India Vs Russia on RE

[tedere12]

How should I play this MU as India?
I can defend the first push with elephants, mm and the 2 sepoy but it seems like russia can just waste units/unit shipments and delay my infrastructure setup till his eco is better than mine and then I just can't match his mass. Should I cut vills, or put more vills on agra?
Should I ship 600w first?
Should I make gurka/zamb? (the sowars seem really trashy units and they die to the cossacks so quickly)

[fei123456]

1. if you have 4 wood start (and the map is poor) you can just go 11/10. if he put BH outside he will just die before 5:30. if he doesn't, he'll starve to death.
2. if you do 15p normal age up and he rushes you, you just send 5 sepoy-300e. cut off your vill production for a few seconds for a consulate, and with 300e you'll have 3 hussar+6 minutemen, which's much better at defending than 4 sowar. russia always have many units, but they die super fast to TC+agra double fire.

in this MU you have to put 3-4 vills on agra (except 11/10). you need to reach age 2 before 5:00, or you'll lose a lot of eco. you can delay your market/tp till you've hold his rush.

[momuuu]

Did you see me vs somppu in winter? Theres two india vs russias of which I played it well the second time and the first time was decent too. I think you do sorta do the eco strat but instead of consulate 3v you might wanna just get the gardeners. And start out sepoy, that combined with a 4 sowar shipment should help you stabilize. Then transition into more gurka and some zambs (although maybe gurka sepoy sowar is better until you break the blockhouse contain) and try to mass up enough to break the blockhouse contain.

[yurashic]

Go defensive agra fort, sepoy sowar, no way Russia wins this.

[Hazza54321]

Sepoy sowar initially then gurkha zamb, i think u lose if u try to gurkha zamb too early

[fei123456]

if russia do a no-eco rush, you just 5sepoy-300e-4sowar too. in RE if russia do such rush he HAS TO stop vill production, so you still have better eco.
or you can 600w-300e(hussar+minutemen) if he's not that aggro. remember you have extra vill every shipment, so don't worry about your eco.
in EP when russia have 255f vill batch, it'll be a bit harder. but as we see, our big jerom still beats somppu.

[momuuu]

Sepoy sowar initially then gurkha zamb, i think u lose if u try to gurkha zamb too early

Yeah, stabilize and go gurka zamb but I experienced myself vs somppu doing triple blockhouse on all my hunts that that composition might struggle too much breaking blockhouse contain.

[lemmings121]

In this mu i like to get oto cons to 3 huss, and save the rest for mm, if he ever over comits you have agra +tc fire and 3 sets of mm, there is no way he can win this, but if he plays right and just contain its harder. Then, do jeroms plan :p

[momuuu]

It feels like quite a delicate match up, where from the india side of things there are quite a few important decisions you can make. I like match ups like this where the defensive side has to react properly to win.

[Darwin_]

I have 10/10'd russia before, with the variation where you put the villager back on the wonder after you get your first vill in queue for super fast age up. If you can successfully force a defensive blockhouse, you can just sit back and eco up and try to contain a bit, starting sepoy and then going into sepoy/guhka/zamb (the sepoy are really only for siege and tanking cossack, so if they go mostly infantry you don't really need to many of them).

If they go for a full rush, I do defensive agra with 3-5 vills (try to age around 4:40), with a tp in transition and 600w 300e then either trickle, or if you think you have a good timing, tiger claws/other units. In this mu, esspecially if you went for TP, there is definetly a case for french consulate being your best starting option, as it allows you to either skip 600w, or easily mix in a stable quite early. If you dont have the timing with the unit shipment 3rd, just go eco (try to get imperial beuracracy by around 7-7:30, I have tried to get it earlier than that and I normally sacrificed too many units), and again transition into sepoy/guhrka/zamb, prolly with some sowar as well. Sowar do a lot better against russia than other civs due to russia inf having lower HP, and sepoy with brit cons are about as OP as boyar'd strelets. I wouldn't bother mixing significant amounts of zambs until you have camel attack, just go for sepoy until then.

I have also seen russia go for a semi-ff (really only on EP), and with this I have just done a sepoy/guhka timing push around 7ish minutes to try and siege houses, I think I also did brit cons with this.

[Garja]

Defensive agra with 3-4 vills. Research some market ups, the more the better but have enough res for mm. Don't make sepoy. Make gurka zambs sowar. Use TC, agra, 2 sepoy elephants and mm vs the rush. If no rush just boom and push at some point. You get better eco and better units for the most part.

[momuuu]

You really have to make sepoy at the start.

[Kaiserklein]

India should easily win this match up anyway

[Garja]

You really have to make sepoy at the start.

