The Indian people represent a civilization in Civilization III. They are led by Gandhi.
The Indians are Commercial and Religious. They start the game with Ceremonial Burial and Alphabet and build War Elephants instead of Knights.
Strategy[]
Overview[]
India has got two pure snowballing traits in Commercial & Religious and a midgame unique unit, making them a very weak civilization during the early game.
They are however able to more than recover once they research Chivalry and access their War Elephant, the most powerful unique unit that doesn't necessitate to play around the possibility of a Despotic Golden Age.
War Elephant[]
The War Elephant is the Indian version of the knight. Though it shares the same attack, defense, and move ratings of the Knight, it benefits from an additional health point and requires no natural resources to build.
This allows the Indians to easily produce these powerful juggernauts in any city, irrespective of trade networks and their difficulties to secure resources during the early game.
| Unit | Attack | Defense | Moves | Cost | Resources | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| War Elephant | 4 | 3 | 2 | 70 
|
None | Has an additionnal health point |
| Knight | 4 | 3 | 2 | 70
|
Horses, Iron |
Ancient Era[]
Not benefitting from any bonusses during the early game, the indians must be extremely careful and accept a potentially mediocre expansion phase. They however do not need to secure any strategic resources to be able to play their unique unit later.
Beelining to Republic is a good option since they do not want to start any war and the Religious trait will allow them to switch government easily later on anyway.
By the end of the era, building Barracks in every cities in order to prepare for the arrival of War Elephants is recommended.
Middle Age Era[]
The only priority at the start of the Middle Age is to beeline toward Chivalry. Once secured, indians can start producing theirr War Elephants in every city.
With Barracks, they are the equivalent of Elite Knights without requiring Iron and Horses. They are incredibly powerful & fast and as soon as a dozen of them are produced, the Indians can switch to Monarchy and declare war to their most vulnerable neighbours.
The Golden Age they will trigger should be used to produce even more War Elephants, and most of the Middle Age Era spent conquering as much cities as possible and building half-priced Temples in them in order to prevent culture-flips. Securing Luxuries in the process is also important in order to maintain a steady population growth in these cities later in the game.
Once they have secured a large empire thanks to that mid-game powerspike, the Indian's snowballing traits should start to kick in, enabling them to either pursue a military victory, or a scientific one (even a diplomatic victory might be possible as long as all the enemies they've been at war with during Middle Age are eliminated).
Civilopedia entry[]
The Indian subcontinent is the home of one of the world's oldest and most influential civilizations. From about 5000 BC, increasing numbers of settlements of subsistence agriculturalists began to appear throughout the Indus Valley; by 2600 BC some of these villages grew into urban centers, forming the basis for the early Harappan civilization, the peer of contemporary Egyptian and Babylonian civilizations. However, unlike these regions, centralized imperialism, which was attempted in the Mauryan Period (325-185 BC), collapsed. Nonetheless, the accession of Candra Gupta Maurya (321-297 BC) is significant because it inaugurated the first Indian empire; the Mauryan dynasty was to rule almost the entire subcontinent except the southern coasts.
Using War Elephants to good effect, he defeated Alexander's successor Seleucus, the ruler of the eastern Greek holdings in Iran and India. The result was a treaty by which Seleucus ceded the trans-Indus provinces to Chandra and the latter presented Seleucus with 500 elephants for his own army. A century later, the disintegration of the Mauryan empire gave rise to a number of feuding kingdoms, the Guptas and Pajputs in the north and Chola, Hoysalas and Pandyas in the south, unable to stand alone against the coming Islamic tide.
The first Arabic raids in the subcontinent were made along the western coast and in Sind during the 7th and 8th centuries, and there had been Muslim trading communities in India for decades before. The permanent military movement of Muslims into northern India, however, dates from the late 12th century and was carried out by the Turkish dynasty that arose on the ruins of the Abbasid caliphate. Sultan Mahmud, who conducted more than 20 campaigns in India from 1001 to 1027 AD and established a large but short-lived empire, laid the road to conquest. By 1186 AD, the Mahmud realm had been destroyed by the Ghurids, who proceeded to conquer the Rajput kingdoms and establish a Muslim sultanate in Dehli, from which a series of able Turkish overlords ruled the north until 1526 AD.
The Muslim states were themselves supplanted by the Mughul Empire (1526-1761 AD), founded by Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur (1526-1530 AD). Babur was a Mongol, a fifth-generation descendant of Timur and a 14th-generation descendant of Genghis Khan. In a lightening series of campaigns commencing in 1511 AD, he overran the Punjab and Hindustan. Akbar the Great (1556-1605 AD), his grandson, continued the conquest of the subcontinent, overrunning Gujarat, Bengal and Rajasthan. At its zenith, the Mughal realm commanded resources unprecedented in Indian history and covered almost the entire subcontinent.
The 16th and 17th centuries also saw the establishment and expansion of European trading organizations in the subcontinent, principally for the procurement of rare resources. By 1740, the Portuguese, Dutch, English and French had all founded colonial settlements, but with the Seven Years' War the French holdings were surrendered to the British East India Company. The quarter-century following the bitter Indian revolt of 1857-59, which transferred the company's rule to the crown, ended with the birth of nationalist agitation.
The Indian National Congress held its first meeting in December 1885 in Bombay even as Indian troops were fighting in upper Burma under the British flag. Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), later known as Mahatma ("Great-Souled"), was recognized throughout India as the spiritual leader of a nationwide movement for independence. The Jallianwala Bagh (1919) massacre turned millions of moderate Indians from patient and loyal supporters of the British raj into fervent nationalists. The last years of British rule were racked by increasingly violent Hindu-Muslim conflict and intensified opposition to foreign rule. In July 1947, Britain's Parliament passed the Indian Independence Act, ordering the demarcation of the dominions of India and Pakistan by midnight of August 14, 1947, and dividing within a single month the assets of history's largest and richest colony.
Cities[]
Great Leaders[]
| Military | Scientific |
|---|---|
| Chandragupta | Brahmagupta |
| Shivaji | Nilakantha |
| Porus | Kamalakara |
| Bindusara | Paramesvara |
| Asoka | Madhava |
| Akbar | Panini |
| Singh | |
| Tilak |
See also[]
- Indian in other games
| Civilization III Civilizations [edit] | |
|---|---|
| American | American • Aztec • Iroquois • IncanC • MayanC |
| Asian | Chinese • Indian • Japanese • KoreanP • MongolP |
| European | AustrianC1 • CelticP • DutchC • English • French • German • PortugueseC • Russian • SpanishP • VikingP |
| Mediterranean | ByzantineC • CarthaginianP • Egyptian • Greek • Roman |
| Mid Eastern | ArabicP • Babylonian • HittiteC • OttomanP • Persian • SumerianC • Zulu |
| P Added in the Play the World expansion pack • C Added in the Conquests expansion pack • 1 Сut from the game | |