How to beat
Delhi Sultanateas Rus
Matchup tips
You can't match Ghazi numbers early with knights while producing scouts for pro scouts. You have to go Barracks and spearmen as the cheaper, harder counter. And you're not French; your knights do not heal.
You need at least 20 Crossbowmen to reliably focus down War Elephants one by one through the healing.
Use their slowness against them: raid from multiple angles, stretch the Delhi army thin. If the elephants, scholars, and archers are split, the army becomes easier to deal with.
The problem most players run into against Delhi is overinvesting in stopping sacred sites, and then Delhi just goes Castle.
Classic Delhi: with cheap Scholars from Dome of the Faith, a bit of breathing room means they take all relics, leaving only the home safe relic for the opponent. That can spiral out of control.
With how cheap the Scholars are from Dome of the Faith, it's worth sacrificing one to capture a sacred site, even if it gets eliminated.
Tower of Victory gives increased attack speed on infantry. It mostly matters in feudal engagements. Later, against mobile units like cavalry archers, it's tough. Against Rus, which does a lot of kiting with cavalry archers, you probably can't get full use of Tower of Victory, and it doesn't play as much into Delhi's strengths as the other landmark.
Just uses one scout for the deer because they're already close enough, and then the rest go for the risky resources before the Ghazi start to arrive.
The usual standard is you can be forced to add in a Barracks as Rus, which is a bit annoying, but it doesn't really offset that you can go for fast castle.
Rus gets Professional Scouts faster against Delhi because Delhi has to wait for Dome of the Faith and pump out Scholars, while Rus can research it in normal time and produce Scouts from the Hunting Cabin.
Horse Archers are good against Delhi in Castle Age because they match up well against Delhi's typical Castle units (Knights, Men-at-Arms, Crossbowmen) and Delhi's Castle Age upgrades take time.
Ghazi Raiders do 12 damage per hit compared to 9 from regular Horsemen, so they kill Scouts much faster, making them excellent at hunting down Scouts.
Ghazi Raiders in Feudal have the mobility and bonus damage to take down Horse Archers.
If Delhi go flawlessly into aggression with spear opening into Ghazi followup they can catch you as you're going Pro Scouts and ruin the plan
The high trade house is going to make up a difference of about two relics … what's more important actually is to stop Deli from now getting those sacred sides that's the real kicker here the accelerant they need
A Kremlin on the middle sacred site could be a very good play against Delhi. Not only do you deny a sacred site immediately, you also get a lot of vision because the Kremlin gets all outpost upgrades, doubling its line of sight — like a semi-Imperial Palace.
Against Delhi, Rus should go Pro Scouts to secure their own deer because Delhi gets the Professional Scouts upgrade for free, and you need to deny them that food source.
When Rus is contained by Delhi's feudal aggression, the High Trade House provides safe food (deer) and gold without needing to go out on the map.
Horse archers provide the mobility to raid Delhi's berry gatherers, as Delhi is often out on the map picking berries.
Ghazi Raider gets an extra plus two damage to heavy and has higher speed (1.88) than knights (1.62), so they can chase down and kill Rus knights.
Delhi splits the map up with many points of interest: deer packs and sacred sites. While the Rus player fights over deer, Delhi can capture sacred sites, getting gold and a sacred victory timer.
Delhi Sultanate Unique Units
Delhi Sultanate Landmarks
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