The basic strategy of the Indians focuses on the economy, and in a powerful cavalry and gunpowder units.
Strengths
Indians are one of the best civilizations in the late game, and excel at booming due to their cheaper villagers. Their first unique technology, Sultans, boosts gold income by 10%, which is especially useful when in possession of Relics and/or trading with allies. In maps with water and lots of nearby shore fish, Indians can boost their economy with their shorefishing bonus instead of making fishing ships in early game, as their civilization bonus allows their fishermen to fish +15% faster and carry +15 more food. They also have almost every economic upgrade, lacking only Crop Rotation.
The Indians possess the strongest camels in the game as their civilization bonuses provide extra armor and extra damage against buildings. In addition, they are the only civilization able to research the Imperial Camel upgrade, which can fulfil the role of the Paladin, making Indian camels useful for raids or frontal battles, instead of just for countering cavalry. The Indians can also field an army of archers in support, since they only lack Ring Archer Armor. Their unique unit, the Elephant Archer, is a powerful and durable ranged unit, which is good against other archers. Their second unique technology is Shatagni, which improves the range of Hand Cannoneer, allowing them to shoot first and ask questions never.
Weaknesses
The Indians lack Knights, but they compensate with their powerful camels. They also have weak siege weapons as they do not have the Siege Onager, Siege Ram, or Heavy Scorpion, relying mainly on the Trebuchet and Bombard Cannon.
Their defense is also somewhat lacking as they can not research Architecture. In addition they lack the Keep upgrade and cannot build Bombard Towers.
Much like the Persians, the Indians also lack Heresy, meaning their more expensive units, the Elephant Archers and Imperial Camels, are very vulnerable to conversion.
Strategy
Indians should always focus on getting to the Imperial Age and booming as fast as possible. Almost all of their strengths are Post-Imperial Age bonuses. As such, they fare poorly in 1v1s or free for all games, where they will often die before they can really get going unless they defend themselves by walling their town and trying to perform a fast castle. Fortunately their discount on villagers allows for Indians to save a reasonably amount of food for performing a fast Castle Age advancement followed by a Camel rush as in the Indian case camels have more armor and an attack bonus vs buildings, otherwise they can spent their food savings on creating some scout cavalry for an early raid in Feudal Age if the player got the upper hand.
An Indian player must stay continuing creating Villagers into the Imperial Age. On 200 population games, about 100 should be sufficient, unless the player starts trading, in which case only 80 or so. On anything above 200, an optimal number of villagers is about around 150 Villagers on resource abundant maps. With cheaper Villagers, it lessens the spent on the food supply. Lacking Crop Rotation, Indians fare best on maps with high wood content.
Indian armies should primarily consist of Imperial Camels and Hand Cannoneers, which are an incredibly effective combination with all applicable technologies researched. Imperial Camels practically eat through Cavalry, while Hand Cannoneers can easily deal with infantry that would otherwise trouble Camels in large quantities. Elephant Archers can be occasionally mixed in to help soak up arrow fire and deal with enemy Archers. Is not advisable to go overboard on Elephants though, as they have relatively low damage output and are too costly and large to mass effectively (in addition, the Elephant Archer as suspectible to being converted by enemy Monks), so the Elephants Archers role is for support the troops and must be treated as a movable tower that can be healed. Bombard Cannons should be the Siege Engine of choice, except in cases where Trebuchets are preferred.
When forced to go defensive, Imperial Camels are excellent for dealing with Paladins, which are one of the more common attacking units. Again, Hand Cannoneers easily deal with enemy infantry, so the player must use them.
On the water, Indians miss out on Shipwright and Fast Fire Ship, so the player must try to avoid mass Galleon wars. Their villager shore fishing bonus helps a bit on water maps, allowing for Indian players to delay a little the mass creation of fishing ships thus saving some wood.
Strategy changes in The African Kingdoms
Their Villager cost bonus is now increased by 5% and they now receive Guilds making the Indian economy more solid and enabling for them to better perform their boom.
the Elephant Archer and it's Elite counterpart received a tweak in their stats for balancing purposes but still have their tactical place as a tanking unit and archer good against other archers due to their hitpoints and armor, also their cost is reduced to 100 food 80 gold, making them slightly easier to amass. Also they receive Ring Archer Armor so their archers are more valuable including the Hand Cannoneer.
