My point is if we have to choose only 3 civilization then there is no better way than to go by the Kannauj Triangle but if you have 4 civilization to choose from then why concentrate 2 in the south? Since the Tamil amnd Kannadiga territories overlap. North-West should really be the one getting the fourth civilization.
Muslims have been living in India since much more early time. Much before the Mughals entered into picture. They entered into picture since 8th century first converting the Sindh and Punjab valley. Mughal came much later in late 16th century. In-fact Sindhi is the only language in Indian Subcontinent today that uses Arabic Script, no Indian Sript. You can see how deeply rooted the muslims are to the subcontinent. It is one of their important homes.
Iām keeping two things in mind: historical relevance and variety of army composition. Two civilisations on the northern plains will make them pretty much the same, and mostly similar to the current Indians, and so wonāt offer anything (as it is, I feel like Tatars and Mongols being separate is a big waste and this would only exacerbate that issue). However, the deccan and the coasts were hardly ever in the same empire (unlike the central and western plains), making them more suitable to be represented by two different civilisations both historically as well as gameplay-wise. Even geographically I believe it makes sense. (Sorry couldnāt find better relief maps)
Also
I didnāt say Muslims came during the Mughals. I said the geographical distribution of the Muslim empire and the Rajputs being Gangetic plains and the north-west is a much more recent phenomenon than the timeline of the game. For the medieval era, it doesnāt make much sense to split them up because the Persian sultans mostly relied on local vassals and military for support. So ācivilisation for the Muslimsā and ācivilisation for the Hindusā doesnāt really make much sense from that perspective. Thatās why āHindustaniā as a single mixed civilisation would work for both the pre-Ghori and post-Ghori rulers of Delhi and the plains.
Coming to Sindhi, the language (like many other languages across the subcontinent) used a mixture of scripts till Peso-Arabic became standard much more recently. Also, if you count Urdu as a separate language (although itās identical to Hindi) it also uses Peso-Arabic exclusively. 
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Ah okay so I misunderstood. So you want to represent the Deccans with the Karnata? Maybe you should go for their Bahamani(Deccan Sultanate) theme than the Vijayanagar Empire. Also include some more Maratha mercenary units such as the Pindaris/Bidaris and some other techs to reflect the vast regions of Deccan they cover.
Itās a good idea to divide Deccan and Corromandel for the peninsula. 
Urdu and Hindi are the same language indeed. Wikipedia refers to them as Persianised Hindustani and Sanskritised Hindustani respectively. They are same thing.
Well, with the Karnata I am representing Rashtrakuta, Ganga, Kadamba, Hoysala, and Vijayanagara. Put together these are much more relevant in medieval Deccan history than the Bahamani or the Adilshahi sultanates.
I wanted to include the Marathas in some way, but most of the relevant ones are outside the scope of the game. Pindharis were mostly relevant in the 1600s and 1700s, and the Marathas are plumb in the AOE 3 territory. Thereās nothing in this game after 1598, and even that is an outlier.
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Kannadigas(Karnata) often cause this confusion. While the south is related to Vijayanagar and a hindu history. The north is related to Deccans and muslim history.
Same problem for the Telugus. They have the highest population of all Dravidian languages yet no-one talks about them. Since they didnāt really have a well defined identity in medieval era. They have three different regions dominated by different people. The Telingana region dominated by Deccan Sultanates. The Raylaseema Region dominated by Vijayanagar/Tamils and Andhra coast dominated by Orissa/Kalinga
Vijayanagar is out of place. You should go for Yadava Dynasty, Deccan Sultanates, Chalukya Dynasty as well if you want to represent Deccans. Dakhini Muslims need representation as well.
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The Telugu people had a big sort of gap between the ancient and the post-medieval ages. The Satavahana ruled the deccan like nobody else, and yet after they fell, the Telugu people were ruled by Ganga, Kadamba, Pallava, Chalukya, Chola, Gajapati, and Vijayanagara, and only under the Tuluva kings they regained power and prestige (because despite their name they patronised Telugu in the court). After that the Telugu people grew in power and prestige between the late 1500s and into the 17th-19th centuries, ruling lots of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Itās also the case with the Malayalis who really broke out into their own only after the Tamil Kingdoms collapsed.
