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Indian strategy- "Adaptation"
----------------------------previously posted on 2kforums and civfanatics-----------------------------------------
Indian Strategy:
Here is some strategy that I’ve found helpful after playing a lot of ranked games online with them, plus countless single player games. India is by no means a high powered civ everytime, but under the right circumstances, they can be extremely powerful, but that can be said of any civ. The purpose of this strategy guide is to open your eyes to recognizing more situations where the Indians can be successful.
To use the Indians successfully you must:
-Expand throughout the game, in every era, until you can’t anymore.
- Recognize the windows you have to rush, the Indians can provide unique oppritunities to rush your enemies, and you should commit to the rush as soon as you can for a better success rate.
- Recognizing that you need to defend above all, good defenses will protect you from a rush, and help out your overall goal of massive expansion.
- Adaptation and flexibility is the key, resources will be your friend, decide where you will settle, how you will take advantage of your resources as soon as you find them, and specialize cities if possible. Several of their bonuses will make this easy to do, especially with a little practice with this civ.
Ancient era: Access to all resources
This is what makes or breaks the Indians. With the right resources, especially early in the game, the Indians can be quite powerful, and this bonus can be used to come from behind if u start out with a bad resource next to Dehli.
This bonus works as follows:
Ancient era: +1 access to resources
Midevil era: +2 access to resources
Industrial era: +3 access to resources
Modern era: +4 access to resources
After researching the tech required for a specific resources, you’ll get full access to the resource. For example, if you settle next to whale, in the ancient era you’ll only get +1 food from the whale, but once you research navigation, you’ll get the full +4 food from the whale. Not all resources give you a max of +3 or +4 when u make it too the industrial or modern era. Fish will cap at +2 food for example.
Please read later to find out which resources you should put a priority on for settling Dehli and subsequent cities.
Cities not affected by Anarachy
This is not always the best bonus to have, and is not always very useful with the Japanese and Chinese who receive them later on in the game. But this can be very useful since you have this bonus from the 1st turn on. This can be used to a very powerful advantage when you find Angor Wat early in the game and receive the Great Pyramid (I don’t suggest building this wonder or using a great builder to get this wonder though, because there are more powerful wonders that can be built/rushed). Once you receive fundamentalism after five techs, you can switch in and out of being aggressive or tech-happy without falling being in production or tech. This is also helpful to switch into later w/ ½ price settlers if u plan it right. You could switch to republic and rush a settler in every city and switch back out of republic all while teching and expanding for lower costs.
Medieval Era: Knowledge of Religion
This bonus can have some real game-changing benefits. 5 techs into the game and you should have +1 culture for each city (unless the arabs are present), which can add up quickly to get a jumpstart of those early Great Persons. Also, with the no anarachy bonus you can switch in and out of fundamentalism when you need to be more aggressive. Planning ahead for this bonus can be very beneficial. Go ahead and build some armies before receiving this free tech and you can get some cities pretty quickly. If you do plan on using the fundamentalism gov’t, don’t build any early libraries (which should almost never be the case anyway, since this production/gold is better used on settlers than libraries).
Industrial Era: Half cost settlers
Had this bonus been in the Midevil, this would’ve made the Indians one of the most powerful civs in the game. This can still be used very effectively. Switching to Republic for a turn and rushing settlers in all/most of your cities will greatly expand your empire. This bonus falls about the time when players are vying for island cities (Spanish will usually beat you to them, but there should be plently to take advantage of. With any civ, it’s usually best to keep expanding throught the first three eras, but India can take this to a whole new level. Your mindset while playing with India should be: “expand till u can’t”. If another civ has built a lead on you and gets complacent with expanding, you’ll be able to catch them of the period of a few short turns if played right. Landlocked cities are more of an option with the Indians because of their resource bonuses.
Modern Era: Half-priced Courthouses
Normally it’s tough to get a courthouse in all your cities. This is not the case with India. This not only saves hammers, but further exploits their resource bonus. A cheap courthouse really makes for being able to specialize cities towards one area or another. You can really find some good spots for a science/gold city and production cities, as well as good spots for settler farms. This bonus can be used to get the most out of the Magna Carta wonder.
Resource Priorities
The best resources for the Indians in my opinion are on grassland, forest, and sea squares. Starting off with your capitol having a resource on a mountain, hill, plain, or desert is not desireable, and it’s up to you whether it’s worth the risk to move the settler. While exploring, it’s best to look for groupings of resources for when your cities have grown a little.
The best resources to start w/ in your capitol:
Dye, Wheat, Oak, Rubber. The extra trade, food, and production can really save you some turns and give you a better shot at rushing and not be rushed.
