Overview
Are you tired of losing each game as India? Are you tired of unhappiness? How do you solve this problem? Well with this guide I will run through the basics for India. Since India has Population Growth, you can’t expand much. This guide will help you play, expand and conquer as India.
India’s Misconceptions
Let’s face it, every Civ has misconceptions. India is overlooked as a non conquering and peaceful Civ. This misconception allows players to go straight for Culture Victory, which is not bad victory to go for. Often times, players only want to play as the conquering and border expanding Civs (Mongolia, Russia,Korea, etc.) to go for a Domination Victory or any other Victory. In theory, all Civs are able to conquer and expand at their own pace, making India a perfect Civ to play as. It all depends on how play.
India is not bad Civ to play as, but is ability Population Growth can intimidate players, making India a Civ that wont be played as often. This guide will walk you through India and will help you overcome these common misconceptions.
Expanding Happiness
How to Expand Happiness:
1. Research Animal Husbandry, Trapping, Construction, The Wheel, Mathematics, Chivalry, Printing Press and Banking.
2. Animal Husbandry- Allows to work Horse, Ivory and Deer tiles. Also Reveals Horses on the map
3. Trapping- Allows to work Ivory and Deer Tiles, increases happiness, and allows to build the circus.
4. The Wheel- Allows building roads and building War Elephant Units.
5. Construction- Allows building the Colosseum, and increase happiness only by the number of citizens in your city(Same with Circus)
6. Chivarly- Allows the building of the Mughal Fort, which can give you gold after Flight is researched.
7. Mathematics- Allows the building of the Courthouse, reduces unhappiness from occupied cities. (Helps during wartime)
8. Printing Press- Allows the building of the Theater and the Taj Mahal (Both give Happiness)
9. Banking- Allows to build the Forbidden Palace, which reduces unhappiness in your cities by -10%.
How This Works:
Start on any map of your choice but make sure that you can expand as quickly as you want, but not be totally isolated from any other Civs.( This can help later on) Take a look around on the map and settle your first city. Then start to research Animal Husbandry, Trapping, The Wheel, Construction, Chivalry, Mathematics, Printing Press, and Banking.
These techs can help boost your happiness in your kingdom. Animal Husbandry may seem like it doesnt make a big impact at the beginning of your game but it will later on. Animal Husbandry can help reveal Horse Tiles on the map. You then want to improve this tile with a worker to get happiness in your city when its worked. Don’t be discouraged if your first city doesn’t a Horse Tile.
Having a Horse or Ivory Tile working can help you build the Circus. The Circus needs a Horse Tile or an Ivory Tile to be worked in order for the Circus to be built. You can have at lest one of these Tiles worked and you still will get the same results. If you feel that you don’t have a Horse or an Ivory Tile but you want both, send a scout to find a city state. If the city stat has the other resources that you want (Horse or Ivory) become allies with that city stat and contruct a road to it.This builds a trade route to your city or to your capital. This action will give your Circus maximum effect and increase happiness.
You also want to got for a Social Policy. Sure you can go for whatever Policy you want but you should go for Liberty or Tradition first. Getting Liberty allows you to expand and also get some happiness in your kingdom. Liberty allows you to get Meritocracy, which allows an increase in happiness for every city connected to your capital and also reduces unhappiness for citizens by -5%. Construction allows the building of Colosseums, another happiness building. Like the Circus, the Colosseum can increase happiness but can’t increase happines above the number of citizens in your city. You dont have to go for Liberty, you can go for whatever Social Policy you want. Tradition, Piety, and Honor are not that bad at all and can provide early game benefits. Tradition can help your cities become happiness free for early game. Either Social Policy is fine.
This is going to increase happines in your kingdom if you build Colosseums in your larger cities, thus allowing more expandsion on your map.The Wheel allows not only the building of roads, but can lead to production of the War Elephant. The War Elephant shouldn’t be the main focus of your army and focus on foot solders instead. Mathematics allows you to reduce unhappiness from cities that you occupy by building the Courthouse.
This helps during war. Banking and Printing Press allows you to build more happiness buildings like the Theater, the Taj Mahal, and the Forbidden Palace. These building reduce and increase happiness. Also never expand too much in the begining unless you have done everything to increase your happiness. Have a decent amount of cities, workers and military units for early game. Don’t exapnd too quickly until you have a lot of happiness. Now you can play, expand, and conquer as you please.
Happiness Conquers
Happiness Conquers:
India has a good capablity of conquering other Civs or City States. I have found out that you need to balance your army out. When going to war against the AI, you want to target a Civ that you haven’t trading with or has any allies. Don’t target any Civ with an ally. (This could lead to a multiple front war for you, depending on where your enemies are on the map) Trust me, you dont want to be in a two front war.(It happend to me! It wasnt fun!) 🙁
Starting your army off with the War Elephant is a good choice but you also want ranged archers and swordsman. (It depends on what unit you want to use. I only used those two as an example. You could be in another Era, so used units that are upgraded from past units) Another thing that I have found out is that when you are at war with the AI, they target your War Elephants and don’t focus on your other units. It is important that when you are at war, protect your War Elephants and let your infantry units take attacks from the enemy.
War Elephants are unable to take cities, so you must have another unit(Ranged or Infantry) take the city. ( Control yourselves with the spamming of War Elephants. They are cool to look at but please dont make an army of them.) Remember to reduce that amount of unhappiness from a city, create a puppet and when you are ready, annex the city so it can become yours. After this happens, don’t build any buildings that you would normally build in your own cities(Monuments, Water Mills, Colosseums, etc..) Those come for later. Build a Courthouse so that the annexed city can become under your control adn your kingdom will grow. After the Courthouse is done, you can build whatever you want, like in your other cities.
Going to war against a Civ that has more cities than you isn’t good(Unless you are a God at the game) This will make the Civ want to attack you, but the Civ will get a warmongering penalty and be known for it among other Civs.(Unless you are the only one that is in contact with this Civ)
Going to war can be profitable and you can expand your kingdom by means of force, not by spamming out settlers to found cities. All of the happiness techs that you have researched will pay off when you have over 50 happiness and many cities in your kingdom. This will allow you to conquer as you please. Your foes will be destroyed.
Questions?
Thanks for reading this guide on India. I hope that I helped you and if you have any questions or comments, put them down below. Also I plan to make more guides, so if you guys would rate this guide, I can do more of them in the future. Tell me which Civ you want me to do next!