Ghandi- what is he good for, now?

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Smokeybear

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In G&K, with the improved happiness mechanics that make unhappiness mostly a thing of the past, I've seldom had many times where I was concerned about it for long. Usually, there is a decent surplus. So what is the advantage now, of playing Ghandi? He's still a liability if you play anything but small-civ games, and his small-civ happiness bonus is now pretty much irrelevant. His UU and UB are nothing worth a second look over any other civ's, worse than many. Playing him now is pretty much like playing a civ with no UA at all. No positive one, anyway. It can be a decidely negative UA unless you play small. Does his UA need improvement? Changing? Thoughts?
 
I think that the problem is excessive happiness in general, not Ghandi's UA. Mercantile city states provide way too much happiness and religion probably isn't helping the situation, either.
 
Kwami said:
I think that the problem is excessive happiness in general, not Ghandi's UA. Mercantile city states provide way too much happiness and religion probably isn't helping the situation, either.
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Well, that's one way of looking at it. But, barring any major change in the existing happiness mechanics, what would help Mr. Ghandi out, in the way of UA change? Maybe if they increased the happiness from citizens, and/or decrease the unhappiness from number of cities? With a significant increase in happiness obtainable from small-tall empires, the increase in the happiness-to-culture benefit from the Piety tree would be an interesting bonus...
 
You guys sound like you're playing on too low difficulties.

There's never enough happiness btw - just grow taller and/or wider for more science and production. You can also sell unique luxuries (which you might have never considered to do before).
 
FeiLing said:
You guys sound like you're playing on too low difficulties.

There's never enough happiness btw - just grow taller and/or wider for more science and production. You can also sell unique luxuries (which you might have never considered to do before).
Click to expand...

I play Emperor, and that's as high as I'm able to play at without constant losses and hairpulling, at this point. Not interested in the elitist levels yet (if ever). Sell unique luxuries?!? You're kidding, right? Who'da ever thought of that.... :lol: Seriously though, Ghandi's UA is pretty limp at this point, and I think it needs improving. I'm not having any trouble at all with keeping happiness up- the point is, since happiness is not a serious issue (unless maybe you're one of the 1% deity players), what can be done to improve his UA to where it isn't <yawn>tastic now?
 
FeiLing said:
You guys sound like you're playing on too low difficulties.

There's never enough happiness btw - just grow taller and/or wider for more science and production. You can also sell unique luxuries (which you might have never considered to do before).
Click to expand...

I play on Immortal, though I'm likely to move to Deity soon since Immortal doesn't present much of a challenge in most games.

Of course, more happiness is always beneficial (for golden ages), but that doesn't mean that it isn't too easy to get. Mercantile city-states provide 4? happiness just for being an ally, plus another 4 happiness for their unique luxury resource, plus more if they have other luxury resources that you can't already access (which they often do). That's 8+ happiness from a single alliance.

Religion isn't helping, either. There are beliefs that give you +1, 2, or more happiness per city following the religion. Goddess of Love is +1 happiness per city with 6+ population, Ceremonial Burial is +1 happiness for per city, Pagodas and Mosques each provide +2 happiness per city that builds them, etc. You can easily cover the unhappiness per city cost with religion alone. It's just too much.

This is why ICS is a viable strategy again. It's also why I find myself with 100+ happiness when I go tall. No, you can't always just get taller. There's a limit on food.
 
People was complaining that tall cannot defend themselves but with constant golden ages you can, that's cash for military units and nukes!
 
Kwami said:
This is why ICS is a viable strategy again. It's also why I find myself with 100+ happiness when I go tall. No, you can't always just get taller. There's a limit on food.
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And that's my point- with the happiness potential being what it is now, choosing Ghandi for your civ just seems pretty lackluster and pointless, at least to me. Unless you just love the ol' bald coot. His UA needs some updating, I think.
 
Smokeybear said:
And that's my point- with the happiness potential being what it is now, choosing Ghandi for your civ just seems pretty lackluster and pointless, at least to me. Unless you just love the ol' bald coot. His UA needs some updating, I think.
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I'd rather that they fix the excessive happiness problem than change Ghandi's UA.
 
