Marathas: tips & strategys

[Captain.E.Blackadder]

So what are your tips and strategys for the Marathas?

[twisterdark]

- Pay for peace with Moghul, because you have to destroy Mysore before engaging them. You really don't know how bad is when you're fighting Moghul and Mysore make an istant attack to your capital city ^^

- Trade with Ottomans (a lot of regions they buy a lot) Netherlands and GB. Try to monopolize Oriental Indians trade routes.

- Do not fight Portugal and Netherlands until Mysore is destroyed, if you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

- Make an alliance with Ottomans if you are capable or, anyway, with Persia that's on the other side of Moghul.

- Remember that you have only a few turn b4 Mysore will declare war to you, so use them to prepare your army and destry that damn faction XD

[dandare9]

I am close to finishing campaign. I destroyed the Mughals first while maintaining good relations with everyone else as far as possible. If you follow this route use all your Brahmins to convert the conquered regions to your religion. It will reduce unhappiness and rebellions.

As trade was hard (bugged mainly until patch) I ignored building a navy. I did deals with Britain, Spain and Sweden to get poor colonies while getting trade and losing good colonies in India. BUT, this was the plan. After getting more money from trade I just invaded the provinces that I had given away.

OK Spain is still warring with me, I have an uneasy peace with England, Portugal forgave me for Goa and I have let Sweden keep Afghanistan for the overland trade route. Persia has now gone along with Dagestan.

Only irritation is the constant requests to give up very advanced provinces for one tech advance, a trade agreement and 500-1000 gold. No contest!

Use your spies often. Thugees for enemy clerics. Late on build powerful navies and destroy enemy navies using trade hubs and grab them for your self.

[Plinpod]

Playing on H/H I was warring with the Moghuls right off the bat.
A few turns in Mysore attacked me and gave me some problems. When I attacked the only Mysore city, Portugal attacked my capital (even tho Mysore and Portugal didn't have an alliance).

I took over Goa and destroyed Mysore and now I am easily moving up north.

My main issue right now is that it is very hard to get anyone to trade with me, although I have taken over almost all of India I am generating terrible income.

I have never bothered to build up a navy and now it is difficult to do. My plan right now is to finish off the Moghuls and then sit tight while I restore order in my population, get some trade partners and build up a navy.

Things to Note

- Mysore and Portugal will attack you
- Get trade ports early
- If you are at war with Portugal make sure you have a decent navy as they while raid your trade routes in Europe and cripple your income.

Current Plan

- Destroy the Moghals
- Restore peace in country
- Build up Navy
- Destory Portugal (to have a foothold in Europe)
- Move north into the middle east from India.

[regret]

Just finished a H/H Long Campaign.

Difficulties:
Hard to establish Trade routes - this would have helped alot early game as I noticed the one starting Trade Agreement I had with UP was generating upwards to 13-18k Gold a turn. But I found it almost impossible to establish Trade rights with anyone, even if our relationship was Friendly if you do not offer at least 30k-50k gold and/or some of your lands too.

Initial Expansion - Mysore is the biggest thorn in your side, while its not very hard to wipe them out early, its makes you lose momentum against the Mughals. I found out if you blitz hard and fast against the Mughals, you will practically just take over all their lands except for the last 1 or 2. However, if you focus on Mysore early, you give the Mughals some time to build up which will slow you down alot.

Late Game Units - You lack any of the fancy long range light infantry troops that European major powers get, so your kind of stuck on Line Infantry, and your artillery is not very mobile although they are large! Also, you do not really gain any advantages from researching some of tech as they do not apply to you but you have to waste time researching them to get the techs you want eventually like percussion caps, etc.

Advantages:
Generals - I love the Elephants Musketeers Bodyguard that you get. Decent range attack, causes terror, great stats...superior to the normal General in many ways. Against the Mughals which have a lot of melee units initially, the completely own. Late game, they make decent protectors of your artillery against enemy cavalry flankers.