For subsequent cities, still put a priority on resource groupings (getting several accessible for a single city) and place a priority on those from the ocean, forest or grassland. Later in the game you can think about production cities, islands w/ dye and whales etc. Finding a city that is balanced but has oak and rubber can be like having an early factory
expand till u can't
While exploring with your warriors, pay extra attention to the resources that you’ll uncover and make descions about where you’ll settle new cities and in what order you’ll settle them in. I’ve found that early on, production cities and those with dye are usually the most important, because they’ll advance your tech, and bolster you’re defensive/offensive prowress. If you don’t need the gold from selling the warriors, find chokepoints or lookout spots to expand your terroritory to it’s fullest. Later u can place archers or other defensive units in these squares if need be.
After getting your free settler (or before if u just can’t get to 100 gold) rush a settler in your capitol. As quickly as you can (somewhere in the range of your 2nd to 4th city) try to settle a city that has a good food resource in it like whale, wheat, fish or cattle, basically, if you have the chance to settle in a good spot for a settler farm, do it asap. My goal is usually to have about 5-7 cities minimum by 0AD.
Once you run out of locations w/ ocean squares, landlocked cities are more of a possibility with the Indians than with other civs because you can still take advantage of those resources. You’re cultural borders should be decently strong because of the +1 culture bonus from religion.
Horserush
This can catch a lot of players off guard, because they don’t consider India to be a strong early rushing civ. If you have Dye, Oak, or rubber in your capitol, you can shave a few turns off getting your horsemen army out there. Basically, you should decide if you should do this from turn one. If there are zulu, Aztec, or Chinese in the game, it might be best to go for bronze working and get defenses instead of horses. If you do go for horses, build a warrior, set both tiles on sea tiles and research horseback riding, then switch back to forests and get at least three horsemen out ASAP.
If you have dye in your capitol, you’ll be able to save a turn by researching HBR in 4 turns instead of five. If you have Oak or rubber in your capitol, you’ll save three turns overall by having +5 production in your capitol, thus only taking 4 turns to produce a horsemen. It’s usually a good idea to rush a few horses w/ gold, you’ll make it up from huts and barb villages. I’ll usually have my army between 3000BC-2700BC, and usually they aren’t expect the Indians to be knocking on their doorsteps so quickly. Once you get fundamentalism after your fifth tech, these vet horsemen should be pretty tough to deal with (especially if they got a infiltration upgrade).
Legion Rush after 5 techs (religion free)
This can be something you’re planning all along, or a tactic to be used if you’re getting smoked in tech or other areas. After 5 techs, you’ll get religion for free, letting you choose fundamentalism as a government. Research Iron working as one of those first techs, the quickest way to this is: bronze working, horseback riding, alphabet, pottery, iron working. Settle your second and third cities with good production resources and start spamming legion armies. 7-10 armies can be a giant steamroller than can take over just about any city, you usually just need to overwhelm one archer army and you’re golden. You’ll lose a few armies with each city taken, but it’s well worth it, just keep pumping them out and you should be able to get a lot of cities before anyone gets pikemen. This doesn’t work against the Aztecs due to their healing bonus, they’ll just keep upgrading.
This can be applied as well to captapults if you’re teching fast enough and have enough production/gold to get a few catapult armies. If you do go for a catapult rush, be sure to figure out a way to transport them around. Have some archer armies to escort them, load them on a ship, build a road or two etc.
Defending against Rushers
If you notice another rushing civ playing against you, bronze worker and archers should take a precendent over attack. You can get these faster than most civs if you have production or research bonuses in your capital or settled cities. I like to have at least an archer army in my capital before building a settler in dehli. Having an extra archer or unit to escort your settler is preferable. Remember, you’re overall goal is to expand as much as possible to take full advantage of their resource bonuses, so defenders are an intregal part to your overall goal. If you aren’t gonna rush out of the gate, build your defenses first before expanding, it’ll pay off in the long run. If you find you have extra defensive units in your cities or wandering, place them at choke points, hills, and future city locations. If you see a spot that has some valuable resources, it’s worth it to go ahead and set an archer to defend it to give you a better shot at settling there. If you’ve got plenty of archers and more offensive units than you need or can’t use them for a rush, place them in either the choke points or in your border cities. Holding your borders is a must, but expanding your prospective territory past your cultural borders is a huge plus.
After the first five techs/rush
Depending on your goals and game situations, your tech path could vary a little, but there should be a few techs that you should pursue in every game.
