Mughal Empire -Guide.

The Mughal Empire was for me a most challenging faction , so I think it should with the other major factions as valid alternative to play. I havn't seen a guide so I thought I'd write at least a start for one..

This was Mughals vh/n after latest patch.
Setup Mughals

1 . enable Mughals using the ESF editor.(http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=242353) This is quite straightforward just open startpos.esf (after making a copy), navigate to campaign_players-setup/players_array open entry number 21 which should mention Mughals. Change the third entry to true then save and start a new game.

2. You will find some parts of the map fogged, so called line of sight problem. You can access everything through the lists. Or you can disable fog of war for the whole map by adding "scripting.game_interface:show_shroud(false)" in scripting.lua(after making backup) in this place to look like this. Thanks Occer
local function OnWorldCreated()
scripting.game_interface:technology_osmosis_for_playables_enable_culture("european")
scripting.game_interface:technology_osmosis_for_playables_enable_all()
scripting.game_interface:show_shroud(false)
end.

3. You can also add victory conditions (http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=254494)

4. You don't have to do steps 2 and 3 to play these are optional.





Playing Mughals

I had just enabled Mughals not setup #2&3. My aim was to dominate to a point I knew I had won , I usually never go past this stage and I find massacring weak opponents boring.

Initial scenario

Your empire is vast but you have big problems. I will post them in turn and my strategic antidote for each.

Religion. Most of your provinces have hindu majorities and religious strife. Pick your poorest towns and build Madrassa's. Gang up your Imans to tackle those places where you can't build a madrassa.

Tax . many of your province produce little if no tax revenue, much better to tick no tax and pump your town growth.

Town watch. Here was a tricky little one . If you're not careful you may end spending 5k on this . Open up the main management menu, then tick then tax on/off box you will see how much your townwatch is costing for that province and often the tax income is much less than the townwatch, so go for the no tax and growth option.

Tax rate slide the peasant tax to its lowest and tax those nobles as much as possible. Town growth depends on tax rate for peasants only, get those towns up and running..

Towns , save your wealthy and prosperous ones for economic things, build madrassa's bawdy's and schools in the poorest ones. Demolish if need be to get a good economic town up and running.

Your ministers. Never have I seen such a bunch of useless morons. You will quickly need to fire those with negative values for controlling those pesky peons. In fact across the board I started with -5 repression across the country due solely to them. get rid of them and quickly.

Buildings. straightforward as money supply allows, farms, dancing schools/theatres line, plantations/mines. Many things are unbuilt in your Empire at the start. get them up asap. don't worry about upgrades till you have good surplus.

Technology, perhaps not critical at the start, later on when things are going well you can build looks of unis and blitz this.

Diplomacy. Contrary to many posts I don't mind ETW diplomacy. I messed up my first try at Mughals and had to restart and the critical thing was diplomacy. At turn 1 I allied with Mysore and Persia and paid as much as needed for this ( they both declared war early on in my first attempt and I was stuck fighting rearguard actions till I abandoned the game). This allowed me to concentrate on Maratha solely, they will declare quickly.

Army. Your units are well ..mainly medieval . you will need to moove back to Hyderabad and fight a tough defense early on. Your Hindu Musketeers are your best troops but you need to supplement them with melee either, Islamic swordsmen or dervishes. You also have cheap peasant troops with low upkeep which when paired give cheap local repression control in your provinces.

Trade. Build those trade ships and sent them early. Make trade agreements with anyone and everyone as slots become available.

Early on in your quest.

Once you have weathered the early Maratha assaults, take Bijapur raise the school and other town building and build a Madrassa and a bawdyhouse, set tax to zero and deal with the rebellion when it comes. Make peace with Maratha and also your protectorate.

peace will only last a few turns...Maratha despite being a protectorate will declare . Once Bijapur is in control, nuke the last Maratha outpost.

Portugal will probably put its oar in , even if it doesn't, nuke Goa.

Bask in your peace for awhile while you massage all those sick provinces and underdeveloped places to health, don't forget those ministers!.

Around about 1720 I backstabbed those Mysoreans(I'm really nasty) and united all of India.

From there it should be plain sailing. I took those pesky Pirates in the Caribbean , then sailed to Europe and took Portugal. Portugal still survives as it had taken Spain! I plan to nuke the rest of Portugese empire(Spain) then demolish Spain in America, but obviously the game is already won.

The particular challenge for the Mughals is handling their terrible economy/provinces and having a clear diplomatic stategy.