New Map India

[BaneFire]

With some discussion on African civs in the new map here are some of my proposals for India in the new map:
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Mughals - Make spawn semi-conditional like the Ottomans, requiring the Turks to take at least one city in the Indian subcontinent. Make Turks have units spawn in India.
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Add Yuezhi/Kushan and Huns from Civilization Reborn. Very cool civ imo and would like to see it in the game.
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Bactrian Empire (Bactrians) - 250BC
Flip zone is the Herat/Kandahar area, core is just Afghanistan region. Contested in parts of Persia, Central Asia and the Indus Valley plain. Starts Zoroastrian, but Buddhism can spread and displace.
UU - Bactrian Cataphract - Replaces War Elephant, requires ivory or horses. +25% hills attack +25% hills defence.
UB - Syncretic Pillar - Replaces monument. +1 free artist. +1 culture in the capital for every religion present in the city.
UP - The Power of Greco-Buddhist Tradition - Artist specialists produce +1 culture and +1 hammer for every Great General generated.
UHV1 - Coins of Bactria - Trade resources with Greece, India and China by 180BC.
UHV2 - Alexandria Eschate - Make Bactria the most cultured city in the world by 10AD.
UHV3 - Yavanarajya - Build 2 Cathedrals of different religions by 400AD.
Civ names:
Bactria - if Pagan or Zoroastrian
Bactrian Empire - if a Greek vassal
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom - if Buddhist
Satrap of Bactria - if a Persia vassal
Indo-Greek Kingdom - if Buddhist and doesn't control Bactra, or if Hindu

Basically just a somewhat generic civilisation. Made slightly more interesting by the idea that you'd basically be assaulted on all sides constantly by Persia, Greece, Parthian barbarians, Kushan and potentially even India.
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Heliodorus Pillar - Wonder
Requires Contract, and Hinduism and Buddhism. +8 Culture, +2 Great Statesman points.
Grants a Hindu Kshetra in every city with Hinduism and Buddhism, spreads Hinduism to every city with Buddhism and without Hinduism. Obsolete with Theology.
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Sanchi Stupa - Wonder
Requires Generalship, and Hinduism and Buddhism, and Buddhism state religion. +6 culture, +2 Great Prophet points.
Great General specialists in cities grant +50% great person generation (maximum 50%).
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Reborn as the Afghan/Durrani Empire (or Pashtun) civilisation, after 1740AD
Flip zone is Afghanistan and Merv.
UU - Rohilla Infantry - Replaces Arquebusier, starts with the anti-gunpowder units promotion and is slightly cheaper to produce.
UP - The Power of the Loya Jirga - Non-state religions cannot spread in your cities, +2XP in cities with the state-religion. Chance for non-state religions to be removed when taking a city.
UHV1 - Ahmad Shah Durrani - Control Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Indus Valley by 1770AD.
UHV2 - Destruction of the Golden Temple - Ensure there are no non-Islamic civilisations in Central Asia, Persia, and the Ganges Plain by 1830AD.
UHV3 - Jewel of the Great Game - Have open borders, a defensive pact, and at least good relations with England and Russia.

A mini-Mongols, and the main antagonist of the next civilisation...
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Sikh Empire (Punjabis) - 1710AD
Flip zone is the upper Indus Valley region, which means Lahore and Armitsar probably. Core zone is these areas, northern India and the rest of the Indus Valley are contested.
UU - Jatha - Replaces Rifleman. Buildable at Combined Arms (not Replaceable Parts). Starts with Disengage I and II.
UB - Samadhi - Replaces theatre. Gives +1 happiness and nullifies religious unhappiness.
UP - The Power of Sant-Sipahi - Spawns a military unit with Mercenary every time you take a city for the first time or spawn a Great General.
UHV1 - Afghan-Sikh Wars - Spread Sikhism to at least one city in Afghanistan and Central Asia by 1800AD.
UHV2 - Sikh Empire - Control the Indus Valley and Delhi by 1850AD.
UHV3 - Khalistan Movement - Build 3 Takhatas and ensure there is at least one Sikh civilisation not in India or Persia in 1950AD.
Civ names:
Sikh Empire - With Sikhism
Sultanate of Kashmir - With Islam (and controls Kashmir, otherwise Sultanate of x)
Maharaj of Kashmir - With Hinduism or Buddhism (and controls Kashmir, otherwise Maharaj of x)
x of Khalistan - With modern civs (Republic of Khalistan, People's Republic, etc)