Hindu Musketeers - one of the best early game units you get, just spam these. While their morale and shooting isn't fantastic, they have a melee rating of 12! Great against the Mughals.

Island State (almost) - Once your consolidate India, your almost like England. I never seen the A.I try a naval invasion yet. Only your land connection with Persia but its easy to fortify and also provides you a land route to expand your empire into Europe.

My Initial Strategy (Turns 1 - 30) -
You start with 3 generals and 2 provinces. I made sure the first thing i did was to use up the 3 units slots that the capital can build than use the rest on upgrades that can improve my economy. Just kept spamming Hindu Musketeers until my economy couldn't sustain the army maintenance anymore.

Your missionaries are also quite important, keep sending them ahead to convert. As a rule of thumb, on every province that can support the towns, I build a religion and tavern series building before anything else, or burn down existing trade buildings to make space. not sure about your playstyle but i like happy lands.

Also go to your minister page and kick out useless bums, Treasury, Army and Justice are very important as they control your army upkeep/building costs, Economy and repression/happiness levels that will be vital in your war against the Mughals.

I split my entire forces into 3 groups each led by a general and blitzed into Mughal lands each going one way. Each army wasn't very large, maybe 4-6 units but the Mughals seemed to be comprised mostly of Melee troops and cav so your cannons, elephant general and hindu musketeers should have almost no problems. (I auto-resolved 90% of my battles, only those i felt auto-resolved could not win i fought personally)

Your biggest difficulty will be garrisoning the lands you take as you need to replace combat loses and also cough up garrison troops. you should be taking almost a province a turn at the least until you eat up about 3/4 of the Mughal lands. The 2nd problem will be Mughal raiders, either ignore them or create a some force of 2 -3 musketeers to hunt them down.

You need to monitor closely the happiness level of each city if you want to maximise your troops. You need money desperately initially so exempting taxes should be a last choice decision. Decide if a Garrison or exempting taxes is more beneficial to you, it will depend a lot on how secure the area is from raiders, also if those troops can be of use to you later in the campaign, etc.

Finally, there is Mysore. They start at peace with you but will definitely back stab you the way the small nations in ETW seem to love even though its completely suicidal. In my game, I ignored Mysore until they DoWed me than wiped them out, although it was dangerous cos I had Mughals down to 2 provinces by than and they finally decided that modern units were better than guns so my battles were tougher and they finally had larger stacks. Mysore attacked me with a full stack which lost me a neighboring city but allowed me to take thier capital. Their remaining forces scattered to do the typical raiding the A.I seems to love which allowed me to retake the city and destroy the nation which incidentally destroyed the pesty raiders along with it.

However, I am inclined on my next campaign to try to destroy Mysore first. While it would slow my takeover of Mughal, I would gain a few things:
- Smaller defence force to deal with since they wouldn't have had time to build up yet
- Additional School
- Another City that can spam Hindu Musketeers

But i would also incur the additional costs of garrisoning Mysore and also my economy definitely cannot support creating that many units early on. Also I would have to spend money upgrading towns and city that Mysore would have upgraded themselves. Need to test this, will update what i think of this later on.

Portugal which owned a piece of India didn't do anything in my game. they just sat there quietly until they were destroyed by Spain, the province than turned into a Rebel state which i took over. Might be different in your game though.

Mid Game Strategy (Turn 30 - 100) -
Once i pacified India, I spent about 20 turns just upgrading my economy, kept 3 large garrisons, 1 next to the province owned by Portugal and 2 along the border with Persia who will most likely DoW you once your about done with the Mughals. At this time, i still only had 1 trade treaty with UP netting me about 15-18k a turn. U.K, Prussia, Spain, Ottomans and Russia were bugging me every turn for Trade rights except they usually wanted to trade a piece of land with you or ask some ridiculous sum of 30-60k gold for it.

In the end, i accepted a trade offer for 36k gold with U.K just to see how it would go, my rationale being U.K having a good sized navy could defend the trade route for me. The results were worth it in a way, My trade with UP dropped to about 12k but i gained another 10-14k trade with U.K.

