Indian (Civ6)

The Indian people represent a civilization in Civilization VI. They are led by Gandhi, under whom their default colors are dark purple and turquoise; and (with Rise and Fall) by Chandragupta, under whom their colors are reversed.
The Indians' civilization ability is Dharma, which provides their cities with the Follower Beliefs of all religions practiced within them. In Gathering Storm, Indian cities also receive +1 for every religion with at least one follower, their Missionaries have 2 more spreads and their output +100% Religious Pressure. Their unique unit is the Varu, and their unique tile improvement is the Stepwell.
== Strategy ==
Starting bias: None
With strong generation, massive and populous cities from their Stepwells, and bonus from present religions, India is one of the best civilizations for a Religious Victory under Gandhi. On the other hand, armed with their powerful Varu, India can also compete for a Domination Victory, particularly under the leadership of Chandragupta.
=== Dharma ===
==== Religious pressure and religion follower system ====
There are multiple ways a city can accumulate or lose religious pressure:
* Every time a city grows a Population, it adds 50 religious pressure of the majority religion (including atheism).
* Cities with a majority religion exerts 1 religious pressure per turn of that religion to all cities within 10 tiles. This pressure is increased to 2 if the city has a Holy Site and to 4 if it is a Holy City.
* Cities with a majority religion exert 0.5 religious pressure per turn to any city that's sending a to it, and +1 religious pressure per turn to any city it's sending a to. This will get covered later, but for India, these numbers get doubled to 1 and 2, respectively.
* A spread charge of a Missionary adds religious pressure equal to 2 times its current HP, and removes 10% of all other religious pressure present.
* A spread charge of an Apostle adds religious pressure equal to 2.2 times its current HP, and removes 25% of all other religious pressure present. It will remove 75% of all other religious pressure present if that Apostle has the Proselytizer .
* A charge of an Inquisitor removes 75% of all other religious pressure present.
* Winning a theological combat adds 250 religious pressure to all cities within 10 tiles.
* Losing a religious unit in theological combat or from a military unit's condemnation subtracts 250 religious pressure from all cities within 10 tiles, unless the Monastic Isolation belief is adopted.
* If the Pilgrimage Founder belief is adopted, every to city-states adds 200 religious pressure there.
The number of followers of a certain religion in a city is calculated based on the ratio of religious pressure accumulated among different religions, including atheism, then rounded. For example, a city has 200 religious pressure of Islam, 100 of Buddhism, and 100 of atheism, the ratio of follower will be 2:1:1, respectively. Therefore, if that city has 7 Population, there will be 3 Islam followers, 1 atheist and 1 Buddhist, none of which will establish a majority religion. When that city reaches 8 Population, there will be 4 Islam followers, 2 atheists and 2 Buddhists, making Islam the majority religion.
==== Bonuses for having multiple religions present in cities ====
If going for a Religious Victory, this seems somewhat counter-intuitive. Rather than attempting to extinguish all other religions in your cities (by using an Inquisitor, for example), it is in India's best interest to have a flourishing mixing pot of different religions. However, this ability in and of itself is already quite powerful, because Follower beliefs are some of the most game changing beliefs in the game, with the largest, most game changing benefits from religion, such as the massive amounts of from Work Ethic or the great boon to from Choral Music. What's more, every religion is guaranteed to have a Follower belief, meaning that India is guaranteed to benefit from this so long as there are multiple religions present in their cities.
This ability basically turbo-charges India's religion by adding more Follower beliefs to it, as long as you can balance the number of followers in the city correctly. In order for this ability to achieve highest efficacy, your cities need to have Population high enough for multiple religions to establish a foothold (your Stepwell will help with this). The maximum number of religions can be founded in a game depends on the map size (not the number of players in game), starting at 2 on Duel maps up to 7 on Huge maps.
Also, in Gathering Storm, for every religion present in the city, 1 is granted. That is why although not mandatory, India's ability works best when India has a religion of its own, especially when led by Gandhi. Having a religion of your own and establishing it in every city of yours adds at least an extra Follower belief and a belief of another type and 1 . This is especially strong considering that in Gathering Storm, cities no longer start with 1 free anymore. 
To truly maximize the number of religions present in your city, there are two things to pay attention to:
* Your cities need to have high Population. A religion is only considered as "present" if it has at least 1 follower in the city, which means the number of present religions will never exceed the city's Population. It may be tempting to have a city with x Population and x religions present (despite being quite unrealistic), it is vital that a city should always have a majority religion, so that you can purchase religious units of that religion, and spread that religion's presence to other cities. 
