So Sepoys lose to hussars in melee, and nerfed. Rajputs are also going to be nerfed.
Not to mention the extra 2% XP penalty from 8% to 10% making it equal to germans.
This means it might not affect the 1v1 or early game but will affect later game. As this will also demand 2500 XP in 16th shipment rather than the current 17th.
What strategy as an Indian player you have which are not the stereotypical Sepoy Rush ?
P.S. It would be great if you also mention what type of game its suitable for, 1v1 Short game(age2-3, under 15min.), Longer games(late age3), Late games(age4-5)
Horrible to see these things, since they nerfed the sepoys I stopped using them in teams and in 1v1 in the mid game I started to replace them with zamburack which made significantly more dps with the right cards even more than rajput and you can keep them behind and take advantage of the mobility, only in some mu I still used sepoy but I noticed that I was making too many losses because sepoy does even less damage than a Jan against heavy cav (if you don’t believe it, calculate).
I would say there is no standard build, with the fierce sepoy rush you will win up to certain level (captain, current elo idk) if you level up they know how to defend themselves and so you have to understand how to use those sepoys and do damage and in the meantime bring some advantage economic or military or age.
Basically there are many strategies / openings with India but you have to understand where and when to use them, against which civ, in which map, how to change the strategy based on the opponent’s build, etc.
In themselves there are openings with karni mata and Agra Fort (the most frequent then there are other openings but they are niche) the wonders make sense and with these you will set up your game and build so the opponent has an extra scout factor.
-The main openings are sepoy with subsequent gurkha or sowar mix for 2 ages.
-Semi ff in sepoy now also with rajput or in some cases zamburack (I don’t like it).
-Double rax opening with karni mata, rax and stable opening with gurkha+zamburack (the last two workable with karni mata).
-FI/semi FI for ele+urumi combo with sepoy to cover them.
Turtle also using the sea (I don’t know how to do it).
-11/10 for sepoy rush or 11/10 ff for howdah or whatever it needs (but H2o did it with howdah).
-Flail Ele rush (niche but if set up right against the right civ on the right map it might work) and see rush.
I think I have left out some minor strategies but these are the main ones with some niche ones.
P. S. : I’m not explaining the builds as it would go into too much detail and would take too much time, plus some I don’t quite remember and I haven’t played in too long so I’m not following the current game/meta.
Yes there are some of the decent-strategies that were invented ages ago and, they barely work as they have a lot of variables. Also they do work in 1v1, depending on opponent / map / treasure.
I see people trying it, or getting it luckily for a shorter time due to a push they made.
But I have seen eco-advantage evaporating faster with India than any other civ. The eco advantage on otehr civs Stay longer and is quite visible, but with India even if you make it , you know its short live, especially in age 3.
Then I would like to shed light on the power spike shipment / Unique church/ church cards etc. ESPECIALLY team/Long games, these give a power spike that the other civs couldn’t achieve practically. Meanwhile as India you don’t have any. Please don’t count 2Siege ele/2 mohouts/urumi as power “SPIKE” how much HP/pop they have they still cant be compared with a “SPIKE” (bombards/highlanders/Papal Shipment etc etc)
There simply aint a power spike moment that India can pull of. And all this even after sacrificing cannons etc
India has an economy of its own, you have to play it on the market and consulate to make a boom, passing in 3 age as you leave a window is the key. As soon as you can or they let you add the 2 tc and then the 3 if necessary, at this point in the game you should have all the ups in the market except the last one of the wood you need, you will need it when you start the boom and you will stay around or beyond at 50v. Me (in team) as h2o used to put the wood harvest speed card in 1 age (+20%) bringing in total to collect almost like hunting (great for sea maps), 1000w allows you 2 tc or 1tc and more while this wood card allows you to make the 2 tc arrive a little later (1v1 because you can set and calculate teams) but it pays you for your boom.
Having said this trick, India has an incremental economy, it starts from weak to become a strong eco and with karni mata you could have an eco equal to the Brits and have about 10/11 min (if I’m not mistaken about 40v+ without karni mata, sorry but i haven’t played for a while so i don’t remember the exact numbers once i knew it by heart).
India like other Asian civilizations don’t need Church card or similari, it it’s as if the consulate is this church goddess card even improved.
I dont see anything special on it when a single card is better than Karni Mata and is available earlier. Europeans get factories asap as reaching IV while indians dont have anything similar (as crates came after 25 cards)
I agree with those to some extent, but as @Ekdal1378 mentions they are not a Competitive advantage, they count as a civ advantage but in front of any other civ, its just not something that has potential to turn the tables around.
Even at the higher levels I haven’t found a stream where the India player won after the sepoy rush or without a blunder by enemy. And trust me I have watched almost all of them, and I pretty much sure I have easily one of the highest Home City XP for India. and in teams I float around #900-1100 ranks.
I think of Indian Eco as a Batch ECO. Where the HP and Survivability of ur Elephants takes off a little pressure away from ur eco and ur Eco storage increases while the first batch of eles are alive.
And the next batch will again cause a sudden drop in current res. and between that u have to somehow try to increase ur margins.
IK it happens to all civs but U can really feel it with India while u play. It has a overall batch feel to its army and eco. (Maybe Im not able to express it well but I try . . . )
So once a watch of eco is ready U make a huge pop batch of military and hope It can survive 1.5x the enemy’s batch. and U make a new Eco batch with some profit. BUT THIS IS VERY VERY RISKY. and thats where the fault lies.