Another fairly generic civilisation with goals to just beat up the enemies around them. Their main threats would be the Durrani respawn, and of course the Mughals and English.
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Sikhism - Religion
Spawns in 1600AD in a North Indian city with Islam and Hinduism after a civilisation researches Heritage.
Historical area is basically just the Punjab.
Church - Sikh Gurdwara
Monastery - Sikh Sahib
Cathedral - Sikh Takhat
Religious Wonder - Harmandir Sahib
Missionary - Sikh Guru
Change Harmandir Sahib wonder to, Akal Takhat, and to require Sikhism and Sikhism State Religion.
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Bengal Empire (Bengalis) - 1250AD
Flip zone is Bengal, historical/contested areas are Assam, Arakan, Orissa and Burma.
UU - Paik - Replaces Bombard, available at Companies. +25% rainforest attack.
UB - Taka Mint - Replaces Bank, double construction with Gold. +1 happiness from Gold Silver and Gems, +1 commerce on Gold Silver and Gems.
UP -
UHV1 - Mint Towns - Acquire 3 of Gold, Silver and Gems by control or trade by 1570AD.
UHV2 - Muslin Trade - Complete a Great Merchant mission in China and Europe by 1570AD.
UHV3 - Iskandar Nama - Research Urban Planning or Horticulture by 1570AD.
Civ names:
Sultanate of Bengal - Islam
Bengal Empire - Buddhism or Hinduism
x of Bengal - lategame civics without Islam
x of Bangladesh - lategame civics with Islam

A smaller-focused economy game somewhat similar to the Tamils, with tight goals all with the same end date to make it an almost-puzzle like game.
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Mosque City - Wonder
Requires Finance, Hinduism and Islam and Islam State Religion. +10 culture +6 Great Merchant points.
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Ok sorry for the long post. Hope these ideas are good. Maybe 1SDAN can add them to civilisations reborn as a trial.

 

[Leoreth]

Add Yuezhi/Kushan and Huns from Civilization Reborn. Very cool civ imo and would like to see it in the game.

Can you describe their properties? CR isn't very well documented outside of the game.

Bengal Empire (Bengalis) - 1250AD

The Gauda kingdom and the Pala Empire were also centered in Bengal, shouldn't this civ start earlier?

I have been thinking about India a lot actually. I definitely there is much more chaos and conflict needed in the subcontinent. Indian history is as diverse and fractured as European history and representing it as being controlled by 1-2 civs for most of the game feels very wrong. At the very least, India should have to deal with more barbarian incursions as well, but I don't think you get a sensible protrayal of its history without having more actual civs in conflict over it.

It's not very easy to implement that in a civilisation model of playable factions. It's hard to construct civ identities around the polities in the game that isn't just "this particular dynasty". That said, even the Mughal civ is already an ahistorical amalgamation of two discontinuous entities that only shared the fact that they were Muslim empires centered in Delhi and the Ganges plain.

I think the addition of Bengal isn't unreasonable, I don't think its conquest Delhi and later the English was a foregone conclusion and even under foreign domination they were a significant commercial and industrial powerhouse of the world. It would be kind of interesting to give them a naval, economic, production or population oriented builder UHV.

That still leaves other parts of India on the table, though. I have already toyed with the idea to reframe the Tamil civ as a Dravidian civ without mostly to establish a little more continuity with successive polities in south India. It may even be interesting to fold Vijayanagar into this civ more explicitly, they could make for a good UHV goal at least.

Beyond that, I wonder what else to do. For example, the western coast usually was independent of both the Ganges and Tamil country, for example with the Rashtrakuta dynasty taking part in the tripartite struggle, and before them the Chalukyas. I was also wondering if it makes sense to reflect the Deccan Sultanates, most prominently the Bahmanis, which occupied a similar region in the world. I recently watched a video about Malik Ambar (here - this channel is pretty easily digestible without just being platitude and mostly focuses on India right now) and that's a pretty interesting area overall. The Marathas originate from the same area and maybe it makes sense to flesh them out into a separate civ.

Likewise, we have Gujarat and the Rajputs. Obviously, all of these are very disparate groups but I wonder if it could be possible to construct some civs that cover those areas in a reasonable way. I think it would enhance the play experience in India overall.

