Best starts in India-focused game

[ZhukovGK]

Vijaynagar is really OP'd, if you can crush Bahamanis in the first war (wait for them to be engaged elsewhere) you should be able to steamroll the rest of India.

Plus playing Hindu you are conquering Hindu provinces and your natural progression northward starts with Accepted Cultures. The only part that sucks is that you get massive corruption because India, unlike Russia, doesn't get +20 states when you start needing them...

 

[TomatoHK]

If u had never played in India before, Vijayanagar and Bahmanis are easy start, but I prefer Jaunpur myself, here’s a good guide if found
https://www.google.com/url?q=https:...454.1272298/&usg=AOvVaw1kzSjJtgjhND28_S75p2ZD

 

[damnt512]

My favorite start in India is Delhi (the original one, not by forming it with other nation). Because Delhi have some of the best mission tree, which focuses on restoring the glory of the Delhi Empire. You start with shit ruler, shit heir, and a rebellion waiting to happen against a 3 star general. You also border Jaunpur. It's a difficult start, but I love completing the mission tree, unite all of India, and get the Emperor of Hindustan achievement. Your idea is a mixed bag though, not good, but also can't really be called as bad. You can just play Sirhind if you want some flexibility though, because you can then choose whether to form Punjab or Delhi. Or you can just play as Jaunpur and form Delhi as them for an easier way to get access to the Delhian mission tree.

Thanks everyone for great replies! It certainly seems that various nations mentioned have special places in the posters’ respective h Just started “Timurids -> Mughals” to get familiar with geography and structure of the region, and the next one will probably be “Mewar -> Rajputana”

Mughals have one of the best and strongest idea of all nation in EU4. It should be fun to play. and you don't even need to bother about unaccepted culture in the subcontinent as they have a unique mechanic to unite all culture in India.

 

[damnt512]

Fair enough, hopefully we get a Southeast Asia update soon to make these countries more interesting

True, Majapahit should've been a very interesting nation to play, restoring a fallen empire, they're just stuck with horrible idea and generic mission tree now. Hopefully the Southeast Asian update will make things right.

 

[Sphynxx]

Mughals run so far has been great. Not optimal by any means, but at this point I care more about gameplay diversity rather than WC
1) lots of fine-tuning opportunities: 5 estates with sometimes conflicting goals offer a lot of choice, optimization opportunities and trade-offs
2) really wide mission tree with unorthodox completion requirements (like average autonomy of the region)
3) not feeling railroaded into idea choices: I went aristocratic - humanist - espionage to stack cavalry combat ability and compensate for the fact that your mission tree does not offer any permaclaims in westward direction
4) caring about cultures in a different way: I found using culture mapmode more than in all other playthroughs combined. It also offers you to enter into the nice “gamification”-like mentality where you are looking forward to absorbing the provinces you would not otherwise care to conquer
5) being really strategic about spawning the institutions the cheapest way, maximizing spread and timing money conquests for embracement was rewarding (although it’s probably common for all non-European tags)
6) possibility to invite scholars as a Muslim was really fresh for me

there are a number of things that I found rather frustrating though:
1) rebel hunting across the steppes with attrition - I really miss Defensive ideas
2) fairly limited naval capabilities at the start
3) lack of relevant rivals and PP farming opportunities almost right from the start
4) the region is very liberal AE-wise - I could afford to go without IR advisor and Diplo and even take a bunch of non-co-belligerent lands once in a while and eventually stopped caring about improving relations with neighbors
5) state limit is very punishing, even with all the government reforms

Overall, really looking forward to uniting the Altaic and Levantine to stomp people with Legions of Unbeatable Death Horses

 

[AirikrStrife]

Having done most of the indian achievments since the release of Dharma, (except the hardcore ones like raja reich), my personal favourite I've done 3 times is Mewar, their position, ideas and missions makes for the most entertaining game

 

[otaats]

Having done most of the indian achievments since the release of Dharma, (except the hardcore ones like raja reich), my personal favourite I've done 3 times is Mewar, their position, ideas and missions makes for the most entertaining game

Mewar.. Mewar never changes.

Mewar & Orissa definitely top 2 India games in my experience.

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

Just finished a Mewar-->Rajputana game which was fun. Although if you are going for Mewar Never Changes, be aware that you can be in for a pretty boring wait while you unlock the ideas needed to get discipline up. I was done conquering what I needed to well before I had enough discipline, and ended up kind of just chilling.

 

[tobias.mb]

My personal favorite in India is Nepal. Very good military ideas but you start weak and you have strong neighbours. You'll be the underdog for quite some time, which I consider more fun than Ottoman style winning from day 1.
If you want to start strong, I'd say Bahmanis is interesting. You're the only Shia nation on the subcontinent, so you get excellent use out of deus vult.

 

[holyvigil]

Thanks everyone for great replies! It certainly seems that various nations mentioned have special places in the posters’ respective h Just started “Timurids -> Mughals” to get familiar with geography and structure of the region, and the next one will probably be “Mewar -> Rajputana”

How is the game going?

Mughals has lovely flavor. Definitely my favorite India game as they have the most unique events.

 

[balmung60]

My favorite will always be Vijayanagar. You're in a great start position, a great religion, you have quite a bit of flavor, and your capital and namesake is the City of Victory, a city that at its peak was only surpassed in size and splendor by Beijing. I'm not sure what more you want.

 

[heliostellar]

I'm a big fan of starting as Bengal and flipping Hindu.

 

[EarlKonrad]

My favorite will always be Vijayanagar. You're in a great start position, a great religion, you have quite a bit of flavor, and your capital and namesake is the City of Victory, a city that at its peak was only surpassed in size and splendor by Beijing. I'm not sure what more you want.

They also have some annoyingly bad events on the first 20 years of the game

 

[Stepkick]

Jaunpur into Delhi.

1.) Give land to the Jains. Get their influence up to 75 with interactions. Get 150 diplo points and accept both cultures, Bihari and Hindavi.
2.) Activate the mission for permanent claims on Delhi.
3.) Rival Delhi
4.) Unpause the game.
5.) Ally Multan
6.) Declare war on Delhi on 11th Dec 1444 AD. Call in Multan for promise of land (which you won't give them)
7.) Full annex Delhi and acquire Sirhind and Jangladesh as subjects.
8.) Core only the province of Delhi and then tag switch to Delhi
9.) If it is pre 1450 AD, the Sirhind independence event can fire, unless you are at war. So keep warring with nations with your cores, like Kashmir is an easy prey and then Malwa's subject Kalpi and then Multan after the truce ends from broken alliance due to low trust.

Enjoy owning the entire Gangetic plain from Kashmir in the North West to Bihar in the South East by 1470 AD, having the highest development in the world second to Ming.
First three Idea Groups: Humanist, Diplomatic, Quality(or)Trade.

Improve Relations Stacking Modifiers: Humanist (30%) + Diplomatic (25%) + Humanist-Diplomatic Policy (20%) = +75% !!!
If you feel your military needs some help, take Quality (cause Delhi usually has bad military ideas) = Quality-Humanist Policy (gives Prestige and reduces Prestige Decay great for boosting Improve Relations), Quality-Diplomatic (gives +1 Diplo Relations and -0.5 War Exhaustion)
If you feel no other Indian nation can oppose your military, take Trade: Trade boosts income considerably, but more importantly gives more Merchants who can use Improve Relations trading policy.

With this setup you can expand fast as mentioned above and continue that pace. Basically become super aggressive. Needless to say first Age of Exploration ability should be Reduced AE.

P.S. With this technique you can quite easily own all of India north of the Narmada river before 1500 AD, without breaking a sweat.

 

[Stepkick]