Indians: Through the Ages (2012 vs 2024)

Part fourteen of a series looking back at how different civilizations have changed over time. From the Elephant archer, Imperial Camel, up to the Dynasties of India 4-way split, we'll break down the changes to the Indian civ between their release in the 2012 Forgotten mod until today.
0:45 Indians in 2012
4:05 African Kingdoms
5:15 Rise of the Rajas
6:04 Definitive Edition
7:39 Dynasties of India
___________________________________________________________
Patreon: / spiritofthelaw
Background music from Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsound.com
Game: Age of Empires II Definitive Edition

[@zhiz3074]

The single biggest buff a civ has ever received is, funny enough, a non civ specific change that camels are no longer ships.

[@jameslarsen7010]

I forgot about that. That was like the one practical use of Heated Shot 😂

[@MarquessofCandea]

I guess they took dat “Ship of the Desert” thing quite literally

[@gletscherminze9372]

I think you can argue about the Incan food bonus or maybe Khmer farms. Other than that this might really be the biggest one.

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

@@jameslarsen7010 Heated shot is a very good tech on island maps. It's just that almost no one plays island maps. xD

[@informitas0117]

They float.

[@dembro27]

People: “Camels are the ships of the desert. Their caravans move goods across vast seas of sand.” AoE 2 devs in 2012: “Write that down!”

[@hanzzel6086]

Wasn't them, it was the Age of Kings devs.

[@riseALK]

​@@hanzzel6086Same team no?

[@chrisbackhouse5730]

This has actually been in the game since the original AoE2 release. I remember playing the game after its release, and the camels were absolutely obliterated in the Saladin campaign. It took about 15 years for this trait to be removed from the game

[@Nazuiko]

@@chrisbackhouse5730 I think its really funny, its just inappropriate given the relative health values. Ships are quite low attack, high HP units with range being fairly universal, making pierce armor, towers, and castles disproportionately effective. Camels have like 90 or so HP, whereas even a War Galley has 135 (165 on Galleon). Bonus damage balanced around hitting Galleons (Heated Shot, Castles in general) just melted camels on top of their existing weakness to Pikes and themselves. EDIT: That said, the change was in the Conquerors. In Age of Kings, the base AoE 2, they were Cavalry armor class

[@TeeKayFourTwoOnebeta]

@@riseALK Well, no. Age of Kings and The Conquerors were developed by Ensemble Studios, which ceased to exist in 2009. Essentially all new official content for AoEII since 2012 has been developed instead by Forgotten Empires, a completely unrelated developer that actually got their start in unofficial modding.

[@mubashirulmoula1798]

10:10 - Gurjaras also got the original Indians campaigns. And so far only campaign where you can play a civ that is locked behind a DLC.

[@WhiteOwlet]

Omg, so THAT'S when "Arbalest" became "Arbalester"! It has confused me for so many years now that it's actually "Arbalester" now. It makes sense, though, since an arbalest is just a type of crossbow, not a person using a crossbow.

[@CommissarMitch]

I have not played AoE in over 5 years and yet I watch these videos for 1 reason: Spirit is such a good talker. His voice is just on that perfect line for me where I can fully engage while doing stuff. Plus I have been watching/listening to this channel for... 10 years? Going on it at least.

[@danbernardes1726]

Same here, I don't play AoE2 since there was lan-houses 😆

[@7636kei]

Me too, fam, me too.

[@omkargouraje6243]

Same here, waiting to paly but not geting my own PC😅

[@harrybarrett9653]

I had really bad insomnia for a while during a covid lockdown. I finally managed to sleep when I put on a never ending playlist of SOTL talking about unit counters. I sware I was dreaming about skirmishers for hours. 😮

[@benharmon7369]

Same, I don’t play but I do like the game and I love the breakdowns he does. 👍👍👍

[@fernanzabalalodoli]

The classic counterpick to counter the only-franks picker in low elo

[@olorinistar9903]

6:10 I KNEW they used to be called that! I took a break for years and came back fairly recently and thought I had been Mandela Effected. Arbalests specifically.

