hey guys Spirit of the law here in this video we're going to continue the Through the Ages
Series where we take a look back at balance and design changes that civilizations have undergone
between their original release in this case 2012 and today as of 2024 this time we're going to be
looking at a big one the Indians now right away we hit a snag which is the original Indian Civ no
longer exists in the game having been effectively broken up into four different civilizations with
the dynasties of India release that said for all intents and purposes the original Indian Civ was
effectively replaced by the hindustanis with just bits and pieces of the old design showing up in
the bangalis dravidians and gurjaras especially in regards to the elephant Archer but I'm getting
a little ahead of myself going back in time to 2012 just 7 days after the much hyped end of the
Mayan calendar and by extension of course the World the Forgotten mod was released giving us
a first introduction to the Indians their initial design will no doubt seem quite familiar but had
some notable deviations from the hindustani today first off they had their villager discount which
was back then more modest starting at just 5% and growing each age their fishermen then worked 15%
faster and carry plus 15 food and important to remember is this is back before a villager could
drop off fish at a dock so that extra carry capacity was more handy than it sounds it was
very common for example after a villager built a dock to collect their full Carry capacity of
food from the shore before returning to your base their camels then had plus one +1 armor which is
a bonus that no longer exists in the game in any form and their team bonus was that camels had plus
five attack against buildings with camel Riders specifically having plus six as a hidden effect at
the castle Indians then had the elephant Archer as their unique unit featuring solid HP Pierce armor
and a bonus plus three against all buildings as well as an extra plus three against Towers walls
and stone gates that's an aspect of the elephant Archer that's actually completely absent today and
then the Indians also had the Imperial camel at the stable as their second unique unit as
for their unique techs they had very similar ones increasing all sources of gold income by 10% and
could then increase the hand cannons range by one now while the idea of a camel civ with discounted
villagers and long-range hand caners was there from the start if you're familiar with the current
hindustanis you'll note that every single one of those units text and bonuses has been changed in
some way since then still being tinkered with over 10 years later one aspect that was particularly
unique at that time was not having Knights In The Tech Tree American civs of course lack Knights as
well but have the eagle Warrior and also became more Archer and infantry focused whereas this
was a Cavalry Civ missing the core Castle a stable Unit Saracens were probably the closest to this by
not having Cavalier but missing Knights entirely and going camels as a knight replacement in Castle
age was a novel Direction given Knights have two more of each type of armor than camels you could
almost explicitly see that one of the Indians bonuses was trying to make those units more
similar the general feeling around Indians at the time is they were pretty weak until fully boomed
and could reach their power powerful late game units though this was way before the Republic
stats to support those kind of perceptions one critical issue Indians had was that camels as
a unit class prior to African kingdoms in 2015 were dealt a fairly bad Hand by the original devs
not only did they lack the knight's armor but they also took five extra bonus damage from Town Center
arrows seven from towers and 11 from Castle's extra arrows which was further increased with
heated shot this fact alone made camels much less viable as a night replacement than they are to
day similarly the general feeling about elephant archers was they began by being a little bit weak
and at the time I described them as a worse version of the war wagon initially Indians
lack the final armor upgrade along with elephant archers being more expensive attacking slower
moving slower having a more expensive Elite upgrade and taking extra damage from anti-
Archer bonuses compared to today while needing to be created at a castle to top it off on the
flip side they did have a bonus against buildings a bit more HP and better accuracy so they at least
had some things going for them the first big round of changes for Indians came along with the African
kingdoms DLC roughly 2 years after the official release of the Forgotten in that it was clear
Indians were deemed too weak on multiple fronts and had one of the largest all-around Buffs I can
recall any c getting in an HD expansion patch first their villager discount was increased by
5% every age doubling its impact in Dark Age in particular they then added guilds temporarily
added arrow slits before moving that later as they were pretty liberal with that Tech in the early
days and finally I'd argue most importantly added ring Archer armor to the Indian tech Tree giving
them one of the rare complete archery ranges that was a big help for the Indians elephant
Archer arbalester which they had at the time hand Canon ear and Elite skirmisher the elephant Archer
then had its individual cost and Elite upgrades food cost dropped along with some minor tweaks
to its HP and Pierce armor to somewhat balance the addition of the blacksmith Tech if all this wasn't
enough it's also when the camel and ship armor classes were split with camels becoming much less
punished by defensive buildings moving forward basically everything about the Indians got better
after African kingdoms and looking back to a video I made at the time I even commented that
it felt like African kingdoms brought five new civilizations with Indians given a new
life heading into 2016's rise of the Rajas DLC and accompanying patches the devs clearly thought they
had overdone it slightly with the Indians over the course of two patches they then lost arbalester
and their cam armor bonus was changed from plus one plus1 to just plus one pierce armor there
were then a few more minor changes to the elephant archers armor and the unique architecture set and
a new Wonder were adopted prior to this they had just had the Middle Eastern architectural style
like the Saracen or Persians and a wonder that was kind of pushing the ae2 timeline the perception
after these changes is they were overall a B tier Civ but with a good Eco bonus and a unique
play style players knew they were dangerous in post Imperial situations with arguably the
best camels of any Civ and could carry a team but weren't overwhelming in the early to mid
game especially in 1 v1s the most dramatic and controversial change for the Indians was yet to
come though in 2019s Definitive Edition in a move that rocked the aoe2 world the camel was renamed
the Camel Rider in addition to the arbalest becoming the arbalester some of us still try to
keep the good fight alive and push back against the new names and it was a difficult adjustment
