Bro I'm so glad you brought back the intro such amazing memories

This is what they meant when they said "India will be a super power by 2022"

Haven’t played the game in 6 years but always a treat when watching your civ overview videos!

Bit of a fun curiosity, but "light cavalry" in the team bonus description also includes Magyar Huszar, Steppe Lancer and Shrivamsha Rider. Which means they also benefit from the extra damage against buildings

Amazing video as always! I love how the Hindustanis were designed, finally a civ that is played very differently to the rest :0

4:57 I think the strongest use case of this bonnus is with bombard cannons in trash wars, sniping them with skirmishers is pretty common and they deal 2 dmg to generic BBC but hindustani's only recieve 1 dmg each skirmisher hit

I dont play Hindustanis but I love fighting them, for they are one of the few civs that actually break the meta and bring something different on the table to fight with. By default I assume people that complain about Hindustanis are either Frank pickers or archer civ pickers. Which is a good thing, for the very first time they have to pour a lot of work on their game.

water being a weak point for Hindustanis is actually accurate, I think. And thanks to Grand Trunk road, trade is still good, which also feels like historical accuracy. Someone designed these quite well

Its been over 20 years since I last played an AoE game, yet I keep watching your videos just because I like your voice and narration. Keep it up !

Whenever Sotl uploads a video its a good day

Im always looking forward to the civ overview videos. Today is a good day indeed. Thank you SotL!

Imperial camel: "Have you heard of the Knight Line? They are a powerful unit used by players to fight using cavalry. You, however, are knightless. I can play the role of Knight, so long as you promise not to use me against archers."

i think my favorite part about the Hindu's unique unit is that their speed is matched nicely with a nice running animation. most units you see that are fast tend to "walk" their sprint, while the units that actually have a nice animation of sprinting makes this game look so much better for a "rush down" unit.

also note that you can heal batteriing ram elephants with monks rather than repairing them

Topic suggestion: Efficiency in Dark Age. How important is it REALLY to have the boar directly under the TC instead of 1 tile away? How important is the second lumber camp when you have 7-10 on wood? How important is the one sheep that you accidentally slaughtered?

Drop an F in the chat, he didn't say "I lick toes at night" when thanking his patrons

The Hindustanis are like the Incas, they have units that can counter with each unit, anti-archery ghulam, anti-cavalry camel and anti-infantry hand cannons, a bit of everything although that, it lacks several things for some civilizations that specialize in infantry with a good archery

To me, the single biggest takeaway from this video is that Spirit of the Law needs a new ranking category for synergies. For a top performing civ not to get even an A minus on any of his usual categories just feels weird. I think he did a great job explaining how their abilities synergize to make them so good overall, and I suspect that if he did have a synergy category the Hindustani's performance would be much more obvious.

I made a mod for Hindustani that takes away.. Hussar, Light Cavalry, Champion, Ring Archer Armor and Redemption And in return I gave them.. Steppe and Elite Steppe lancers, Parthian Tactics, Bombard Towers and Architecture While also changing Ghulam into a tank. 85 HP with hidden bonus armor vs infantry and special units (they hold the line vs nearly any opponent in melee for a considerable amount of time, but they dont really have a high damage output without utilizing their pierce mechanic) This basically turns the Ghulam into a "total war" type unit, being one of those iconic "anvil infantry" that can take a lot of hits in situations that players normally dont expect, giving you time to use your camels and new lancers/parthian horse archers to "hammer" with. The lack of hussar and light cavalry is a nerf, but also advocating for historical accuracy, while the inclusion of steppe lancer is to push the gold reliance on the Hindu player into a more dynamic relationship between horse archers and parthian tactics in relation to the LACK of ring archer armor for skirmishers and crossbows. I essentially turned them from a reliable steam roller civ into one that has very heavy gold reliance on units with equal counter power that NEED to back each other up. I had a lot of fun playing with it. I felt challenged by situations that i normally would have blinked through before, and the Ghulam felt like such an interesting unit and a breath of fresh air, it was really awesome watching them hold the line vs champions and unique units for 20+ seconds while my camel reinforcements charged up from the side just in time from the stables. Idk if any of this is balanced or not. But it is really fun to ply with, if i cant toot my own horn.

