These guides are designed to help players who are new to Civ but still interested in Vox Populi, familiar with Civ but new to Vox Populi, or even those well versed in Vox Populi who just want to see if there's anything they didn't know about a particular civilization. I am actually a big fan of Zigzagzigal's Civ guide series, and it really helped me learn a lot about the game, and I wanted to bring a similar experience for fans of the Vox Populi or Community Balance Patch modpack. For those interested in the modpack it can be downloaded here[forums.civfanatics.com]

Anyways, without further ado, onto the Indians!

Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. +33% Great Scientist rate and +25% growth in all cities from rationalism.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +25% Great Person Rate and +100% construction of guilds in Artistry)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each.
UA - Unique Ability - the unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UB - Unique Building - A replacement for a normal building that can only be built and used by one Civilization.
UI - Unique Improvement - A tile improvement that can be made by workers that doesn't replace any other improvement that can only be made by a single civilization
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by militaristic City-States when allied.
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Tile Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each.
XP - Experience Points - Get enough and you'll level up your unit, giving you the ability to heal your unit or get a promotion.

India has a river start bias. This is great for the Harappan Reservoir, as rivers give more incentives to build farms.


Starts the game with a pantheon, and Great Prophets cost 35% less

Each Follower of your primary Religion increases Religious Pressure and Growth

Cannot build missionaries




A mounted ranged unit



Positive One-Off Changes

• Adjacent enemy units have -10% combat strength(Feared Elephant)
  
• Does not require horses
  
• Unlocks at Gunpowder instead of Metallurgy
  
• Obsoletes at Ballistics rather than Military Science

Positive Stay on Upgrade Changes

• +10% ranged combat strength. +10% ranged combat strength attacking units with less then 50% hp (Barrage I)

Positive Changes

• +3(up from +1) & +3
  
• +20% carried over from city growth (up from +15%) & +25% of the city's is added to current
  
• +1 from flood plains
  
• +1& from farms

These scores are merely my personal opinions from playing and examining this Civ, you may find other uses for the Indian uniques that make you disagree with a certain ranking


The Indian UU can allow India to get a fairly well upgraded army without any prior war, giving them a decent advantage on offense and defense in the mid-game
India's biggest advantage is to their growth and production through their UA and UB, and they can leverage this into a culture or science victory, even if they lack any bonuses directly to science or tourism.
India also lacks any advantage towards gold or diplomacy
Due to their UA, India is one of the strongest religious civs, and can consistently found the first religion.

The Indian UA sets the tone right away for what India excels at. Religion and Growth.


A good thing to note when playing as someone other then India; If a pantheon gets founded on the first turn, you know exactly who did it.

India gets to found a Pantheon the moment they found their capital, meaning India gets to choose whatever Pantheon they want. Most civs try to choose a pantheon that helps boost nearby resources, such as Earth Mother for mined resources, but in getting a pantheon immediately this isn't ideal, as the Indian UA actually holds a downside. You don't know anything of your territory short of the immediate area around the capital. This is why I actually recommend almost always choosing Goddess of the Home for your pantheon as India. It allows you to build shrines before granaries without sacrificing much food, and the +25% growth synergizes well with the other part of the Indian UA. One major exception I can think of is if you see several lake tiles nearby, then Goddess of Purity might be a good idea, as you'll likely be near lots of rivers too given the Indian start bias. There might be other exceptions you'll notice based on starting terrain, but generally Goddess of the Home is the best option in most cases

Speaking of growth, the second part of the Indian UA gives you additional growth and religious pressure based on how many followers of your religion their are in a city.


Above: Each follower in a city gives +2% growth, as seen in the religious belief modifiers, which combines the +25% bonus of Goddess of the Home and the +14% from the 7 followers due to the Indian UA
Below: Religious Pressure isn't as easy to calculate, and there are several factors that determine how much pressure is sent out, but with just the holy city having the religion it would probably only have about half that spread


Even in the mid game Religious pressure can exceed 100 or even 200, making it near impossible to convert short of a Great Prophet, which India can counter quite easily with their own cheaper prophets. The 35% cheaper Great Prophets almost assures that on top of the starting Pantheon India will be first to a religion, as well as first to enhance. However this last bonus is also needed to help counter the downside of the Indian UA.

