Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Dynasties of India Review (Hat8)
The Dynasties of India expansion for Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is not the most experimental expansion, but everything it does is done well. All four of the new Civilizations added are fun to play and have good campaigns.
The Bengalis are a very fun Elephant Civilization that lack even decent cavalry. They get Mahayana which reduces how much population their villagers take up and get Rathas which are a chariot unit that can alternate between melee and ranged. These effectively fill in as their cavalry replacement. They are great at building up a huge late economy and building up a large force of high HP units. Their Devapala campaign has a unique story that takes a serious look at the morals and struggles of Buddhism.
The Dravidians are a decent infantry civilization with an excellent campaign. They get Wootz steel which allows their units to ignore armor but lack upgrades for their cavalry and even their Elephants. Their Thirisadai is a weak Imperial age galleon type unit that can be easily countered with fire ships and demolition ships. The Dravidians have good infantry that can be supported by hard hitting elephant archers, but not many economic upgrades. The Rajendra campaign makes up for all this by being an excellent campaign. Lots of experimental mechanics like having to occupy AI cities to control them, having to rely on reinforcements without a base, and raiding based missions. However, its best missions are simply about building a base and overcoming near endless enemies with the support of economic allies that need to be defended. Most of its missions are land and sea missions that are extremely intense and challenging.
The Hindustanis are a camel and gunpowder civ that also have horse archers. They do not really master anything but have a trade cart building that makes them and their team extremely rich. They do not have a specialized camel unit or gunpowder unit to fully utilize their bonuses. Their campaign is pretty excellent, but you play as the Tatars for much of it. The latter half of the campaign goes crazy with gunpowder units and is fun and challenging. Its mostly just destroy your enemies’ missions, but it works.
The Gurjaras replace the Indians in the Prithviraj campaign and are designed around raiding. Their Shrivamsha Riders get an extra health bar that represents them dodging stuff. They get cheaper units through Kshatriyas and get a health buff to their elephant archers. However, they lack cheap units in the late game and may struggle with numbers. Their replacement as the faction in the Prithviraj campaign works very well and does not cause any issues.
Dynasties of India is not too experimental with its campaigns, but despite this has some of the best ones in the whole series. It introduces good factions, but they are not really that unique or ultra-specialized. If you like building up a base and then just destroying everything, then these campaigns work well for you as only the Rajendra campaign really breaks from this mould.