[@Nazuiko]

I am never calling them Arbalesters, and the big black building in Chicago is the Sears Tower.

[@JoycenatorGaming]

I took time away from the game from 2013-2020 and I thought I was losing my mind for the last 4 years 😂

[@quasibrodo923]

Forgotten released a week after the world ended. Nothing could stop it. So rad!

[@samcook6368]

I still think of Indians as a new civilization, even though they have been officially in the game for coming up on half of the game's lifespan.

[@DinnerForkTongue]

The breakup in 4 civs helps that impression.

[@sanmitranaik]

Hey spirit, guys of the law here!

[@jotfohm4644]

How dare you steal my comment? P.O.S.

[@emperortgp2424]

​@@jotfohm4644????

[@pinkzero281]

Hey law, spirit of the guys here

[@floober7931]

.ereh wal eht fo tirips syug yeH

[@lordrubbish_aoe]

Is he really here? *looks around*

[@celemin3234]

One funny fact with the Indians release in Forgotten Empires, is they used voice lines from AoE 3, which later got changed in African kingdoms.

[@green929392]

I think the incas still use aoe3 lines

[@riseALK]

​@@green929392Incas were added to AoE2 many years before AoE3.

[@tashrifgani9101]

@@riseALK not really Incas exist first on Aoe 3 in the campaigns and as a minor civ before they became a playable civs of themselves. So far i remember the military troop voice lines were at least taken from Aoe3 during forgotten empires

[@riseALK]

@@tashrifgani9101 oh yea I completely forgot about the minor civ, now called Quechua. You are right their voice lines were used. I remember that the civilian voice lines were voiced by Cysion himself.

[@jotfohm4644]

Hey Spirit, Please bring back the intro for these 10+ mins videos. WE. NEED. IT.

[@thomasfplm]

Yes

[@sirius4k]

No!

[@radekv6938]

1

[@mortache]

Or at least play it in the outro in the background

[@danieltoth9742]

10:16 Correction: Dravidians get Battle Elephants too, just without Elite upgrade (not that they have much of a reason to build a stable)

[@TheGloriousLobsterEmperor]

When it was revealed that the Indians, one of my favourite civs, were being completely reworked in Dynasties of India, I was quite apprehensive about it, I was worried that they were going to completely ruin the civ, I didn't like the idea of the DLC, I didn't think it would set a good precedent. But honestly, Dynasties of India was an absolutely amazing DLC, I like all of the civs, and the Hindustanis honestly came out feeling better than before the rework, they're better designed, more fun to play, and they also came with 3 other really fun civs. So yeah, don't knock it until you've tried it.

[@inductivegrunt94]

From one civ turned into four. The Indians sure had an interesting history. Indians became Hindustani, with bits and pieces given to the other Indian civs, their unique unit became a regional, and one of their civ bonuses completely removed. Indians really got some pretty major changes compared to most civs. Now we just need to wait until the Chinese get broken up into distinct Chinese civs so a video like this can be done for them.

[@Kawabongahlive]

I know it's outside of the AoE2 timeline but a romance of the three kingdoms china would be awesome for a mod or a scenario.

[@omkargouraje6243]

Not chinese possibly but Saracens,

[@metal_monocle7334]

Honestly, they should split Italians, Slavs and Vikings too.

[@alexbrennan9928]

Sadly they're never going to. The Chinese govt would probably ban the game if they did that, they hate it anytime China is not portrayed as a unified mono-culture. It's a damn shame because they could easily get 4 or 5 civs out of China if they did that.

[@alexbrennan9928]

@@metal_monocle7334 Slavs have basically been split at this point, they could rename them to The Rus and pretty much have it covered.

[@jotfohm4644]

Ahh.. here we have the Civ that multiplied into 4 civs.. much like the population of the modern-day country it represents 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@harooooo1]

another piece of info missing is the spear line bonus damage vs camel buffs during rise of rajas that were mostly warranted by dominance of indian camels

[@aoefsmrap]

I just double checked, and I am so disappointed that google images shows a bunch of Aztec calendars when googling Mayan calendars, which is probably why Spirit got it wrong in this video.

