Tips starting as Vijanagar

[Templaric-]

Anyone have any good tips as Vijanagar starting to be able to defeat Deccan? Half the time I can cripple them at the beginning of the game but the other half they just destroy my army and I end up crippled.

I usually add 6 cavalry units and am figthing with a 3/7 or 3/8 stack and they usually have a much smaller cavalry force and still end up crushing my army with something like a 7/4 or 7/5 stack. Also, which cavalry unit should I be using at the start of the game?

 

[DanubianCossak]

If you wanna play in India, download one of the bigger mods, its a much more detailed and balanced experience in general.

If you wanna play Vanilla, then its really all about winning that first war, what you generally wanna do is wipe their doomstack with yours and to that end do whatever you can - i personally make sure i build my land force limit up to 100% and also my main doomstack should have as much cavalry as my tech group allows for combined arms thingy. After that, save game and good luck, if you win that first war and grab couple of provinces, it should be much, much easier after that.

 

[Templaric-]

Oh my problem might be that I haven't been getting combined arms bonus, do you know where I can find the exact number ratios per tech group for this?

 

[Nunn45]

4 cav to 6 infantry is always a good basic stack, later on making your stacks 4/8.

As Vijanagar best to aim early on in beating your big rival then going full pelt for the cores needed to form Hindustan and sitting tight, that way you can eventualy form Hindustan and get free cores on all of India and be a powerhouse.

 

[DanubianCossak]

Oh my problem might be that I haven't been getting combined arms bonus, do you know where I can find the exact number ratios per tech group for this?

IIRC theres a tooltip in military tab.

Looking at vanilla files, heres the raw data:

groups = {
	nomad_group = {
		modifier = 0.1
		start_level = 3
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 1.0
		slow_limit = 6
	}
	western = {
		modifier = 1.0
		start_level = 3
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.5
	}
	eastern = {
		modifier = 0.85
		start_level = 3
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.6
		slow_limit = 6
	}
	ottoman = {
		modifier = 0.80
		start_level = 5
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.5
	}
	muslim = {
		modifier = 0.75
		start_level = 5
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.8
	}
[B]	indian = {
		modifier = 0.5
		start_level = 3
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.5
		slow_limit = 7
	}[/B]
	chinese = {
		modifier = 0.4
		start_level = 3
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.5
		slow_limit = 7
	}
	sub_saharan = {
		modifier = 0.2
		start_level = 1
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.5
		slow_limit = 4
	}
	new_world = {
		modifier = 0.1
		start_level = 0
		cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.5
		slow_limit = 3
	}
}

Bolded being what you want, indian tech group, cavalry to infantry ratio is apparently 50%-50%

 

[mgoetze]

I don't know why you would play it so often, I only played it once and didn't have any serious trouble with Deccan. It's probably all about the shock pips your ruler-turned-general gets. Of course if you're not converting your ruler to a general that might be the problem right there...

 

[Vainfall]

If you're having a lot of problems with them, just scorch your border and back up, wait a few months, and than attack the attrition depleted stacks. Can't really imagine why it's so difficult for you, but whatever And be sure to vassalize everything you get into war with that isn't required for hindustan formation.

 

[przemo_li]

Which game version?

 

[n0thin]

Vijavanagar should be able to pretty much just roll over Deccan. And since they're your only real early game rival, game will turn pretty easy after that. Only the war with Orissa who holds one province of your group (I think) may get hard, if they have strong allies, Golconda should be no problem.
After you've conquered all of the provinces needed to form Hindustan, just wait for them to core and turn your attention elsewhere. Don't grab other Indian provinces, you will get cores on them => no infamy. You may just conquer/PU/vassalize SE asia. Then conquer your cores back and you're unstoppable until the Europeans arrive, so prepare for Westernization.

 

[przemo_li]

Vijavanagar should be able to pretty much just roll over Deccan. And since they're your only real early game rival, game will turn pretty easy after that. Only the war with Orissa who holds one province of your group (I think) may get hard, if they have strong allies, Golconda should be no problem.
After you've conquered all of the provinces needed to form Hindustan, just wait for them to core and turn your attention elsewhere. Don't grab other Indian provinces, you will get cores on them => no infamy. You may just conquer/PU/vassalize SE asia. Then conquer your cores back and you're unstoppable until the Europeans arrive, so prepare for Westernization.

Depend on game version.

Sometimes Deccan is hard and you need to collect allayes and gang-DoW on them in other wersions (5.2) its almost walk in the park.