Maratha

[Franconicus]

My approach was slightly different, so I will try do add my experience.

I played medium/hard - just for fun.

I do not think that your units are so bad. In the beginning, your hindu swords and muskets are good enough to fight their opponenets from Mysore and Mughal. I even saw them stand a cavalry charge. The swordsmen are excellent to assault fortresses. Your early lancers are good, also. Good enough to chase routing enemies, to make flanking assaults. I found one lancer unit successful against six peasant units.
And there is also your artillery, as good as any in the game.
Alright, the elephants are bad, really bad, slow, weak bunch and vulnarable. Keep them behind the lines, where they can give moral and some extra fire power. They are also good against camels, cause they fear elephants.

The strategy was similar to the others, but slower. India is overpopulated and there is no change in "blitzing". Therefore, slow down. In the first turn, I killed the free enemy army and laid siege on the two cities in the north-northeast.
Usually the enemy salles and you can slaighter them. So on turn two I took Hyderabad. I kept on besiegiing the other town, though.
I also kept on building new troops, esp. in the south.

Usually, Mysore attacks Goa and takes it. As soon as Mysorian soldiers penetrate Portugese territory, you should assault the besieged town. As soon as Mysore whipes out the Port. colony, it is time to attack them - attack both provinves at a time. Move your troops from the northern front and let them attack Goa with some new formations from your capitol.
Also let your troops from the south march into the heart of Mysore. This detachment may be weak, but you can always withdraw and lure troops out of the city. Rely in your defense and weaken the troops of Mysore. As sson as the northern army did her job, it can move to Mysore and finish this enemy.

Now it is time to relax. Normally, Mughal kept on attacking your new provinces in the north with lots of unskilled troop. Good chance to get experience with simple kills.

Make peace with Mughal, together with a trade agreement. Then reduce your army to a couple of experienced veterans. Money is an issue and now it is time to build up your towns.
Trade is the answer to the money problem, as you have many trade ports and can trade with many nations. Use this and do not forget the Turks and the Americas.
However, trade is not reliable. You will see this as soon as there is war with GB.
I reduced my miöitary expenses so I could cover them with tax income. Trade income was spend for building.
After some time, the Brits will attack you. Rely on some experienced units together with your recruiting capacity. The British are not so powerful and usually they have only one stack. They neber managed to take one of my towns.
Mughal will attack you, but you can repel them easily. As soon as the Brits are done, you can move your now experienced troops northwards. Take the provinces in the Indian Sea, to cut of their sea trade and their ability to build warships. You have to go slowly, as you have to convert the peasants to Hinduism on the way. Pretty soon you should be able to take the rest. Persia declared war, but did not bother. I soon saw Ottoman troops taking their provinces.
The Brits will return. I never managed to defeat them in the Sea, they never managed to beat me on land. After some time a gave them money to make peace and trade agreement. It worked.
Now, controoling all of india, lots of money came.

Still keep your army as small as possible, while you increase your economy. You should be able to trade with everyone. Now it is time to build up a marine and to seize trade points.

After this invade Cylon. Not a big deal. It might bring you to war with GB again. Make peace with the Brits and with the Dutch by offering money and technology. Now you control all of India and all of your main objectives.
By the way, do not too much research, at least if you want to keep absolute monarchy.

The end of the game is easy. I invaded the Pirate islands in the Mericas as well as Morroco. Then I took France and the Lower Louisianna and reached the target in the fifties.
Only trouble is unrest at home. Keep a decent army and burn down schools if you do not need them any longer. That is all!

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I turtle, so at 1775 and 24 provinces, I am not bothered by my overall progress.

I am constantly annoyed by the inability of Indian troops to dig in. Defending fortresses is a ghastly bloodbath without entrenchments.

Moreover, I am annoyed with pretty much all of my infantry, Sikhs included, in the late game here. I am always being outshot. Just had a Regiment of 110 Bargir, behind an entrenchment (built by a peasant unit)m fighting a 96 man unit of Cairo Jannies standing in the open at about 40 yards. Mine were shot down to 14 and broke having dropped the Cairos only to 49. What gives. Yes, they are more accurate and load a bit faster, but I'm behind a bloody great pile of sandbags -- and I still couldn't go one for one.