The Kannadiga history in the late medieval age is split into Vijaynagar and Bahamani, but after the fall of the Satavahana in the mid 200s till the Kakatiya fell in 1323, it was pretty much controlled by pre-Sultanate Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain empires. Even so, Iād argue that the Bahamani and Adilshahis were Persian/Turkic (according to what the Vijayanagara called them) origin who essentially employed locals of all religions in their military. Even the official language of Bahamani and Adilshahi for the timeframe of AOE2 was always Persian and not Kannada or Telugu or Marathi.
Indeed, the Tuluvas and Aravidu also employed Muslim and Christian troops in their army (and thatās how they chanced upon handguns and bombards).
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Iām not particularly going for a Hindu-Muslim thing here, Iām going by influence and relevance across the timeframe of the game (450-1550 roughly with some extensions). Religion really means nothing to me.
But making Karnata a gunpowder civilisation would be an obvious Muslim / Christian influence (bombard cannons being copied from Adil Shah and hand cannons being from the Christian traders). However, there is also about 1000s years prior to that to keep in mind (which is why Monks on one hand and the wonder on the other that I mentioned in the other thread).
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You forgot their Telingana region, the Hyderabad City built by Deccan Sultanates.
Large population of Dakhini Muslims live there.
There is a reason why Telugu split into two states even within India, Telingana and Andhra. Andhra may further split into Raylaseema and Andhra in future. Different rulers have actually influenced the same Telugus a lot.
Bahmani and Deccan Sultanates are actually within the medieval era itself and do need some unique representation. Considering they are mostly Persianised Shia Dynasties (Bahmani, Bijapur, Berar) as opposed to Turkic Sunni Dynasties in the North. Also their language Dakhini is very unique to the region heavily influences city such as Hyderabad, Bidar, Ahmednagar.
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Yeah, yeah, of course. I am not saying they werenāt. But there are two goals: (1) Not oversaturate the number of civilisations in the game (2) Choose the civilisations that are most appropriate for the timeframe selected. As I said, we could have 15 different civilisations in the game from Bahamani to Sultanates to Guptas to what not, but we need to make sure they are all unique and differently playable. In my opinion, āBahamaniā as a civ doesnāt necessarily represent the medieval deccan as much as the Kannadigas. However making them a gunpowder civilisation certainly shifts the timeline to include the cannon-armed battled between the different Hindu, Persian, and Turkic kingdoms in the southern deccan. so that is indeed a good compromise (while also giving the cavalry and infantry of the earlier centuries a strong representation). Anyway the locals in the Bahamani Sultanate were the same Kannadigas who lived under the previous empires too.
As far as the northern Sultans go, they might have been of Turkic origin, but they certainly used Persian in their daily life and in courts going all the way back to the Ghurids. Every single one of them: Ghurid, Khilji, Lodi, Mamluk, Tughlaq, and Sayyid. Of course the Mughals till Shah Jahan also had exclusively Persian, and Persian was scrapped as an official language in Delhi only in 1857.
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i think the Sinhalese are a good choice with their battle of independence from the Chola,
good historical battle if not campaign
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made a civ idea fro the tamils, however i already posted it on
https://forums.ageofempires.com/t/poll-updated-which-civs-would-you-like-to-see-in-the-game-all-popularly-requested-civs-included/
No language is based of off Tamils. Sinhala are not dravidians they are of East Aryan group along with Oriya-Bengali.
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Sinhalese battled the Cholas for independence, i ever said they were Dravidians
many languages are based off of tamil, which is one of the oldest languages still spoken
Actually, if we make āMagadhiā as a civilisation instead of Vanga or Kalinga, including Sinhalese as Magadhi people would be so trivially simple 
no too sure about that, but it could work
however, i would separate them
Well, Tamil is one of the three languages of the Tamil-Kannada branch. It might be one of the oldest written languages in India, but other Dravidian languages (except likely Malayalam) are not Tamil derivatives.
As I said. We could separate everyone and make 20 civilisations. That doesnāt lead anywhere, though.