Do the same nations always dominate India in your games too?

[Krajzen]

Seriously, in my every single game ever AI ends up dividing India between few major empires which stagnate till the end. Those empires are practically always:
*Bengal
*Bahmanis
*Gujarat
*Delhi/Jaunpur
*Malwa
*Vijayanagar (only Hindu)

On top of that they all tend to behave similarly: Gujarat converts Hindu into Shia, Malwa is strong early but is later destroyed because of being in the middle, southern part is always dominated by non-converting Bahmanis and Vijayanagar etc... Always the same set and always the same lack of any historicity.

*No Mughals ever
*Practically no Sikhism ever
*No European invasion ever
*No Marathas/Mysore/Travanacore/any significant Hindu nation except occasional Vijayanagar
*No invasions from/to Afghanistan or Indochina
*Huge number of tags never appearing

Always the same division between 4-5 major sultanates... Boring.

 

[Galaahd]

Yeah India is extremely boring and dull in its current state.

 

[Miravlix]

That's not how India play out in my games.

Europa conquer it or one of the native nations becomes a superpower most days.

 

[rizla7]

hehe. bengal/malwa/delhi = sunni, bahmanis = shia, and all the 1-3 prov minors are hindu, they keep cropping up. i lol'd at the 'non-converting' joke, all their provinces are in fact hindu.

something is broken over in india and the orient. maybe they're all just happy farmers. maybe they don't want to fight. bonsai huggers.

large nations (not just these) tend to have no allies either. ming had none for the longest time. now bahmanis has none. bengal been allied to delhi/malwa forever but cannot annex them.

bahmanis 100k, bengal+allies 100k, ming 100k... all their armies just facing each other, but not enough money for bullets ;o

nobody wants to make the first move. i think i should shake things up by breaking bengal into pieces and have bahmanis and ming fight over the scraps.

 

[AndroidEmperor]

This is parallel with the other Mughals discussion.

More dynamic events for Timurids and some Mughal changes could make India much more interesting.

 

[rizla7]

oh no, i spoke too soon, lmao... ming just allied lan xang and siak, in addition to jianzhou.

i think either bukhara or bengal are gonne get mighty hurt. when does the show begin?

 

[Nagassh]

Bengal, Orissa, Bahmanis and VJ are often the strongest powers, but in my current game Delhi has bled down and the southern tip is dominated by some buddhist nation (not Ceylon) that I've never seen around before.

I've also seen AI Ceylon eat the continent once. The game after I did my Ceylon achievement, the AI managed to somehow take almost all of India as Ceylon by the time I discovered it.

I used to think it was very VJ / Bahmanis dominant, but I've been seeing a fair bit of variety since common sense.

 

[klingonadmiral]

for me it's like 90% Bahmanis dominance (buff Indo-Gangetic Valley pls), more rarely other tags (Bengal, orissa, Delhi, Vija) blob out.

India practically always ends up divided in three parts, a strong southern realm, a realm around the Bengal area and either a mid-sized or several small nations around the Indus. But this isn't a new problem, the same stuff has been going on since AoW. Most stale region in the game probably.

 

[Rider_of_Doom]

In my games Bengal, Delhi, Malwa and Bahmanis are the major powers. Very often the first three are allied among themselves and eating Bahmanis over the time. Then, they're a unbreakable barricade for the AI... I crushed the "Indian Alliance" with Spain and conquered the whole peninsula.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

India is a very interesting region that needs some more events, DHEs etc etc something to break up the near constant status quo that occurs there.

I also think a rajputana formible would be cool for the rajputs. Id like to suggest more formibles for the region but I can't think of anything.

 

[Trin Tragula]

IMO those are credible great powers in India if we remove the Mughal Empire.
They are the ones that start out in control of the core areas that was/can be used for the rise of great empires.

