The India theater

[BharatRakshak]

I have some questions to ask about this as I haven't bought the game yet. How is the religion handled here, and in the game generally? Historically I would say most of the Muslim preachers would be "heretics" going by definition, and I don't know how the Marathas can reconquer northwards and re-Hinduize existing Islamized populations since this has historically never happened (even though politically the Hindus and Sikhs were slowly pushing out the Mughals, demographically Islam always grew).

Also, the Third Battle of Panipat in 1761 is one of the most historically significant battles in development of modern Indian subcontinent. The Marathas up to this point had been steadily beating the Mughals back, the Hindu Rajput allies of the Mughals were gradually turning sides, and the Sikhs in the north were also beating them up. At this stage when Muslim power in subcontinent seemed to be gone, some Mughal governors in the northwest had pleaded the Afghan king Ahmed Shah Abdali to come invade India and setback these setbacks. Abdali was all too pleased, and in a crucial battle at Panipat (northwestern India), a smaller army of Afghans stalemated the Marathas, and it was after this battle that a massive power vacuum was created in subcontinent which allowed the British to fill in.

So I was wondering if there will be an announcement like "Afghans invade" sort of like how we've had "Timurids invade" or "Mongols invade" in the earlier total war games.

[A Very Super Market]

This isn't M2TW. There are quite a bit muslim factions, and they aren't heretics at all. Hell, M2TW had muslim imams and not heretics.

The game is fairly accurate in units, battle, starting position and trade situation and whatnot, but it won't take you through a fixed track. There is quite a chance that Marathas will win, Mughals will win, the Afghans not even rebelling from Persia. As for religion, over years, you can "convert" the population slightly, but keeping troops in regions will keep them behaving.

[quadalpha]

You will need a priest or a religious building to convert.

[Polemists]

You can convert large segements of a population.

The easiest way to do this is to put 4-5 priests in a city, and then turn all your small towns into churches. Level them up to 3rd tier church building and tada.

Churches give a faith bonus based on pop and priests increase the conversion time. You put one in you might get 1 or .5 % you put 4 in you get around 5-6% per turn, depending on the priests, islam units or missionaries. Even with a pop of 1 mil, it will rapidly change if you give it time.

I've managed to make Goa, India almost completely catholic and Ceylon is almost there.