Mathematics- for building catapults, even if you don’t want them, this is a tech prerquisite for Navigation, so go ahead and research it before navigation.
Navigation- for the obvious reasons of getting galleons, maxiumizing whale resource, settling islands asap, and picking up any remaining artifacts.
Code of Laws- You should arrive here as quickly as possible, especially after finishing up any offensive campaign. The settling bonus from Republic plus the half price settler bonus in the industrial era (probably a few techs after u get code of laws). Writing is a prereq for code of laws and should be researched before this.
Currency- it’s important to get this first, and before you get to your 250 gold milestone if possible (so you’ll get banking when you reach 250 gold). Choose which city you want to have a market built in and switch that city to gold the turn before finishing researching currency, and the market will be built in that city.
Democracy
Monarchy- free great person for first bonus, maximize those dye resources to +5, and it’s a prereq for feudalism.
Feudalism- for possible knight rush. Build a few armies and take out non-capital cities first, then get to those capitals with your vet knights, who should be pretty powerful when you switch to fundamentalism.
From here there’s just too many possibilities for strategy, you should have your victory path picked out at least by sometime in the industrial era, especially when you’ve settled a lot of low cost cities. Pick your victory path and tech/build accordingly.
Other random/ closing thoughts
- You’ll have to break some old habits if you wanna learn to play with the Indians. Get out of the mindset that you’ll be penalized for switching governments, because with them you won’t. You have to be more decisive about city locations. Expand the whole game, not just until you got a set amount of cities. Overall, this civ takes a lot more planning than most of the other civs, the more you figure out ahead of time, the more efficient and powerful your plan will be. Take the full turn if you have to have more time to think about your strat, don’t feel rushed by the other guy who is probably cursing you waiting for you to finish.
- Have a list of resources handy if you can if you don’t know what all the resources do or what their max benefit will be. You can find a complete list at civfanatics.com
- Magna Carta should almost always be considered in the modern era.
- Because you get +1 culture in each city from Religion, expansion is even more valuable because you’ll get you’re cultural milestones faster than most civs.
That’s all for now, I may add more from my notes, typed this up kinda quick. Hope this helps, there just so many possiblities/permutations with the Indians that it's hard to write up an explict or turn-by-turn strategy, feel free to criticize or let me know if there's any huge gaps or additional strats that could be added and I'll edit it.
----------------------------previously posted on 2kforums and civfanatics-----------------------------------------
Indian Strategy:
Here is some strategy that I’ve found helpful after playing a lot of ranked games online with them, plus countless single player games. India is by no means a high powered civ everytime, but under the right circumstances, they can be extremely powerful, but that can be said of any civ. The purpose of this strategy guide is to open your eyes to recognizing more situations where the Indians can be successful.
To use the Indians successfully you must:
-Expand throughout the game, in every era, until you can’t anymore.
- Recognize the windows you have to rush, the Indians can provide unique oppritunities to rush your enemies, and you should commit to the rush as soon as you can for a better success rate.
- Recognizing that you need to defend above all, good defenses will protect you from a rush, and help out your overall goal of massive expansion.
- Adaptation and flexibility is the key, resources will be your friend, decide where you will settle, how you will take advantage of your resources as soon as you find them, and specialize cities if possible. Several of their bonuses will make this easy to do, especially with a little practice with this civ.
Ancient era: Access to all resources
This is what makes or breaks the Indians. With the right resources, especially early in the game, the Indians can be quite powerful, and this bonus can be used to come from behind if u start out with a bad resource next to Dehli.
This bonus works as follows:
Ancient era: +1 access to resources
Midevil era: +2 access to resources
Industrial era: +3 access to resources
Modern era: +4 access to resources
After researching the tech required for a specific resources, you’ll get full access to the resource. For example, if you settle next to whale, in the ancient era you’ll only get +1 food from the whale, but once you research navigation, you’ll get the full +4 food from the whale. Not all resources give you a max of +3 or +4 when u make it too the industrial or modern era. Fish will cap at +2 food for example.
Please read later to find out which resources you should put a priority on for settling Dehli and subsequent cities.
Cities not affected by Anarachy
This is not always the best bonus to have, and is not always very useful with the Japanese and Chinese who receive them later on in the game. But this can be very useful since you have this bonus from the 1st turn on. This can be used to a very powerful advantage when you find Angor Wat early in the game and receive the Great Pyramid (I don’t suggest building this wonder or using a great builder to get this wonder though, because there are more powerful wonders that can be built/rushed). Once you receive fundamentalism after five techs, you can switch in and out of being aggressive or tech-happy without falling being in production or tech. This is also helpful to switch into later w/ ½ price settlers if u plan it right. You could switch to republic and rush a settler in every city and switch back out of republic all while teching and expanding for lower costs.