* In order to fully take control of the number of religions present, it is a good idea to settle new cities close to the territory of other civilizations who already founded a religion. These new cities will quickly succumb to foreign religious pressure, which can be a good base to buy Missionaries to spread new religions to other bigger cities in your empire. Once you have spread this new religion's presence everywhere, you can convert those peripheral cities of yours back to your own religion if your religion has a good Founder, Enhancer and Worship belief. Otherwise, you can just leave those smaller cities under foreign religions, so that when you found new cities, you can spread presence of other religions to those new cities as well. Just pay attention to the majority religion of your whole empire, as long as at least 50% of your cities follow your religion, you're good to go.
==== Additional spread charges for Missionaries ====
This is a useful aspect and synergizes quite well with all the bonuses you will get for having multiple religions in a city. Missionaries have 2 clear advantages over Apostles in facilitating the establishment of multiple religions. First and most obvious, they are a lot cheaper. Second, they are just the better fit for the job. You don't want to completely convert your cities to a new religion, you just want at least 1 follower of each religion present. Each Missionary spread only removes 10% of other religious pressure while each Apostle spread removes 25%, so the chance you accidentally remove too much pressure of minority religions with Missionaries is very low.
When using Missionaries outside of your territory, it can be a bit trickier, especially against religious civilizations with good output, like Russia or Ethiopia, since Missionaries are very susceptible to Apostles and defending Inquisitors. However, you can circumvent this by starting your religious endeavors earlier than other civilizations. This ability doesn't synergize too well with Chandragupta, but under Gandhi, with the extra from this leader ability, the fact that you can easily earn a Golden Classical Era after building a Stepwell and training a Varu for an Exodus of the Evangelists dedication, and maybe the Holy Order belief, you can start spreading your religion way before other civilizations have Apostles. With the Golden Age dedication Exodus of the Evangelists, and later a Mosque in the city, and an optional Hagia Sophia, your Missionaries can have 9 charges. Just from an economic standpoint, as long as you have these conditions lining up, it is always better to purchase a Missionary than an Apostle to spread your religion, unless you're the suzerain of Yerevan, which allows you to freely choose any Apostle .
==== Boosted religious pressure from Trade Routes ====
In Civilization VI, religious pressure spread from s are minor, and even with India's bonus, it still barely makes any difference. The idea of spreading religious pressure through s is that you always get back more pressure than you give. Let's say, when City A sends a to City B, City A exerts 0.5 pressure of its religion to City B, but receives 1 pressure of City B's religion. (India doubles these numbers to 1 and 2, respectively.) Therefore, the prospect of focusing your s to one international destination to flip that city to your religion is incredibly slow and unrealistic, especially for big cities with their own Holy Sites. Even if you're sending domestic s between cities with different majority religions, diversifying religious presences to activate your civilization ability, you have a better, faster, more reliable (yet still very cheap) way to achieve this: through Missionaries. All in all, this "ability" is only there for thematic purposes, as its consequences are all very limited.
=== Satyagraha ===
Gandhi has one of the worst leader abilities in the entire game. His bonus stays significant for only a short while, phases out of relevance quickly and can be easily nullified. It is a rare ability whose efficacy depends almost entirely on actions of others, not you, which leads to another issue: lack of reliability. Overall, try your best to found your own religion, and pretty much let fate take the wheel.
==== Extra Faith from peaceful religion founders ====
Gandhi's India receives 5 per turn for each civilization that has founded its own religion and currently not at war, including India. Note that other empires do not have to be at war with India specifically to nullify Gandhi's bonus, it just needs to be at war with any other major civilizations. While this certainly is a significant bonus at the start of the game, it pales a bit in the later stages of the game where you have multiple cities with Holy Sites producing , in addition to other sources.
For reference, a single Holy Site with a +2 adjacency bonus, a Shrine, a Temple, and a worship building that yields +3 (a Cathedral, Gurdwara, Meeting House, Mosque, Pagoda, or Wat) will produce 13 per turn. This is practically the lower limit for how much a well-placed Holy Site can produce; combine the right policy cards and pantheon, and you can easily break 20.
