best strategy for beating India as French?

[JulyBurnsOrange]

France is my main civ, and I feel relatively comfortable in most Matchups.
I generally prefer doing a colonial based style of play, but obviously, India is probably the worst civ to stay in colonial vs lol

I feel like i have the right idea, with a standard semi, sending 8bows if needed, and getting falcs and goons out asap, but then Indias eco is just literally op as fuck and i get outscaled or something.

Ive found that versus an Indian semi FF build with a middle map agra, its kinda fun to make double rax in base and then mass xbow pike and hit the agra and base with a good timing, but most of the time this doesnt work lol

[Mitoe]

It sounds like you have the right idea, perhaps you need to roll with your momentum a bit more. India shouldn't really be able to punish your age up, and unless they skipped the rush or went for a Karni Mata build, they will likely be slow to follow you into Fortress. I guess, what do you mean by "standard semi?"

If you mean that you go for a hussar semi, you should probably consider going for a musketeer semi instead. They are easier to mass and make defending your falcs easier in early Fortress than hussars, especially since most people nowadays just mass sepoy into anything.

Once you hit Fortress, you really have to abuse the power of those falconets as soon as possible. Try to get some info with your native scout about what he's doing. If you can spot him staying age 2 and massing a lot of cav, then you can continue producing muskets to defend your falcs as you push his forward base. They will do better at keeping those falcs alive than any other unit you can train at this stage of the game, and that should be your priority against Colonial play.

If he's going for an age up, he will likely be pretty slow. You can produce skirmishers or cuirassiers instead of musketeers (depends on if he's going sepoy or gurkha), as musk/skirm or musk/cuir will give you a much strong timing against an age up than dragoons, as he's unlikely be producing any sowars or anything that you will really need goons for until he can deal with your falconets, plus you already have a decent mass of anti-cav with those musketeers.

From here, once you've killed the forward base you can just slow push his base. You don't want to over commit to anything in case of an Urumi pop into your army or something like that. Force him to come to you. If he sends siege elephants, you will likely lose your falcs, but that's not really a big deal at this point. Most likely you've already got good value out of them, and those siege elephants are not going to be helping him combat your army. From here you should have some kind of military advantage, so you can use that to keep control of the resources or to crush his army and win the game if he mis-positions.

[DracoWolfgand]

It would be easier if I could see your game to know what you are going wrong, however, I will say this: If you are a fan of Colonial Age agression and of plaiyng as the French, and you-Havent-Been sending the Early Skirmishers card, especially against the Indians, you are probably doing it wrong :p. This card will help you a lot to deal with some of the most annoiyng units of the Indian army, namelly, the Sepoys and the Zamburaks( The Zamburaks-ARE-A light cavalry unit avaliable right in the Colonial Age, and everyone knows light cavalry makes for really annoiyng raiders ). It might be he may start making Sowars to counter your Skirmishers, but trust me: If you ever manage to put a Indian player on a situation where they have to make Sowars, that is half of the battle won right then and there.

[JulyBurnsOrange]

It sounds like you have the right idea, perhaps you need to roll with your momentum a bit more. India shouldn't really be able to punish your age up, and unless they skipped the rush or went for a Karni Mata build, they will likely be slow to follow you into Fortress. I guess, what do you mean by "standard semi?"

If you mean that you go for a hussar semi, you should probably consider going for a musketeer semi instead. They are easier to mass and make defending your falcs easier in early Fortress than hussars, especially since most people nowadays just mass sepoy into anything.

Once you hit Fortress, you really have to abuse the power of those falconets as soon as possible. Try to get some info with your native scout about what he's doing. If you can spot him staying age 2 and massing a lot of cav, then you can continue producing muskets to defend your falcs as you push his forward base. They will do better at keeping those falcs alive than any other unit you can train at this stage of the game, and that should be your priority against Colonial play.

If he's going for an age up, he will likely be pretty slow. You can produce skirmishers or cuirassiers instead of musketeers (depends on if he's going sepoy or gurkha), as musk/skirm or musk/cuir will give you a much strong timing against an age up than dragoons, as he's unlikely be producing any sowars or anything that you will really need goons for until he can deal with your falconets, plus you already have a decent mass of anti-cav with those musketeers.

From here, once you've killed the forward base you can just slow push his base. You don't want to over commit to anything in case of an Urumi pop into your army or something like that. Force him to come to you. If he sends siege elephants, you will likely lose your falcs, but that's not really a big deal at this point. Most likely you've already got good value out of them, and those siege elephants are not going to be helping him combat your army. From here you should have some kind of military advantage, so you can use that to keep control of the resources or to crush his army and win the game if he mis-positions.