Camels are no longer considered ships by the game and it also applies to the Imperial Camel making them a formidable raiding unit and a more practical replacement for the knight for the Indians as they will have less to worry about enemy towers and Castles.
Alliances
As a booming civilization that is weak in early game they should take shelter in the pocket position (between two allies) and boom to their hearts content.
In team games, a standard Fast Castle often isn't the wisest idea, as it leaves the economy short of where it could be by staying in the Feudal Age a little bit longer. The players must get the resources and spare Villagers to quickly build the required structures to advance to the Imperial Age while waiting for the Castle Age, and enough spare resources before advancing to the Castle Age that the Imperial Age is affordable immediately after Castle Age research is complete and the required buildings built. It's important to not try to age up too fast, otherwise the player may find them self economically deficient. Indians are perfect as both Springs and Springboards in Springboard tactics as they have a solid economy and great castle and imperial age units and tech tree.
As a teammate, Indians provide allied camels with +6 attack bonus to buildings. this bonus is helpful for civilizations that have access to camels but more especially for civilizations that have specific Camel bonuses and unique upgrades for this kind of units as the Berbers, the Malians, the Saracens and the Byzantines. This team bonus makes no synergy with civilizations that don't have camels
Indians benefit greatly from Turkish team bonus that boost the production of gunpowder units, the Spanish team bonus that Furthers the gold production from trade units, the Aztec team bonus for the relics ( that in these two last cases adds more gold when researching Sultans), the Burmese team bonus(they reveal the locations of relics for their allies and considering Indians to be a gold hungry faction relics aid in that regard), and bonuses that improve or are supportive to their Elephant archer such as the Teutonic team bonus making this unit less vulnerable to conversion and Byzantine team bonus that allows to monks to heal faster furthering the lifespan of a unit like the Elephant Archer even more. Also the Britons team bonus, the Hun team bonus and the Celt team bonus helps the Indians to spawn their Hand Cannoneers, Imperial Camels and Bombard Cannons respectively faster.
The Vietnamese, by Paper Money grants a decent bankroll for Indian player for extra camels, elephant archers or gunpowder units. Besides, Imperial Skirmishers from their team bonus can even screen Indian camels and elephants from enemy spear units.
Compared Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages vs other civilizations
- The Elephant Archer being a cavalry archer with the tankiness of an elephant and attack bonus vs buildings can counter most pierce attack units such as Arbalests, Cavalry archers, Scorpions, Hand Canoneers, Briton Longbowmen, Chinese Chu Ko Nu, Mayan Plumed Archers, Mongol Mangudais, etc. So civilizations reliant on archers (like Britons and Mayans) or cavalry archers (like Huns, Mongols and Magyars) may have a hard time against armies of Elephant Archers especially if they don't make use of skirmishers. Elephant Archers also are a good asset against enemy buildings thanks to their tankiness and attack bonus so civilizations like, Huns, Mongols, Goth and Magyars whom lacks good defense will struggle against an Indian elephant army especially if supported by Bombard Cannons.
- As Indians have several bonuses for Camels (+6 attack vs buildings and +1/+1 armor) and can upgrade them to the Imperial Camel, they can effectively counter any cavalry based army so civilizations that may rely on cavalry, Elephants or Cavarly archers like Franks, Magyars, Burmese, Khmer, Persians, Mongols and Huns will have a hard time against Indians especially at the early Imperial Age. Indians have as well complete upgrades for Cavalry Archers so they can raid effectively at the mid game with armies composed of Camels and Cavalry archers so civilizations with regular mid game such as Spanish may have a hard time against them.
- As they have a great late game economy thanks to Sultans and their cheaper villagers while also having good Hand Canoneers they can counter effectively almost any kind of Infantry (except Italian Condottieri see in disadvantages) particularly at late game so Civilizations like Aztecs, Goths, Celts and Vikings may struggle against a late game Indian Army composed of Hand Canoneers.