In the beginning, focus on exploration to scout out as many civilizations as you can, as the extra can be quite substantial in early eras. However, when the conquering begins, you will start to lose this bonus quite easily, as it depends on actions of others, not you, and there is little you can do to change it. You can even lose the 5 you earn for founding a religion if you receive a declaration of war, so even that is not secured by being peaceful. One small opportunity can arise when two religion founders are at war with one another. Although you will lose out on 10 per turn since both these civilizations are less likely to have another enemy, you can take advantage of the situation, swoop in and convert both of them.
==== Double war weariness for enemies ====
In addition, any civilization at war with Gandhi receives double the penalty to . To quickly summarize how war weariness works, for every battle fought and death incurred, both sides of the war gain war weariness. Battles and deaths that take place on foreign soil, and wars in later eras incur more weariness. Also, surprise wars incur more war weariness than wars with a Casus Belli.
This bonus, coupled with the Varu, can dissuade other empires from ever declaring war on you. Lots of casualties on Indian soil against Gandhi can incur a huge amount of negative rapidly, which may allow you to stay peaceful and keep your 5 for a bit longer (not that this bonus matters that much). However, after your Varu becomes obsolete, you still need to be on the lookout. War weariness is most dreadful during a long, drawn-out war with a lot of casualties. If your army is weak and can barely offer resistance, any invasion attempt will be quick and conclusive, rendering this ability not much of an insurance against invasion, but being totally worthless.
=== Arthashastra ===
Chandragupta is vastly superior as the leader of India. While Gandhi's bonus is insignificant, quickly becomes irrelevant and largely undependable, Chandragupta's ability is powerful and maintains its prowess long after it becomes available, allowing India to snowball quickly toward a Domination Victory.
Chandragupta's India allows you to play more aggressively. With Arthashastra, you may declare a War of Territorial Expansion after researching the Military Training civic. After using this Casus Belli, units gain +5 Combat Strength and +2 for 10 turns. This bonus catapults the status of the Varu from a slow-moving defensive cavalry unit to an unstoppable blitzkrieg Classical Era tanks. After Political Philosophy, in order to reach Military Training, you also need Military Tradition and Games and Recreation. Since your first push will be mounted on the shoulders of the Varu, which is unlocked with Horseback Riding, a tech that is easy to beeline, you need a healthy generation of in the early game to reach Military Training quickly. Therefore, build Monuments in every city and assign Pingala with Connoisseur in your largest city, most likely your .
In order to declare a War of Territorial Expansion, you need two cities within 10 tiles of two cities of another civilization, which makes this one of the easier casus belli condition to satisfy. There are two notes regarding this:
* This makes Chandragupta almost a non-factor on water-heavy maps, maps with high degrees of discontinuity, or maps where the number of players is reduced. India, as a whole, is an underwhelming civilization. They have a finnicky civilization ability, a very underwhelming tile improvement, and a slow and defensive unique unit. Without being able to activate Chandragupta's ability, India is an overall subpar civilization.
* Unlike other early domination civilizations, you actually need to put effort into early expansion before starting your conquest. At least 2 more Settlers (3 cities in total) can be a good base to launch your attack.
Similar to other Casus Belli, a 5-turn denunciation is required. Within 10 turns of a War of Territorial Expansion being declared, a Varu has 45 Combat Strength and can move as fast as a Horseman. Additionally, since a unit next to a Varu has its Combat Strength lowered by 5, a Varu basically has 50 Combat Strength in battles against adjacent units, essentially making it an Ancient/Classical Knight! Try to finish the war quickly before the bonus runs out, so that your army has enough time to heal and start the next conquest. Keep original and cities required for Loyalty only, so the lack of won't weigh you down too much. You can completely wipe out empires or you can keep them barely alive, in case you become the target of an Emergency. In that situation, all you need to do is to declare a War of Territorial Expansion on one of the civilizations you have "visited" but still keep alive to give your army a boost against the Emergency participants. The empires you have crippled most likely already denounced you, and cannot cause you extra troubles.
Regarding religions, although India's ability is better if you can found a religion of your own (as detailed above), it is not mandatory. In the early game, you have to prepare for your attacks by building Monuments, Settlers, Builders, and ideally an Encampment with a Stable, your plate is a bit too full to comfortably fit a Holy Site and a Shrine in anywhere. If you start conquering early and manage to capture a few Holy Sites before all religions are founded, you can potentially get one of your own. Although Crusade seems tempting for any religious-domination civilization, it is very much a "win-more" way of thinking, and you most likely won't use it. Customize your religion to maximize to keep your conquered cities happy and loyal. These Holy Sites, as well as the Stepwells, will help provide to be used in combination with the Grand Master's Chapel, keeping your army up to date beyond the relevance of the Varu.
