The Indian Civ in AOE III





This one is special, very special to me. The Asian Dynasties expansion marks the entry of a serious Indian component in RTS games. My personal opinion is that its awesome, all RTS lovers and specially the AOE freaks should try this. Microsoft has done an excellent job this time.



So what are the key points of the Indian civ?
  • First and most importantly look out for a rush. This civ is extremely prone to early attacks i.e. during the Discovery and Colonial ages.
  • Once the civ is in Industrial, its pretty much unstoppable. It will typically have a boom coupled with some mighty units, composed of the large variety of elephants. These units are costly, but they are worth it. A combination of the elephant units, along with the Gurkhas, Rajputs and the camel units can be deadly...
  • Villagers cost wood.


The ideal strategy to have would be, (thats what I do ...) :
  • Collect wood like crazy, pump in villagers. Since, they wont cost food, the player can invest all food on age upgrading. By the time one fotresses he should have 800+1200 food and 1000 gold. And thats a minimum... You need to build your armies you know.
  • There's a new segment to age upgrading : Wonders. Using the Karni Mata from Discovery to Colonial and Agra Fort from Colonial to Industrial seems ideal to me. But, one can also use Taj Mahal for the second one. Ceasefire is a good defense strategy too.
  • Once in Industrial the Indian player need not worry much. Just pump in military units at regular intervals and micromanage the villagers a bit and that would see you through.



5 more things on the passing :
  1. The funniest thing is that the Monastery won't give you monks. It'll give you the monk improvements and a horde of Outlaws ;P.
    Note however that the only healing units are your priests. You get couple of them when you begin. They serve as both monks and explorer.
  2. Age upgrading does not happen at the Town centre. Your villagers will have the option to construct a Wonder and age upgrade.
  3. You might not need the Embassy. These Indian units are too awesome if you can Industrial fast :) ...
  4. Your units will actually respond in Hindi :) ... and
  5. Watch out for the Ottomans.

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