• Jaunpur may not have lasted long but given the extremely nice lands they controlled in 1444 they would have had lots of things speaking for them if they had survived their infancy (this is after all one of the fought over regions in the "CK2 era" as well as the core of the Delhi Sultanate and later Mughal Empire).
• Delhi being able to recover like they did under the Lodis was not the most obvious development in 1444 (as anyone can see in game too).
• Malwa being strong initially and then collapsing is historical and is made likely by their actual in game position so I'm more than happy with that and it doesn't always happen.
• Gujarat, the arch rival of Malwa, did really well until the Mughals came along, later on it's not an insignficant part of the domain of one of the Maratha states.
  Bengal was used as a base to conquer all of northern India by Sher Shah Suri and was one of the stronger Mughal successor states later (and indeed was the seed of British domination of India eventually).
• Vijayanagar and Bahmanis both being quite strong is also historical, what doesn't happen is that they should both splinter (and for similar reasons) into a number of successor states. This is mostly down to empires being more stable in EU4 than in history but we could nudge things along a bit more there. Note though that the later Hyderabad state and Mysore states are not that far off from VIJ and BAH really if you look at controlled territory (less true of Mysore than Hyderabad).
• India is indeed dominated by Muslim states in the north, but that's not really an odd thing given our start date. Muslims have been in control for quite a while there in 1444 and even if we have plenty of states collapsing there historically (even to Hindu nobles like how most of Malwa broke off) the Muslim states continued to dominate up until the Mughals conquered them all. Bengal even had a Hindu vizier seizing power a while before the game starts but still ended up with the Muslim aristocracy getting their power back (the way this happened is what the event that can convert Hindu Sultanates is loosely modeled after).
• That said I do see Mewar and Orissa do well from time to time, which I think is fine as they're both credible alternatives (Orissa is perhaps less likely but around our start date Kapilendra was really doing well for himself).

Conversions I'm less happy about but it's something that's pretty easy to do worldwide and this is just one of the places where it shows. If southern India (even the Muslim controlled parts) stay more Hindu then that's actually another point for history as while even in the north conversions where not a big thing Muslims where even more in minority in the south.

Sikhs are a very nice addition to this region but a strong Sikh state is a very lategame development in game terms and those are always tricky to get to happen. Sikhism already converts a lot more provinces than would be historical (province you'd likely not have a single province with Sikh majority if going by history, even within the later Sikh state). A strong Sikh state would be nice but given that they're supposed to pop up right in the way of Mughal or Afghan invasions I know what I'd prioritize if I had to choose for the sake of the big picture.

Where I think things could improve is the things that really changed midgame or lategame:
I'd love to see the Mughals and the Marathas more often (and I don't believe one would have to exist for the other to be born).

 

[milkan]

Its gotta say you have a better grasp of Indian history then I do considering I am Indian
Still I find India to be nicely represented in EU4 and considering gameplay limitations it works well all in all.
As for larger states gobbling up smaller ones I think that's an issue with EU4 in general tending towards states blobbing up a lot in general.
Smaller states definitely should team up way more often especially in a region where states of a heathen religion surround then.

 

[Bella Gerant]

IMO those are credible great powers in India if we remove the Mughal Empire.

• Jaunpur may not have lasted long but given the extremely nice lands they controlled in 1444 they would have had lots of things speaking for them if they had survived their infancy (this is after all one of the fought over regions in the "CK2 era" as well as the core of the Delhi Sultanate and later Mughal Empire).
• Delhi being able to recover like they did under the Lodis was not the most obvious development in 1444 (as anyone can see in game too).
• Malwa being strong initially and then collapsing is historical and is made likely by their actual in game position so I'm more than happy with that and it doesn't always happen.
• Gujarat, the arch rival of Malwa, did really well until the Mughals came along, later on it's not an insignficant part of the domain of one of the Maratha states.
  Bengal was used as a base to conquer all of northern India by Sher Shah Suri and was one of the stronger Mughal successor states later (and indeed was the seed of British domination of India eventually).
• Vijayanagar and Bahmanis both being quite strong is also historical, what doesn't happen is that they should both splinter (and for similar reasons) into a number of successor states. This is mostly down to empires being more stable in EU4 than in history but we could nudge things along a bit more there. Note though that the later Hyderabad state and Mysore states are not that far off from VIJ and BAH really if you look at controlled territory (less true of Mysore than Hyderabad)

Conversions I'm less happy about but it's something that's pretty easy to do worldwide and this is just one of the places where it shows. If southern India (even the Muslim controlled parts) stay more Hindu then that's actually another point for history as while even in the north conversions where not a big thing Muslims where even more in minority in the south.

