Has anyone tried India Charminar build order?

ak5hat · Post by **ak5hat** » 19 Oct 2021, 09:56

has anyone tried to play india with charminar as the first age up wonder. i was trying to do a british consulate and mansabdar units which give max possible stats for army but still struggling to get the sequence of actions right.
its not as fast or effective as the forward agra rush, but sometimems it catches opponents by surprise as they get raided by sowars instead when they were expecting a sepoy mass. and usually they are ready with crossbow or skirmishers to defend and get killed by 6 sowars instead.
if age2 fight drags on i get the tower of victory age up and then use inspiration to finish off with a big push in age 3 with all upgrades.
i dont build or have any elephant cards in this deck and try to go sepoy/gurkha + sowar rarely i had to resort to zamburaks, but it seems this gives india the max power it can get in age2 or in age 3.
sowards actually need 3 cards to reach their max potential, and they are too costly and pop heavy for the job they do. they are very good to raid villagers but they melt easily when i try to hit 2 falconets with 20 of them. they just die to even skirmisher fire. what i have seen is that i need a lot of sowars 30+ to work effectively and this build order actually needs a lot of micro even though i am not making elephants.

playing agra/taj mahal was getting too boring, so do let me know if you have tried this build order and what are your experiances with it.

iron_turtle · Post by **iron_turtle** » 19 Oct 2021, 11:19

Since this is a timing push strat, take out farm cards. 700w, tiger claws would be much better cards. Also, carded rajputs are good vill raiders. :p

iamturk · Post by **iamturk** » 19 Oct 2021, 14:47

If you want to do cav timing just go for Karni mata. With charminar gate u will have 2 sowar and thats it, also mansabdar units are not worth to get at that point. You dont have any military building or any forward shipment point so your timing will be slow and your eco will be pretty bad so, dont do Charminar gate.

Just focus on guarantee winning, anyone can scout a little bit can see you going to have nothing when u age up with charminar gate but 6 sowar. That means you giving your opponent free age up (any civ can play age2 vs that btw, u have 0 tempo), u just damaging yourself instead of enemy.

I suggest you to play with Karni mata, karni gives you good amount of crates also gathering buff so you can have more easy time.

ak5hat · Post by **ak5hat** » 19 Oct 2021, 22:34

iamturk wrote:If you want to do cav timing just go for Karni mata. With charminar gate u will have 2 sowar and thats it, also mansabdar units are not worth to get at that point. You dont have any military building or any forward shipment point so your timing will be slow and your eco will be pretty bad so, dont do Charminar gate.

Just focus on guarantee winning, anyone can scout a little bit can see you going to have nothing when u age up with charminar gate but 6 sowar. That means you giving your opponent free age up (any civ can play age2 vs that btw, u have 0 tempo), u just damaging yourself instead of enemy.

I suggest you to play with Karni mata, karni gives you good amount of crates also gathering buff so you can have more easy time.

i dont want to do a cav timing, i want to make the charminar opening viable. i am fine with not sending the 4 sowar cards first. opening with karni, agra or taj mahal is pretty boring. i am just trying out and looking for different ways i can best make use of the two lesser used wonders charminar and tower of victory viable

iamturk · Post by **iamturk** » 20 Oct 2021, 15:48

ak5hat wrote:
iamturk wrote:If you want to do cav timing just go for Karni mata. With charminar gate u will have 2 sowar and thats it, also mansabdar units are not worth to get at that point. You dont have any military building or any forward shipment point so your timing will be slow and your eco will be pretty bad so, dont do Charminar gate.

Just focus on guarantee winning, anyone can scout a little bit can see you going to have nothing when u age up with charminar gate but 6 sowar. That means you giving your opponent free age up (any civ can play age2 vs that btw, u have 0 tempo), u just damaging yourself instead of enemy.

I suggest you to play with Karni mata, karni gives you good amount of crates also gathering buff so you can have more easy time.
i dont want to do a cav timing, i want to make the charminar opening viable. i am fine with not sending the 4 sowar cards first. opening with karni, agra or taj mahal is pretty boring. i am just trying out and looking for different ways i can best make use of the two lesser used wonders charminar and tower of victory viable

I give you the reasons why you cant make charminar viable in age2. If your strat doensnt have any advantage there is no point to try. As i said aging with charminar gate is pretty bad and have no advantage if you compare with other wonders.

callentournies · Post by **callentournies** » 20 Oct 2021, 15:52

seems pretty good

Squamiger · Post by **Squamiger** » 20 Oct 2021, 16:38

ak5hat wrote: opening with karni, agra or taj mahal is pretty boring.

probably just play a different civ then

ak5hat · Post by **ak5hat** » 23 Oct 2021, 22:35

i have been trying rajputs a lot with the charminar build order where i build a british consulate and get the dravidian martial arts card and spam rajputs. its been working well so far here's the deck

basically i age up with just a house and the first wood trickle card as fast as i can and build a market in transition. once age2 i get the 2nd wood trickle, build barracks and start training rajputs, once i have atleast 15 i make the mansabdar rajputs and get the dravidian martial arts and push as early as i can if the opponent dosnt have any archers/crossbows. as i build up more pressure i build a second barracks and consulate to make more rajputs. the dravidian martial arts card, mansabdar rajput and british consulate make them very good against even crossbows or archers if you have a good mass of them. because of their speed they can easily chase anything the opponent can throw at you. just make sure to have a decent mass before you start taking on armies. make sure opponent dosnt go to age 3, if he does make sure to watch out for canons and skirmishers and kill them as fast as you can. many times you have to scout and get 4 sowars or even start with a stable instead of barracks. if you have to go mass sowars make sure to get the two additional camel cards after dravidian martial arts.

also mansabdar unit must be protected so hotkey him with 1, 2 or something to keep him close but out of battle. i have yet to learn this. none of the games i played i needed to go to age 3, i was able to beat even age3 players with decent canons and what not but bear in mind most players are low level between 1000-1200 elo

here are some recordings, as i climb back to my 1200 elo level i'll get better with micro and get better with building pressure early. i believe making just sepoys instead of rajputs can also work well, but with rajputs the damage is very high and there is no gold mining needed.