This thread: good point.

On the other hand he can get a green, flat, start, so the UA is compensating for inherently rapid growth in a useful way.

I never play as him anyway, I'm allergic to turtles. Of course he's still the same as an AI civ that he always was -- the AI never hesitated to go wide with him before, because the AI never cared about unhappiness.
 
Kwami said:
I'd rather that they fix the excessive happiness problem than change Ghandi's UA.
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I disagree. Constant worries and headaches over crappy low happiness at every turn, was one of the low points of vanilla CiV, that made it less fun to play. Especially since the AI had no such worries at all. It was a problem that was fixed in G&K. I'd prefer to see Ghandi's UA changed.
 
Smokeybear said:
I disagree. Constant worries and headaches over crappy low happiness at every turn, was one of the low points of vanilla CiV, that made it less fun to play. Especially since the AI had no such worries at all. It was a problem that was fixed in G&K. I'd prefer to see Ghandi's UA changed.
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They overdid it, though. Happiness is too easy, now. After the first 50 or so turns, happiness might as well not exist as a game mechanic because you'd have to do something really silly to be unhappy.
 
Kwami said:
They overdid it, though. Happiness is too easy, now. After the first 50 or so turns, happiness might as well not exist as a game mechanic because you'd have to do something really silly to be unhappy.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll spot you that, that it is a bit too easy, now. Just so long as any adjustment they might make is reasonable, and didn't go all the way back to the 'bad old days'.

One thing I do find a bit odd, is that just being friends with a Mercantile CS gives you +4 happiness, and then becoming allies only adds another +1. I would have thought it should be maybe +2 for friends, and another +3 for allies. Or 1 and 2, or 1 and 3, or whatever. As it is, you get a huge amount of happiness just for maintaining friendship with a bunch of those CS's, and never even bothering to ally.
 
Smokeybear said:
Ok, I'll spot you that, that it is a bit too easy, now. Just so long as any adjustment they might make is reasonable, and didn't go all the way back to the 'bad old days'.

One thing I do find a bit odd, is that just being friends with a Mercantile CS gives you +4 happiness, and then becoming allies only adds another +1. I would have thought it should be maybe +2 for friends, and another +3 for allies. Or 1 and 2, or 1 and 3, or whatever. As it is, you get a huge amount of happiness just for maintaining friendship with a bunch of those CS's, and never even bothering to ally.
Click to expand...

You also get the city-state's unique luxury resource (Porcelain or Jewelry), which adds another +4 happiness.
 
For Ghandi, wouldn't it be more useful to get Fertility Rites and Feed the World rather than Ceremonial Burial and Pagodas? Just sayin'. When you got the right CSs on your continent, you jack the food to boost growth. Vice versa if you have Maritimes.
 
Happiness can still be an issue. My current game I have 7 cities between 10 and 20 op on immortal, and its a balancing act. The religion I 'adopted' (introduced the Celts to some Samurai) has the 2 happiness per temple trait, and I have temples, circuses, colliseums, theaters in all my city with circus maximus built. Genghis took out two of the mercantile CSes. I can stay happy still because there are options, but its a balancing act as it should be.

That said, a tall empire is easy on happiness as has been said so I can agree with Gandhi's UA needing a change.

Maybe just give him a flat out growth boost. Or maybe something like 'gain an extra citizen for every 10 citizens in a city'
 
Well it's invaluable early-on bc you don't hit that early happiness wall until you're at maybe 6 citizens (More when you get a lux). It also means that you don't have to get happiness-based religious beliefs just to get by and can instead pick others. If gives you more flexibility early and gets you golden ages sooner.
 
FeiLing said:
You guys sound like you're playing on too low difficulties.

There's never enough happiness btw - just grow taller and/or wider for more science and production. You can also sell unique luxuries (which you might have never considered to do before).
Click to expand...

Yep, except for crazy immortal cultural games where you're lucky to spread ceremonial burial to 50 cities on your continent. :crazyeye:
 
Kwami said:
They overdid it, though. