Talk:Indians (Age of Empires II)/@comment-31256631-20170216152741

People please learn some history instead of arguing based on some fragmented piece of information you know.

The concept of "Indian" is complete nonsense in the Medieval times, when India had so many different nation-states, cultures (multiple cultural GROUPS including Central Indian, Aryan, and Dravidian), and religions. Sure, the Mughals are the famous ones to more or less unify the entire subcontinent, but they never forged a national identity or converged the culture (unlike Qin China) which is why as the Mughals declines, India fractured into dozens of pieces once more. Even as late as the Sepoy Rebellion (1857), India failed to form a unified movement and the various cultural and religious grievances between different groups caused them to work against one another instead of together against the outsiders (British). The local concept of 'Indian', as a singular identity, did not really emerge until after the nationalization of the British East India Company into the British Raj -- which means only in the past 150 years or so.

In general, the concept of "Indian" existing as a single civilization in AOE2 is purely for player convenience. As such, the developers picked the civ traits of 'India' from MULTIPLE cultures and nation-states spread across the continent -- from the Islamic empires like Delhi, Bengal, Bahmanis, and Mughals (who didn't really 'unite' India until the 1700s, well after AOE2's timeline) to the Hindu empires like the Vijayanagar.