Medieval Era: Knowledge of Religion
This bonus can have some real game-changing benefits. 5 techs into the game and you should have +1 culture for each city (unless the arabs are present), which can add up quickly to get a jumpstart of those early Great Persons. Also, with the no anarachy bonus you can switch in and out of fundamentalism when you need to be more aggressive. Planning ahead for this bonus can be very beneficial. Go ahead and build some armies before receiving this free tech and you can get some cities pretty quickly. If you do plan on using the fundamentalism gov’t, don’t build any early libraries (which should almost never be the case anyway, since this production/gold is better used on settlers than libraries).
Industrial Era: Half cost settlers
Had this bonus been in the Midevil, this would’ve made the Indians one of the most powerful civs in the game. This can still be used very effectively. Switching to Republic for a turn and rushing settlers in all/most of your cities will greatly expand your empire. This bonus falls about the time when players are vying for island cities (Spanish will usually beat you to them, but there should be plently to take advantage of. With any civ, it’s usually best to keep expanding throught the first three eras, but India can take this to a whole new level. Your mindset while playing with India should be: “expand till u can’t”. If another civ has built a lead on you and gets complacent with expanding, you’ll be able to catch them of the period of a few short turns if played right. Landlocked cities are more of an option with the Indians because of their resource bonuses.
Modern Era: Half-priced Courthouses
Normally it’s tough to get a courthouse in all your cities. This is not the case with India. This not only saves hammers, but further exploits their resource bonus. A cheap courthouse really makes for being able to specialize cities towards one area or another. You can really find some good spots for a science/gold city and production cities, as well as good spots for settler farms. This bonus can be used to get the most out of the Magna Carta wonder.
Resource Priorities
The best resources for the Indians in my opinion are on grassland, forest, and sea squares. Starting off with your capitol having a resource on a mountain, hill, plain, or desert is not desireable, and it’s up to you whether it’s worth the risk to move the settler. While exploring, it’s best to look for groupings of resources for when your cities have grown a little.
The best resources to start w/ in your capitol:
Dye, Wheat, Oak, Rubber. The extra trade, food, and production can really save you some turns and give you a better shot at rushing and not be rushed.
For subsequent cities, still put a priority on resource groupings (getting several accessible for a single city) and place a priority on those from the ocean, forest or grassland. Later in the game you can think about production cities, islands w/ dye and whales etc. Finding a city that is balanced but has oak and rubber can be like having an early factory
expand till u can't
While exploring with your warriors, pay extra attention to the resources that you’ll uncover and make descions about where you’ll settle new cities and in what order you’ll settle them in. I’ve found that early on, production cities and those with dye are usually the most important, because they’ll advance your tech, and bolster you’re defensive/offensive prowress. If you don’t need the gold from selling the warriors, find chokepoints or lookout spots to expand your terroritory to it’s fullest. Later u can place archers or other defensive units in these squares if need be.
After getting your free settler (or before if u just can’t get to 100 gold) rush a settler in your capitol. As quickly as you can (somewhere in the range of your 2nd to 4th city) try to settle a city that has a good food resource in it like whale, wheat, fish or cattle, basically, if you have the chance to settle in a good spot for a settler farm, do it asap. My goal is usually to have about 5-7 cities minimum by 0AD.
Once you run out of locations w/ ocean squares, landlocked cities are more of a possibility with the Indians than with other civs because you can still take advantage of those resources. You’re cultural borders should be decently strong because of the +1 culture bonus from religion.
Horserush
This can catch a lot of players off guard, because they don’t consider India to be a strong early rushing civ. If you have Dye, Oak, or rubber in your capitol, you can shave a few turns off getting your horsemen army out there. Basically, you should decide if you should do this from turn one. If there are zulu, Aztec, or Chinese in the game, it might be best to go for bronze working and get defenses instead of horses. If you do go for horses, build a warrior, set both tiles on sea tiles and research horseback riding, then switch back to forests and get at least three horsemen out ASAP.
If you have dye in your capitol, you’ll be able to save a turn by researching HBR in 4 turns instead of five. If you have Oak or rubber in your capitol, you’ll save three turns overall by having +5 production in your capitol, thus only taking 4 turns to produce a horsemen. It’s usually a good idea to rush a few horses w/ gold, you’ll make it up from huts and barb villages. I’ll usually have my army between 3000BC-2700BC, and usually they aren’t expect the Indians to be knocking on their doorsteps so quickly. Once you get fundamentalism after your fifth tech, these vet horsemen should be pretty tough to deal with (especially if they got a infiltration upgrade).