 

[BaneFire]

I'll just link the CR Kushan and Xiongu pages. Xiongu probably aren't as relevant, Kushan I would say are. I would only bother adding Kushan not as part of an India overhaul but more a Persia-Central Asia overhaul, as they go more alongside the Turks-Persians and potentially Bactrians.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilizations-reborn.650169/page-22#post-15766747
Their gameplay is designed as a sort of moving empire, starting in the Tarim Basin and obviously heading towards the Hindu Kush. This pits them against the Persians and Indians, and potentially the Bactrians/Harappans also.
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True the Pala Empire started in the Bengal region, but the Bengal Sultanate is obviously the more historically associated with "Bengal". I think a comparable example would be the Visigoths and Spanish or Franks and French: DOC represents the second and first respectively. One problem I can see is that you'd have some fairly arbitrary deaths and rebirths as India swings around, although that's not necessarily a problem, as I think having a lot of rebirths, deaths and expansions makes for a more interesting game.

I think if you're really committed to making India properly-done content wise, I would say to split it into people-regions, each with an ancient/classical spawn, a late medieval/renaissance rebirth, and a late-game rebirth, each accompanied with a revision of their core and flip-zones.
* Ganges Valley: The Indians, "Hindustan" or "Bharat" representing the Indo-Aryan Vedic peoples who were the origin of Hinduism, founded Pataliputra and Indraspratha. Initial spawn as the early Hindu states into Maurya (core around Ganges), then Gupta (core around Ganges and North Indian plain), and of course lategame as the Republic of India (core much of India).
* Indus Valley: The Gurkani, Mughals, Ghorids, Ghaznids or whatever you want to call them, representing Turko-Indians who respectively invaded as part of the Turkic conquests of Asia, and Turko-Persian refugees of the Mongol conquests of Asia. Initial spawn as the Delhi Sultanate (core Indus Valley), then Mughal Empire (core Indus Valley and North Indian plain), then Pakistan (core Indus Valley, and maybe a bit of North India)
* Southern India: The Dravidians, representing the Kannada, Telugu and Tamil peoples. Initial spawn as the Chola (core in Tamil Nadu), then Vijayanagara (core a lot of the Dravidian territory) and finally Tamil Nadu (same as before)
* Bengal: The Bengalis, representing the people of Bengal and surrounding regions. Initial spawn as the Gauda into Pala (core around Bengal), then Bengal (core around Bengal, Orissa, parts of Burma) and then Bangladesh.
* Deccan: The Marathi, although the Deccan is really diverse. Initial spawn as the Satavahana/Vakataka, then the Chalyuka/Bahmani. The Deccan is kind of weird because it produced dynasties that the game would consider as Indian or Tamil, and I'm not really sure how that would be represented. I don't think a Deccan civ is appropriate to be honest.
* Rajasthan and Gujarat: I don't think a civ for this region is really needed. Historically they weren't that populated or important, so would be best represented with independent spawns imo.
* Punjab: As in the OP, I think a late-medieval Sikh civ would be best for the Punjab. I don't think an ancient/classical one is needed.

That would be a total of 5 civs vying for space in India, ideally all with some sort of goal to control large swathes of it. Add in barbarians and independent spawns, and I think you'd have a dynamic and highly active India. The potential for the Turks, Iranians, Portuguese and English to get involved would make it one of the most interesting areas to play in. Finally it would make India the civ a really interesting one, since if you had a core two-three cities that weren't in any flip zones I can totally see the player attempting a game where they keep their India alive from 1500BC to 2020AD.

 

[Leoreth]

I'll just link the CR Kushan and Xiongu pages. Xiongu probably aren't as relevant, Kushan I would say are. I would only bother adding Kushan not as part of an India overhaul but more a Persia-Central Asia overhaul, as they go more alongside the Turks-Persians and potentially Bactrians.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civilizations-reborn.650169/page-22#post-15766747
Their gameplay is designed as a sort of moving empire, starting in the Tarim Basin and obviously heading towards the Hindu Kush. This pits them against the Persians and Indians, and potentially the Bactrians/Harappans also.

Hm that's very surface level, I think my current thoughts on the Kushans are already more in depth than this.

Where is the Hun/Xiongnu link?

True the Pala Empire started in the Bengal region, but the Bengal Sultanate is obviously the more historically associated with "Bengal".

But wouldn't it be more interesting if pre Muslim dynasties were included?

