Indian Trade Empire first?

[Asateo]

I've been thinking how to beat boom civs like brit and dutch with india and even though sepoy rush sometimes does the trick, sometimes it doesn't. Thus after watching some recs: TP's!!!

After some gameplaying: 1st shipment @1.36 2nd shipment @3.40 (with Indian Trade Empire/ATP card)
Thus 124 seconds between the 2.
Normally you would send distributivism, so you miss out of 167 wood, but that's pretty much the cost of an ATP, thus cancelling out the loss. With the TP up soon you can still send distributivism and have a shipment ready litlle after hitting colonial (hit colonial at 4.48).

Seeing this, it makes me want to go Trade empire standard on every TP map. However, since so little top players do it: Am I missing something?

[NyxAchlys9]

Sending ATP is usually only worth it if you need to build more than two TPs. India is pretty wood heavy at the start, it's pretty noice to send it first. It also means you can put 2/3 more villagers on food for an age-up. Usually in latter ages you send more powerful cards - it often doesn't make sense to send a weaker card from an earlier age as you don't get as much.

For a nice eco boost GFA 300e is a nice option.

[Gendarme]

By the same logic, sending 300w before Distributivism is also good - if not better. I am not sure why this is bad, actually.

[Garja]

jap players have been doing it and it works well ifmyou get away with it. Problem is you dont get away with that.

[P i k i l i c]

@Gendarme with 300 you don't get the extra villager

[Gendarme]

Fair enough, but this isn't exclusive to India, is it?

[Asateo]

@Garja You mean that the VS missed out because you need to gather more wood make a problematic later age-up?
Would it then be viable against non-rush civs like dutch. Or still problematic?

[Garja]

Not just the age up, you're going to also lose the TP line most likely and the TP themselves don't grant map control which is something you will need anyway for resources.
Dutch and Brits already age up and mass faster than India unless India goes for aggressive agra build which I don't think works very well with the TP strat. Maybe you can somehow claim midmap with agra and then camp somehow and try to drag the game as long as possible where India becomes better but it doesn't seem realistic.

[Asateo]

k thx, now at least I know why it shouldn't be done.

[bwinner]

Yeah also the problems with this kind of start is that you get your 4th shipment quite late compare to the 3rd one with normal strat. It's also true when you use 3v+vc as brit, but it has less impact since the manors make xp.
Here it will result with a very weak india before 10min which is too late to keep the tp line.
The only case I know were you don't have this pb with 2 cards in age 1 is spain atp build because their shipment come faster. It seems this early 4th shipment has a big impact.

[Asateo]

Oke, but with a 400 wood start, it would be good to take a tp before age-up? Then you haven't 'wasted' a card on ATP.

[Garja]

starting TP on 400w seems quite good ye