Rhye’s and Fall of India

UHV

Indias unique historic victory conditions are:

1. Found Buddhism and Hinduism
2. Found at least 5 religions
3. Be 1st in population in 1350 AD

Unique Power

Spirituality: No anarchy in revolutions.

Unique Building – Mausoleum

Unique Unit – Punjabi Worker

The Punjabi Worker has a +25% bonus on building tile improvements, which definitely helps building all those plantations in India. Nonetheless I would have wished for a more powerful unique unit.

Indian Strategy

Rhye’s and Fall India is challenging, but fun to play. The first goal is easy, founding 5 religions is hard. The last goal can be undermined by the pest sometimes, because with the latest version of RnF, you need to be first in population by 1350 AD – exactly the century of the black death.

I find it hard to go for Judaism. Because it forces you to invest so much upfront in that technology while leaving out everything that is essential to improving your land: Techs like agriculture, pottery, the wheel, animal husbandry. I am not willing to leave my land barren only to found Judaism. Especially with 2 other options around: Taoism and Confucianism. Confucianism is usually the first religion founded by China, which will also go for Taoism later. But you can beat them to it with your excellently improved land and loads of bonus resources.

Founding Takshashila (on the forest 1 N of the Marble) still is a great idea. The next cities should be:

1. Dhaka – at the east coast, right between 2 bananas, dyes, spices – this is a great spot!
2. Pitikapuram – at the east coast, between fish and cow
3. Cochin – in the south, at the west coast, in range of both sugar and cow (by the way a place I have visited already – it’s beautiful there!!!)
4. Mumbai – at the west coast, probably too late to make a difference, but still

With all those cities being at the coast you can boost your health by having fish yourself and trading for crab and clam. The harbor improves your trade route yield (more commerce = more research = higher chance on religions) and provides +3 health in those cities!

The northern Indian cities

and the cities in the south of the subcontinent.

Also: Take care for all those cities to be improved by an army of workers immediately. Having pottery early again is vital for this strategy. Almost all bonus resources you have provide extra food. So build Cottages (+1 commerce) early! Some of them will have grown to Hamlets (+2 commerce), Villages (+3 commerce), even Towns (+4 commerce) before you reach Islam, so you’ll benefit greatly!

Playing Rhye’s and Fall India like that should provide you with a strong economy enabling you to both build some wonders you might find helpful and build units for defense (and eventually offense, too)!

The biggest threat to making the UHV in my opinion is the pest. I always dealt with it by recklessly whipping down population for buildings. You also can potentially avoid it entirely be closing borders and stopping trade with Europeans and other civs who get affected/infected.

Unique Historical Victory with India

Ranking as India

Rhye’s and Fall India – Beyond the UHV

After achieving the UHV, I played India for several centuries more. It’s fun to see the Europeans come (and make them go again): The Dutch, the British, the Portuguese. They’ll all come by and sooner or later even demand your cities in a world congress (just reload or say no and wage war). You know about the world congress exploit, do you? Loading the AutoSave of the turn of the congress skips it entirely! No harm done to you (but also no random AI vs. AI wars).

Before I finally collapsed in 2049, I subjugated America, having half of it as a second Indian (haha!) dominion and the remaining American cities as my vassal. The Netherlands became my vassal, too, which basically put Australia, South Africa, the Caribbean and most of Europe under my (indirect) control. All in all Rhye’s and Fall India was the game of Rhye’s and Fall with the most years played. It starts 4000 BC and I kept it stable until 2049 AD. That’s 6.049 years! With China I collapsed much earlier. And even Ethiopia, which I played until 2300 only starts some thousand years after India.

The Netherlands, America, Turkey, Egypt – all under Indian rule.

India is the superpower – with a foothold on every continent.

The usual official strategy guides are still here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090514073418/http://rhye.civfanatics.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rhye%27s_and_Fall_of_Civilization_-_Indian_strategy