=== Stepwell ===
The Stepwell is an underwhelming tile improvement, as it directly competes for space with Farms and can usually be replaced with Farms for better yields.
Players are incentivized to build Stepwells next to a Farm and a Holy Site. A yield of +2 , +1 , and +1 is a strong yield in the Ancient Era, when they first become available. Even with just Farm adjacency, +2 and +1 is better than a Farm until Feudalism is researched. The key words in the previous sentence are "until Feudalism is researched." Feudalism marks a crucial milestone in every civilization's civic development, since it unlocks the powerful Serfdom policy card. Building Stepwells in the early game means you will have to train more Builders to build Farms elsewhere to trigger the for Feudalism. Feudalism only unlocks two eras after the Stepwell, making any investment into Stepwells inefficient. Additionally, the bonuses for building Stepwells adjacent to multiple Farms and Holy Sites aren't cumulative, so the Stepwell will often interfere with triangular placement of Farms. And since Stepwells cannot be placed next to one another, the total and can get from Stepwells building Stepwells in one city are always less than just focusing on building Farms.
There are three other unique improvements that grant 1 right from the get-go: the Kampung, Terrace Farm, and Mekewap. These, however, are among the most powerful improvements in the game because they either have a unique placement restriction that allows the civilization to take advantage of certain terrains before other civilizations can, or provide huge yields that scale well ( for the Mekewap, and for the Terrace Farm and Kampung). Stepwells provide , but in an amount so small it doesn't make a difference: +1 with Feudalism and an additional +1 if placed next to a Holy Site. All in all, what the Stepwell critically lacks is an identity, as it's very hard to answer the question of why you should build Stepwells instead of Farms. A Stepwell may require less space and provide more than a Farm, but extra without enough to grow your cities is meaningless.
Despite their shortcomings, there are a few situations in which Stepwells should be considered. Since they can be built on terrain that Farms cannot, they make expansion into Desert, Tundra, and Snow biomes more feasible, which is especially important if you plan on building Petra, St. Basil's Cathedral, or the Amundsen-Scott Research Station. As unique improvements, Stepwells built outside a city's 3-hex workable area still provide extra when Farms do not. Lastly, in the expansions, an early Stepwell and Varu can help India reach a in the Classical Era. Gandhi can pick Exodus of the Evangelists to found and spread his religion, while Chandragupta can make good use of the extra Loyalty pressure when he begins his conquest with the Varu.
=== Varu ===
The most important aspect of the special ability of the Varu is that it acts on multiple units at the same time. A single Varu will reduce the Combat Strength of all enemy units next to it, so the best use for these majestic beasts is to throw them directly into the line of battle and support them with other hard-hitting troops. The Varu will not only weaken all adjacent enemies, but they will also do decent damage. Varu are also an amazing defensive troop since a group of them will weaken an entire army, reducing the damage done to your cities.
Under Gandhi, this unit is more defensive with a domination tendency for skilled players since it is quite slow, but under Chandragupta, the Varu force turns absolutely deadly. Once a War of Territorial Expansion is declared (one of the easier Casus Belli to satisfy), it moves as fast as the standard Horseman, and its 40 Combat Strength and ability to weaken surrounding enemies make it the strongest military unit on the field. A Spearman has only 30 Combat Strength (counting its +10 bonus against cavalry) when fighting next to one Varu, and (in vanilla Civilization VI and Rise and Fall) even less when next to two or more of them. Aim for Military Tradition to unlock Maneuver and keep cranking out an army of Varu, and nothing will be able to stop your march. The Varu's Combat Strength penalty to nearby units even applies to both land and naval units, even when the Varu is embarking. However, it will not reduce the Combat Strength of a nearby embarked unit below the embarkation Combat Strength threshold.
With the release of Gathering Storm, Varu change in some noteworthy ways. The Combat Strength penalty they impose on enemy units is no longer cumulative, so enemies will lose 5 Combat Strength even if they're adjacent to multiple Varu, balancing out its power level a little bit. However, in exchange, their maintenance cost is reduced from 3 to 2, so the Indians won't put as much of a strain on their economy by adding some Varu to their army. Lastly, they can still be trained after unlocking Cuirassiers (until Combustion renders them obsolete).
