N3O Age Of Empires and Starcraft 2 Clan

This is not at the expert level, but at mine, mass lbs beats anything india can throw in colonial. Sowars have so few hps, lbs outrange gurkas by 4, and slaughter sepoys and zams. Basically turtle boom, its not easy at all in the early parts of the game, but a little strategic walling and a few towers can go a long way with lbs.

LB/pike has worked for me against India, but as you say it is a hard fight early... pure LB is just asking the Indian to spam Desert Terror/Camel Combat Sowars at you that do 45 damage to archers. I agree that LB's do great from behind walls, but whenever I try to build towers, 5 or 8 sepoys gun down the settlers who are trying to build them (they take a frustratingly long time to build), while 4 sowars descend on my first 5 or 6 LBs. That said, there is no use bringing in muskets: sepoys AND gurkhas pwn them with relative ease in early colonial.

Lbows / Pikes is the way to go. Age up with 500 food while you gather 435 wood due Age up (11 vills on wood should be enough). Get a Market (wood gathering upgrade), another House and 200 wood, so that you can start building your rax as soon as you hit colonial. Ship 700 Wood (10 or 11 Vills should be on Food), get a second rax, 1-2 Houses and start spamming Lbows /Pikes. 2nd Age 2 Shipment should be 600 wood then (or maybe 6 Lbows). As India I always struggled vs Brits.

I would think sowars would do nicely against an lbow turtle. Just send camel attack, desert wind or whatever it is (that gives sowars x2 to light inf), and the melee attack thing and you have sowars doing 58 damage to lbows. Add on the British consulate and now they have 250 hp, too. Maybe all that takes too long, though.

If that fails, maybe a FF with extreme mahout spamming action...? Those would make a mess of his buildings too.