@ Tunch Khan: Don't worry my friend, there is plenty of Ottoman Influence. Although they do not appear themselves they are represented and included in a number of ways:
a)
Ottoman Firearms Civ. Advance. ~ This is the top of the artillery tech tree and provides some crucial units. This is also a required tech in order to get to 'The Mansab System', a government tech. This is again, to reflect the influence of Ottoman administration in India.
b) There are Janissary type units, together with Sipahi type Cavalry (called 'Heroic Cavalry'), representing the use of Ottoman hand held firearms in India.
c) Ottoman Power is reflected and projected through the Safavid Persians in this game and don't worry I know they were at war mostly, this is acknowledged in the Safavid 'Tribes' entry. The Safavids in this game provide the same kind of 'western influence' and threat. They really do loom large in this scenario.
Also, to include the Ottomans would not have been possible with any realism and without extending the map. I had a similar problem with the Europeans, ie. to place the Europeans with unrealistic starting points and give them the boost required to come through with the same kind of power they really did. To include the Ottomans in such a way (with a small and unrealistic starting base) would have simply been too much. This was a decision to let game play rule the day and have the Ottomans referred to with copious amount of detail in the Civilopedia.
@ Ranbir: The Sikhs are included in a number of ways also, whilst not appearing themselves:
a) The topline defender for the Indian and Persian culture groups is the Sikh Guard, which you can see in the screenies.
b) The Civilopedia Entries for 'Religious Tolerance', 'The Sikh Guard' and 'Religious Appreciation' all give detail on Sikhism.
c) It was very difficult to recreate the fall of many kingdoms who were present during the start date but were
gone soon after AND ALSO including kingdoms who were
not around at the start date.
To deal with this, many of the UUs for Indian civs have references to these later Hindu/Sikh 'kingdoms of resistance'.
Two examples out of many: i) the UU for
Ahmadnagar, is the
'Sardar Rider'. These Sardar warriors were in fact divisions of the
Maratha military (not Ahmadnagar), and again, the Pedia refers to this in some detail. ii) There is an awesome unit called
'The Rocket Wala' (Rocket Man), at the top of the artillery tech tree. This directly represents Tipu Sultan's use of rockets against the British.
So I have
alluded to many later empires in other ways, because it was simply too much to try and recreate their rise out of
other kingdoms.
I hope that helps understand how this has been approached. Gameplay, naturally, took the driving seat on some decisions. I feel that there is enough historical reference and ackowledgement to these omissions by way of units, techs, improvements, wonders and also that extension Civilopedia.
By doing this, we've achieved an utterly faithful rendition of the first 200 years after the start date. You are guaranteed that! Beyond that it moves into the realm of you recreating history as you see fit.