India cannot build missionaries, which means it can be hard to actively spread your religion. You do have strong passive spread, and cheaper prophets meaning you can rapidly convert the core of any religion, but it can make it hard to entrench your religion in places not already receiving passive pressure, which can make it hard to use for tourism purposes, which is not the end of the world, but is still a notable use for religion.

One last thing to note about India's UA, the growth and pressure bonuses do work if your nation is fully converted, as unlikely as that is given your insane pressure, they just both work relative to the new religion instead of your own founded one.

The Indian UA may give large amounts of growth, but the Harappan Reservoir kicks it up a notch. Aqueducts already give growth a large boost, and the Indian UB does even more for this, enhancing the aqueducts food saving amount, and adding production boosts. In addition, it expands upon adding food to lakes, and adds food to farms, and production to both farms and flood plains.


Above: Take Cathedrals in your Religion, and you'll have farms give +3 food, +1 production and +1 gold, more if you can get enough farms adjacent to each other

Farms increase their food outputs by 1 for every 2 adjacent farms, so try to settle on flat, non tundra land to get as many farms out as possible. Normally deserts wouldn't be ideal for the same reason tundras are, but flood plains will get an even further boost for a massive 6 food, 2 production tile.


To be fair I should probably start playing with bots at least on King instead of just Prince, but still, this is just sad, my smallest city is more then 50% bigger then the Siamese capital, and this holds for pretty much every other civ on the map

So in conclusion, the Harappan Reservoir gives you all the growth bonuses of an aqueduct, except even more of them, and throws in lots of good production bonuses as well.

Indian Cities are going to be looking like ideal targets by the mid-game, almost certainly being consistently bigger then anyone other civ's cities. The Naga-Malla may not be the perfect answer to that, but it provides a good supportive complement to a conventional defensive army.


Hey don't trample the crops!

Naga-Malla come with all the benefits related to being an elephant unit, those being the Feared Elephant promotion, having a higher combat strength, and not requiring horses. Of course being an elephant unit always comes with a downside, and of course this means the Naga-Malla is... NOT slower then the cuiraissier it replaces? Interestingly the Naga-Malla does not hold a downside over the cuiraissier. However I don't believe that it is as posed to take great advantage of being an elephant unit

You can amass them easier then cuiraissiers, but feared elephant isn't as useful on Naga-Malla as it is on something like Siam's Naresuan's Elephant. Naga-Malla aren't any stronger on the defense then cuiraissiers excluding the effects of feared elephant, and can still be taken out fairly easily by the same counters, so you can't keep them in melee range. Naresuan's Elephant can stay in combat however, take some punishment, and keep weakening the enemy units. Naga-Malla can use Feared Elephant like this about as well on offense, but can't protect your army well on defense, and -10% combat strength is not enough to save it from taking massive damage from 1 anti cav unit, or likely dying to two. The biggest thing they have going is arriving earlier then cuiraissiers, but mounted archers are best used as a supportive hit and run unit, not the bulk of the army, as they don't have the range of archer units to allow them to defeat enemies before they can get close, or the strength of mounted or melee units to actually take a hit or two, so you can't use Naga-Malla to effectively rush someone.