[@Jartran72]

That is indeed sad..

[@akale2620]

Most people can't tell the difference between those 2.

[@TheRealGovika]

It would be a process, but I'd love to see a video ranking all the amount of changes each civ has received over the years, and even a "zero to hero" tier list of changes that propelled a civ by a significant amount.

[@AdamSchadow]

Elephant archer was likely a overreaction to how strong it is in AoE1 similar to how the cav archers started out very weak when the game was released.

[@cornflakeshumunculus8373]

Hey everyone. Spirit of the elephant facts here

[@Nazuiko]

Shit youre right; No elephant facts in the India centric video?

[@adeadfishdied]

Something minor, I wish you had added Hindustanis to the elephant archer comparison, without an elephant archer, with a caption that says no elephant archers. Just to make us all say “oof”

[@Jartran72]

What? Why would that make anyone say oof? Such a weird statement somehow.

[@tinkywinky1238]

oof

[@AaronBalcombe]

This was an interesting one. Didn’t realize how OP the original Indians civ was

[@marcuspontius3967]

Love this series and thanks for your effort in this one esp.

[@ns-islandsroblox]

10:27 dravidians have battle ele, just not the elite upgrade 8:27 Bengalis do not get elephant fire rate bonus

[@malikshabazz2065]

great video! :-)

[@tyranitararmaldo]

Oh now THIS is going to be interesting!

[@tiestofalljays]

There’s something historically cool about the intro. A previous civilization broke up into smaller groups, with each retaining something from the old “Empire”…kind of like the successor states of Alexander’s Empire.

[@johnbambridge1882]

Wait a minute. Indians are 12 years old? That can’t be right, that feels like yesterday

[@caimtheabyssbringer3136]

It's been awhile since you did a video covering who has the best team bonuses and works well together for certain types of troops like infantry or calvary or archers I'd like to see with the updates that have happened recently your perspective on that

[@UltravioletRabbit]

Wow this video hit me like a truck... In my mind Indians were a "new-ish" civ, watching a through-the-ages about them feels wrong. Can't believe they been out for more than a decade already.

[@MrAllmightyCornholioz]

भारतीय लोग अद्भुत हैं.

[@tomascostanzo3673]

I remember that when I first started playing with Indians, I didn't use elephant archers at all.

[@lincolnvolk7609]

Spirit of the law hire!!

[@LJC94512]

Hey SOTL, just wanna mention in your civ overview playlist you still have the old Incas and Frank overview in the playlist. Do you wanna update that so only the revised overview is in the playlist? Also you’ve done a janissary and condotierro review quite a while ago. No plans of new Turks and Italian overview?

[@DaedalusDM]

Team arbalest and not arbalester reporting in.

[@dembro27]

Team Big Bad Bow Bros reporting in.

[@Mamonar]

Arbalest is the weapon, arbalester is the dude using it. Do you even indoeuropean language?

[@sitrilko]

Perhaps the most tinkered with, yes, but the end result is a great civ design on many fronts.

[@balooojeffersong4234]

They literally graped my favorite civ. Bring Indians back!

[@SvanTowerMan]

I wish the Hindustanis had Middle Eastern or Central Asian architecture. Not only is the former nostalgic, but it feels like the existing South Asian architecture doesn't fit with an overwhelmingly Muslim set of empires very well.

[@ijazkhan3335]

Most importantly the voice. Hindustanis represents current Afghanistan, and northwest Pakistan. Both had nothing to do with current voice they are using

[@SvanTowerMan]

@@ijazkhan3335 I feel like the Afghans should be a separate civ.

[@acepf5628]

so u have a video on trde aoe4?

[@pauliesoprano1787]

Spirit of the law when you make a video, how good is samurai???????

[@Sjesasdam]

Good morning saars!!

[@Sulticune]

I wish i could double-like for the TTD music!