Ceylon Islands will be a headache, I didn't want to DoW my biggest cash cow and without a navy i didn't want to mess with any European powers that could affect my trade. Just to place things into perspective, at this point, My net income a turn was about 30k after upkeep and stuff. Almost 2/3 of my net come came from my trade routes.

France eventually kinda solved that problem for me cos they traded with UP for Ceylon and I had built up a navy by than so i Dowed France and took Ceylon and used my navy to defend my trade route which worked.

Dealing with the European powers is problematic, as they seem to refuse to deal with you unless its greatly to their advantage. Even though my Prestige was about 3 times ahead of any of the leading European powers, I never once successfully got a peace treaty after a Dow against a European power. So if you plan to go to war, prepare to see it all the way thru.

By this time (turn 90ish), I had wiped out the Ottomans, Persians, Barbary Pirates and Morocco. But it was kinda forced upon me, at the same time, i took over all their trade routes mainly by positioning my navy and trade fleets outside the trade zones they owned and took it over one by one as I went to war with them (France, Ottomans and Persians) but this was before patch so i mainly only did it for denial rather than profit.

Also, send all your missionaries out to the neighbouring provinces, it will ease the pain of your eventual expansion.

Late Game Strategy (Turns 100+):
By now, i had researched the complete tech tree. I also had 3 major fleets comprising each of 1 Admiral's 1st Rate, 4 1st Rates, and 8 3rd Rates. Each trade zone had a fleet of 12 5th Rates led by an Admiral's 5th Rate for pirate and convoy duty. (I didn't really need these but i felt i should develop the habit when i did play a nation that could have working Trade Zones).

From here the games goes fast, You have a very stable and fully upgraded economy in India, providing about 30-60k net profit a turn. Might be higher but i had alot of happiness buildings. Spend maybe 5 turns to build up a huge reserve than suddenly build up several large armies with ready reserves troops. One of the major disadvantages at this point is that it going to be a pain to bring up your unique troops as reinforcements and your also almost out of small easy provinces to grab so you have to be prepared for a long protracted war.

I recommend as many full stacks armies as you think you need, 2-4 usually led by generals and configured to your fighting style. and about 1 full stack of replacements for each army, especially the unique troops that can only be build in your homelands. Artillery thankfully you can build at the newer cities so replacements for them not as important. Also, remember to prepare 4-6 garrison troops for each city you plan to take over. Chose your target and attack! Conquer, Pacify, Upgrade. Repeat and rinse until you take over the world or you hit 1799. I took over Europe in my campaign taking over Spain and France (tough fights but you knock out 2 major powers and most importantly, their pesky navies) than when for Russia and finally the Germanies and Sweden, saving U.K for last(preserve my trade alliance to the end) and leaving UP alone (Reward for being the only one who Traded with me willingly, I even gave them Flanders for fun.)

I wasn't every fast so i wasted too much time building up and didn't have enough time to take the Americas. But i think i can now that i have learned somewhat how to play.

But i am thinking of starting either a Russian Game next or a World Domination India Game.

Hope this helps!

[Wyrdlight]

Well its around 1736 in my Maratha's camp on Hard/Hard.

At the start, i got trade agreements with russia, sweden, UP, 13 Colonies, i sent most of my infantry and cannon south and took Mysore after 4 turns of hard fighting (note - dervishes are nasty they never run...ever)

With all my cav i held off the murghals, once mysore was taken i rolled up the Murghals, they raided a lot,, blocked my trade fleets and and conuter attacked with large amires on several occasions. It was fin to beat them, slow going to what with having to hunt down all the raiding units of camels.

Portugal never tried to attack me, i put the large army that had taken Mysore on the border and scared them, after i had a buffer of 2 provinces between my heartlands and the murghals i took goa.

I am now pushing through Persia, the Persians have a lot of armies, way more than i had anticipated and its a hard slog all the way.