Overall, the Varu is a powerful and effective unit killer. Its negative Combat Strength aura helps your other units, especially ranged units on the backline, deal more damage on offense and take less damage on defense as well. It is a crucial unit under Chandragupta, much less so under Gandhi.
=== Victory Types ===
With their boost to from Stepwells and Satyagraha, India is among the top contenders for a Religious Victory. The penalty to for other civilizations helps Gandhi survive the inevitable backlash in the form of Holy Wars from practically all other founders of religions, while Chandragupta can just conquer early religious rivals instead.
Alternatively, the bonus may be fueled towards Great People, particularly if India can acquire the Oracle. Following this approach, they can focus on a Cultural Victory, but there are a lot of other civilizations that have the advantage against them.
A third approach is to build massive amount of generation, change government to a Theocracy and purchase a massive army with to conquer the world. In addition to your advantage in warmongering, your enemies' cities will struggle against the inevitable penalty (if you're playing as Gandhi) or a faster-moving army (if playing as Chandragupta).
Science Victory is a possibility if focusing on building tall (large cities) and funnelling the Population towards scientific districts, provided you can acquire enough to keep them all happy.
Domination Victory becomes a more viable option when playing as Chandragupta. Both the Stepwell and the Varu are available along with the Dharma ability while the leader bonus becomes Arthashastra. With Arthashastra, declaring a War of Territorial Expansion gives you +2 and +5 Combat Strength for military units for 10 turns, which can be a decisive factor in the war. After conquering another civ with a religion, use your Missionaries to spread their religion to your cities to take advantage of the civ ability. This can easily get you 2-3 more per city and massive bonuses to cities with Holy Sites. This benefits your empire and makes future conquest much easier.
=== Counter Strategy ===
Most of India's bonuses are weak and inconsequential, with the exception of Chandragupta's leader ability...assuming he can activate it. If he can't declare a War of Territorial Expansion, he literally doesn't have a leader ability, and like any Casus Belli, that has a five-turn period of warning. Unless you're Canada, you can cut in with a Surprise War and fight him on your own terms - just be aware of the from such an approach.
That aside, the only big thing you need to worry about against India is their potential for a strong religious push. Having your own religion and defending it in your own lands will stop India ever winning a Religious Victory, and because India has a particular incentive to rely on their buffed Missionaries for religious spread, you can bring Apostles into theological combat and face less resistance than you might think. The Proselytizer is particularly valuable for taking India down a peg, because its charges will weaken all other religions in that city and that can deny them and other bonuses.
== Civilopedia entry ==
== Cities ==
== Citizens ==
Males 	Females 	Modern males	Modern females
Darshan 	Anasuya 	Ameretat 	Aanya
Govind 	Asha 	Armaan 	Aarohi
Kuruvilla	Bhadraa 	Dhruv 	Diya
Krishna 	Dakshina	Jaskirit 	Lakshya
Narayan 	Kerani 	Krishna 	Mrinalini
Paramveer	Lajila 	Pranay 	Navya
Pulkit 	Reeya 	Rayansh 	Priyanka
Purshotam	Savatari	Tanish 	Tanvi
Surya 	Sita 	Utkarsh 	Sushma
Uday 	Vineeta 	Vivaan 	Vaani
== Trivia ==
* Prior to the release of Gathering Storm, Gandhi's colors were magenta and cyan, and Chandragupta's the reverse.
* The Indian civilization's symbol is the Sacred (Indian) Lotus, the national flower of India, which occupies a unique position in ancient Indian art and mythology.
* The Indian civilization ability is named after the Hindu and Buddhist principle of cosmic order.
* India's theme music is based on the Hindu bhajan "Vaishnava Jana To," which was one of Gandhi's favorite bhajans. It is commonly played to honor or symbolize him.
* The Indian architecture style in the Medieval Era is based on Mughal architecture. The Mughal style is also shared by the Arabs, the Persians, the Scythians, and the Ottomans.
==Soundtrack==
== Gallery ==
File:Civ6 varu1.jpg|The Varu, India's unique unit
File:Stepwell civ 6.jpg|The Stepwell, India's unique improvement
File:Indian capital.JPG|Indian capital in Medieval Era
== Videos ==
File:CIVILIZATION VI - First Look- India|First Look: India (Gandhi)
File:Civilization VI- Rise and Fall – First Look- India|First Look: India (Chandragupta)
== Related achievements ==
== See also ==
* Indian in other games
ru:Индия (Civ6)
Category:Indian
Category:Civilization VI: Rise and Fall