I think that the problem with India is that those Indian great powers just tend to blob all the way up to the 1600s and then, once there's only 3 or 4 kingdoms left, form a subcontinent wide alliance chain. I've never seen a war in India post-1600 once the Bahmani-Delhi-Bengali alliance or some Hindu equivalent forms. The major kingdoms in India really ought not to be so complacent and friendly with one another once the rest have been eaten. Yet, in almost every play through, the subcontinent's borders get fixed. Which is a shame, since part of India's appeal is the fluidity of borders and frequent conflict that makes the HRE blush.

Part of the problem with the Muslim nations being so friendly towards one another is that they end up dominating India and their heathen tolerance allows them to rule 0% Muslim lands revolt free until they manage to start converting. The Bahmanis tend to convert all of South India to Shia by the 1700s while the North goes 100% Sunni by the end. You'd think that the majority Hindu would revolt in a Maratha-esque way when all of India is ruled by Muslim kingdoms *coughMughalscough.*

Also, it is really hard to conquer India as Britain when you have to fight all of India without any help or picking off the weaklings (Britain had that whole "turn them against each other" approach that never happens with the 3 Muslim brobs).

So not so much of "we need Mughals to make things better" as opposed to "they're blobbing in a HRE fashion and everyone left loves each other too much to make things interesting anymore."

 

[DEEPGAME]

I have been playing this game for 1000+ hours, i have never seen Mughals.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

Yeah one thing too once that alliance bloc that forms conquers india they just....sit there. No massive revolts nothing,no wars anything. India just needs some events and what not to help flesh the region out(as well as Confucianism getting mecanics but that's another thread) They just sit there and its usually the muslim alliance bloc.

Every now and then a hindu form will win but usually its islam that wins I've noticed (confirmation bias!) A strong Maratha revolt would be amazing especially if it has a chance to break up one power and replace it(I know some indian history, did the Maratha revolt inspire other revolts across india against muslim hegemony?)

 

[Demetrios]

What would shake things up in India would be:

1. A Bahmanid disaster that threatens to break up the state. This can either be set to around the historical period of 1480 - 1520, or perhaps it can start ticking if the Bahmanids get a weak ruler. Either breaking up the Bahmanids or at least weakening it would almost certainly upset the status quo being complained about here.

2. A Vijayanagar disaster. Vijayanagar collapsed simply because its capital was occupied. I'm sure something could be worked out where if Vijayanagar owns over a certain amount of provinces, if their capital is occupied they get a nasty disaster. (Granted, I'm not seeing Vijayanagar surviving much in my games; they are usually split between the Bahmanids and some other south Indian power like Mysore or Madurai).

3. A powerful Maratha event. A complaint in this thread is that too much of India gets converted. What if (and I'm not sure this would be possible to do) once too much of India gets converted from Hindu, the Maratha revolts start? This would definitely spice up gameplay in India - do you convert your provinces and risk huge revolts? The AI would of course say yes and we'd get to see the fun that would result. This would also allow for a more dynamic Maratha revolt not tied down to a certain period, but to the actual religious reasons it started. Even if there aren't any other changes made to India, building up the Maratha revolts would work wonders...

4. A Sikh independence event. Once Sikhism appears, the nations that possess Sikh provinces should start getting events about how to deal with it. Once they start to try to oppress it (which would be the typical AI response), a Sikh revolt disaster starts ticking...

5. Revamping the Timurids to Mughal process. There's another recent thread on this, and, obviously, this would take some real work to get it to work even remotely historically. But even if it only happened a relatively small amount of the time, it's better than what we have now.

6. Something in the Bengal region. I'm not sure what we could model it on historically, but it would be nice to do something to shake up that region as well.

 

[The kalrSalian]

Yes India goes suprisingly stale after the alliance blocks have devoured anyone else. Due to no revolts and allainces that cancel each other out.

 

[Lord_P]

More dynamics in India would be swell.

 

[rizla7]

the religious non-conversion seems to be a problem (or broken) elsewhere too: ottomans have not converted a single orthodox province; the whole of greece/macedonia.

donji kraji... converted in 1673... that's it... wait... what? and constantinople in 1457.

that's it... they converted only 2 provinces in 230 years?

although europe/HRE does seem to be cleansing heresy, and poland was converting to catholic before i killed them.

my baluchistan and yemen vassals are converting away, even at -3 stability ;o (were, baluchistan is done, yemen stopped).

 

[Homusubi]

God, Malwa... I am sick to death of that beige sultanate!

There really should be more chance of sultanates collapsing and/or converting. Also, Vijayanagar should be a rising power, not a lost cause.