hey guys Spirit of the law here in this video we're going to be
taking an in-depth look at the hindustanis
now of course back in the day they were called the Indians and were unique as the elephant
Archer civilization but earlier this year the dynasties of India expansion overhauled them
focusing mostly on camels and gunpowder with a brand new unique infantry unit thrown in as
well according to the most recent stats available they're a top tier civilization in 1v1 open maps
and are among the strongest on closed Maps as well making me wonder if there might be
some slight changes coming in the next patch that great performance is partly due to a solid start
in Dark Age with cheaper villagers right off the bat though it's really in late Castle or early
Imperial age that everything truly comes together and makes them so formidable let's check them out
starting off with their team bonus their camels and light Cavalry lines have plus to attack
against buildings in this example red is a generic civilization and green is hindustanis with this
bonus you can see Scouts do nearly double the usual damage to Palisade walls with a single
unit hacking through them almost a minute faster likewise a small group of three attacking a gate
can bring it down comfortably in under a minute early Palisade walls are usually an effective
deterrent against Scout rushes though in this case that's kind of debatable for reference man-at-arms
typically destroy walls twice as fast as generic Scouts but compared to hindustani Scouts they're
only 20 percent faster which isn't that big of a difference similarly in Castle age camels
typically do only roughly half the damage to buildings that Knights do though after being
helped out by this bonus hindustani camels end up being actually quite comparable to Knights this
is of course very useful to make up for the fact that hindustanis miss the night line entirely and
at least when it comes to breaking through walls having camels in this case doesn't put you at a
massive disadvantage even in Imperial age again this bonus still helps normally a fully upgraded
Paladin has 18 attacks the Imperial camel's 12 but once you factor in the bonus damage and the
hindustani's faster camel attack the two come out to be quite comparable against buildings the point
is whether it's for raising a town in the late game or simply breaking in to do some damage
with Scouts it's a nice little bonus to keep pressure on an opponent who's trying to turtle
moving on to their property bonuses the first is their most iconic which is their villagers
become progressively cheaper as you advance Through the Ages in terms of total savings
it's going to depend on how many villagers you make at each stage and your general strategy but
with reasonable assumptions you can easily come up with numbers that give savings between a thousand
and 1500 food over a long game even in Dark Age alone where it gives the fewest savings you're
often going to get something on the order of 80 to 120 extra food which is already a significant
leg up and approaching the same ballpark as the lithuanians bonus this is an incredibly versatile
bonus not only helping if you're rushing but also if you're just in a pure booming game on four or
five Town centers it probably won't give you a villager numbers Advantage per se given that the
bottleneck is usually Town Center work time but these are resources freed up for extra scouts
camels skirmishers or staying on top of getting your tags one way I like to think of it is that
Indians can easily be a couple of farms behind an opponent and yet be no worse off given you
aren't spending as much on new villagers suffice to say it's just a very solid and versatile bonus
affecting the one unit you know for a fact you're gonna be making a lot of every game moving on
their next bonus is a relatively new one and it's that their camel Riders attack 25 faster just to
refresh the whole premise of camel's countering Knights is that their stats are worse but because
of bonus damage they basically cancel each other out with equal numbers the main reason people say
they counter Knights is just that camels cost fewer resources so over the long run you're
theoretically in a better position in the hint of stone his case though with this bonus they
actually win with a third of their HP left with equal numbers while still being cheaper of course
as well that shifts the dynamic from being a soft counter thanks to better value into a straight up
hard counter all thanks to this bonus they're 55 online win rate against Franks and 60 win
rate against berbers really speak for themselves and how well hindustani camels can handle even
very strong night saves the main drawback for extra attack is just that they still take the
same number of crossbow shots and are also more susceptible to town center and Castle fire than
Knights given their lower Base Pierce armor that's one department where they don't keep up
with regular Knights though don't worry as we'll see they still have a great answer to crossbows
it's just not camels next up their third bonus is their gunpowder units have an extra melee and
Pierce armor this is another recent change moving this from previously affecting camels to nail
gun powder units that actually impacts several different ones but honestly I wouldn't say any
of them in a major way none of these are really intended to take take a lot of direct hits and
their scariest counters often deal bonus damage that ignores armor anyway they lead skirmisher's
anti-archer damage against the hand Cannon here for example isn't affected nor the anti-ship
damage that largely dictates how water matchups are decided I see this mostly as a small boost for
your hand Cannon ears when being attacked by low damage enemies like hussar or crossbows where that
one extra armor can make a difference and finally their last bonus is that they can build the unique
caravanserai I recently looked into this building as its own video and was impressed with the
value proposition basically for your own or any friendly trade carts passing within eight tiles in
any direction they're healed by one HP per second and are also sped up by 20 percent that means not
only outrunning any melee unit in the game making them effectively unreadable by Cavalry but it also
means a slight uptick in gold generation as they can complete their round trip faster the building
costs 175 wood and 50 Stone and you'll need 8 to 12 to cover a good trade route depending on
map size so it feels like you're putting yourself behind by an entire castle if you were to invest
in them at the same time with an established trade line and several dozen trade cards every