* Deccan: The Marathi, although the Deccan is really diverse. Initial spawn as the Satavahana/Vakataka, then the Chalyuka/Bahmani. The Deccan is kind of weird because it produced dynasties that the game would consider as Indian or Tamil, and I'm not really sure how that would be represented. I don't think a Deccan civ is appropriate to be honest.

Yeah, obviously the ethnicity/nationality based idea of civs is really hard to apply to India because it's a Eurocentric idea that doesn't really have a place when talking about much of Indian history. Still, that's how this game is set up so we would have to frame it in those terms right now.

How widely applicable is Marathi really as a term? It seems anachronistic for e.g. the Satavahanas for example, but I don't know enough to be certain. Still, it seems like there is some merit to a Deccan civ in the sense that we had a lot of empires in the area that were co-extensive with each other, and usually it was an independent power center from both the Tamil coast and the Indo-Gangetic plain.

* Rajasthan and Gujarat: I don't think a civ for this region is really needed. Historically they weren't that populated or important, so would be best represented with independent spawns imo.

True, although the Rajputs seem to be important to me and I would like to see them represented in some way.

That would be a total of 5 civs vying for space in India, ideally all with some sort of goal to control large swathes of it. Add in barbarians and independent spawns, and I think you'd have a dynamic and highly active India. The potential for the Turks, Iranians, Portuguese and English to get involved would make it one of the most interesting areas to play in. Finally it would make India the civ a really interesting one, since if you had a core two-three cities that weren't in any flip zones I can totally see the player attempting a game where they keep their India alive from 1500BC to 2020AD.

Yes, but it's important to me that we draw a distinction between Indian based powers and others at the fringes of it. So the Kushans or Afghans as well as colonial powers are a somewhat different beast. There should be sufficient conflict from internal Indian powers as well.

 

[DC123456789]

What do the Huns/Xiongnu have to do with India? Unless you're talking about the Hephthalites/Hunas?

 

[1SDANi]

Where is the Hun/Xiongnu link?


But wouldn't it be more interesting if pre Muslim dynasties were included?

Added Xiongnu
Spawn: 400 BC
UP: The Power of Nomads - Cavalry units starts with the Mobility promotion, + 25% production for Light Cavalry units.
UB: Ger-Tereg - Replaces Stable. +1 Production. +1 Culture.
UU: Guli - Replaces Horseman. Does not require Iron/Copper. Light Cavalry. Starts with Leadership.
UHV1: Heqin - Succesfully demand tribute from 5 different civilizations by 210 CE
UHV2: The Great Nomadic Empire - Be the largest civilization in the world in 210 CE
UHV3: Lost Hunnic Connection - Conquer a city in Europe and India by 560 CE

Yeah, I'm not very good at research and probably rely too much on suggestions and pre-existing ideas and assets when modding

 

[Leoreth]

To be honest, I was mostly interested in ideas of how a Hunnic civ would work independent of the India discussion. It seems hard to implement to me but also potentially interesting if you could. Sounds like the idea here is an umbrella civ that encompasses both the Huns and Xiongnu, which isn't very historical (but, as I said, maybe still a good idea because it's interesting) so the potential to extend the umbrella to the White Huns / Hephthalites exists.

 

[1SDANi]

To be honest, I was mostly interested in ideas of how a Hunnic civ would work independent of the India discussion. It seems hard to implement to me but also potentially interesting if you could. Sounds like the idea here is an umbrella civ that encompasses both the Huns and Xiongnu, which isn't very historical (but, as I said, maybe still a good idea because it's interesting) so the potential to extend the umbrella to the White Huns / Hephthalites exists.

DCR's Xiongnu only covers the Xiongnu, with the exception of UHV3 which I see as a sort of ahistorical/speculative goal akin to that found in many other civs in DoC.

 

[DC123456789]

To be honest, I was mostly interested in ideas of how a Hunnic civ would work independent of the India discussion. It seems hard to implement to me but also potentially interesting if you could. Sounds like the idea here is an umbrella civ that encompasses both the Huns and Xiongnu, which isn't very historical (but, as I said, maybe still a good idea because it's interesting) so the potential to extend the umbrella to the White Huns / Hephthalites exists.

Not sure if you've followed the discussion in the Civilizations Reborn thread, but I do think that the Hepthalites and Hunas more generally work much better as an extension of the Kushan civ, both from a historical and gameplay standpoint.

 

[Leoreth]

I do not follow that thread, no.