In regards to units.
When you take the Noth West provinces, Hindustan and the Punjab you can get Sikh units there, they are very very good. The muskets have 50 accuracy and the swordsmen are nasty once they get vetted.

Silidar Lancers and the more advanced ones are very good, as are all the elephant units, you can get longer ranged units but they are regional, like afghan hill men etc.

[Plinpod]

How do you guys get your trade income so high?

I have been trading with UP since the start of my campaign and I only make 1,300 Gold per turn with them.

I have upgraded ports and have all the trade ports on the side of Brazil and one in East Africa.

[solecist]

am playing as maratha currently, about halfway through the long campaign. i took the mughals with no problems due to the ai behaving like morons (playing on h/vh) and mysore didn't attack until i had a lot of mughal territory and a decent army. portugal never attacked me and eventually got destroyed randomly (another bug maybe), at which point i took goa from the rebels.

i am at peace with everyone after just having destroyed persia, and i have a ridiculous amount of trade...making 35k a turn and have a treasury total of about 250k right now...basically it's been a breeze so far...kind of boring, actually. i'll stop there since there obviously is already enough advice in this thread as it is heh

[Cellus]

Hi,

I've been playing the Marathas campaign to begin, and the Mughals were very docile strategically (on the campaign map), allowing them to be mopped up quite easily for the most part. Mysore attacked early, but as the Mughals were doing exactly nothing while we battled it out, it wasn't a problem. As I took most of the continent, and the four or five final provinces looked rather poor anyway, I set about improving the regions I had as there was a great deal of unrest keeping the taxes down and garrisons high.

Then, just as I moved out to take the northernmost regions, I was confronted by a Mughal army comprised almost entirely of melee units. I sort of laughed it off and attacked - only to have them shrug off my shot rounds and slam into my ranks, decimating my army. Fortunately I had another nearby that was able to force them back, but what followed was a great deal of raiding and blockading of ports from the Mughal side, keeping me poor while I struggled with constant small scale battles. Through it all I have found an army loadout that has been extremely effective against both melee and line infantry opponents, as well the taking of forts.



Mortars, for their range and ability to destroy fortifications, which I will use first on general units and pikemen. The Sikh Line infantry, for their great morale and being able to withstand a melee attack better than any comparable troop I know; to defend the artillery and engage the enemy to provide better flanking oppurtunites for the cavalry. And Siladar cavalry, for their devastating charge and speed. The general is just there for ease of reinforcement, and doesn't really suit the build itself.

I will this weekend move against the Ottomans, most likely, so will see how they stack up to that massive empire. This is on the hardest settings, by the way - I'm surprised everyone doesn't use them as I was a little disappointed in doing so well my first run through.

So, from all that, my 'tips' would be:
Take out Mysore first.
Do not stop to consolidate, as the better units come from the north.
Protect your shipping lines.
Prepare for strong melee opponents that can carve up line infantry (probably won't be there in troublesome numbers if you keep pushing.

This would be unless you plan to make peace with the Mughals and branch out elsewhere.

[eug1404]

I'm 2 territories away from winning a VH/VH "Conquer The World" campaign with Marathas. I can, and do, steamroll most European nations in 1/2 turns.

- Bribe Mysore into peace whilst you crush the Mughals. Chances are they will deal to Portugal's territorial claims in India for you as well, meaning you can conquer India without pissing off the euros.

- Speed is of the essence against the Mughals as they start with few poor armies, consisting mostly of melee troops. Spam armies of Hindu musketeers and never stop pushing.

- Try to prioritise taking Punjab and Hindustan as they will give you access to the ever-steadfast Sikh line infantrymen(best infantrymen India ever gets).

- Form trade agreements with all the Major European nations as early as you can: they will be (relatively) cheaper to form earlier and from the late-early game onwards will make you a killing.

- Once you've conquered India you'd have to be a moron to mess up the rest of the campaign. Reject any offers to buy Indian territory(it's pretty much the only way anyone else will ever get on your continent) and develop them yourself. It's possible to hit 80K/turn from India alone(although this is mid-late game).