Thanks for the response Mitoe :)

I can see that my biggest mistakes now are doing the hussar semi as well as putting a big priority on goons, ill try doing a musk semi next time, definately makes more sense for defence as well.
Do you reccommend upgrading them to vet and continuing to train them a bit into fortress as well?

[JulyBurnsOrange]

It would be easier if I could see your game to know what you are going wrong, however, I will say this: If you are a fan of Colonial Age agression and of plaiyng as the French, and you-Havent-Been sending the Early Skirmishers card, especially against the Indians, you are probably doing it wrong :p. This card will help you a lot to deal with some of the most annoiyng units of the Indian army, namelly, the Sepoys and the Zamburaks( The Zamburaks-ARE-A light cavalry unit avaliable right in the Colonial Age, and everyone knows light cavalry makes for really annoiyng raiders ). It might be he may start making Sowars to counter your Skirmishers, but trust me: If you ever manage to put a Indian player on a situation where they have to make Sowars, that is half of the battle won right then and there.

Never tried that card tbh, it feels like a bit of a waste to me just because you dont get that immediate payout or eco boost that miliatary, vills or crates give you during early colonial, and later on it would make more sense to just try and age then to send that card i feel like.
Ill give it a try though, but I feel like vs India, i really need to be fortress lol
Im going to post my game on YT and ill link it here though.

[DracoWolfgand]

It would be easier if I could see your game to know what you are going wrong, however, I will say this: If you are a fan of Colonial Age agression and of plaiyng as the French, and you-Havent-Been sending the Early Skirmishers card, especially against the Indians, you are probably doing it wrong :p. This card will help you a lot to deal with some of the most annoiyng units of the Indian army, namelly, the Sepoys and the Zamburaks( The Zamburaks-ARE-A light cavalry unit avaliable right in the Colonial Age, and everyone knows light cavalry makes for really annoiyng raiders ). It might be he may start making Sowars to counter your Skirmishers, but trust me: If you ever manage to put a Indian player on a situation where they have to make Sowars, that is half of the battle won right then and there.

Never tried that card tbh, it feels like a bit of a waste to me just because you dont get that immediate payout or eco boost that miliatary, vills or crates give you during early colonial, and later on it would make more sense to just try and age then to send that card i feel like.
Ill give it a try though, but I feel like vs India, i really need to be fortress lol
Im going to post my game on YT and ill link it here though.

Well, I suggested that card because I assumed you preferred to do a Colonial Age rush. If you are more the kind to do a Fast Castle strategy, that card will indeed be kind of pointless :p.

For Fortress Age strategies against the Indians, well... I would say Mitoe has the right idea. Although... Well... If it was-Me-And I was plaiyng as a Indian against a French Player, I would definitively consider to do one of the following:

A: Mix two or three Mahouts backing up a fleet of ranged units, ideally Zamburaks. Now, Mahouts are units that are not often seen because of the massive amounts of population they occupy, but what they -Are-Are some huge walls of meat. The most typical French combo-Cuirassiers + Skirmirshers-Can sometimes fall flat against the Indians because neither of these units can do a lot of damage to the Mahout, and while it is true that, looked on a bubble, Mahouts have low attack for their cost, Zamburaks can kill Cuirassiers at a impressive pace if properly protected. The greatest weakness of Mahouts is definitively light cavalry, particularly Dragoons, but be carefull if your opponent starts shifting to Gurkhas.

B: Against the specific tactic Mitoe described: Since the Indians have pretty weak anti-artillery until arriving to the Imperial Age( Sowars are... Well, Sowars, and Mahouts, though bulky, rely too much on their area damage in order to do any real damage ), I would not be embarassed of using the occasional Experditionary Force. As such, do not be too surprised if you are to see some Culverins on the army of a Indian player. It takes forever for a Indian player to mass any significant amount of Culverins though, so this tactic is suboptimal...

[pecelot]

TEAM Early Skirmishers is rather controversial. Once a big apologist, I've come to reflection that it's not entirely worth a shipment to get non-veteran skirms while crossbowmen are so easily “massable” (especially on EP 6 beta ).
What I tend to do with decent success is a rax-semi-FF with the ability to produce crossbowmen in case of emergency. Instead of dedicating an entire shipment of 8 of these, you can send 700 wood rather early and make 1 or 2 batches yourself. Alternatively, chop additional wood in transition to colonial age for the aforementioned xbows and housing and delay your market upgrades until 700w arrives.
In fortress always have some sort of meat-shield to defend from urumi/mahout popping, tiger claws in age 2 or even massed sepoys. The 8-cuirassiers switch should do alright.