Now I’ll explain better, in a 1v1 you will have a good economy even in the long run and it also depends on your deck and the opponent’s and on the techs of the natives, the karni mata is an economic theory that when you age you give crates of resources being able to invest either in the rush or in a ff or in a market to immediately take the necessary ups if you use it in 2 ages (in the team I was able to immediately take all the ups except the last one which costs 150 res for each resource that I took between 7 and 8 minutes and had very good economy).
The problem is that some late game economies are better of course, like German, Malta, Spanish etc but India also have good units (So in theory it should lose less units and therefore consume less resources to replace dead units but of course you have to make excellent trades with opposing units but let’s not dwell on that), gradually invest in rice field boom and tech, have 25% wood harvesting speed bonus by default, on natural resources it has a ghater speed of 5% more than a Eu civ taking all the ups of the market and adding them with karni mata it reaches 15%, also count that they get 1v for each shipment, 4v from the Ottoman consulate 5 % resource gathered speed and the resource crates if you go to the French consulate and the wooden trickle 2,3v and 4v approx (with default collection speed), and to consider that they invest 400w for rice fields while the Eu have to build the 600w plantations, add up all these bonuses and form the Indian eco that has nothing to envy to other economies.
If you set it in the treaty, the discussion is different here, if you set it against a Portuguese sea boom it is different but in a standard case study India has an excellent economy, you just have to understand how to get it into gear and when to take certain market ups.
In the next patch the nerf of the xp curve will suffer a bit on the Indian economy but it will still be good.
This is because a medium-high level game does not end with a rush or an all in because they know how to block you, your goal is to make them make forced plays such as calling mm, sending a unit card, adding another building or destroying of the houses so as to waste the wood to remake them, kill some Seattlers or the first batch of units, induce him to an error and in the meantime you will try to slow him down by doing these things that I wrote taking an economic and military advantage and if a player is good he could even age and have a distinct advantage over the opponent.
Rush does not mean all in, I don’t necessarily have to win in 2 ages and the game must not last a maximum of 8 minutes,
rush means slowing down, forcing plays, cause damage which must have the following relationship: resources invested in the rush > resources wasted to your opponent by dealing damage and consecutively gaining an advantage over your opponent.
It is difficult that in a RTS you can win mono unit, you only have to get to certain situations or cases to be able to do it but it doesn’t always work especially if the opponent knows what you’re doing and how to block you.
Which you lose after 2 mines (if you get a good position) and some hunts and you wont recover it until farming.
Nah, this is not true. Their techs are weaker, reaching same levels. They are faster just on berries.
Its good, but other civs can get 8 villagers by sending just a single (cjeaper in XP) card for example, while other civs like Brits, French or Russians get wood trickle too.
Yeah, im more experienced on treaty matches, where the only indian advantage are the several crates from aging up to age up/upgrade a bit faster.
BUT other civs get infinite source buildings that are better in the long run. Their lack was justified by infinite wood crates but then Russians got them too, so not that fair.
Adding to that indian units are far more expensive without a great correlation in power (mahouts), dont have easy access to anti-infantry artillery and they lack several economic cards, specially coin ones.
Their only economic advantage, fur trade, was nerfed and after spending that coins india will struggle to keep their economy floating.
Also, their consulate is the worst in long term, with no permanent beneffit but just 4 more villagers that take population slots which India cant spend.
As last point, their deck has 0 flexibility if you wanna get DE changes in order to balance them on treaty (Indian gunpowder was the worst).
Meanwhile all they get are nerfs and nosense changes with non stop of must to have HC Cards.
Agreed TOTALLY neither it should , but what I was referring to was, I have never seen a stream or a match where the Indian player has won, without significant enemy blunder. And why is that ? there must be something missing in the civ that has to be there.
Also apart from that, The things and goals a ofa rush you mentioned are obvious and every rush tries to achieve that, but I would like to focus that, even after the nerfed rush most of the civs stay almost unfazed, and then make a comeback with their eco spike or a Card power spike. And thats a very typical in 1v1 (Which Im not expert on, I play teams/treaty games) , and similar is true in teams games.
Even the Indian Fishing boats are faster than the Rice padies and mines ON KARNI mata. The two water cards for whales give far more gather rate that u can achieve with karni mata. And the similar is true for Food untill the final paddy upgrade comes in.
Basically because if of the same level and civilization not unfavorite the game goes on, there are some games that can end in 2 ages, when unfavorite or when favorite but it doesn’t always happen, also the fact that the game is now more focused on the boom and on the passive game therefore there is no longer a tendency to fast and strong rushes and it must be said that India has received some nerfs and slowdowns compared to once so their rush is not as handsome as tad or early De.
It must be considered that except for the 11/10 rush (let’s say very all in) India is not handsome and fast for heavy rushes such as the Aztecs, Mexico, Ottomans, etc.
By itself India in 1v1 and team supremacy lacks nothing, it has every weapon to counter everything.
Perhaps you don’t find many games on De so you could try to find matches in the first period of De, I remember that some matches especially India vs Japan even at medium / high levels ended in 2 ages or you could try to find old matches of ep or tad at the time of gold as a comparison.
making it equal to germans.
