Indians/Strategic Overview

In Swords of the Prophets the Indians are depicted as an intellectual faction, with a fairly powerful army to boot. Whjile they don't exactly have any economic bonuses to speak of, the one ability they have — the ability to generate Influence and use it in Library research faster than anyone else — can be a very powerful boon if used properly. Being able to research something faster than everyone else -- and earn more Influence on the side -- helps the Indians well, especially since they are very dependent on elite UUS to do their dirty work.
 * Strengths: Good economic bonuses, strong archer component, great navy — possibly the best one. Decent Wonder allotments.
 * Weaknesses: Mediocre cavalry, near lack of good heavy infantry units.

Speaking of UUs, it pays to discuss UUS with regards to India, given how important they tend to be to any Indian army of Swords of the Prophets. Consisting mainly of a post-Gupta, early mediaeval army, your roster has a series of Elephants and elite infantry. Three elephant units are available to India as opposed to just one for the Tibetans and Tang China (the mercenary War Elephant) or two for Srivijaya, alongside two elite infantrymen - Gada Infantry, and Kshatriya Swordsmen. Infantry-wise, the Gupta are mainly into melee infantry. Like the Koreans, they are able to recruit Swordsmen as opposed to Militia like Japan and the Franks, but that is not where their main forte lies. That rests with two elite units, the Gada Infantry, and the Kshatriya Swordsmen. Gada Infantry, while slow and not very heavily armoured, are nevertheless devastating if used against infantry. Similarly, Kshatriya Swordsmen are a "counter-India" unit, using greater agility and training to overwhelm enemy infantry units, and are the only sword unit resistant to elephant attacks. These units are elite units, however, but given that they cost more Influence than any real resource, it is therefore not exactly a challenge for the Indian player to be able to field them whereso needed.

At sea, the Indians are second to none. They have access to the War Junk — possibly by far the most powerful of all heavy ships in Swords of the Prophets. Although somewhat slow, it is more than capable of functioning as a heavy ship in its own right, being sufficiently powerful for use in all manner of scenarios. The Indians like the Makurians have access to the War Barge, but this is in essence nothing more than a weaker version of the War Junk and so should be avoided, unless you are assaulting enemy fortifications by sea.

Despite all of this, the Indians suffer from two glaring defects. The first is the near-lack of economic bonuses. This means that for an Indian player, booming can be a difficult task. Secondly, there is a dearth of good melee cavalry - while the Indians do have access to Horse Archers, thanks to the foresight of the late Guptas, they do not have assault cavalry but instead have Gajah units - the weaker Light Gajah, and the stronger and heavily armoured Imperial Gajah.

With these, pitched battles usually favour the Indian player, but in reality the lack of assault cavalry means that the Indian army is fairly slow and easily taken out at range, especially with Scorpions. As great as the Indian elephant selection may be, other factions have plenty of countermeasures for elephants, such as Levy Crossbowmen, who are probably the most dangerous unit to the Indians as a whole. Assault cavalry the Indians do have in the form of Indian Chieftains - Indo-Hunnic aristocrats who fight as heavy cavalry - but these are mercenary units and thus somewhat costly.

As a result, it is often not a bad idea to use mixed cavalry tactics against the Indians even though they are capable of raising their own cavalry forces through the use of mercenaries, and have a wealth bonus from trade. It is best to first cut the trade of the Indian faction, by knocking out as many Trade Caravans as you can. For this reason, any faction with good skirmish cavalry usually has a good chance of taking out the Indians. Factions with good cavalry, such as the Byzantines, Tang or Bulgars — owing to their strong infantry and cavalry traditions — are usually more than a match against the Indians, since they are capable of mixing and matching different units with light cavalry formations to obtain the perfect balance for overwhelming any Indian army. Concentrate on taking out the cavalry and the elephants, before sending the heavy cavalry in to deliver the final coup.

For this reason it can be concluded that the main task of the Indian player is to out-research, and to out-boom the opponent, coupling hard power (in the form of Elephants and elite light infantry) with assymetric tactics. As India is the intellectual centre of the Dark Ages, get your Councillors working to produce as much Influence to feed into your armies and to better your civilisation, along with Wonder construction.