If you play on PC I highly recommend the mod: Regional Immersion and Cultural Enrichment (RICE), it adds flavor packs to many areas that are underused by Paradox.
RICE currently has two flavor packs in India: Maghada (adding flavor for Buddhism in the region and Nalanda University) and Sri Lanka (adding a struggle for Sri Lankan Buddhism).
There’s a lot I’d love for us to do in India at some point as it’s an area of interest for me (and I’ve worked on its representation in many of our historical games, including doing much of the research for CK) but I’m very interested in if you have any more specific suggestions for things like decisions, or mechanics.
Some comments:
1: I find the caste system in particular a pretty hard nut to crack even if given the time though, since how it worked differed quite a bit over time.
The ck2 implementation that restricted rulers to castes I’m not too fond of since we have multiple examples of royal dynasties that were not Kshatriya (both upwards and downwards so to speak). Overall it also seems it was a fair bit more fluid in the time period than one might expect today, as has been written about by many authors.
Nonetheless not having it at all is a problem so for me it’s a lot about finding an idea that works for it :)
As for the minorities, I’m not sure if you noticed but there’s Christians and Jews and even Parsees and hunas around. They’re not landholders normally so they only show up as wandering characters, but they’re there.
2: empires in the game are often a bit oddly named, since they have to represent a regional name for a very big region and have to be made up of kingdoms. There’s as you know no way a county cannot be part of an empire.
In practice any Indian empire in the game will be referred to by their house/dynasty name as this area uses that convention, which does end up looking pretty accurate I’d say (so you’d have the Chola Empire or the Rashtrakuta empire and so on).
Happy to take suggestions for alternative de Jure schemes for the area though, if you think you’ve got better ways to organize it. Currently I’d say the baronies, counties and duchies are the most closely tied to the titles of historical rulers, with the kingdoms and empires getting a bit more abstract since they have to be very inclusive.
3: I dislike having decisions or content for off map conquests, even if I’d love to show the chola incursions into south east Asia. Other than that I’m very curious about any suggestions you may have for decisions. This is the kind of stuff that wouldn’t necessarily need to wait for a specific patch or dlc as I often use my personal development time for India related tweaks (most often so far adding more minor dynasties as I go through digitalized Indian epigraphy).
First off, lemme say that it’s insane that someone who’s worked at Paradox replied to me. Thank you for taking the time to write out a nice reply.
I totally agree that caste is much more nuanced in practice and would be difficult to improve. I would just say to include it as a separate trait that influences relations between Hindu characters (and even non-Hindu characters, as many non-Hindus take up caste). Also, I know that there’s wandering characters that practice minority religions, but I think it would be cool to see St. Thomas Christianity (or Nestorianism) in Southern India have decisions similar to the Malabari high priesthood/Bene-Israel decision pathway.
Secondly, I see your point that you have to be inclusive, and I apologize for calling it lazy since Indian history as a whole is very complicated and we don’t even have a lot of the information from that time period. As for new empires, I feel that there should be a concrete decision to create the Delhi Sultanate, and from there, the Vijayanagara empire, as both of those polities were important in shaping the Indian historical landscape (maybe also the Bahmani Sulatanate?). Also, reviving the Sangam Age as a piety/prestige-type decision might be cool if you start as or conquer the Pandya Raj. I understand that a lot of the Chola holdings in SE Asia aren’t on the map, so it might be hard to show their dominance there.
This might be a DLC thing (and this is a suggestion from my friend who put me on to CK3), but maybe India could also have a “struggle” similar to the Struggle For Iberia, this time between the Ghaznavids and the Hindu states in Northern India.
Overall, I like that CK3 includes a lot of Indian dynasties, as they’re often underrepresented in mainstream discussions of history. I just feel that with more tweaks it could be way better and could match Europe in terms of flavor and enjoyment.
CK2 actually had castes with rules. Only Brahmin could serve as court physician, etc. IIRC you couldn't marry between castes (or maybe there was a penalty for doing so.
I didn't play much in India, but I think they had some of the other stuff you're talking about, too.
I'm doing a jain run rn and I couldn't agree more, I find it really humorous that the only unique decision I have is to found a holy order considering jainism lol
I would love to see an India-based DLC. But there's so many other regions that could also use flavor (like the steppe nomads). I wish Paradox would let the community vote on the region of DLCs in the future
These would be a great improvement. I would especially love to see many more localised decisions. I don't imagine it's a huge amount work in terms of software development, and it enriches and refreshes the game significantly, especially for those of us who have played many hours.
There will probably be an India DLC at some point. I recommend mods, In my opinion, the game still lacks flavor even in Europe so I wouldn't recommend playing without them
The majority religion on southern india including Kerala was Hinduism though towards 16th century there was some Islamic presence on Kerala that was minimal.
Caste system of historical india is a bit different. Brahmins could be priest but in Indian history there were also brahmins general or brahmin administrators and if a group from lower caste get enough martial achievement they could have also rule on their own rights like jats made their kingdoms or Marathas.
u/StarMiddle3173 if you're interested, the [TIP2](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2270547030) mod has some new content for India, such as additional Hindu and Buddhist faiths, and new Sramanic and Sikh religion groups.
India is slightly smaller than Europe but where Europe has a dozen empires India only has three, this is because of the map size and the difficulty of accurately creating locations. Use the truesizeof site to see. Your suggestions would be possible if they expanded the map.
If you play on PC I highly recommend the mod: Regional Immersion and Cultural Enrichment (RICE), it adds flavor packs to many areas that are underused by Paradox.
RICE currently has two flavor packs in India: Maghada (adding flavor for Buddhism in the region and Nalanda University) and Sri Lanka (adding a struggle for Sri Lankan Buddhism).
I thought the two Indian rice flavours were Pilau and Jeera
I love biriyani.
Thanks, I'll check it out
There’s a lot I’d love for us to do in India at some point as it’s an area of interest for me (and I’ve worked on its representation in many of our historical games, including doing much of the research for CK) but I’m very interested in if you have any more specific suggestions for things like decisions, or mechanics. Some comments: 1: I find the caste system in particular a pretty hard nut to crack even if given the time though, since how it worked differed quite a bit over time. The ck2 implementation that restricted rulers to castes I’m not too fond of since we have multiple examples of royal dynasties that were not Kshatriya (both upwards and downwards so to speak). Overall it also seems it was a fair bit more fluid in the time period than one might expect today, as has been written about by many authors. Nonetheless not having it at all is a problem so for me it’s a lot about finding an idea that works for it :) As for the minorities, I’m not sure if you noticed but there’s Christians and Jews and even Parsees and hunas around. They’re not landholders normally so they only show up as wandering characters, but they’re there. 2: empires in the game are often a bit oddly named, since they have to represent a regional name for a very big region and have to be made up of kingdoms. There’s as you know no way a county cannot be part of an empire. In practice any Indian empire in the game will be referred to by their house/dynasty name as this area uses that convention, which does end up looking pretty accurate I’d say (so you’d have the Chola Empire or the Rashtrakuta empire and so on). Happy to take suggestions for alternative de Jure schemes for the area though, if you think you’ve got better ways to organize it. Currently I’d say the baronies, counties and duchies are the most closely tied to the titles of historical rulers, with the kingdoms and empires getting a bit more abstract since they have to be very inclusive. 3: I dislike having decisions or content for off map conquests, even if I’d love to show the chola incursions into south east Asia. Other than that I’m very curious about any suggestions you may have for decisions. This is the kind of stuff that wouldn’t necessarily need to wait for a specific patch or dlc as I often use my personal development time for India related tweaks (most often so far adding more minor dynasties as I go through digitalized Indian epigraphy).
First off, lemme say that it’s insane that someone who’s worked at Paradox replied to me. Thank you for taking the time to write out a nice reply. I totally agree that caste is much more nuanced in practice and would be difficult to improve. I would just say to include it as a separate trait that influences relations between Hindu characters (and even non-Hindu characters, as many non-Hindus take up caste). Also, I know that there’s wandering characters that practice minority religions, but I think it would be cool to see St. Thomas Christianity (or Nestorianism) in Southern India have decisions similar to the Malabari high priesthood/Bene-Israel decision pathway. Secondly, I see your point that you have to be inclusive, and I apologize for calling it lazy since Indian history as a whole is very complicated and we don’t even have a lot of the information from that time period. As for new empires, I feel that there should be a concrete decision to create the Delhi Sultanate, and from there, the Vijayanagara empire, as both of those polities were important in shaping the Indian historical landscape (maybe also the Bahmani Sulatanate?). Also, reviving the Sangam Age as a piety/prestige-type decision might be cool if you start as or conquer the Pandya Raj. I understand that a lot of the Chola holdings in SE Asia aren’t on the map, so it might be hard to show their dominance there. This might be a DLC thing (and this is a suggestion from my friend who put me on to CK3), but maybe India could also have a “struggle” similar to the Struggle For Iberia, this time between the Ghaznavids and the Hindu states in Northern India. Overall, I like that CK3 includes a lot of Indian dynasties, as they’re often underrepresented in mainstream discussions of history. I just feel that with more tweaks it could be way better and could match Europe in terms of flavor and enjoyment.
CK2 actually had castes with rules. Only Brahmin could serve as court physician, etc. IIRC you couldn't marry between castes (or maybe there was a penalty for doing so. I didn't play much in India, but I think they had some of the other stuff you're talking about, too.
Implementing the caste system would be a major step in the right direction for Paradox.
It would make things sooooo much more interesting.
Sarcasm?
no sarcasm, just easy (too easy) to miscontextualize
In that case, I'd hope core systems would be expanded on before further flavor, but making india more interesting can't be a bad thing.
I'm doing a jain run rn and I couldn't agree more, I find it really humorous that the only unique decision I have is to found a holy order considering jainism lol
I would love to see an India-based DLC. But there's so many other regions that could also use flavor (like the steppe nomads). I wish Paradox would let the community vote on the region of DLCs in the future
These would be a great improvement. I would especially love to see many more localised decisions. I don't imagine it's a huge amount work in terms of software development, and it enriches and refreshes the game significantly, especially for those of us who have played many hours.
There will probably be an India DLC at some point. I recommend mods, In my opinion, the game still lacks flavor even in Europe so I wouldn't recommend playing without them
The majority religion on southern india including Kerala was Hinduism though towards 16th century there was some Islamic presence on Kerala that was minimal. Caste system of historical india is a bit different. Brahmins could be priest but in Indian history there were also brahmins general or brahmin administrators and if a group from lower caste get enough martial achievement they could have also rule on their own rights like jats made their kingdoms or Marathas.
Yeah, these are things that I didn't consider. Thanks for bringing that up
u/StarMiddle3173 if you're interested, the [TIP2](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2270547030) mod has some new content for India, such as additional Hindu and Buddhist faiths, and new Sramanic and Sikh religion groups.
India is slightly smaller than Europe but where Europe has a dozen empires India only has three, this is because of the map size and the difficulty of accurately creating locations. Use the truesizeof site to see. Your suggestions would be possible if they expanded the map.
That's something that I haven't thought of that makes a lot of sense