[@yiyoascen]

I kinda recently played a 2vs2 ranked michi as hindustanis with spanish ally vs frank brit... We just threw every single gold unit we had into their faces for like 2 hours

[@kordimon121]

Roggan?

[@sashidharan1192]

Technically both hindustani and indians are same. No difference. Maybe they may add few extra civs in indian civ

[@dispatcher2243]

Can you do videos on counters to broken units? (Khmer scorpion elephants)

[@Jartran72]

They are not broken. You just have to pressure opponents before they can seriously mass them. If you don't, thats on you. And a death ball of SO and Halbs can take on Ballista Elephants no problem.

[@peperoni_pepino]

Hey SotL! I re-installed AOE2DE again after seeing your Civbuilder video, and played around with it. But it is behaving weird; I don't have the DLCs and it is just randomly deciding which civs it locks. The amount of locked civs is consistent, but which ones are locked is random. I also didn't see the Indian civ, even though I don't have the DLC that split up the Indians. (Ow, so even without the DLC the Indians are replaced by the Hindustani?) I really dislike buying $100+ DLCs for what is supposed to be 'definitive', and it seems I still can't use Photonman? Is it still not generally unlocked? I was immediately reminded why I had uninstalled AOE2DE...

[@Killz0mbies]

Wait for a sale brother

[@deutscher1a]

the split happened the same way all dlcs happened: It affects everyone If you dont buy the roman dlc, does it mean that there is no one able to play romans with/against you? So the indian split has to happen for everyone too This is a pvp ladder focused game after all Is it really 100$+ or are you rounding up a lot? Since everything before DE is added for free, i dont see why it isnt DE I wouldnt complain about a dev working on a 20+ years old game with a small playerbase in a niche genre... Btw: Are you locking the civs before putting the civ builder in your game?

[@pinkzero281]

I had download aoe 2 de two times it worked beautifully

[@solorollo9756]

Nobody is forcing you to buy the extra civs…

[@FxTR22]

What heated shot increases damage vs landunits??

[@sjh7983]

Here guys, hey spirit of the law

[@anndravandercarr9353]

Haven't played in a while, but didn't Hindustanis (and maybe the other indian civs) get the caravanserai as well?

[@boejiden1942]

This explains why i couldn't find the Indian civ... I was bamboozled.

[@madswipe4419]

When they got released wasn’t the sultans tech bugged? Like instead of 10% faster gold collection or what ever it was, it acted as if it was 10,000% I swear it was something like that

[@shao6449]

Bring AoE vs History back!

[@rovsea-3761]

10:30 Bengalis are stated to be the only Indian Civ with battle eles, which is of course false, as Dravidians also have (rather poor) battle elephants.

[@ethribin4188]

Hindustani are still to strong IMO. Not due to raw power, but due to being a meta counter. And the only one at that. They are sorta like the byzantines, in that they are a counter civ. But way WAY stronger.

[@Oaksphere]

Wait..When there was a patch for Hindustani villagers price buff? I thought their Imperial Age Town Center Villager cost is 42 food? Its 38 food and 41 food in Castle Age now? I clearly missed something. And I were replaying Babur, Ismail and Rajendra Chola yesterday ˇˇ Ah, yes, 12 years old adventure of our (Imperial) Camels, Elephant Archers and moving armor values here and there. The only one who can triumph that is legendary 25 years old adventure of original Saracen Mameluke being a ship, an archer, a camel/cavalry a both or even all threeif not four at once and finally having its Mameluke armor value :D Yes, my dear friends, Camels and Elephants are not Ships! Let that be a lesson for us all for another 25 years! Still dont understand why they have Ghulams and Urumis and no infantry bonuses whatsoever, only nerfs. Replacing Knights/Heavy Cavarly Archer/Elephant Archer/Battle Elephants with Ratha? Yeah, you got me there. Ratha is very unique. Else I would always expect that every Light Cavalry can change into Cavalry Archer and back. And Spearmen naturally into..Throwing spears - Skirmishers ˇˇ Why is the Hindustani University so much lacking? Is Ghulam supposed to be their fast moving Rajput/Huskarl with (dismounted) Cataphract Trample damage? Four different Castle's for all indian subfactions. Not a single Knight in sight. Yet, they knew or came to know they have to counter Paladins/Boyars/Leiciai/Coustiliers/War Elephants,etc. eventually with something; so they removed their Halberdiers...Ouch. Best we can do is Caravenserai, with no Sowars and Zamburaks and Howdahs and Mahout to speak of and remove your Plate Barding Armor, but atleast my to-the-brim-filled-with-gunpowder heavy demolition ship gained +1 armor, so all is good. Yay!... Wait a minute..../insert Kevin Sorbo screaming "disappointed !!!"/ ( - :