- As they have almost complete Infantry Upgrades (only lacking the last armor upgrade at Blacksmith) they have good Champions that may aid against Trashing Civilizations such as Magyars, Berbers, Vietnamese, Malay, and Byzantines. Also their Halberdiers add more anti cavalry capacity to their army considering they also have great Camelry.
- Indians have complete upgrades for Hussars and Skirmishers and only lacks the last armory upgrade for infantry so they have a fairly good trash army lategame, Civilizations with Bad Trash units or that lacks champions will have a harder time at superlate game against Indians.
Disadvantages vs other civilizations
- Despite the tankiness of the Elephant Archers this unit have several drawbacks due to various reasons, first of all it falls in 5 armor classes categories so there are many ways to counter them. The most obvious counters for this unit are Skirmishers (which deal bonus damage against any cavalry archer) and Halberdiers so any civiization either good skirmishers or halberdiers can easily deal with them (such as Byzantines for example), Camels, Incan Kamayuks, Genoese Crossbowmen, Genitours, and Japanese Samurais are also a threat to them. Secondly as it is a large target with low conversion resistance and slow movement speed they can be easily converted by monks so civilizations with good monks like Spanish, Slavs, Aztecs and Burmese, may amass an Elephant archer army on their own especially if the indian player doesn't make use of light cavalry to counter monks. With that in mind Elephant Archers should always be deployed with an escort.
- Since they lack completely the Knight line and despite the fact that their camels may fill to some extent that role Towers and castles still deal bonus damage against them so civilizations with good Towers and/ or castles can counter an Indian raid effectively ( like Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Incas and Teutons to give some examples).
- They have a lackluster on defenses and poor early game so civilizations with either early aggression such as Huns and Aztecs or civilizations with good siege units such as Ethiopians or Celts, may destroy an Indian town with ease especially in open maps lke Arabia and if starting from Dark Age.
- Italians can be a very unpleasant rival forn Indians, first of all they have Condottieros that can counter both Hand Canonners and Bombard Cannons, secondly their Genoese Crossbowmen can counter Camels and Elephant Archers
- Mayans, Incas and Aztecs have Eagle Warriors that can counter effectively Camels, Bombard Cannons, Cavalry Archers and Elephant Archers thanks to their speed and pierce armor, as well as having bonus damage against Cavalry, siege and camels.
- Regarding naval, as they lack the Shipwright and the Fast Fire Ship upgrades they may lose at late game against civilizations with either access to those technologies technology or that have cheaper boats ( like the Vikings), or civilizations with late game sustainable economy (like the Malay and Portuguese). Since they don't get any naval bonus aside of their fishermen working faster they can be easily defeated by civilizations such as Berbers, Malay, Portuguese, Italians and Vikings in water maps.
Situational advantages
- As they have bonuses for Gunpowder and Camels, a tanky unique unit and a strong Imperial age economy Indians are well suited for Post-Imperial Matches.
- In Death Matches as Gold scarcity is not an issue, they can spam more freely their Elephant Archers, Camels and Gunpowder units.
- In Budapest map as every player starts with 2 Town Centers, Indians may get an edge since their villagers are cheaper so they can boom their economy much faster in that map. Their villager discount bonus may also aid in low resource settings as they aren't too constricted on food for producing villagers than other civilizations may be. As the villager discount bonus is stacked, if Indians start on Feudal age onwards they can get more out of this particular bonus.
- Similarly to Turks, if playing in maps with rich gold deposits such as Golden pit or Gold Rush Indians should go and take over the mines as thanks to Sultans they can gather that gold 10% faster so they may neglect to their oppoents getting that gold.
- As any other late game civilization, Indians may took an advantage in densely forested maps such as Black Forest as they can wall up early, then develop their economy and then attacking, same logic applies to maps like Arena and Fortress in which players starts already walled.
- Their fishermen bonus not only aids on island maps, river maps or lake maps but it is also highly valuable in amphibious maps (specially those featured in "Rise of the Rajas") and especially if there is plenty of shorefish. In "Water Nomad" they must pick a location with plenty of shorefish.
Template:Strategies (Age of Empires II)