Really leaves you wondering if all you should do is make Sikh sword -- since it always seems to come to the scrum anyway since if you stand to trade fire you lose. Frustrating.

[Kanamori]

The Maratha have the best starting position, far and away, IMO. I try to make friends with most everyone, which you'll stay friendly with easily if you have trade agreements with everyone (I avoid alliances until there are few people left, and especially try to make sure not to get drawn into conflicts that take away trade and make enemies...). I basically just invade the Ottoman Empire, hopefully while they're still having fun with Persia, make sure to make friends with Russia, and make concessions to Austria to avoid a serious war, if they start one, by giving them poor provinces that aren't troop recruiting centers. Fighting Austria from the south is a bad idea because of how long the marching will be and how few and far away the troop recruiting cities are. I usually end up fighting Britain and the Netherlands with France and Spain (and let them do the heavy naval fighting, until I nab London)... anyway, if you give out tech and occasionally money to the European powers who are the underdogs, when they need it, you'll be able to keep Europe in perpetual war with no clear winners until you waltz in... giving away tech and money also means that you're going to be very friendly with most everyone, so you can ally with France and Spain, only to backstab them later on and wipe out a nation in a single turn, which saves you the mess of having to deal with most of their military, creates new nations to trade with in the Americas, who won't be a challenge to your power. Since the computer gets antsy to invade when they're blocked in by you, it's the perfect pre-emptive strike, and lets you refocus totally on Russia and Austria, or Prussia if they happen to be the next dominant power.

As to their troops, I make up for their weakness by using lots of mortars and shrapnel/canister shot from cannons, with cavalry/elephant charges to break them faster, if they're in an opportune position for that... also I think it can be a good idea to recruit more than one or two generals for an army and use the elephants to start the chain routing, or take care of a flank.

[Infantry121]

Take Control of Southern Indian,including Goa,Mysore,Hyberbad,Abgmerbad or how ever its spelled,and Celyon.Then make peace with the Mugal Empire and spend time using the trade theaters to get money then invade Poland.

[Sebastian Seth]

I didnt find the units that bad at all. I favour infantry and like to mix melee infantry to it. In these kind of brawls the morale and fatigue plays vital part. Almoust all of indias troops are resistant to heat and balgir musketeers have resistance to morale shocks. Melee infantry seems to be little better than european one. Both Sikh and Hindu Warriors are pretty good alltought they tire quicky. On top of that the camel units have some nice suprices on them. One having 90 range. Later on you get Balgir Lancers as well and they are somewhat more usefull than the original indians.

I didnt waste time on the start. I took two provinces around my capital form the Mughais right at start. Then there was some brawls between Mysore and Portugal. It lead to Goa being unprotected and Mysore weakened. As such opportunity was presented I took them both. This lead me to have one more trading port and one more school. Futher more, Mysore is also nice province to spam troops from. After that I quickly turned the momentum against Mughais. I pretty much blized with 2 armies and followed with 1 to subdue the rebellions. Then endless number of harbor invasions and navy brawls led me to garrison all my ports with 1-2 units. Also gathered 2 brig, 2 sloop navy to take out the Mughai navy. Moved fast on the west side to take their trading ports. If its possible I'm going to take on the ottoman empire and persia next. I'm allready allied with the Russians for it. Then mayby grab some american provinces from spanish.

Economics are the key with Marathas. My armies may be little underpowered but they'll never be underhanded.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...Economics are the key with Marathas. My armies may be little underpowered but they'll never be underhanded.

Actually, that may be the best one sentence summary of Maratha as a faction. It pretty much encompasses their strategic composition and approach in a very pithy fashion.

[Napoleon The Emperor Of Europe]

Damn...

When I played the Marathas in Campagin mode,the ungraze(Brits) never came to my land,the mughals were almost defeated..The Punjabi's had risen against my rule,and I conqereud Persia,but I was always at war with georgia or russia,,