Maratha

[aimlesswanderer]

The Maratha were the second campaign I tried. I pushed north, and kept expecting the Mughals to turn up with a stack, and so I was a little cautious. None appeared however, so they got wiped out as fast as I could stabilise the captured territories. Mysore attacked a few turns in, and then Portugal did a little later. Took Goa and Mysore.

The Mughals had a big navy, while I concentrated on land, so they blockaded all my trade. Once I got rid of them my income went up considerably. With so many regions, only the Persians to worry about, and lots of big cities, you can really ramp up the research.

The Persians somehow decided to attack me just after I knocked off the Mughals, so I took their 2 neighbouring territories and got peace - they were just an annoyance. After a period of growth and research my income went through the roof, so I started building up the army and navy to invade the Americas and Europe. The Persians attacked me again so I wiped them out. After taking a few pirate regions in America I headed for Europe, but sadly, however, the game slowed down to snail speed and kept crashing, so I abandoned it.

[Walrus]

Maratha were also my second campaign (after trying Great Britain first). I chose to deal with Mysore (who declared war on me on about turn 2) first - quickly sending a stack towards their only city and easily crushing them, along with taking the immediate north territory owned by the Mughals.
I also wanted to quickly deal with Portugal, so i declared war on them after i had finished with Mysore - this meant GB declaring war on me as well, and hence having my trade lanes severely raided, which was a big pain. To combat this, i recommend simply not worrying too much about your trade in early game - the Mughals have a far superior navy to you, and if you run into trouble with pretty much any european power they will simply blockade you massively.

Instead, i massed trade ships and sent them to all the trade theaters i could get to, and worked on my military and economy. By about turn 10 i commenced my blitz on the rest of the Mughal territory. In my game, they spent almost all of their forces in raiding my towns and villages, and plundering my economy - i chose to ignore this at the start, and simply push my armies (i had two main stacks - one advancing down the west coast, and the other in the east) forward "smash n grab" style, taking as much territory as i could, as quickly as possible - i figured that it would be best to do this quickly rather than risk the Mughals getting their acts together and forming any kind of reasonable resistance. I used my militia (mostly just the cheap armed peasantry type) to deal with the Mughal raiding parties if they ventured too near my cities.

Another note for when conquering the Mughals is to make use of your assassins - the Mughals have some extremely powerful Islam preachers in the northern territories, and it is in your interests to try to take out these and any other preachers you find with your assassins. Sabotaging religious buildings and assassinating preachers led to an altogether more peaceful takeover for me, due to far less religious resistance.

Regarding schools and techs, you will initially have one, and capture a second from Mysore fairly quickly - i set my first school to researching infrantry upgrades, and the Mysore school to Philosophy - ensuring that i could keep up with the European powers in technology, whilst giving my troops the edge over the Mughals.
Another note regarding philosophy - you will start with an Absolute Monarchy. Having never experienced (or known how to instigate) a revolution, i wanted to give this a try early on - about turn 10. I then changed my mind and stopped trying to instigate revolution for two reasons:
1) Public order was so high in my capitol i simply couldnt get the lower classes angry enough to rebel.
2) You start with an excellent set of ministers and a very good monarch - all of which are pretty young as well. Regardless of the flaws of an Absolute Monarchy, i recommend sticking with it because of this - your ministers and Monarch do an excellent job on all aspects of your faction (and the queen has a Man-eating Tiger as well, dont screw with that )


I am still relatively young in this campaign, but having now wiped out the Mughals (their last two territories rebelled), the real growth can begin - the next step is to upgrade all my infrastructure and economy, and without the Mughal fleets blockading my ports, and raiders pillaging my farms and craftworkers, my income will shoot through the roof.
Militarily (if thats a word) - my next step will to be taking the island of Ceylon. In my game this presents some problems, as the Dutch actually traded Ceylon to the French very early - and the French are one of my main trading partners. I am hoping to buy the island off them, if not then i will simply have to go to war.


General starting tips for maratha:

1) Dont be afraid of war with european powers early in the game. They may be stronger than you, but the AI is very reluctant to conduct any kind of naval assaults or amphibious landings. India is well out of their way, and the only real downside will be the pirating of your trade lanes - your territory is well protected by the ocean.
2) Establish trade and good relations with the Ottoman empire. They are a very profitable trade partner, and will allow you to strike at Persia without fear of intervention.
3) The american nations are your friends in early game. Thirteen Colonies, New France and New Spain make viable trading partners, even if your european tradelanes are blockaded - it is worthwhile to try to set up links with these nations, even if they are annexed by their home nations fairly early on.

