The Indians

I would place the Indians in the 2nd tier. Long way from Menzo Jopedamus I- hows Baenre doing?

 

Same as usual..Lloth is demanding war, so in war they are. But that doesn't concern me, big red dragon, at all. If they come too close, I will use my devilish fire breath. NO-ONE should distract me now, I'm finally close to my first Sid win...

 

Perhaps the commercial trait of France & India help to make them warmonger, more production, more units, dead end -> war.

 

Yeah I rate India a lot more highly - 2nd tier at least IMO. Their slow expansion is made up for nicely by the cheap temples - borders expand fast, flips can happen in your favour and the culture helps the ancient age diplomacy to keep rivals off your back till the Middle Ages. You do have to maintain peace in the AA though and I don't mind paying small amounts of cash in tribute cos it makes revenge all the sweeter.

It's true you can't really get away with any early war rushes but that's the nature of this beast. Once the early infrastructure is built however you can really tear away fast with them, riding a GA around the same time there's no looking back. I've always been surprised with India. Around the middle ages they just turn up a gear and it never stops till the game is over. This is true for most civs with Middle Age UUs but with India those MA commercial and religious improvements are so important (esp. for representative govts), so cheap and the benefits start rolling in heavy if in a Rep or Demo. This all means you're geared and powerful for war damn fast or you build and research even faster if you're that way inclined. And switching between govts is a greatly underrated trait IMO once you do let loose the war.

The only civ I've played with and haven't feared the WE was the Chinese. Now that's a compliment to the WE! Extra hit point counts for loads, like Ancient Cavalry from SoZ rock, so do the WE. India rides up there with the civs I try and take out/render less potent before their UUs become effective - Ottomans, Chinese, Arabs, Dutch, Celts (if poss.), Germans. And yes that's usually because Gandhi's a bloodthirsty, warmongering SoB everytime he's on the map.

It's also worth pointing out, with all due to respect to Ision's outstanding reviews, that there is a further synergy that merits attention. In India's case it is that there is a clear and strong synergy between the trait combination and the UU. It's more pronounced than many civs' trait-UU synergy. India's amount to a good profile: Peaceful builder without a pressing need to war for resources early = power house come the middle ages.

You can't decide the game early with them but as mentioned come the middle ages you certainly can.

 

First off, great reviews Ision

Though I tend to agree with the pro India posters in this case. I played my last game as India for the first time (emporer level) and I think when played correctly they're a powerfull civ, especially thanks to their War Elephants.

As already said a few times in this thread, their extra hit point and no need for resources is a real bonus and although I've yet to play as quite a few of the other civ's yet (including the Chinese which alot of people seem to rave about) I think they're my favourite UU in the game.

You need a bit of a lucky start with India but if you come through the very earlier part of the game in decent shape, there's no looking back

 

India can go Feudal in the middle ages quite easily. Well, any religious tribe can, but so what? Well, if you have a sizable enough empire, the more corrupt towns can then whip out extra jumbos. If you have Sun Tzu's, that sounds really dangerous. If you don't, then you'll have 4/4 baby jumbos which could serve as the first attackers against a city to weaken it before your huge 5/5 jumbos or your enormous 6/6 jumbos steamroll the city. You'll get a little extra production from the commercial trait, making whipping jumbos out all the more feasible. If that works out as I think it might, that's some jumbo synergy between religious, commercial, and jumbos. If you get war weariness you don't like from Feudalism, revolt to Monarchy for a bit.

 

That sounds like a very fun thing to try. Unfortunately for this to work you need to get the city to be size 6 and have 10 shields in the production box(definitely doable but restrictive). But this got me thinking. Maybe Egypt would be a great civ to try a similar strategy with. Egypt is also religious and 20 shield war chariots can be popped in size two cities with one shield in the box. Core cities should be able to produce wc's normally in 1-3 turns. Now, hopefully, Feudalism's unique unit support system would make it economically viable to massively spam war chariots.

 

Egypt was one of the few civs hat can abuse feudalism. I tried that tactic out once and the crazy slingshot effect I got was enormous. I had a huge army and was making money comparable to a republic. Massive army of war chariots, free unit support and pop rushing in captured towns to get below size 6 while I let the core grow up to size 12 cities.

One of the easiest civ wins I've ever had.

 

Sounds like a plan: Expand. Build/Pop barracks/war chariots, golden age out of ancient age ASAP. Revolt to Feudalism. More war chariots. Beeline to Chivalry. More war chariots. Shut off research. More war chariots and periodically disconnect/reconnect iron to upgrade to knights.

 

That was basically it. I forced myself to use Feudalism and in some cases it is actually a
powerhouse government and the Egyptians are probably the easiest civ to abuse it. I was going to write a article on the ins and outs of the government type but never got around to it. You can stay in it up to the early industrial agre where a switch to Democracy or more likely Communism makes sense. If you have a few railroads built odds are your citiees will rapidly expand to size 12 anyway.

IIRC I had a 60 unit chariot army and was earnig 300gpt+ in the early medievil age and had garrison forces as well. With the amount of money I got and wonders seized it was I ended up with a huge army of Knights.