Really? Even south India? I’ve heard bengalis did not have good horses.
Honest questions. I want to learn.
If you search “Medieval Indian Heavy Cavalry” on Google, you’ll be able to find tons of notable results from throughout premodern history.
The Indians definitely rode horses into battle.
1 Like
I found rather scarce information, but from what I could gather of my extensive research:
-
Gurjaras and Rajptus made use of cavalry, but not as the core of the army, rather as a flanking unit. I couldn’t find anything specific about heavy cavalry, but it is said they weren’t prepared to fight the turkic tactics of light cavalry, so we can infere they used medium or heavy cavalry. It is said by contemporaries they had “the finest cavalry”. They made a non negligible use of camels and elephants, as well.
-
South India (Dravidians) had the most exceptional infantry of all the subcontinent. The region was not suited for cavalry warfare, but they made extensive use of war elephants. Navy was another strength of them.
-
The Bengal region was even worse for cavalry warfare. They even had to import horses from other regions. A huge amount of elephants had a core role in the army. Later on they adopted and made good use of gunpowder artillery. Good navy as well.
-
Respecting Delhi and Mughals, cavalry was the core of the armies, although not as “heavy” as europe due to the heat, but definetly heavier than southern india. They used elephants as well. No mention of exceptional camels.
Conclusion:
Bengalis and Dravidiands are perfectly represented.
Gurjaras leaning into light cavalry and camels a little bit too much. Tolerable.
Hindustanis not so well protrayed. Too much emphasis on camels and lacking knights seems improper.
Edit: Minor mistakes
12 Likes
That’s actually an interesting idea…
What about some kind of Savannah terrain that doesn’t allow units to move faster than 1 T / s (or whatever)?
This could add some interesting gameplay and map designs.
cough militia-line cough Urumi swordsman cough
4 Likes
Basically agree with your research. According to this, if we want better civs…
Since Knight doesn’t have attack bonuses, Gurjaras could receive it to represent heavy cavalry, but it’s worth thinking about whether Cavalier is also needed especially because there is Kshatriyas.
BTW, I always feel that having EA but no BE is an inconsistent design.
I’d rather let them get BE (with or without Elites) as a token, or lose EA to get full CA and have Frontier Guard instead benefit Armored Elephant. Anyway this is not the point.
Dravidians sould not receive Knight but a decent Battle Elephant strategy.
Bengalis sould not receive Knight too but maybe Hand Cannon or Bombard Cannon.
Moving the Fishing Ship bonus of Gurjaras to Bengalis might be also decent, which with the regeneration bonus would gives their navy a distinct defensive character.
As the legacy of FE Indians, it may be difficult to make more changes.
For the Ideal accuracy, they should have Cavalier and hand Imp Camel to Gurjaras. They could still keep some bonuses about camels such as the current faster rate of fire or the previous camel +1 PA, but the introduction of heavy cavalry means that the value of Ghulam would be seriously lost, and Gurjaras would have to lose the bonus of extra attack bonus.
It’s almost impossible for this to happen.
2 Likes
I keep thinking ‘maybe they could get really cheap Elephants’, but then I remember it’s Malay’s ability anyway and that’s the only viable strategy in 1v1s anyway. 
Some suggested changing their Castle Age UT to similar to Poles one (I can’t spell it) but for BE.
I guess that could be one way of doing it! Might give them some options in Castle Age. Medical Corps is virtually useless anyway.
Despite lacking Husbandry, a Battle Ele flood in Castle Age can still be scary. I wonder what it would be renamed to tho.
I would go the other way with this - lower food cost instead of gold. A gold discount won’t do much when you still have to pay 120 food for a slow, easily countered unit that scales poorly.
1 Like
I don’t think it will be stronger than Malay. They even don’t need to pay a tech to the discount. If anything it will be problematic in Imperial with Wootz Steel.
Maybe that will be better. Since Malay gets up to 40% discount on both, Dravidians can get half price on food.
After thinking about it, I put together a list of my thoughts and considered the Malays as well.
As I stated before, giving Knights and so on to change the premise of civilization design is very difficult to achieve. So this is only ideal. Declare again.
Bengalis:
- Receive Hand Cannoneer that I think is more appropriate than Bombard Cannon.
- Can garrison Docks with Fishing Ships.
Gurjaras:
- No longer garrison Docks with Fishing Ships.
- Receive Knight.
- Receive Imperial Camel, so they would have a most unique Camel line.
- Mounted units no longer deal extra bonus damage, but Camel attack 25% faster since the Castle Age.
- (Optianal) Receive BE (with or without Elites), or lose EA to get decent CA and have Frontier Guard instead benefit Armored Elephant. Personally prefer the latter since nobody use Gurjaras EA and their campaign hero is CA.
Hindustanis:
- Receive Cavalier.
- Lose Imperial Camel.
- Camel line attack no longer faster, but Stable units deal +50% bonus damage.
- Make Ghulam better, like increase the attack bonus.
Dravidians:
- Receive Elite BE and Husbandry.
- BE is 20%/40% cheaper in the Castle/Imperial Age. Medical Corps do not need change when there is a decent BE strategy.
- Wootz Steel benefits infantry only.
Malay:
- Lose Elite BE and maybe even Knight line.
- Lose the discount for BE.
- New Castle age UT – BE has no gold cost or its gold cost replaced by food.
- Dock upgrades to Harbor free after hitting the Castle age and holding a castle.
1 Like
They need more than this. Their Castle age needs more help.