However, Naga-Malla do have one major thing setting it as a useful tool, and it is it's seemingly smallest bonus. Barrage I. While giving minimal effect on it's own, this puts you one promotion closer to powerful high tier promotions like logistics. With an armory you can get to Barrage III, one away from Logistics, and with a military academy you can get straight there. This means that you can build Naga-Malla's from scratch and have them be better promoted then anyone who hasn't been warmongering for some time. With India's solid production they should be able to churn out this army pretty quick too, allowing for a rapid defensive or even offensive response


Above: Feared Elephant doesn't stack, so there is no reason to try and surround a unit with Naga-Mallas, other then to shoot them into the stone age of course

+10% ranged combat strength. +10% ranged combat strength attacking units with less then 50% hp (Barrage I)

India can leverage their massive cities well towards Science and Culture victories. If you plan to go Science start with Progress, go into Fealty and finish it with Rationalism. A Cultural India should start with Tradition, go into Fealty like science, then end with Industry


Opener: The extra population is nice to see, but India will likely get more culture in the mid-game from this then any other civ

Justice: The early production will help with any early wonders you want to build

Sovereignty: Border expansion is nice, plus this is some artist generation for early tourism

Ceremony: The extra science will help clear up any remaining worker techs and give a boost towards engineering for Harappan Reservoirs

Splendor: I always recommend going Splendor before Majesty because Splendor can give a good amount of culture, getting you to finishing tradition quicker.

Majesty: Considering your capital is going to be very large, and likely have a lot of specialists, this ensures your growth isn't stumped.

Finisher: Get a bit more use out of your great person improvements! Plus hey, a stronger capital never hurt yeah? Have a throne room!


Opener: If at all possible, try to avoid growing your capital much before you get this, you'll get more science that way. The culture you immediately get from this will likely almost be enough for the next policy

Liberty: If you don't have any worker techs yet, it might be a good idea to save this for later, otherwise this makes sure you're improving stuff ASAP

Organization: Faster workers, settlers, and even great people all help infrastructure get built just a little bit faster

Expertise: Faster building construction is great, especially in the early game where production might be sparse. Also pairs great with Goddess of the Home if you took that.

Equality: India tends to run into happiness problems more then most peaceful civs, this helps a lot with that.

Fraternity: The food won't be a big factor soon, but the extra science is pretty decent.

Finisher: For India this will actually turn out to be a surprising amount of gold, especially if you can found a lot of cities


Opener: Monasteries are a solid building, and the cheaper building purchases are nice, although this isn't as good an opener for India as they can't get missionaries.

Nobility: You actually probably didn't have much trouble building castles, but this will still make it faster, you really just want the happiness this policy will give.

Divine Right: More happiness, more culture for having happiness

Serfdom: A little bit of culture and production, plus much better internal trade routes to enhance growth even more

Burghers: More production and a bit less unhappiness.

Organized Religion: You don't NEED the extra religious pressure, but it's amusing at least. The extra faith is actually useful though

Finisher: Your cities are basically unconvertable, so they'll always enjoy the extra yields


Opener: Two trade routes for more tourism, religious pressure, and gold

Division of Labor: Seaports and Train Stations are normally expensive buildings, but now they are in line with other buildings. Also a large boost to your production and gold outputs

Free Trade: Extra Great Merchants are nice, but the reduced unhappiness is really what you want here

Entrepreneurship: Gold and production, the industry tree knows what it wants, and you do too.

Mercantilism: A good bit of extra science and culture. Who ever said Industry was just gold and production? Wait a minute...

Protectionism: A nice boost to internal trade routes, and to food and science

Finisher: India is likely to have a ton of specialists in the capital at least, so this is a great boost.


Opener: Little bit of science and a small bit of production too. Happiness should become an issue of the past for you as well. Grow to your heart's content

Scientific Revolution: Depending on the terrain, observatories could give a lot of science, or not much at all.

Empiricism: Helps make sure other civs won't leech off your science lead.

Rights of Man: A bit of extra yields across the empire, this is not very good for India as they tend to build less villages then most civs, preferring to build as many farms as possible

Enlightenment: Postponing this as long as possible means you're getting a more expensive tech for free.

Free Thought: Extra science from Great Scientists is always good. Religious unrest was never an issue for India

Finisher: More Great Scientists, More Growth, All is good in India

Freedom best supports India's strong growth and peaceful style, whether they go science or culture.


Civil Society: Adding extra food to all your farms, which already have great yields, is kinda crazy.