[@holy_christ]

i get unironically happy when u upload wich frightens me

[@VonKrauzer]

Man, I miss the intro...

[@PNWer_of_Souls]

review my mod Empirecraft! It's really fun and I combined all the Indian civs under 1 unique umbrella civ for some interesting gameplay.

[@jorgeinti]

more of this civ overhauls and splits maybe for italians the spanish or slavs

[@ishanbajpai6940]

India mentioned!!!!

[@irontitan7696]

Yaaatg!

[@robincray116]

I will continue to claim that elephant archers where never bad, not now, not back then. The only archer that can tank multiple onager shots.

[@kwindafidler7728]

watching the thumb i just relaized that hogwarts ion my imagination is the aoe II castle, one tower for each house

[@XtReMz98]

Overtaking the Chinese in global population in 2024, you’d think the devs would eventually nerf their villagers creation cost which is now at a whomping -75% in the post-modernity age.

[@Peacenutman]

Now they should split the Chinese into 4 separate civs too.

[@vincentzingale9520]

Excuse me Indians are a "new civ" thank you very much, pretty sure they were just released yesterday

[@riseALK]

11 YEARS 💀

[@SedeXC123]

I miss obsidian arrow 😢

[@orionl7406]

Elephant archers were put behind a paywall unless you play All Techs which is cringe, but hey a new civ for free is still a new civ for free. Also Hindustanis in All Techs have an insane unique unit that is better than eagles in every way (except siege damage).

[@Rika101OfficialYT]

ah yes, the tambi civ. glad to know Indians are appreciated in AOE2 as well and not just their Bollywood industry.

[@Jartran72]

Where outside of India is Bollywood appreviated? I am seriously asking, because the few times I hear about it, it is only ridiculed. That or worrying how far right and close to russia indias government is. Or that it might start a war with China.

[@squadwiper79]

West ideology - If you don't hate russia you love russia. India is incredibly neutral.

[@Rika101OfficialYT]

@@Jartran72 hohoho, Bollywood is very famous in Asia, especially their movies, every now and then u can find at least 1-2 of them in local cinemas every month

[@dennisaskeland7603]

So Indians are classic now huh. What does that make me?

[@takix2007]

SOTL in 2014 : let's make vids about the game balance of a 15 year old game, surely this will only change in a marginal way. SOTL in 2024 : so, everything I said back then is redundant by now, let me (involuntarily) milk that 25 year old cow again, but still make amazing content.

[@mubashirulmoula1798]

8:25 - All of the 3 lacks Parthian Tactics.

[@ddurst1]

Portuguese next?

[@alex_zetsu]

Indians are kind of an example of something about the game I don't like. On one hand, I'm glad the Poles are in the game (although their monasteries are.... ugh....) but on the other hand splitting up civilizations wreak havoc on game balance. This is most obvious with the campaigns, but it is present in multiplayer too. Having umbrella civilizations like "Slavs" "Indians" were easier to balence.

