Yeah why I didn't really consider the delhi sultanate, iirc they brieftly held quite a bit of the subcontinent but they quickly fell apart.
Was India this weak in RL?
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A lot of Aurangzeb's gains in those parts of the south were ephemeral as well, Mughal rule there didn't last long after his death.
If Aurangzeb had been a different sort of person, more like Akbar, India might be a far better place today.
Yeah I think Akbar's religious tolerance worked a lot better than Aurangzeb's approach. And yeah Shivaji and his descendants really jacked up the Mughals. I think it'd be a heck of a movie.
I wonder how different history would of been had the marathas won the third battle of panipat. Hrm(panipat seems to be the place where climatic battles happen in india).
I've been looking into indian history alooooot recently, really really interesting. Rajputs resistance to the Islamic invasion, Maratha rebellion being my two favorite things to read about.
I wonder how different history would of been had the marathas won the third battle of panipat. Hrm(panipat seems to be the place where climatic battles happen in india).
I've been looking into indian history alooooot recently, really really interesting. Rajputs resistance to the Islamic invasion, Maratha rebellion being my two favorite things to read about.
Well Rajputs were also the backbone of the Mughal Army. Rajput royalty constituted the significant portion of Mughal aristocracy. Shivaji/Pratap weren't defeated by the Mughal generals but by the Rajput rulers of Amber on behalf of the Mughals. Even during the rebellion of 1857 they actually supported the British. As such sweeping general statement can't be made that they were the shield for the India for thousands of the years. Rajput rulers until the time of Maharana Pratap were certainly very proud and fought against he foreign incursions. But same can't be said for the Rajputs of the Mughal and Colonial era.
The biggest problem of the Rajputs was the lack of unity. They were too proud to obey the command of the others. As such the confederacy failed at Lahore even when they were clearly gaining the upper hands against the Ghazanavids.
A lot of Aurangzeb's gains in those parts of the south were ephemeral as well, Mughal rule there didn't last long after his death.
If Aurangzeb had been a different sort of person, more like Akbar, India might be a far better place today.
Aurangzeb's brother Dara Shikoh was a great scholar. He studied Upnishads and other Hindu scriptures and was trying to find the common theme between Hinduism and Islam. Unfortunately Aurangzeb killed him to gain the throne. Besides due to his liberal views Dara Shikoh was hated by Orthodox clerics. If he would have became an Emperor, Mughal empire might not have collapsed.
Interestingly the last words of the Aurangzeb were "After me only end" or something like that. Apparently he realized very late that he had screwed up his empire!!!
According to Angus Madison's statistics, India has always had a very large population. So yes, I think the number of holdings it gets is really underrated. Though there should be some remote and poor places with one holding, the entire Ganges region should be heavily populated. At the moment, only the Southern coast gets an appropriate amount of holdings.
Plus, the first millennium CE is arguably the golden era of India, when it shone and expanded its civilisation the furthest (South-East Asia...). Though by 867, it's already close to its decline (due to the Muslims).
Plus, the first millennium CE is arguably the golden era of India, when it shone and expanded its civilisation the furthest (South-East Asia...). Though by 867, it's already close to its decline (due to the Muslims).
After the Delhi Sultanate fell apart in the last decade of Muhammad bin Tughlaq and his successor Firuz Shah Tuglaq, many of the local successor states were Muslim Sultanates - Gujarat, Malwa, Bengal, Khandesh, the Bahamani Sulatanate in the Deccan which fragmented into five Sultanates in the 1520s etc. Kashmir was never a part of the Delhi Sultanate but became a seperate Sulatanate by 1339.
At the time of the Mughal invasion the Hindu states were the Rajput states, Vijaynagar in the South (represented by Sangama in the 1337 start), Orissa and the various Godwana principalities and Nepal. Kamarupa (which became Assam about this point after the Ahoms invaded) was also independent and never conquered by its Muslim neighbors. Essentially independent Hindu states were squeezed to the periphery of the map.
This did not change until the 1700s in the aftermath of Aurangzeb's long war to conquer the Maratha kingdom. The Marathas overran much of North India creating local kingdoms at Gwalior, Indore etc that lasted through the British Raj. The Sikhs broke away in the Pujab sometime in the 1760s.