player on your team is going to be recouping that stone cost every couple of minutes in the
form of gold there's some math behind it that I don't necessarily want to Deep dive for overview
purposes here but I found that despite large Maps needing more caravanserai you actually have
a greater return for each one added on a 4v4 map than a 2v2 even if it's only part of your trade
route that you're able to cover being able to both boost and protect the team's trade line is a major
factor in making hindustanis a fantastic Ally in drawn out team games so that's their bonuses
which you can see collectively really span the entire game from discounted villagers better
Scout rating against wallet bases camels that are especially good against Knights better late game
trade in team games and even a nice boost for your gunpowder units the funny thing is we haven't even
gotten to their unique unit which is sometimes considered one of their best options and certainly
for some civilizations like Mayans can be very tricky to deal with let's move on now and take a
look at the ghulam probably the most intuitive way to think of it would be as an eagle warrior with
a few notable differences at a glance they have pretty comparable stats and their cost is also
similarly weighted toward gold over food which is otherwise unusual for infantry both units are also
fast and have high pure summer again making them feel pretty comparable at least in their strengths
looking a bit deeper though their bonus damage is actually very different the ghulam is far more
specialized against archers whereas in terms of bonus damage Eagles are specialized against monks
Cavalry and Siege of course in practice both are quite strong against archers because of their pure
summer but the ghulam is just pushed a little extra in that direction they also have a unique
ability to attack units immediately behind their target feeling half damage to them which helps
especially against bunched up units again this has a ton of synergy against archers which are
often bunched up and sometimes intentionally put against a Woodline to minimize surface area and
that's where this ability really shines now that said despite appearing to be a spear unit it's not
really intended to excel against Cavalry even light Cavalry and Hazard can take a reasonably
good trade and against the Nightline especially they really don't hold up very well at all and
that is a major difference with the eagle Warrior which can at least hold its own similarly they
aren't really a good choice against most infantry and even generic Champions can walk all over them
in fact it's probably best to think of them as an anti-archer anti-cavalry Archer or just a rating
specialist they're very good in that role with their High armor speed bonus damage and ability
to punish units that are stacking too much it really adds an important anti-archer option that
hindustanis would otherwise lack given camels have such low Pierce armor I find they work really well
in combination with mangonels if you're seeing a lot of cross women and their quick creation
time helps you reach the critical mass that you need to take some truly great engagements
speaking of their camels though they actually have a second unique unit this time a unique
upgrade to the heavy camel at the stable up front it's a reasonably expensive upgrade at a
thousand food and 500 gold and that's actually a lower price than it was before dynasties of
India what you get for that cost is an extra 20 hp one more attack and secretly a reduced
training Time by two seconds which is frankly not an overwhelming upgrade on paper even compared to
something like the Paladin which gives seemingly twice the Improvement for only a bit higher cost
in fact Imperial camel isn't far off basically getting Bloodlines for your camels at around
six times that Technology's usual price now that isn't to say the upgrade is never worth it for
reference against paladins they take them out one attack sooner than generic units and survive one
more attack meaning there actually is a pretty noticeable difference side by side especially
compared to a Chinese or any non-hindustani camel that isn't getting their 25 faster attack
important to keep in mind is they're also still very weak to archers with zero base pure summer
and even with the 20 added HP they still only take about half the arrows from an arbalester
that a paladin does in the same way the ghulam is extremely specialized against archers the Imperial
camel should likewise be used against Cavalry as much as possible as it just doesn't have the
raw stats to hold up to mass archers or even good infantry units over the long run so that gives you
a good anti-archer option and a good anti-cavalry one but what do you make if you run into a lot of
infantry you actually have a couple of decent options but for probably your best choice we'll
need to look at the unique text the first is grand trunk Road previously called Sultans this allows
your gold sources like mining relics and trade units to generate 10 more of whatever they were
going to it comes with a pretty straightforward trade-off that you theoretically want to get it
as early as possible to maximize its potential but you also have to balance that with 800 resources
up front compared to the gold mining upgrades as well it looks pretty expensive and it's not until
after you start factoring in sources outside of mining that the price makes more sense
this is of course on top of the Caravans right already helping your trade units giving you up
to 30 percent more gold than usual personally I think picking it up in 1v1 games is a bit more
debatable especially if you haven't grabbed a good number of relics their other unique
Tech is shatagni which is actually pretty cheap and gives hand cannoneers plus 2 range. Range
bonuses are always difficult to quantify but with this they outrange a fully upgraded arbalester
Elite skirmisher and even onagers without Siege Engineers making all three of those much less
dangerous counters of course the trade-off for more range is that it also makes them a bit less
accurate as accuracy is negatively impacted by distance though I think in this case the tech is
still a very clear net positive of course remember this is also on top of having extra armor as well
making them overall better at both long and close range so that's their unique units and tax and you
can see between them you have a good response to archers Cavalry and infantry at least in the
late game once you've unlocked hand cannoneers you wouldn't necessarily combine the ghulam Imperial
camel and hand cannoneers at the same time of course but depending on what your opponent's