Avant Garde: Extra great people are helpful no matter the route you're taking

Universal Suffrage: Can't complain about better golden ages

Creative Expression(Culture): Make your great works works a lot more effective.


Universal Healthcare: A free hospital in every city, possibly before you even have biology researched, is amazing.

Capitalism: Will help with the large amounts of specialists you likely have

Transnationalism(Culture): Corporate franchises actually increase Tourism towards the civ you found them in, so getting a few extra will help


Media Culture(Culture): This will push your Tourism over the edge and you should be able to convert even high culture civs, at least with a musician or two to back you up.

Treaty Organization(Culture): The extra delegates might help prevent a bad proposal such as travel ban from being passed

Space Procurements(Science): You'll already have good production, so have your gold work towards your science victory as well.

Pyramids The more cities you can get the more growth you can get, so getting them out early is a must

Temple of Artemis: Because you need EVEN more growth yeah?


Great Wall: India has a pretty weak defense, this is a huge deterrent to attackers

Hanging Gardens: 10 food might not be as much for India as it is for most civs, but it does leave more food to be multiplied

Oracle: Lots of science and culture, great to have for anyone


Karlstejn: It might be somewhat difficult to actually get enough followers if the nearby civs have strong religions and are on top of their inquisitors, this will help bridge the gap.

Forbidden Palace(Progress only): You might not make a ton of purchases as India, but when you need to you'll be glad their cheaper

Hagia Sofia: Free Great Prophet to help convert or maybe even just use for the Holy Site

University of Sankore(Tradition only): Get some science out of all the great people you're bound to get.


Chichen Itza: This should finally eliminate any remaining happiness problems you might have

Globe Theatre(Culture): A free Great Writer, more golden age points, and some decent theming potential.

Himeji Castle: Similar to Great Wall, India has a weak defense, so they'll want this to help fend off attacks

Leaning Tower of Pisa: More Great People is always good.

Porcelain Tower(Science): This will give a large boost to your science output

Red Fort(Fealty Only): Defense for your large yet vulnerable cities

Sistine Chapel(Culture): Should prove to be a lot of culture given your cities will all have likely built a good amount of culture buildings.

Uffizi(Culture): Great theming bonus if you can manage to fill it.


Neuschwanstein: India is bound to have built a castle in every city due to Fealty, so this is a great benefit on top of that.


Broadway(Industry Only): Similar to Uffizi, but for music and locked behind Industry.

Cristo Redentor(Culture): Tons of tourism for building things you'd already be building for tourism

Statue of Liberty(Freedom Only): A good bit of production, plus a free social policy


Bletchley Park(Rationalism only): Helps make sure other civs can't leech of your tech lead


CERN: Two free techs is amazing, it's obviously ideal for a science India, but two free techs can still help clean up the last techs for wonders and whatnot

CN Tower(Culture): A lot of tourism from almost every source you'd normally get tourism from.

Great Firewall(Culture): Important to get not because it is useful to a Culture India, but so another civ can't get it to severely slow down your culture win

Hubble Space Telescope: An incredible wonder for science that makes it much faster to build spaceship parts, but the two scientists are still good to clean up techs, similar to CERN

India is very straightforward, and that's exactly what makes it easy to make mistakes with them


There are some civs with no real defensive bonuses that need to keep this tip in mind, but none more so than India. India's massive growth makes them a huge target, and the only minor edge they have is the Naga-Malla, but it takes until the mid-game to arrive and even then you'll still be vulnerable to a strong conqueror. You NEED to keep up a military as India, people will be gunning for you.


The Naga-Malla is a good complementary unit, but it's too squishy and counterable to form the bulk of an army. Don't assume that getting these means you are safe as India


One of the Naga-Malla's biggest strengths is starting with Barrage I, allowing them to get to higher tier promotions right from being built. This won't really be that helpful upgrading to it though. If you've got the horses to build mounted units, build melee units instead.


