fine. (Ive had a mate which never played any civ game, played then some vanilla games and then was able to beat the Zulu at King difficulty ^^) Maybe I should simply try a full deity game and then shut up about my thoughts towards it.

For path calculation:
Its always the shortest path from every city to each other city. So in a 20 city empire, you have 380 calculated paths (20 cities x 19 options). I cant tell which side of a parallelogram is taken, never noticed, but I think a parallelogram is already a inefficient road layout and should happen in your empire.

 

[JamesNinelives]

[

Iam happy this could get cleared. Iam aware that Iam sometimes a bit too direct or my humor a bit too strange.

Roads on the coast is a good idea, if playing against humans, but in most cases, it should be fairly enough to do roads to or from cities to hold a city. Unless picking authority with the maintenance reduction, railroads can get very expensive, so I try to minimize the amount of them and only create more of them at cities with a lack of hammers. Looking at gold, you can only lose, if you try to get more of it by railroad/village connection, but the extra hammers may be a salvation, if your city cits on a flat land.

I dunno which difficulty you play, but I know you are a core player. And like ive said, Ive also have seen save games from high difficulty players, which were able to beat Immortal/Deity AI but were looking terrible at management (this wasnt a statement directly to you). I play only on emperor, cause I dont want the time consuming/tedious effort to play deity and simply enjoy building my perfect empire, which I think Iam pretty good at. You know, Deity difficulty is for me the difficulty you have to excell at every aspect of the game and doing mistakes kinda automatically leads to damnation. Seeing some people not doing everything perfectly but still "winning" looks a bit strange to me. But maybe all you mostly need is to beat the AI military wise and your fine. (Ive had a mate which never played any civ game, played then some vanilla games and then was able to beat the Zulu at King difficulty ^^) Maybe I should simply try a full deity game and then shut up about my thoughts towards it.

For path calculation:
Its always the shortest path from every city to each other city. So in a 20 city empire, you have 380 calculated paths (20 cities x 19 options). I cant tell which side of a parallelogram is taken, never noticed, but I think a parallelogram is already a inefficient road layout and should happen in your empire.

I play on Emperor currently, but my approach has always been to sacrifice efficiency for doing things that I find fun. For example, I like to start in the jungle even though I mostly play Shoshone and might be stronger with a plains start . For me the definition of 'winning' is to enjoy myself! (Even if I 'loose' in the conventional sense.)

If cities can be connected by a straight line then that will be the shortest path of course! In most cases though you will have to go maybe 6 up and 2 right for example, even taking the most direct route. This is all I mean.

I guess in my case I balance the cost of road maintanence with the value of rapid transport to any area of the map.

 

[tu_79]

I play on Emperor currently, but my approach has always been to sacrifice efficiency for doing things that I find fun. For example, I like to start in the jungle even though I mostly play Shoshone and might be stronger with a plains start . For me the definition of 'winning' is to enjoy myself! (Even if I 'loose' in the conventional sense.)

If cities can be connected by a straight line then that will be the shortest path of course! In most cases though you will have to go maybe 6 up and 2 right for example, even taking the most direct route. This is all I mean.

I guess in my case I balance the cost of road maintanence with the value of rapid transport to any area of the map.

Road redundancy has its perks. Being too meagre with roads usually leads to bottlenecks moving troops and risks loosing connection to the capital by one single pillaged tile.
It has its collateral damage too, in the form of increased maintenance and harder to predict trader paths.

Things I try to do is avoiding 60 degrees crossroads (so I can say which route is going to be used by the caravan) and limit my secondary layout (this not used by caravans) to simple roads, passing through rough terrain if possible. Movement is slower, but since it's just an auxiliary road, I don't notice any unit slowdown. As you said, this is a layout made for efficiency, and everyone has his tastes. It might not matter if you are able to make up for the lesser efficiency somewhere else.

I find this interesting too, but I should think that this is not the proper place, so if you like to continue the discussion we might open a thread in the strategy section.

 

[Stalker0]

Where do people stand with India today? Personally I think they are still one of the strongest civs in the game.

1) UA and UB combine into a crazy strong growth and production engine (strong late game)
2) Immediate pantheon gives them a strong early game start (strong early game).
3) The Naga-Mala is still a very strong UU in the game to me. It has an effective 42 RCS in open terrain at gunpowder, before the feared elephant promotion is factored in. And because its a ranged RCS it can apply pressure much more continuously than a melee UU can...as it takes little damage as it stomps around.

So I feel that India has it all, strong early game, strong late game, and incredible UU for warring.

 

[pineappledan]

I don’t really know why the 2 on lakes was swapped for 2. It’s such a minor, forgettable bonus that is so non-core to the Harappan reservoir that I don’t know why it doesn’t do the same thing as aqueduct.

I think the naga-malla being moved to astronomy makes more sense. It’s the same tech level, and There’s other units that are moved forward to gunpowder.

The naga-malla is incredibly strong with the open terrain bonuses, but also really weird. The VP naga malla has 1 move in rough now, so it’s like the old chariot. Meanwhile it’s indestructible on open terrain. Elephants live in forests.

I’ve retreated back to my own unit tweaks for now and am happier with the older version of the naga which that modmod reflects. I would rip the current skirmisher mechanic up, branch and root, and the naga-malla being ridiculous is just a symptom.

 

[Patine]

I don’t really know why the 2 on lakes was swapped for 2. It’s such a minor, forgettable bonus that is so non-core to the Harappan reservoir that I don’t know why it doesn’t do the same thing as aqueduct.

I think the naga-malla being moved to astronomy makes more sense. It’s the same tech level, and There’s other units that are moved forward to gunpowder.

The naga-malla is incredibly strong with the open terrain bonuses, but also really weird. The VP naga malla has 1 move in rough now, so it’s like the old chariot. Meanwhile it’s indestructible on open terrain. Elephants live in forests.

I’ve retreated back to my own unit tweaks for now and am happier with the older version of the naga which that modmod reflects. I would rip the current skirmisher mechanic up, branch and root, and the naga-malla being ridiculous is just a symptom.

Oh, I just happened to notice Harappans here. Did you actually manage to somehow dig up some Harappan leader and city names here? I'd be most interested if you had. I've had no luck whatsoever.