- Sweden is a pretty good place to begin your European adventures, they're usually not in an alliance, their towns are fairly (land) isolated and poorly defended, and their women are hot .

-After Sweden focus militarily on whatever minor nations still exist. Kepp good relations, and trade, with the other major Euros. Depending on which minor nations you take though you'll probably come into conflict with France or Poland. Either should be easily dispatched by this point.

[J. Fishman]

If you manage to keep Mysore from attacking you, they make good trading partners, especially if you can protectorate them: Once you protectorate Mysore, they'll let you unload all manner of crap on them via a totally protected land route, and so you have nigh-unlimited cash and are totally immune to blockade. When you're pulling in 80-150K a turn from trade, you are unstoppable: The sinews of war are unlimited gold. It isn't VITAL, though: There are plenty of other equally valid routes of only slightly more exposure: Persia, the Ottomans, etc.

[happycynic]

portugal never attacked me and eventually got destroyed randomly (another bug maybe), at which point i took goa from the rebels.

Not a bug. When a European faction is conquered it's colonial territories go rebel or become emerging factions.

[Tombman]

With a Secure Land India Theater you can pretty much do whatever you want after that.

You can go by Land into Persia and invade either the Ottomans or Russia and get a foothold into Europa.

You could build up your navy like crazy and just wipe out any of the other powers in the East Indies and dominate the region or go on and take Spainish America (Mexico, Gran Colombia) from behind.

[Cellus]

After India (and Persia), I went straight for the Turks, as they seemed the strongest in the world and I like a challenge. They were also by far my biggest trade partner, which would make it even harder. There's just so much money flowing in from plantations though, I'm not sure you could lose by then. And still aren't sure because I got the GC CTD bug a few turns into the Ottoman War. RIP Marathas campaign.

[Gornard]

Pay off portugal and mysore with a state gift right at the start and they will not attack you till you are ready. Simple as that. It feels a bit cheap.

Get trade agreements with as many nations as you can, but favour others over sweeden and russia as they often get blockaded for most the game. One problem is the ottoman port on the arabian gulf will often be sacked by a single persian unit. I don't know how to deal with this but it will make your trade income to europe vary alot. The mughals will attempt to raid you out in the trade theatres, deal with this by either makign an alliance with portugal or building up a small fleet of brigs to take them out.

Get punjab and hindustan asap, thats where your best units come from.

Try to keep momentum against the mughals, any space or peace you give them will slow down your progress. If you gave a gift to mysore and portugal you should have no trouble taking all of india.

[Paradoxiphilia]

I need some help. So basically I've got around 6 regions now getting a nice income. I've forgotten completely about Mysore they attack with a full stack army and take the province below them. Now suddenly my income drops to 500 a turn?

-I lose a province and therefore lose trade with Mysore
-Portugal attacks my capitol on the same turn
-Pirates block trade to Spain, New Spain, other trading nations
-One of the northerly regions spawns a rebel army
-Supposedly my army upkeep is more than my income but I have hardly any troops so I get 200-500 gold a turn.

Edit: And how is my trade to new spain via land being blocked?

[Gregorovitch]

I need some help. So basically I've got around 6 regions now getting a nice income. I've forgotten completely about Mysore they attack with a full stack army and take the province below them. Now suddenly my income drops to 500 a turn?

-I lose a province and therefore lose trade with Mysore
-Portugal attacks my capitol on the same turn
-Pirates block trade to Spain, New Spain, other trading nations
-One of the northerly regions spawns a rebel army
-Supposedly my army upkeep is more than my income but I have hardly any troops so I get 200-500 gold a turn.

Edit: And how is my trade to new spain via land being blocked?

Yes, that is what happened to me too with the Marathas. I was happily wiping out the Murghuls when suddenly Mysore attacked with two stacks and Portugal emerged from Goa to attack my capital for good measure. With the Murghals raiding from the north at the same time, it was a exiting experience - one of the best TW episodes I've had.