for the true Veterans of the community a few other small changes were then applied to Indians at this
time of massive upheaval with the fisherman bonus being reduced to just a 10% faster work rate for
the sake of balance on maps with lots of starting shore fish along with docks becoming a drop off
point for fishermen elephant archers were then made a little cheaper and their attack rate was
boosted and another quiet change behind the scene was that the Indian's team bonus giving camels
more attack against buildings was changed from The Siege type of bonus damage and negated by Masonry
and architecture into the type of anti-b building attack that infantry have which isn't impacted by
those techs previously it had been possible for an enemy to basically counteract your team bonus in
Imperial age through the university a few patches later with yet another major rework the devs then
removed the last Cavalry armor from Indians hurting both the hussar and camels but modified
their bonus to give plus two Pierce armor in Imperial age instead of just plus one to at least
partly offset the Nerf to the camel despite making their bonus appear stronger this was definitely a
Nerf in the late game acknowledging that Indians were starting to become a popular and overwhelming
pocket civ in team games by this point they were even becoming sneaky good on open map 1 v1s as
well and in early 2021 for example despite being among the least popular Arabia picks they were
performing number three by win rate which I admit is something I was slow to wake up to now all of
this was building up to the major split that was going to occur in the dynasties of India
DLC and an unprecedented move may be spurred on by criticism of the Indian Civ encompassing too much
historical diversity Indians were of course split into four different civilizations though not all
equally inheriting the original Indians design this is when the elephant Archer was then made
into a regional unit for the Indian cves excluding the hindustanis being moved to the archery range
and having changes to its HP Pierce armor accuracy speed training time its anti- Cavalry bonus damage
and finally losing its bonus against buildings going from a castle to an archery range unit
involved almost a complete overhaul making them cheaper and easier to mass but in many
ways individually weaker each of the spin-off civs then also receive their own bonus or unique text
to enhance it and like the eagle Warrior there isn't really such a thing as a generic elephant
Archer as there's always something extra at play and some sort of trade-off this is also when the
armored and Siege elephant were added of course as a regional substitute for the ram line taking
more bonus damage from especially spear units but otherwise being a bit better in melee fights and
costing food instead of wood I would say both Regional units have been very welled and are a
fun way to make the Indian cives feel a little extra unique of course in the big breakup of
the Indians maybe the most interesting part is seeing how the pieces of the original Indian Civ
were transferred to the four variants Hindustanis inherited most of the the Indian tech tree with a
few exceptions notably the addition of plate baring armor again helping out their hazards
and camels against ranged units while that had originally been removed to beef up their camel
armor bonus that was replaced entirely with a new bonus letting their camels attack faster they then
received a lot of the Indians bonuses including the Villager discount the team bonus which was
produced in strength from plus4 to plus two and then expanded to include the team's light Cavalry
line as well as then adding a new armor bonus for hand caners they also absorb the Indians to unique
techs with one affecting the hand Canon ear range doubled to plus two range replace the previous
unique unit they then received the Ghulam as an anti- Archer specialist combining elements of the
huskarl and evil Warrior the caravanserai was then thrown in as a unique building for hindustanis and
later Persians giving them another late game gold bonus making a good late game Civ with extra gold
income from a unique Tech even better in that situation for some reason that said the other
Indian civs did manage to get bits here and there of the original Indian identity dravidians for
example have a bonus for fishermen in fishing ships to carry plus 15 food as well as keeping
the previous Indians Castle in Wonder Gars then retain a bit of the camel identity starting with
a camel Scout and having a bonus and unique Tech targeting camels specifically Bengalis then for
their part take the elephant aspect of the Indians a bit further though I would say they feel the
most novel all four Indian civs though retain the identifying feature of lacking Knights and having
to find something else at the stable or in the bengali's case at the castle to fill a similar
role immediately following that DLC the results were extremely polarized with hindustani Ander
jars as number one and number two on the ladder and Bengali then last with Dravidians not doing
much better for the hindustanis though as by far the clear continuation of the original Indian Civ
it was undeniable that they were dominating and the devs tried various nerfs including removing
halberdiers and reducing the ghulam's HP finally after 9 months of trying they hit hindustanis
where it hurt in their villager bonus reducing it to its original 5% discount in Dark Age which
immediately tanked hindustanis from number one to surprisingly below average in performance they've
also since lost guilds with their plus 10% gold generation unique Tech now giving them better
prices to buy and sell at the market and there was some further tinkering to the Ghulam given
the drop in the Villager discount seemed to be the straw that broke the camel civ's back so to speak
it was then partially restored to a compromise of minus 8% and leaves us with where hindustanis are
today the stats generally paint the picture of a very strong 1v1 and Team game SI and in
the longest continuous balance patch recently from December 2023 to the start of March 2024 they were
number one overall in 1 V1 Arabia and team games which is a pretty large sample size and tells us
they're still top tier the combo of camels and the Ghulam feels like a big part of that with
obviously their villager discount being incredibly flexible as well they have a strong answer to both
Cavalry and Archer civs and even in theory a good answer to infantry with their hand Cannon years
that'll do it for this retrospective though and honestly it's been quite the journey even recently
having gone from number one to below average back to it seems number one on the latter they probably
deserve the title of the most tinkered with Civ ever and that's even with ignoring balance changes
to the other three Indian civs entirely shout out to James Jarad2142 Justin Samantha Steven Woodruff
and everyone else on patreon as well as the AoE2 Wiki for its excellent organization of old patch
notes this was a lot to research and put together particularly because of how much the Indians have
changed and the fact they were renamed over the years thanks for watching I'll see you next time