hello.

My ESO name is appeL (lv l30-31), and I'm gonna do the effort to explain to you guys indian's most powerful strategy.
This is absolutely not something I invented, just to let you know india isn't as weak as evryone thinks. And I think quite a lot people already know how it works.

Rough description of the strategy.
Get some hard pressure early on: Age as quick as other Civs, If not faster, and get a amount of 11-12 sepoys in your enemies base fast, followed by more batches.

The sepoy
This is a big part of what makes the strategy so powerfull. U never felt that jannisary were to difficult, and too strong? Now with the sepoy you're dealing with the same problem. Not as bad as ashigaru, but still. French, germans, spanish, Iro's... they all don't have any decent counter to HI (heavy infantry) Like the sepoy, jannisary and ashi. And when you're opponent manages to get an equal amount of archers or skirmishers, the four sowar card helps u out, big time.

Deck and cards



The key cards are distributivism +1 villager, and 5 sepoy + 1 villager. Distributivism is a good eco boost, and you still are able to send it even when you have a full population (And get the vill extra). 5 sepoy is just to get the hard pressure early.

Detailed description of the strategy
Only use this strategy when u start with NO gold

Discovery age
- Shift 3 villagers to wood, collect crates with 2 villagers, 1 goes hunting. The crate villagers go chop wood aswell when u start with low wood and much food, Otherwise they go and hunt aswell.
- Don't build a house.
- As soon as you're pop hits 10/10 villagers, shift all your villagers to food.
- Send a villager forward.
- first card is distributivism
- (Get every treasure u can) food and wood have priority when u aren't aging yet.
- As soon as you hit 800 food, Build the agra fort with your forward villager. And shift ALL villagers to wood, build a house, and start queing villagers ASAP. After distribute your villagers over all three resources again.

Note
- Idle TC time is inevitable, you can only avoid this by getting 150 wood treasures or good food treasures, don't worry, it isn't too bad.

Transition discovery - colonial age
- When u age you want to have a 30 populaton, so get another house.
- you are getting sepoy's who cost 90 food and 30 gold,
Still i'd suggest 1 gold villie per 4 food villies. get a 5-6 on wood (villagers, houses, (...consulate, caravanserai))
- Don't brainlessly go 4 to in villagers, LOOK at your resources, when u a have 200 food and 100 gold, you will need more on food then on gold (5:1).

Note
The villager distribution can be hard, when you are in the segeant - lieutenant levels (and lower), still u will have to learn this in order to get better.

colonial age
- ship 5 sepoy ASAP - Queue 5 sepoy - send your 2 sepoy to your agra fort.
- PRESSURE!
- Get more batches
- ...


Here's a rec vs a lt colonel who's british. and they got a decent counter vs sepoy

Gl & HF

Note
My english isn't too good, so don't comment me about it. Ty