No, you really have to learn how to defend without units.

[momuuu]

You really have to make sepoy at the start.

No, you really have to learn how to defend without units.

By using mm, which is just a waste. Sepoy are fine, if anything you'll need their siege to take down blockhouses later on.

[Garja]

Making sepoy is exactly how you give a chance to Russia. Same thing vs Aztecs.
The siege part is irrelevant.

[fei123456]

Making sepoy is exactly how you give a chance to Russia. Same thing vs Aztecs.
The siege part is irrelevant.

1. on many maps you can't really put agra right under TC (there are few resources in base), so you don't really have TC fire.
2. sepoy are OP: why don't use them? with something as tank: heroes, sowar, mm, hussar etc they can beat anything. while zam+gurkha will die to 5+4 cossack (or even more) as you don't have enough zamburak.

[forgrin]

Defensive agra with 3-4 vills. Research some market ups, the more the better but have enough res for mm. Don't make sepoy. Make gurka zambs sowar. Use TC, agra, 2 sepoy elephants and mm vs the rush. If no rush just boom and push at some point. You get better eco and better units for the most part.

I usually do exactly this, fail the micro to a bunch of cossack atk-move and lose. Pr20 problems. I'm curious though, are sowar actually useful vs the new strel + cossack mass russia?

[momuuu]

Making sepoy is exactly how you give a chance to Russia. Same thing vs Aztecs.
The siege part is irrelevant.

I strongly disagree. Making gurka first isnt going to suffice against 5 cossack 4 cossack, you'll barely have anti cav and youre just going to waste your mm to achieve something you couldve achieved by simply making a sepoy batch or two.

[fei123456]

zam+gurkha is one of the best late colonial unit combo: but you need to have amount. if you have 20+ or even 30+ zam with 30%atk buff, there's nothing russia can do. however, in early age 2 while you have only 5 zam, they die super fast to cossacks.
watch lukas_l99 vs somppukunkku game. he just spam tons of sepoy+sowar, and beats russia easily.

[Garja]

Honestly the only player I advise to look for India defensive play is h2o.

Making sepoy is exactly how you give a chance to Russia. Same thing vs Aztecs.
The siege part is irrelevant.

I strongly disagree. Making gurka first isnt going to suffice against 5 cossack 4 cossack, you'll barely have anti cav and youre just going to waste your mm to achieve something you couldve achieved by simply making a sepoy batch or two.

About sepoy you're just feeding strelets, reducing your boom (since you're researching less ups) and basically forced to a sub-otpimal combo that gives away your advantage over Russia.
I don't even make gurkha. I just make no units until I have most market ups, so there is nothing to feed his unit cards. If you don't boom that hard you honestly don't even have an advantage over Russia.
For defense you must really learn how to use mm+TC+monks+agra. Russia units take lot of damage from monks+agra cuz of splash damage. That's the key part with India.

[momuuu]

Honestly the only player I advise to look for India defensive play is h2o.

Making sepoy is exactly how you give a chance to Russia. Same thing vs Aztecs.
The siege part is irrelevant.

I strongly disagree. Making gurka first isnt going to suffice against 5 cossack 4 cossack, you'll barely have anti cav and youre just going to waste your mm to achieve something you couldve achieved by simply making a sepoy batch or two.

About sepoy you're just feeding strelets, reducing your boom (since you're researching less ups) and basically forced to a sub-otpimal combo that gives away your advantage over Russia.
I don't even make gurkha. I just make no units unless I have most market ups, so there is nothing to feed his unit cards. If you don't boom that hard you honestly don't even have an advantage over Russia.
For defense you must really learn how to use mm+TC+monks+agra. Russia units take lot of damage from monks+agra cuz of splash damage. That's the key part with India.

funnily enough h2o completely disagrees with you. He told me to start sepoy

[Hazza54321]

starting gurkah is useless vs 5 coss and 10 strel market ups dont matter if youre gonna be idled forever, 7 sepoy plus 2 elis can eaisly hold the coss and strel u dont even need mm

[lemmings121]

I dont remember against who, but there is a tounament game where h2o starts gurka + full eco, but imo he just outplayed his opponent, its very hard to not be idled for days without units like him...

[Garja]

funnily enough h2o completely disagrees with you. He told me to start sepoy

Funnily enough he told you a thing and does another.

starting gurkah is useless vs 5 coss and 10 strel market ups dont matter if youre gonna be idled forever, 7 sepoy plus 2 elis can eaisly hold the coss and strel u dont even need mm

I'm sure starting sepoy vs 5 coss and 10 strel is useful then.