[@saheilswaransamant1680]

I think Age of Empires can add the following Civilisations to represent the other diverse civilisations in the Indian Subcontinent. Like - 1. Marathas 2. Rajputs 3. Punjabis 4. Malwans 5. Sindhis 6. Pashtuns 7. Nepalese

[@spatch7414]

the world does not revolve around india. 4 civilizations is enough

[@solorollo9756]

The ego 😂 Bro that is way too much. Half the game would be Indian! 🤣 Most people who no idea about any of those names

[@PahadiSher]

​@@solorollo9756 Rajputs, Punjabis & Pashtuns had way bigger & longer lived empire than Burgundians, Bohemians or sicilians but they are already there. Marathas & Nepalese are beyond that time frame. Rest can be represented by existing civs.

[@nfnrjn]

Rajputs are represented by the Gurjaras. Hindustanis are actually a catch-all civ for ethnic North Indian kingdoms but also Islamic invaders and the resulting admixture in the population. Similarly Dravidians are a catch-all civ for all South Indian kingdoms. I think we have enough Indian civs in AoE2 now.

[@thanotosomega]

It still kinda bugs me that the version people owned for years is the one who lost the unique unit entirely,

[@Jartran72]

You can still have every AOE2 version that ever existed.. Just can't play it online.

[@tomscorpion6288]

For me it's still Camel and Arbalest.

[@bristleback3614]

We need Slavs expansion. it's so weird that we already have Poles, Bohemian and Bulgar yet Slavs stand on it's own

[@Ratciclefan]

I'm 1000% sure AoE2 Indians only don't get knights because AoE3 Indians don't have any hourse-mounted units. Similarly, Portuguese Organ Guns really aren't a thing outside of AoE3.

[@solorollo9756]

I’m confused, aren’t organ guns the UU of Portuguese? Also, no one cares about aoe3

[@Ratciclefan]

@@solorollo9756 two things: Portuguese didn't use Organ Guns in real life. First: The Age of Empires 3 devs probably just didn't care enough to search for something actually unique to the Portuguese and the AoE2 ones just copied them. Second: AoE3 fans don't stop existing just because you personally don't like AoE3. Actually, three things: a lot of "unique" units would realistically be shared or at the very least don't belong in the civ they're assigned to (Gbetos aren't a Malian thing for example).

[@solorollo9756]

@@Ratciclefan pretty pedantic imo. I am Malian. Tell me what is so so so unique to the Malians that nobody else in Africa had, militarily. Cmon now Aoe3 fans aren’t real, just like your cartoon women Realistically, crossbows took a lot longer to reload than a bow

[@TheRomanAoE]

Dravidians get Battle Elephants as well, even though they are extremely forgettable

[@OcsChosBoi]

Vietnamese next 👋

[@sirlight4954]

2012: The world is going to end because something something Mayans calendar etc... People: Freak out, OMG! Climate change: We have SCIENTIFIC PROOF that if we do not act fast there will be catastrophic consequences. People: Well, it happens, no biggie

[@eduardomolinov]

No elephant fun facts, bro fell off.

[@abhishekjain3148]

tbh, it still doesn't feel diversified enough lol.

[@AAAMGGG]

We have 4 indian civilizations and I don't like to play any of them, although I like Berbers. Don't know what it is, what makes all 4 so awkward to play for me.

[@wadas9042]

first mistake you made, astekcs and mayans were first indians in the game :D

[@peterroe2993]

Last time I was this early on a SOTL video India wasn't a civilisation and it no longer is.

[@TheSrijitMajumder]

I blanked out for a second before realizing the meaning.

[@OfficialpKIndustries]

Those castles don't have enough poo on them to reflect the culture accurately.

[@Jartran72]

Bruh. As if anywhere in this age was not filthy and disgusting. The bigger the place, the more humans and live stock lived there and it was disgusting. So why would just the indian castles singled out like that. This is supposed to be a romantisised version of after roman times about 16th century. Your comment is so weird.

[@OfficialpKIndustries]

@@Jartran72 I'm talking about India in modern times. The Indian units head's should awkwardly bob and they should say "good morning saar :)" and "saar do not redeem" when they acknowledge their orders too. I'm really into portraying cultures accurately.

[@robincray116]

I will continue to claim that elephant archers where never bad, not now, not back then. The only archer that can tank multiple onager shots.