Legacy issue.
Looks like a nerf.
Didn’t get it. What do you mean by “holding a castle”?
I like the HC, just to give them another option for the late game. I believe one identity for Bengalis could be lacking a specific power unit. Instead you should overwhelm your opponents with a numerous and versatile but deficient army supported by a strong economy. To achieve that I could see extending further the Mahayana effect, to 15% or even 20%.
But I agree with @SMUM15236. They need something for castle age. In line with what I said before, just a better economy would suit this style. Increasing the number of villagers when aging up to +3 doesn’t seem to make them OP, considering the state they are now.
Maybe too many changes. What about shrivamshas? Do they keep them?
I think everyone agrees those guys combined with the op camels are the problem of the civ. I’d actually like them to lose the shrivamsha raider and saving the concept of a dodging arrow cavalry for another civ (with a different name). They are already extremely unique, like AoE4 level of uniqueness. They don’t need 3 UU.
Having knights (and only knights) instead of shrivs is not actually a buff, I would say, since now they don’t have a specialist unit against archers easy to transition from camels. The castle age powerspike could be problematic tho.
No need to lose Imperial Camel without the attack speed bonus. What I’m afraid is that the villager discount bonus would make them another knight spam civ. Honestly, I can’t see Hindustanis recieving knights without becmoing another Franks. The Indians legacy is a heavy burden.
No need to involve Malays for fixing dravidians.
Dravs just need an answer to siege and a a useful role for the Urumi.
Medical Corps could be reworked to give some usefulness to their BE. Something like Elephant Stables: Elephants dont cost gold. Or smth like that.
This makes me think. Can the Urumi be the anti-siege unit for dravidians?
It was proposed before.
Of course reducing the splash damage and maybe bonus damage as well. It is consistent with the concept of the urumi sword. The only problem is you need a castle so you would be kind of weak against early siege pushes.
2 Likes
I’d prefer a direct military bonus or a type of cheaper bonus that helps both eco and military.
Buffing existing bonus to +3 will be OP in some cases actually. In closed map TG with 6 villagers lead with BE or EA is potentially broken. I was thinking university techs discount on wood so that researching Ballistic will give them a little power spike in Castle age.
I don’t think so. They already deal a lot of damage, Wootz Steel won’t really matter as much since melee armor tends to be smaller anyway, unless you’re Teutons or Slavs.
How much OP? It’s hard to know for sure, but If it’s like Turks, Bohemians, Poles or Burgundians, then it’s a good thing, since now there is another closed map contender.
That doesn’t seem to be the intended identity of Bengalis at all - they have some pretty strong lategame units - BE, EA, even Ratha is decent when you’re all teched in. Versus Malay, who play out more how you’re describing in terms of having weaker units but relying on timing/versatility/overwhelming. I agree that Bengalis need something for smoother Castle play though. I think free BL and/or Husbandry are options that lead into their strengths and lower the high bar of their units needing lots of upgrades to be effective.
1 Like
I didn’t say those are enough.
Like I’ve always said, I’m in favor of giving the Bengalis access to Castle Age Parthian Tactics or shared armor techs.
How about making it benefit Fishing Ships, Monks, and trade units?
The former actually overlap the Franks bonus and have little effect on elephant units.
The latter actually overlap the Cuman bonus.
Indeed – but CA also does fit into Gurjaras historical context.
In the initial idea, keep. Move its button to the 4th place to cover SL.
Leaving aside how the mechanic of Shrivamsha would behave in other civilizations, losing this very specific Rajput unit is a clear loss as this list is for historical accuracy. Knight without Blast Furnace and Cavalier upgrade is pretty much only symbolic, I think.
Btw, Camel Scout and Imperial Camel are in the same line. I think, they should be considered 1 UU not 2, just like Elite SL won’t be considered as the second Central Asia regional unit after SL.
In my impression, the power of Imperial Camel + faster rate of fire is equivalent to the bonus attack bonus + additional melee armor, and the latter is slightly better than the former. In the listing, Hindustanis simply trades the former for the latter, and loses the armor in exchange for the Cavalier.
I don’t deny that there may be risks involved, but I think it’s more akin to the Persians without Paladins than the Franks. The Persians have a similar level of reliance on Camels and Knights, so it might be acceptable. It is also a potential solution if losing the Cavalier upgrade does not seriously compromise historical accuracy, the purpose of this list.
Feel the same. The FE Indians design features lots of Gurjaras stuff at its core, such as the Imperial Camel. But the stuff didn’t quite transfer when Gurjaras had an own civilization. Therefore we see two Camel-dominated civilizations, but only one actually has a distinct historical background about camels.
My intention is for Dravidian BE to have a decent bonus without preconditions.
On the other hand, with no Bloodlines but Husbandry, I think cheap elite BE with 2nd armor (and regeneration) is more suitable for Dravidians than trash no-elite BE with only 1st armor. The Dravidians have a more distinct elephant theme than the Malays, so they deserve better quality elephants. I give this UT to Malays not Dravidians in exchabge of the discount bonus. Anyway, the original UT of the Malays is not used, making it a free bonus is more helpful to recover the Malays’ naval identity.
Trash Elephant. 250 HP monster at the price from 120 to 190 food. Thinking about it.
Perhaps an unnecessary change is the loss of even Knight. But do the Malays have a history of focusing more on heavy cavalry than the Dravidians?
literal meaning. Have a existing castle (either built by yourself or given at the beginning of the game).
1 Like