Counter India

[j_t_kirk]

What is the best civ/strat to counter India (def agra)?

[gh0st]

mirror him & outplay.

[j_t_kirk]

mirror him & outplay.

Yeah. But I don't like India.

[momuuu]

Easiest is probably portuguese. If he is consulate rushing you can ship cm, a normal rush is probably not effective (especially on ep) so you can just play the semi ff war in which you're slightly better.

Ottoman can timing push with jans, abus and a few hussar and supposedly theres nothing india can do about that. Also, otto FF beats india so the india player is not only in a rough position against either strat, but also has to guess correctly what is coming to stand any chance at all. But the ports counter is more safe.

[deleted_user]

Am I the only one who feels like India doesn't really have any hard counters? Early aggressive options with a phenomenal late age 2 and age 3 urumis and culv shipment give it few weaknesses. That being said they don't really excel vs any civ either. EP btw.

[deleted_user0]

Am I the only one who feels like India doesn't really have any hard counters? Early aggressive options with a phenomenal late age 2 and age 3 urumis and culv shipment give it few weaknesses. That being said they don't really excel vs any civ either. EP btw.

absolutely trash cav

[momuuu]

Am I the only one who feels like India doesn't really have any hard counters? Early aggressive options with a phenomenal late age 2 and age 3 urumis and culv shipment give it few weaknesses. That being said they don't really excel vs any civ either. EP btw.

On EP theres surely a few civs that have a really easy time. I'd say ports and dutch in particular, I can see germany being an easy win too now.

[Sargsyan]

What about Aztecs

[momuuu]

How could one forget. Aztec might be the premiere counter to india.

[Garja]

Otto/Iro on RE.
Sioux/Iro/maybe Fre/Germans on EP.
And that's it. India shits on Aztecs and should beat Dutch/Brits/Ports.

Am I the only one who feels like India doesn't really have any hard counters? Early aggressive options with a phenomenal late age 2 and age 3 urumis and culv shipment give it few weaknesses. That being said they don't really excel vs any civ either. EP btw.

absolutely trash cav

Both sowar and zambs are very good at doing what's they're supposed to.

[macacoalbino]

Dravidian Martial arts > Cammel attack

[Theodore]

France and Otto (jan-abus is deadly, if microed) are tough match-ups on RE. Any early aggression will be tough to deal with as India, they are quite slow.

[tedere12]

Imo aztecs

[Hazza54321]

Port dutch fre

[macacoalbino]

Btw, what happened with "India is too slow, it can only rush, can't deal with Semi-FF, bottom tier civ SwiftRage"

[deleted_user]

Btw, what happened with "India is too slow, it can only rush, can't deal with Semi-FF, bottom tier civ SwiftRage"

They got house cost reduction, sepoy cost reduction, sowar cost reduction.

French and port received villager cost increases. Dutch received bank cost increase (from last EP).

[momuuu]

Btw, what happened with "India is too slow, it can only rush, can't deal with Semi-FF, bottom tier civ SwiftRage"

Probably not much. Theyre probabl still too slow. It wasnt as bad as people used to say and it isnt as great as people think it is now. Eco india is a bit slow and underwhelming, but playable.

[momuuu]

Btw, what happened with "India is too slow, it can only rush, can't deal with Semi-FF, bottom tier civ SwiftRage"

They got house cost reduction, sepoy cost reduction, sowar cost reduction.

French and port received villager cost increases. Dutch received bank cost increase (from last EP).

These changes are all borderline insignificant. I think the psychological effect of the changes is far more notable than what they actually do. A simple calculation shows, undeniably, that the house cost reduce for example only speeds up india's age up time by four seconds.

[deleted_user]

But the game doesn't end after the age up? The complaint of India being "too slow" was a general ramping up, not necessarily their age time. The house cost is significant. The other changes provide a more significant "swing" effect than they do by themselves (small civ nerf vs. small civ buff).

[Garja]

Age up time is only secondary, although they now can reliably age at 4.10-4.40 with wonder in base.
House cost reduction makes it so that 600w + wood trickles is enough for constant vill production so they can put (almost) every vill on food gold. This combined+the consistent age up time opens up for new superior builds that are enough to deal with those few civs India had problem with.
For example vs semi FF civs you can do delayed rax+stable or rax+rax (double stable also viable vs Dutch) then decide whether to stay colo or age up. Previously you couldn't really do this because of those 4-5 vills to keep on wood for constant vill production.

Sepoy cost the same. -10 hp however is practically irrelevant.
Sowar cost reduction makes it easier to spam them at any point. This passively improves all the buildings that include cav switch.

[Mitoe]

Btw, what happened with "India is too slow, it can only rush, can't deal with Semi-FF, bottom tier civ SwiftRage"

They got house cost reduction, sepoy cost reduction, sowar cost reduction.

French and port received villager cost increases. Dutch received bank cost increase (from last EP).

These changes are all borderline insignificant. I think the psychological effect of the changes is far more notable than what they actually do. A simple calculation shows, undeniably, that the house cost reduce for example only speeds up india's age up time by four seconds.

@deleted_user4 Sepoy cost the same.

@momuuu It's not insignificant. The extra age up time is nice—although honestly I doubt very many people actually macro well enough to to see ANY difference in age up time this patch—but the main thing is that your early/mid Colonial macro is a lot smoother. It's a lot easier to add in your 2nd military building and consulate because you have ~100-150 extra wood compared to last patch. You can even afford to send Foreign Logging first in a lot of situations where 600w may have been better in the past.

I've also had at least a couple of games this patch where getting out that cheaper 5th sowar by the skin of my teeth has saved the fight, if not the game.

[momuuu]

Thats 7 houses. Surely it matters, youve saved 2! sepoy. The general slowness in semi ff wars is honestly unaffected by this entirely.

[Garja]

The trick is to play colonial with the new build. Then age if you want to. That's usually after 20 or so units, or at any point you feel comfortable. Then all you need is up units and one card.

[momuuu]

What 'new' magic build?

[fei123456]

india semi with 1-2 tp, both trickle, then 600g, is quite viable in EP.
you can rather do a 2 rax sepoy push, with mahout urumi mansabudar sepoy, attack move and win; or do a normal skirm goon fight, as gurkha with brit consulate+mansabdar beats euro skirm. (and mahout+urumi+howdah beats goon lol.)
you may age up 1-2 min later than euro civs, but that's not lethal.