The main advantage of the +1/+1 for gunpowder units is that BBCs only take 1 damage from elite skirms instead of the usual 2, so its a huge boost for survivability in late-game trash wars

In that dark age, it also can mean one less load to carry to get the villager to prevent down time with the discount.

Back when they were known as the Indians(I abused the heck out of the shore fishing bonus), they were always my go to but now I like them even more.

The key to their success is that they hard-counter the most meta units in the game: Cavalry and Archers. Infantry at large are fairly under-tuned and don't really perform that well outside of the specialists; being far too vulnerable to archers, and too slow to adequately handle cavalry in open field or defensive capacities. Finally, they're too vulnerable to Mangonels and Siege without some special du jour propping up their cost efficiency. Therein lies the problem: Infantry should, in theory, run right through the Hindustanis, but in reality, the high speed of the Ghulam and Camel lines enable them to easily dictate the terms of engagement, and there's nothing stopping the HIndustanis from building Mangonels, Scorpions or massed archers/hand cannoneers of their own. You're basically forced to respond to what the Hindustanis are doing instead of the other way around, unless you're playing a strong infantry civ and successfully raid them in Feudal and early Castle Age. Even then, they aren't defenseless; they're still capable of counter-raiding due to the sheer speed and offensive capability of their Camels.

Civ with the best glow-up in my opinion

I absolutely love seeing the way you analyze things.

The real advantage Indians had could never be replicated in the game because it was more related to geography and culture. They were overtly civillized to a point where they called Greeks at their peak to be Crude Barbarians whose only admirable part was their astronomical knowledge. The ability of being surrounded by water, rivers flowing in the middle and amazing ability to sustain population was what made them one of oldest and greatest civillization which made alot of discoveries that are way too ahead of its time and even now are relevant. Mountains protected them in north and seas in south, so they were generally safe. Another great thing was the commodities they traded were considered premium goods, like spices and fine woven clothing that sold for good amount of gold. Indians had very strong background of knowledge and learning and they had universities long before even the world understood concept of even having them, this ample amount of knowledge and sharing it with everyone became one of their big points rise, Indian traders were so influential that cities were raised up from nothing just by taxing the Indian Merchants who came to trade. Trading, Geography, Population, Rich Fertile land and premium goods were its best points.

Thank you for bringing the intro back! I have missed it so much.

Love still getting civ overviews in 2022

Spirit since you did a top 5 trebuchet civs could it be possible if you did the same with bombard cannons, since there are some civs that have specific bonuses for them (Bohemians, Portuguese, Spanish, Turks, Burgundians...)? Also, Hindustanis best civ.

The spinning villager in the intro is my all time favourite. Keep her forever, and I'll be here for it. The rest of the intro is dope, too. But you could change it, and as long as she's there, i might not even notice. 🤣

Yayy, Intro is back!

YES THE INTRO IS BACK YES YES YES

Paladin also gives +1 pierce armor, which is a substantial improvement over Cavalier.

Since last week i was waiting for you to upload this video. Timely arrival, indeed.

Baby wake TF up, SOTL just uploaded. On the topic of splitting civs, I think a prime candidate will be splitting the "Slavs" into the Rus', representing Novgorod and Muscovy, and Ruthenians, mainly representing Galicia-Volhiniya. Both get a unique replacement for the champion, the Varangian Guard. Rus' will keep Slavs' bonuses and/or adjust them, and Ruthenians will be an entirely new civ. Campaigns for each would be Alexander Nevsky, and Danylo the Great.

They always make the DLC civs overpowered at first. It sells more DLC. Then they nerf it later after the majority of sales have occurred. It's plain to see. And yes i realize Indians were already in the game. But they were overhauled in line with the DLC to be sold.