Legion Rush after 5 techs (religion free)
This can be something you’re planning all along, or a tactic to be used if you’re getting smoked in tech or other areas. After 5 techs, you’ll get religion for free, letting you choose fundamentalism as a government. Research Iron working as one of those first techs, the quickest way to this is: bronze working, horseback riding, alphabet, pottery, iron working. Settle your second and third cities with good production resources and start spamming legion armies. 7-10 armies can be a giant steamroller than can take over just about any city, you usually just need to overwhelm one archer army and you’re golden. You’ll lose a few armies with each city taken, but it’s well worth it, just keep pumping them out and you should be able to get a lot of cities before anyone gets pikemen. This doesn’t work against the Aztecs due to their healing bonus, they’ll just keep upgrading.
This can be applied as well to captapults if you’re teching fast enough and have enough production/gold to get a few catapult armies. If you do go for a catapult rush, be sure to figure out a way to transport them around. Have some archer armies to escort them, load them on a ship, build a road or two etc.
Defending against Rushers
If you notice another rushing civ playing against you, bronze worker and archers should take a precendent over attack. You can get these faster than most civs if you have production or research bonuses in your capital or settled cities. I like to have at least an archer army in my capital before building a settler in dehli. Having an extra archer or unit to escort your settler is preferable. Remember, you’re overall goal is to expand as much as possible to take full advantage of their resource bonuses, so defenders are an intregal part to your overall goal. If you aren’t gonna rush out of the gate, build your defenses first before expanding, it’ll pay off in the long run. If you find you have extra defensive units in your cities or wandering, place them at choke points, hills, and future city locations. If you see a spot that has some valuable resources, it’s worth it to go ahead and set an archer to defend it to give you a better shot at settling there. If you’ve got plenty of archers and more offensive units than you need or can’t use them for a rush, place them in either the choke points or in your border cities. Holding your borders is a must, but expanding your prospective territory past your cultural borders is a huge plus.
After the first five techs/rush
Depending on your goals and game situations, your tech path could vary a little, but there should be a few techs that you should pursue in every game.
Mathematics- for building catapults, even if you don’t want them, this is a tech prerquisite for Navigation, so go ahead and research it before navigation.
Navigation- for the obvious reasons of getting galleons, maxiumizing whale resource, settling islands asap, and picking up any remaining artifacts.
Code of Laws- You should arrive here as quickly as possible, especially after finishing up any offensive campaign. The settling bonus from Republic plus the half price settler bonus in the industrial era (probably a few techs after u get code of laws). Writing is a prereq for code of laws and should be researched before this.
Currency- it’s important to get this first, and before you get to your 250 gold milestone if possible (so you’ll get banking when you reach 250 gold). Choose which city you want to have a market built in and switch that city to gold the turn before finishing researching currency, and the market will be built in that city.
Democracy
Monarchy- free great person for first bonus, maximize those dye resources to +5, and it’s a prereq for feudalism.
Feudalism- for possible knight rush. Build a few armies and take out non-capital cities first, then get to those capitals with your vet knights, who should be pretty powerful when you switch to fundamentalism.
From here there’s just too many possibilities for strategy, you should have your victory path picked out at least by sometime in the industrial era, especially when you’ve settled a lot of low cost cities. Pick your victory path and tech/build accordingly.
Other random/ closing thoughts
- You’ll have to break some old habits if you wanna learn to play with the Indians. Get out of the mindset that you’ll be penalized for switching governments, because with them you won’t. You have to be more decisive about city locations. Expand the whole game, not just until you got a set amount of cities. Overall, this civ takes a lot more planning than most of the other civs, the more you figure out ahead of time, the more efficient and powerful your plan will be. Take the full turn if you have to have more time to think about your strat, don’t feel rushed by the other guy who is probably cursing you waiting for you to finish.
- Have a list of resources handy if you can if you don’t know what all the resources do or what their max benefit will be. You can find a complete list at civfanatics.com
- Magna Carta should almost always be considered in the modern era.
- Because you get +1 culture in each city from Religion, expansion is even more valuable because you’ll get you’re cultural milestones faster than most civs.
That’s all for now, I may add more from my notes, typed this up kinda quick. Hope this helps, there just so many possiblities/permutations with the Indians that it's hard to write up an explict or turn-by-turn strategy, feel free to criticize or let me know if there's any huge gaps or additional strats that could be added and I'll edit it.