India can get away with less cities then most due to their insane growth. That growth does mean happiness could be a problem, especially if you have too many cities.

India will have some of the biggest cities in the game, and a strong, near unconvertable religion to boot. However they lack strengths almost everywhere else.


You will always know India is in your game if after your first turn you see a pantheon is founded, so it's a good thing to know their around right from the start. Trying to convert India is going to be almost impossible, but if they can't found many cities, one Prophet might be able to get the job done. In terms of if they'll convert you it depends. If you share enough of a direct land border with them it is going to be hard to fight off the passive spread, but just keep inquisitors at the ready and it's not impossible. If you don't share a land border though, they will have a hard time converting you due to a lack of missionaries. Their growth in theory could be dangerous, but they have weak defenses, so it actually provides an opportunity for a lucrative conquest.


Just like the UA, if you want, you can wait for India to start using this to grow large and then conquer them, but if you want to try and prevent this, try and take as much flat land as you can, especially flood plains and other river lands.


Naga-Malla ultimately don't function much differently then cuiraissiers, so the same strategies apply for the most part. You do want to try and take them out first if you can as Feared Elephant can soften your units up a good bit. Indian Cavalry can be scary though, as with a military academy India can build a Naga-Malla with Logistics right out the gate, and then upgrade it to a cavalry, so keep that in mind


Early-Game Warmongers: India is extremely weak at this point, with some decently sized cities. If you are confident you can afford to wait though, conquer India later, their cities will be much bigger and therefore better for you

Mid-Game Warmongers: Naga-Malla's can be dangerous if India has a good amount of xp buildings, as they'll start with high promotions. Don't be fooled if India has a small military either, they can build one up fast with their strong cities

Late-Game Warmongers: By this point the high promotions granted by Naga-Malla are probably mostly irrelevant, especially to your own units. India shouldn't prove too difficult

Science Players: India has strong production to build all their science buildings, but lack great bonuses outside of that, so a civ with strong science should be able to get ahead. Science civs with strong production should try to steal major science wonders to get the edge over India

Cultural Players: There's no surefire way to out-compete India in culture other then just continuing to do what you'd normally do, but there's an interesting opportunity for a cultural player in India's weak defense. If India takes a lot of important cultural wonders, build up an army and take them for yourself.

Diplomatic Players: India shouldn't prove direct competition, but as for trying to stop them, passing World Science Initiative may prove beneficial as India will skew the average for score from growth quite high, so you might be able to get a big boost from it. If you aren't worried about your own defenses, passing Casus Belli could incentivize Indian neighbors to conquer them.

These guide cover every civ in the game, and can be used as a quick reference

• Civ Summaries

• America (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Arabia (Culture/Science)
  
• Assyria (Science/Domination)
  
• Austria (Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Aztecs (Domination/Science)
  
• Babylon (Science)
  
• Brazil (Culture)
  
• Byzantium (All)
  
• Carthage (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• The Celts (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• China (Domination/Culture)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Culture)
  
• England (Domination/Diplomacy)
  
• Ethiopia (Science)
  
• France (Domination/Culture)
  
• Germany (Diplomacy/Science)
  
• Greece (Domination/Diplomacy/Culture)
  
• The Huns (Domination)
  
• The Inca (Science/Domination)
  
• Indonesia (Domination/Culture/Science)
  
• The Iroquois (Domination)
  
• Japan (Domination/Culture)
  
• Korea (Science/Domination)
  
• The Maya (Science/Domination)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Culture/Diplomacy)
  
• The Netherlands (Diplomacy/Domination)
  
• The Ottomans (Domination/Science)
  
• Persia(Domination/Culture)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Culture)
  
• Portugal (Science/Diplomacy)
  
• Rome (Domination/Science)
  
• Russia (Science/Domination)
  
• The Shoshone (Domination/Science/Culture)
  
• Siam (Diplomacy/Science/Culture)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Domination/Culture)
  
• Sweden (Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomacy/Culture/Domination)
  
• The Zulus (Domination)