However Mysore made a fatal mistake. They went for one of my territories after I declined a battle to wait for a second stack to arrive instead of chasing me, and that left their capital wide open. Two skin of the teeth battles later and Mysore was history. The Murghals followed after 10 turns or so and Portugal were easily kicked out of India.

Portugal however held a grudge, and kept raiding my trade routes. I had to send a large fleet and a full stack army to Lisbon to terminate this problem. I now appear to be in an almost unassailable poistion, in full control of India (massive economy etc) with a foothold in Europe and the pacific seaboard of central/south america at my mercy (this is 1735).

Some things I've noticed about playing Maratha so far:

1. Trade with the Ottoman Empire is extremely lucrative and not subject to piracy as it goes through the persian gulf straight to them. Make sure you get a trade agreement with them.
2. You have a big advatage in being right next to the Madagascar and East Indies trade areas. Build brigs, sloops and trade ships as quickly as possible and occupy as many trade slots there as possible. The Europeans can't compete with you in exploiting these resources if you research navy tech early because of the distances.
3. Make sure to build Hindu church schools (Ashras from memory) in northern india as a priority or there will be continuous religious unrest.

All in all, after a very exiting start, it would appear that once in full control of India, the Maratha Federation is heading for world domination as no faction can realistically mount an attack on you so long as you remain friends with the Ottoman Empire, who potentially could.

[DonnieForde]

I'm coming to the end of my maratha campaign and out of the numerous ones I played it has been the most fun.

It took some time to get started in India. I found the Mughals hard to displace and Mysore kept raiding into my provinces until I could built a big enough stack to take them out.

I focused initially on trade, spending a lot on trade fleets and also trade agreements. At this point the pirates started to raid all my trade lanes and I went bankrupt for a good few turns. That's when the fun really started.

In order to sort out the pirates I had to build a navy, which allowed me to move to America and destroy the pirate bases and which caused Spain to get annoyed and attack me. So I was then fighting the Spanish, and the French who were allied to them. I had conquered all of India at this stage so i decided to move the fight to America where I conquered all of Spanish America.

Persia and the Ottomans attacked. I took them out and now was in Europe. The Austrians and Russians then declared war and I spent a good while keeping them out of Constantinople, whilst I finished off Spain.

At this point I am positioned up in Vienna, I own the Mediterranean and most of Russian Territory. America is divided between me and the Brits and some French territories. In the last turn the Brits declared war. I have started building up in Mexico and Cuba and am sending a few stacks towards Ireland while maintaining defensive lines against the rump Russian and Austrian forces and the Prussians who are the only major enemy I have left in Central Europe. And its only 1803.

[RazAlgul]

I just started a Maratha campaign and did up front take over 2 Mughal provinces and then sued for peace to be able to take Mysore....now I have positioned 2 armies to start my 2 Invasion into Mughal territory and kill of the rest of them.....but converting their cities is a pain in the a**.......my poor missionary is converting like 0,1-0,3 to Hindu...due to 1-11mil ppl in some regions....that is awesome...in my former GB campaing I had trouble building up in the americas...as most regions had 1000pop tops.....thus I couldn't even build units there..had to ship everything from the good old UK......playing for the maratha I can spam the Hindu muskets and sindar lancers like nothing....and they work like a charm...the cannons are a little poor in comparison to the European arty..but still they get the job done...

[GracchusCLXXX]

I destroyed Goa and Mysore early and moved quickly to blitz the Mughals. I didn't really come against very much resistance, only mob units. The main problem was that the Mughal people hated me even though I was Hindu, which most of the people were, and putting garrisons in all the cities gave me huge upkeep costs so I had a revolution and now my armies are mopping up the remaining Mughal territories. My plan is to invade Persia and conquer the Ottomans and the rest of Europe and North Africa and attack Trinidad and Tobago to gain a foothold in the Americas and eliminate the threat to my trade routes(I have no navy).