At the time of the Mughal invasion the Hindu states were the Rajput states, Vijaynagar in the South (represented by Sangama in the 1337 start), Orissa and the various Godwana principalities and Nepal. Kamarupa (which became Assam about this point after the Ahoms invaded) was also independent and never conquered by its Muslim neighbors. Essentially independent Hindu states were squeezed to the periphery of the map.
This did not change until the 1700s in the aftermath of Aurangzeb's long war to conquer the Maratha kingdom. The Marathas overran much of North India creating local kingdoms at Gwalior, Indore etc that lasted through the British Raj. The Sikhs broke away in the Pujab sometime in the 1760s.
The 8th Sikh Guru Har Rai ji was a close friend of Dara Shikoh in fact, and supported him during his struggle against Aurangzeb. I didn't remember the details about Dara Shikoh's character though. Also, the details about Aurangzeb's last days are interesting, something seems to have happened to his character then. He received the Zafarnamah shortly before his death (after receiving it Aurangzeb suddenly ordered his men to cease all hostilities against Sikhs), but I don't know what else was happening in his life at that time.
After Aurangzeb's death, Guru Gobind Singh ji actually briefly joined emperor Bahadur Shah in an expedition against Rajput rebels. However Sikhs did not stay on friendly terms with the Mughals for long, as men like Wazir Khan were too influential within the Mughal ranks.
The Sikhs initially revolted under the leadership of Banda Singh Bahadur at the beginning of the 18th century shortly after the passing of Guru Gobind Singh ji. Banda Singh Bahadur lead a peasant army and conquered (and largely demolished) the city of Sirhind, minted coins in the territories he ruled, and intended to conquer Lahore. Banda Singh Bahadur is a somewhat controversial figure, as a number of Sikhs began to revere him as a Guru, and also he possibly disobeyed a number of orders given to him by Guru Gobind Singh ji (he was commanded not to establish his own kingdom for example). He is still considered a great warrior though, as the horrifying mass-execution of him, his family and his entire army is considered to more than atone for any misdeeds he may have committed.
After the defeat of Banda Singh Bahadur the Sikhs were quiet for some time. As the Mughals came under attack from all sides, the Sikhs gained strength again, establishing the Misl system, a quasi-republican network of militias that functioned as a state within a state. It was the Misls that drove the Durrani empire from India, as you said the 1760s are usually considered the turning point at which the real de-facto rulers of Panjab were the Sikh Misls.
In game, Kanauj has a whopping two subholdings, putting it on par with random backwaters in Scandinivia or Russia. Come on paradox, why is this happening?
Feels like it was added to compliment Europe instead of stand as its own experience.
Europe was very varied at the time. Mediterranean and northern Europe weren't comparable in the slightest. While a lot of Europe was pretty pathetic India wasn't that far ahead of Italy if at all.
In EU4, Vijayanagara, largest city in the whole world until 1565, is base tax 2.
They were also terribly managed. The Indians had been dealing with their massive population for millennia and knew what to do, the British had no clue that such a large population could even be stable so they had no reason to try to fix it. Malthusian thought was the dominant thinking in British government and according to T. Malthus famines aren't a problem, population is the problem and famine is a solution. Wilful neglect was justified by western ignorance and arrogance.
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Wasn't Italy still recovering from the Gothic war, Lombard invasion and frank invasion in 867?
And exporting whatever food there was left. Colonialism at its finest...
Maybe in the mid-to-late middle ages. But in 876 basically everywhere outside of parts of Islamic Spain and the Byzantine Empire was dirt poor by global standards.
I was a bit disappointed they seem to start at a lower technology level than the Byzantines or places like Armenia (please correct me if I'm wrong). India was a place of many significant advances, our modern numeral system was created in India well before the games' timeframe and was only slowly transmitted to the west. Western mathematics had many limits because there was no concept of zero as a number which could be used in calculations.
Learning so much about india history, and yeah I noticed that vijayanagars base tax is ridiculously low, hopefully when the inevitable India DLC comes around it will get bumped up. VEF atleast gives it a 12.
India's history is fascinating but you don't hear about(atleast in American public school system)
India's history is fascinating but you don't hear about(atleast in American public school system)
This is true. India and China both get a kind of "there were empires that didn't do anything important. Then Europeans came..."
Byzantium India China and Russia in WW2 are almost completely untouched. All of those histories are fascinating. Im probably going to be a history teacher once im done in the military, i'll have to correct this deficiency as best I can.
It's not that. It's more a question of "There were empires that didn't have anything to do with us, then we went over there and this is how we interacted"