making you should have at least one solid option to make in response in fact between their cheaper
villagers and good late game selection they're a pretty versatile civilization and certainly not
a one-trick pony with their camels let's move on now though and take a look at that variety
of options in their Tech Tree starting with the archers note that they don't have the elephant
Archer as that's just the other three Indian civs that have that available there are also
missing arbalester which Indians in the past had for quite some time Cavalry archers are actually
an interesting option against infantry as well and are fully upgraded and at least Castle age
they even have decent crossbows giving a couple of viable options that hindustani players will
regularly use that said in Imperial age the Cavalry archers are eventually missing parthian
tactics and you're also missing our blast meaning both of those unit lines lose quite
a bit of steam in the late game at that point the big standout is the hand Cannon ear with
potentially two extra range and its additional armor I'd give them a B plus as you have very
reasonable Archer range options in both castle and Imperial just unfortunately with different
unit types meaning you may have to transition next up for infantry lake at the archery range
things start out pretty well but by the late game they're missing both halberdier and the
final armor upgrade the missing halberdier is of course because of your good camels and while they
don't officially have Eagle Warriors either the ghulam actually fills a reasonably similar role
while taking less bonus damage from the militia line considering the final missing armor and
how much more dangerous that makes enemy archers I'm gonna go with a B at the barracks the ghulam
itself is very strong but taken holistically through Barracks options really aren't all
that impressive moving on to Cavalry again they have no access to the Nightline and instead that
role is played at least in part by camels given their extra attack speed damage against buildings
and unique Imperial upgrade though and ends up being a pretty serviceable replacement they're
still overall cheaper than Knights and paladins and can end up being a nice option in team games
especially the light Cavalry line is also fully upgraded and considering your savings on villager
costs a food only unit is a nice fit with that bonus for me the stable is an A minus held back
mostly by camels being more susceptible to archers and defensive buildings taking a look now at Siege
we didn't talk about it yet but they have the armored elephant instead of the regular battering
ram line while Siege and armored elephants are more susceptible to anti-cavalry units like
halberdier they can also fight back better against things like villagers and are a bit faster moving
than Rams so all in all I think they might be a bit of a net Improvement on the ram line in some
situations other than that hindustanis are missing a couple of final upgrades though between bombard
Cannon and onager with Siege Engineers you usually have enough to work with I give it a b-plus next
up for the Navy nothing immediately jumps out as a significant bonus in either early or late
Naval games while they're also missing some useful late game texts like Fast Fire Ship and shipwreck
cheaper villagers never hurt but for the early game I'd say it's a pretty generic C plus for
me and late games something similar overall I think water is a pretty clear weak point for
the civilization as a whole taking a quick look now at monks while there's no immediately obvious
monk bonus at play all the key texts are there aside from atonement which lets you convert enemy
monks and heresy which is something more for units than monks anyway theoretically you do have some
extra cool generation from relics and a bit of an extra incentive to get them with your unique Tech
and I'd say they're a solid B overall throwing in some monks to heal your armored elephants camels
and hand cannoniers can be a pretty smart play even if hindustanis aren't typically thought of
as a monk civilization moving on to defenses you're actually missing quite a few things
at the University especially related to Towers on the other hand they specialize in some good
counter units though like camels against Cavalry ghulam against archers and hand cannoneers against
infantry remember their trade lines are also borderline unraidable by melee units so there's a
lot outside the university making them a good civ under pressure and I like them enough for a B plus
in defenses and finally for the last category of the trash units again I'd say they're pretty solid
the spear line is obviously lacking some text but can still play its anti-cavalier role and
we could give some bonus points for potentially more gold generation from relics even if it's
just an extra 10 don't forget their hazards also have extra attack against buildings as well and
I'd say it's a B for their trash units as in my opinion it feels roughly average in the grand
scheme of things so to give some closing thoughts it's hopefully becoming clear why they're one of
the top performances at the moment in open maps they have a strong economy on the back of their
villager discount and starting in Castle age have a great answer to both Cavalry and Archer
civs with either camels or glum respectively in fact it's probably not a surprise to learn and
seems like what we'd expect to see that infantry civs are the ones that tend to give them the most
trouble given the current meta so often revolves around crossbow and night civs at times it makes
hindustanis feel like the ultimate anti-meta civ basically the more your opponent plays into those
usual strategies the better it seems to work out for hindustanis though at the same time I don't
think they're entirely defined by their ghulam and camels their Scouts for example can be a very fun
and effective opening given their strong early Eco and their extra damage against walls not entirely
obvious as well I think their Cavalry archers are also an interesting option and are a little extra
tempting given your lack of our Blaster to turn you from going all in in Castle age on crossbows
any way you slice it you're really encouraged to step outside of the usual crossbow and night
choices and if that's something that appeals to you then Hindustanies are a fantastic choice and
even happen to be one of the best performing civs at the moment as well that'll do it for this one
though big thanks to Seb Woodruff John Joxter Kyle Justin James Jean-Paul Samantha and everyone else
on patreon for their amazing ongoing support thanks for watching and I'll see you next time