It is surprising that Hindustani are jack of all stats (completely balanced/all B) civ, but are one of the top tier civ in the game's ranked ladder. Props to them!

It's impressive how a civ without knights can be that powerful. American civs heave eagle warrior which is probably the best unit overall in the game. What I've done recently that really helped me was scouts into CA, or archers into skirms + camels. Works every time. Also the hand cannoneers is the surprise factor that finishes the game, make sure you make your opponent to mass halbs and them shred them all and push with hussars.

I am thoroughly enjoying Hindustanis as a civ. The campaign was great, and each of their strengths cover up some of their weakness to an extent. Quite versatile with options all throughout the game starting from Dark Age. Great choice to play with.

I think you should add 1 more segment to your civ reviews. Where you point out civs unbalanced state in some popular game mods. Like you say this civ is potencialy good in forest nothing, all tech mod, diplo-regicide, deathmatch... I wasnt playing aoe2 till i watch one of your first civ review. Then i started playing aoe2 after all those years. And kept watching you.

I wonder what stats SotL is using. Hindustanis are #1 in winrates at 1200+ elo on open maps, not #3 (according to aoepulse, yet to find more up-to-date stats).

Love that the intro is back !

I don't know where you got the intro from or the music but it is fire. Glad it is back.

Sir so glad to that u bring this vedio fan from India and specially wating for Dravidians 😂 as i am Dravidian too love @spiritoflaw

I love what they did with the Indians, it's the first time they took one of those huge orerarching civs and made it something more sensible. It would make sense to change Slavs to Russia. They could also reorganize the Iberian civs, changing Spain to Castille, and adding Aragon.

When I started playing Hindustanis they became my new favorite, I would never thought I could switch from the Spanish.

I'm loving this civ so far

"...so let's check them out. [pause]" Me: DO WE GET THE INTRO???? [intro queues] Me: ahhh yesssssssss

Can you do Bengalis next? Also can you make a video comparing all elephants? 🙇‍♀🙇‍♀ Thank you sensei!

1:18-Team Bonus +2 Light Cavalry and Camels vs Building 2:56-Villager bonus 3:20-Camels Attack 25% faster 4:40-Gun Powder +1/+1 5:35-Carvenserai 7:10-Ghulam 9:05-Imperial Camel 10:30-Grand Trunk Road 11:10-Shatangi

Am i the only one who thinks that IMPERIAL CAMEL should be a common upgrade that industanis get discounted? Like imperial skirmishers.

9:30 u forgot the secret attack speed increase 2->1.6

OH MY GOD, the intro is back !!!

Finally!!! another civ overview!!

3:33 Accidentally referred to Hindustanis by their old name! Years of conditioning wins again.

Finally my Favourite Indian Civ I love Camels

Hi Spirit, Great Video! I have a thought for a video idea that might be interesting around how AI names are assigned in games. My brother and I play a lot of single player, and have noted that we recognise some names for certain colours, for example Nagy Lajos (Magyars) always appears to be Grey. I was wondering if there was any connection between Civs, colours and player names. To test this, we set up two games with the same civs and colours and noted that they had the same player names. However, on subsequent attempts we are not always getting the same results, particularly when we have games of all the same civ. Are you aware of any connection between player names, civs and colours that might exist? Or even how many names there are per civ?

Lol look at this fandom dissing a civ because it destroys the current meta of xbows and knights. Hindusthanis, the truly most versatile unorthodox anti-meta civ in existence.

Fantastic video as usual!

But you guys know that some civ MUST be at the top tier, right? When making a ranking there necessary is a first, second and third one. That doesn't mean you need to change the civ automatically..

"They have solid trash units." is a sentence that only makes sense in AoE

every time SotL reads his patrons at the end, I always have to think of Olaf from Frozen 2: 'Samantha? *chuckles* I don't even know a Samantha'

THE INTRO! It´s alive!