[Prussian to the Iron]

marathas, if played correctly, will become the easiest campaign.

the first priorities should be to take Goa and Mysore.once these are taken, you should have 2-3 ports capable of building Dhows. these were essential to my game, because in only 2 turns you can send them to east africa(with the ivory, they should be making a load of money instantly).

once you have established the west coast and southern india under your rule, your next priority should be to take the 2 cities directly north of your capital, giving you even more ports. these will be extremely essential to the campaign, as the mughals love spamming brigs to blockade your ports.

once you gain these ports, just keep those Dhows going and you shouldbe raking in a very fair profit per turn. make peace with the mughals once you control the west coast.

for some reason i got lucky, and recieved a trade agreement with not only france, but great britain and some south-european minors as well. however, for some reason the trade routes with GB and france were land and were being blocked. noticing it was about 4,000 dollars a turn for them, i built up my armies and sent them to the border, ready to take the mughal city keeping my trade from reaching me somehow.

before this happens, you should research socket bayonets and naval techs. by 1718 i believe i already was building 4th rates with 180 upkeep rate and enhanced guns. these proved an enormous asset for the mainly-naval mughals.

once my armies were ready, i built some forts across rivers to hold down any enemy advances. i then moved my men to take the 3-4 provinces directly above me. my trade route was free and i saw an immediate spike in income.

now, i had accidentally done the trade spot glitch(where you get no income) and was forced to scupper all my Dhows there >:'(. by the time i got another fleet of Dhows to east africa, the mughals had taken my former trade spot PLUS another one across the channel at madagascar. luckily i had built 4 6th rates in advance for escorts, and made short work of the mughals, who had simply spammed brigs(plus gained another Dhow).

now i was in control of 2 trade spots, in addition to cutting off nearly 1800 dollars of trade they were recieving from them. portugal refuses to sign peace with me, and has enough galleons that i cannot get my ships into europe until i have built some 3rd-4th rates. this is actually a good thing, as they will not risk blockading any european powers, leaving my trade free and profitable.

they are now trading with the mughals, which i immediately blockaded.

it is now in the 1720's, and i am now making upwards of 14,000 dollars a turn (nearly 11,000 on trade alone!). i can afford to maintain enormous armies, and am currently using my most elite units to cut a swathe through the mughal towns.

if you want to know, my elite units are a unit fo shaturnal camel gunners with 3 XP, 2 units of Bargir infantry with 3 XP, and an extra unit of Bargir's with 2 XP. they have not lost a single battle, and i have named them(respectively): Maharajahs 1st Camel Guards, Maharajahs 1st Guards, Maharajahs 2nd Guards, and Maharajahs 3rd Guards. unfortunately, i recruited a general for them, and he was assassinated on teh very next turn. damn mughals....

[anweRU]

Although it has been a while (it was my first campaign more than a month ago), here is what I did:
- On turn 2 captured the two Mughal regions immediately above Sirinagar and Carnatica: Hyderabad (with the stack right next to it) and the one above Sirinagar (with the stack from the capital). Then those two armies went norh.
- The cavalry stack dealt with the Mughal army in Sirinagar, then joined the Hyderabad army on its march north-northeast.
- The stack from the capital went on to Ahmenagar (the two regions above Sirinigar have good trade ports), then into the Sikh territories.
- I built units in Sirinagar and Carnatica, waiting for Mysore to attack. It never did. I ended up attacking it instead by 1706-7 or so.
- Hindustan was the toughest battle with the Mughals.
- I left Goa alone, expecting the Portugese to attack. They never did, and were destroyed by Spain. Problem solved. The Mysore stack took it, jumped on a boat and joined the Persian expedition.
- Destroyed Persia (who DoW on me as soon as I captured the rich region below Kashmir - Punjab IIRC).
- Took Morocco. Swapped Morocco for Ceylon with the Dutch.

The Mughals never built a significant naval presence, as Bangalore's port was the only one they had left after the 4th turn. I only built one dock (in Carnatica). I started building a fleet to attack the pirates, but gave up on the game around 1720.

I didn't know the importance of the trade nodes at the time, so I think I had only three trade nodes in total - one in Brazil, and two in Madagascar Straits.

[Prussian to the Iron]

thats weird, the mughals have always maintained an enormous navy of brigs in my games.....