[DracoWolfgand]

As I said, I think TEAM: Early Skirmishers is mostly usefull for Colonial Age rushes. It is also usefull against civilizations like the Germans, who have powerfull heavy infantry units that are otherwise just really hard to properly fight against without Skirmishers.

Also, this may be a incredibly obvious tip, but it is worth reminding that Team: Early Skirmishers is, well, a team card. And it has a... Interesting, effect: For certain civilizations, who already unlock their Skirmisher substitute right on the Colonial Age( Like, ironically, the Indians ), it instead permanently allows then to be trained faster. Not sure of how relevant it is on team games, but it is something I thought I should bring up.

[dansil92]

Mitoe has the right idea imo. India struggles against artillery in general until they have siege elephants (which of course are useless against anything else). My 2 cents are that India generally relies almost exclusively on the agra fort as a barracks until ageup where they need a barracks to upgrade sepoy or ghurka- meaning if you can remove that from the map you will severely cripple their ability to mass units. A major perk of going musketeer heavy early is that it potentially encourages your opponent to make ghurka rather than sepoy- xbows just do nothing vs sepoy i swear (Ghurka are of course more vulnerable to the falconets you will be sending later). Dont bother with hussars in colonial, india's anticav is just too good to make it worthwhile. I would personally semi with 1 tp, 2 barracks, 4cdb 700 wood 700 coin while training 10 to 20 musk depending on aggression. Ship 2 falcs and drop an artillery foundry ship 1000 coin to train a few falcs while massing/upgrading musk. Feel free to mix in an appropriate number of skirms as you feel necessary. followup by india should be very slow comparatively. You always can go skirm goon or skirm cuir if you think siege elephants are on the way, you will just have to include a stable somewhere along the line. Part of the reason i like this composition is simply because seing musk-artillery out of france is so unexpected that most builds wont be ready to counter it or at least poorly equipped to handle it.

Ive never liked team early skirmishers in 1v1. You dont generally have the coin to mass skirms early on without shipping 700 coin too... which you know, you could just age up with... and get veteran skirms and goons too

[Garja]

If mid map agra -> musk semi
If in base agra -> 3-5 huss semi
Also if fb agra 2rax xbow/pike can work if he start sepoy, but you need very tight play.

[pecelot]

As I said, I think TEAM: Early Skirmishers is mostly usefull for Colonial Age rushes. It is also usefull against civilizations like the Germans, who have powerfull heavy infantry units that are otherwise just really hard to properly fight against without Skirmishers.

Also, this may be a incredibly obvious tip, but it is worth reminding that Team: Early Skirmishers is, well, a team card. And it has a... Interesting, effect: For certain civilizations, who already unlock their Skirmisher substitute right on the Colonial Age( Like, ironically, the Indians ), it instead permanently allows then to be trained faster. Not sure of how relevant it is on team games, but it is something I thought I should bring up.

You mean the doppelsöldners of the Germans? those can be killed as easily with musks or xbows.
Again, in team you usually can have a strong-enough replacement, like longbowmen or gurkhas.

[DracoWolfgand]

Actually, using Crossbowmen against Doppelsoldners is kind of a gamble. The Crossbowman anti-Heavy Infantry multiplier is... Not that good. To the point where I would say Musketeers are actually a better counter to meele heavy infantry on that age. Plus, Crossbowman just dont carry well into the Fortress Age, and I dislike training or shipping units that I know that will become useless soon, which is another reason why I avoid using Crossbowman and therefore, by logic extension, am likely to use Early Skirmishers if I am planning on doing a lot of Colonial Age agression.

[PeachTree]

Call me crazy... But i think straight out musk/xbow rush would work vs india.... Provided they dont use camel cards

[DracoWolfgand]

What kind of weird Indian player would use their camels against a Musk/Xbow rush? They are better off handling it with just their Sepoys + Gurkhas, which... Well, Sepoys are basically improved Musketeers( They are only surpassed by Janissairies where it comes to bulk ), and Gurkhas start out just as strong as Skirmishers( Meaning, quite stronger then Crossbowman :p ).

[pecelot]

you assume the doppelsöldners ever reach xbows, which should rarely be the case given the massive range advantage of the latter

sepoy + gurkha should eat musk + xbow for breakfast

[PeachTree]

you assume the doppelsöldners ever reach xbows, which should rarely be the case given the massive range advantage of the latter

sepoy + gurkha should eat musk + xbow for breakfast

Indian units are more expensive so the best way to deal with them is to deny hunts... Im thinking send super vill card and back herd enemys hunts with 1 vill

[pecelot]

they will have agra