Next video: who has the best trade? Berber water trade? Spanish water? Hindustani etc. I know you've touched on water v land trade in the past, but I'd be keen for a refresher video with the new civs included and maybe some info on if for example dry dock increases gather rate

This Civs a beast

Hindustani + Italians + Spanish. The best trade team. Unlimited gunpowder.

The intro doesn't have to go so hard goddamn

Being an exclusively anti-meta player, no doubt they are my favourite civ.

Don't know if this was addressed before, but does the gold unoque tech stack with h the Aztec team bonus with regards to relics?

Off Topic, but there should be an official Tutorial for Things like how Triggers work (at least the most used ones), i know they work after Condition-Effect and i teached me several ones, but some can be very complex. And it should be especially explained how to upload Custom made Scenarios to Multiplayer, how to change Campaign-Backgrounds, how to add Text Messages before and after Missions etc. You have to look for all this Things one by one by your own. I made several Custom Campaigns with quite a lot of single Missions.

I don't get it how someone can have problems with infantry civs. The hand cannoneers destroy everything!

Could you do Gurjaras next?

0:16 common misconception related to this. Columbus knew he wasn't in india, which I believe George Carlin cited a historian in a speech where either was called Indianapolis or hinduopolis. There's a lot of myths that just won't die around the naming scheme.

Spirit of the law grading: "Its absolutely the worst civilization possible on the water so must give it the worst rating, a C+."

iLickToesAtNight is back!

The Civ that looks at the horsey-and-archer meta and laughs.

Hindustani + spanish as a team. The ultimate trading experience.

Love this civ, I can use it both on closed maps and on open maps.

For me the biggest effect of the gunpowder bonus is that bbc only take 1 damage from elite skirms, not 2, so they are so much harder to snipe in trash wars

"The one unit you know for a fact, you're gonna make a lot of every game" - *Laughs in Hoang*

I still think the Hindustanis are to good honestly. I have long been an advocate that the Byzantines need a buff. The Hindustanis are what people fear the Byzantines becoming. A civ with a lot of options and all those options are really good. The Byzantines have a lot of options but all their options are bad. The Hindustanis on the other hand have a lot of options but most if not all their options are good. Also unlike the Byzantines the Hindustanis have an eco bonus.

Sotl: Don't worry, Hindustanis have a great counter to crossbows! Me: Ok. What is it? Sotl: Shows cannon galleon on the next screen Me: Not what I was expecting, but ok!

On a different topic, i would like a japanese and a cinese expansion, giving different dinasties an reigns for cina (like Qin and Cio) and different shogunate for japan (inspiration taken from Total War games, ex: Nobunaga faction and campain).

Ghulam bonus against eagles is nonsense. That really needs to be removed. How can it have a bonus against Archers and Eagles, just broken. Single unit counter to 3 entire civs

They have a great campaign aswell 🤷‍♂️

This is my favourite 4v4 civ!!

It'll always be weird to me that they gave the hindustanis the armored elephant new regional unit but took away the elephant archer which they were the only ones who had it for years seems kinda sad

Nice video as always

I have a good feeling that a lot of those match ups versus infantry civs are probably ending during castle age, when the Hindustani's don't really have a good answer to infantry.

Why no scooter guy bringing pizza for Italians

Kinda funny how a cart drawn by human is faster than a cart drawn by horse 😂

4:11 "hint of stone" gg subtitles

Ohh YESSSSSSS The most OP civ lol

I love this channel

Hey man, I've been out of AoE2 for many many years now, yet everytime i see your vids, there is a lot new... Could You make a comparison betweek AoE original and AoE 2 in 2022?

overall a strong civ with lovely camels

Really wish they kept the armor bonus +1/+1 for camels too.

Men of culture. Reunite for the OG Intro

I can’t believe that upon seeing the video on my feed I made the most absolute soyface, I guess that’s just how much I love this game and channel

I see a new civ overview Me: It's a good day today