Persians vs Indians, which is better ?

[Brotherscompany2]

Heyyyyy all.
l really like to boom on this game and then go with my strong eco and the civ that l noticed that suit the best for this type of gameplay are the Indians and the Persians

Like they both have similiar tech tree and its actually really simliar.

The thing that l cant decide is which one is better.
Indians for me are weaker than then Persians because l rather have a faster growing eco than having discount on the vills which gets to a point were you can produce vills out of 5 TC without looking at the cost

But in the military departement the Persians seems to have a smaller disavantage...

l dunno l just love to play with these 2 civs in particular, l would love to hear which one suits you the most or which one do you think its better

Cheers guys ^_^

[TerminallyGrill]

Indians have better archers, camels and defenses while Persians have better heavy cavalry
Indians get champions, Persians get Siege Rams and the Knight line (which is extremely important)
Elephant Archer is miles better than the War Elephant though
Indians are better against infantry civs like japanese/aztecs, Persians are better at other cavalry civs

[talgaby]

Indians wreck cavalry civs too though. The Imperial camels, especially since AoAK, are strong as hell, even as generic cavalry.
Of course, Persian paladins are also incredibly powerful, after all they are still the second best paladins in the entire game after Franks, but imperial camels are just ridiculous.

[Shade-O]

Indians have a more versatile tech tree, having acces to siege engineers means their siege units can shoot first against civ who doesn't have the siege engineer which is especially important with onagers and bombard cannons. +1 range on their fully upgraded handcannoneer is very nice to pick off infantry from afar or atleast keep a larger distance between them and the melee units. Fully upgraded cavalry archers and even elephants archers are very powerfull against other ranged units since they can return fire while being able to survive focus fire, especially the elephant archers with it's 3 pierce armor. Cavalry is also not a concern due to acces to the most powerfull camel unit, the imperial camels. Basicly an Indian player has an anwser to every threat in the late-game albeit somewhat resource intensive.
An another important distinction is that the Indians can be aggressive since the villager discount bonus starts being significant as soon the game starts, since you're probably always going to make vills, the food discount bonus will really add up quickly thus having an above average rushes.

The Persians on the otherhand are far more specialized, in this case the cavalry. Only lacking the battle elephants the Persians have an otherwise full stable. Ranged units are bad but they do have acces to fully upgraded handcannoners but against the Indians +1 ranged HC there is a clear favorite. Infantry is notorious for lacking two-handed swordsmen but acces to fully halbadiers late-game should still make the barracks worth it. Siege-wise it's not bad due to siege rams but no siege engineers can be serious trouble when trying to engage in siege-warfare.
Persians are pretty much the king of booming(growing your eco), if they get to grow-up peacefully then their faster working town centers will solidify them with an gigantic economy but it needs time to grow to fruition first. Although the Persians can do everything in the feudal age, they are not exactly exceptional in anything during the feudal age so most of their power derives from the late-game with their powerfull cavalry units such as the paladins, war elephants, heavy camels and handcannoneers.

In short the Indians are more versatile than the Persians with better infantry, archery & siege and perform better aggresive tactics but the Persian do have better units in terms of brute strength and outdo the Indians in economy in the long-run.

If it comes down to the naval battles, Persian also outshines the Indians with better docks and acces to fast fire ships.

As such in more open maps and team games the Indians is the better pick since they can perform multiple roles and are powerfull both in the early- and late-game. Also their camels are a unique threat, dissuading other players from making cavalry(except the battle elephants) which puts Indians in a rather unique position although imperial camels are a watered-down paladins in terms of brute strength.

In closed maps or if you want to be greedy by building 5 tc's or so the Persians can be an attractive since they can reach a bigger eco quicklier and have unmatched brute strength in form of cavalry units from the stables and more importantly the war elephants.

[talgaby]

Heh, yeah, on classic ruleset, one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make is letting a Persian pocket boom up. Then they whip out 100 elephants and comfortably steamroll 3-4 enemy camps and armies. Persia is probably the most fearsome civ after being left alone in the old set, even more than Mongols.

[Ashur_Arbaces]

At the moment India easily, better Imperial age with more options, better boom, better eco bonusses in general.

[Deep Fried Jesus]

I prefer Saracens. Persians suffer from having hard counters can that can make a plan for imperial age fighting not a good idea. Saracens will almost always appreciate strength with match time, because of an open tech tree, and a powerful unique. There's very little you can't overcome with enough mamelukes.