Slitherine

Keep seeing people posting that they have trouble with fighting the Indians and keep losing.

Well I've done 3 so far and this is a typical result:



So I'm wondering what armies people are having trouble beating the Indians with. I've just used Seleukids and Makedonians so far and have a 3-0 record.

Or is that they are playing real people rather than the AI? I've only played the AI.

Puzzled.

Ive never played the Indians so have no idea, but when describing outcomes vs the AI I think it would be helpful to understand what AI level you’re playing at, because at least for me my results vary wildly depnding on AI level.

Why are the Indians in the desert? Maybe fight them in the jungle.

76mm wrote:Ive never played the Indians so have no idea, but when describing outcomes vs the AI I think it would be helpful to understand what AI level you’re playing at, because at least for me my results vary wildly depnding on AI level.

A good point as this affects the points for each side.

I've been playing on Legate to date - which only gives the AI a 5% points advantage IIRC. (Keep thinking I ought to go harder but keep forgetting to change)

I played Indian against a Macedonian AI opponent with some woods and rough terrain to shoot from and annihilated them. The MF Massed Archers trashed most foot before it could make contact.

They are very dangerous in MP when handled by a skilled player, especially if there's even a little terrain for them to exploit. The AI doesn't really know how to use them though.

The Nabateans are also a tough proposition in the desert with all their archers. The key to beating the Indians and Nabateans is how quickly you can get into melee contact with them.

If you want to know if some army is strong or not you must play with a human opponent with roughly your level of skill and do so many times. Any battle against the AI are likely to end up the same no matter what side you play which say more about the AI than the armies involved.

jomni wrote:Why are the Indians in the desert? Maybe fight them in the jungle.

Huge swaths of "India" (a subcontinent, not a real country) are desert, specifically the regions rather south of the Himalayas, near a mountain range that tops the 'triangle'. Now maybe this makes it harder on the armies, but that's not unrealistic terrain for the (huge) region.

Cheimison wrote:

jomni wrote:Why are the Indians in the desert? Maybe fight them in the jungle.

Huge swaths of "India" (a subcontinent, not a real country) are desert, specifically the regions rather south of the Himalayas, near a mountain range that tops the 'triangle'. Now maybe this makes it harder on the armies, but that's not unrealistic terrain for the (huge) region.

Ah you’re right. The Thar desert is within Mauryan territory.

If anyone has good cost effective options against massed bowman I am all ears. I have been on both sides of the coin and find bowman to be one of the scariest troop types in the game. So far the only thing I can think of is to have skirmishing light troops screen and just eat as much of the arrow fire as possible.

MikeC_81 wrote:If anyone has good cost effective options against massed bowman I am all ears. I have been on both sides of the coin and find bowman to be one of the scariest troop types in the game. So far the only thing I can think of is to have skirmishing light troops screen and just eat as much of the arrow fire as possible.

Depends on the terrain, but if you can throw a lot of heavily armored horsemen at them they can be dispersed (which makes them less effective) and often ridden down to death.
If you have several elephants, this works, too - elephants often take 0 damage from missile fire.

Cheimison wrote:

MikeC_81 wrote: elephants often take 0 damage from missile fire.

Despite low casualties, the number of times they get shot at stack up and increase the chance of failing a cohesion test.

Cheimison wrote:

MikeC_81 wrote:If anyone has good cost effective options against massed bowman I am all ears. I have been on both sides of the coin and find bowman to be one of the scariest troop types in the game. So far the only thing I can think of is to have skirmishing light troops screen and just eat as much of the arrow fire as possible.

Depends on the terrain, but if you can throw a lot of heavily armored horsemen at them they can be dispersed (which makes them less effective) and often ridden down to death.
If you have several elephants, this works, too - elephants often take 0 damage from missile fire.

I thought the entire point was to ensure your best units didn't have to go through cohesion checks before they got down to brawling.

MikeC_81 wrote:

Cheimison wrote:

MikeC_81 wrote:If anyone has good cost effective options against massed bowman I am all ears. I have been on both sides of the coin and find bowman to be one of the scariest troop types in the game. So far the only thing I can think of is to have skirmishing light troops screen and just eat as much of the arrow fire as possible.

Depends on the terrain, but if you can throw a lot of heavily armored horsemen at them they can be dispersed (which makes them less effective) and often ridden down to death.
If you have several elephants, this works, too - elephants often take 0 damage from missile fire.

I thought the entire point was to ensure your best units didn't have to go through cohesion checks before they got down to brawling.

If they are the best at resisting because of their morale, armour, etc. then they can well be the best troops to attack with. Right troops in the right place is the point.

nikgaukroger wrote:Keep seeing people posting that they have trouble with fighting the Indians and keep losing.

Well I've done 3 so far and this is a typical result:



So I'm wondering what armies people are having trouble beating the Indians with. I've just used Seleukids and Makedonians so far and have a 3-0 record.

Or is that they are playing real people rather than the AI? I've only played the AI.

Puzzled.

I'm in to play the Indians so you can add real people play experience to your list.
Beating the score of the AI seems not that hard, nice experiment.

nikgaukroger wrote: So I'm wondering what armies people are having trouble beating the Indians with. I've just used Seleukids and Makedonians so far and have a 3-0 record.

So the AI is kind of dumb.
The Seleukids and Makedonians are some of the best armies - good variety, and Veteran Phalanx are a match for any melee unit in the game.
Indian archers are pretty good, a bit like Cretan archers.

MikeC_81 wrote:If anyone has good cost effective options against massed bowman I am all ears. I have been on both sides of the coin and find bowman to be one of the scariest troop types in the game. So far the only thing I can think of is to have skirmishing light troops screen and just eat as much of the arrow fire as possible.

pretty much the easiest solution is the skirmisher screen which you already mentioned, other than that having a mssive wing of cavalry that charges as fast as possible can help in open terrain is helpful, but can go wrong cause elephants and terrain. the most slaughtered ive gotten in mp with indians was against seleukids with 1 layer of skimrishers, then phalanxes, then cavalry and medum foot behind that, skirmishers block fire, phlanax can eat a ton more shots, ammo runs out, phalances make contact, cavalry swarms out, medums clean up the survivors.

but yeah i do consider indians a very high tier list, especially if you use their elephants right and add some artillery to the mix

One way to find out is follow the results in the Fringe Tournament. Isn't one battle Indians v Sarmations? i.e.; a cav heavy army.

edb1815 wrote:One way to find out is follow the results in the Fringe Tournament. Isn't one battle Indians v Sarmations? i.e.; a cav heavy army.

No, it is Indian vs Indo-Greeks.