Basics – India – Steam Solo

Overview

Hello, this is a quick video guide of what to expect if you are to pick India as your Civilization.

Video of how to play India.

This will tell you what to expect out of the special units, what to expect out of the playstyle, and what victory conditions to expect to dominate with.

Victory Conditions

Hello, if you really didn’t want to watch the video I’ll give a quick rundown of what you probably should be thinking if you are randomly paired up with the Indians or are just new to Civilization and think they would be fun to play!

Victory Conditions

Cultural
By far India’s best feature, and probably one of the greatest Civilizations to play if you want to win Culturally. His personality trait will do you wonders if you want to stay small and play a tall empire. If you are playing on regular difficulty remember that by 9 Happiness you’ll offset the “negative” effects of the personality trait. Nonetheless, his Mughal Fort will help with defense agains’t any aggressive Civilizations and give you more culture to keep pushing towards that victory. Highly recommended.
Diplomatic
Ghandi, the almighty leader in any peace movement. Playing as India will also give you the benefit of doing well in a Diplomatic game as well. Granted he has nothing that helps you via a personality trait, you’ll want to stay small until the later ages thus making friends with everyone you are around. Completing City-state quests and helping out other Civilizations can do wonders at the end of the game once Diplomatic victory becomes closer to reality. Recommended.
Domination
Now, generally you would not think of India as a powerhouse but their special elephant unit can actually do some damage if you are playing on a small map all on one continent. Granted many will actually be able to devastate you if they are more aggressive Civilization but India can fend for themselves. If you are on a large continent with a higher difficulty you’ll want to avoid this option like the plague. Remember, the elephant units do NOT require elephants in your empire! Not recommended.
Scientific
Probably could have swapped out Domination with this but honestly the tall empires usually have the most difficult time with keeping up in science. Sure, you’ll get the specialists to fill the Libraries/etc. that you’ll build but the very few cities you have will hinder you greatly. India does not have any personality trait that will boost science in any regards and the Social Policies that you’ll want to choose won’t really relate to generating more science either. Not recommended.

Social Policies

Won’t get into as depth as the Victory Conditions only because Social Policies can usually go anyway for any Civ and still win. Will only note those that are very important to each Civ.

Patronage
Just as any other Civilization that is going for a Cultural victory your best option is going to be Patronage. Patronage will increase your culture greatly thus you’ll want to be buddies with the City-states to gain a little more out of what they can give you. Hopefully, you’ll pick to be best buds with the City-states that give you a little extra culture for being Friendly with them. I would avoid anything that would give you rapid expansion considering the downsides of that as India!

The rest are really up to you on how you’re playstyle will be for policies, Tradition for hunkering down with few cities – Honor for cutting down enemies early on – Liberty for expanding like a mad-man but again, that goes for any Civ, not just the Indians.

Factoids

The Indian film industry, Bollywood, makes more films each year than the United States, France, Italy, and the People`s Republic of China.
The only country in the world that has a Bill of Rights for Cows is India.
The longest station name on the Indian Railways is Venkatanarasimharajuvariapeta.
Technically speaking, there is no such thing as an Indian ‘curry’- the word, an anglicized derivative of the Tamil word kari (black pepper), was used by the British as a term for any dish including spices.
The board game chess was invented in India.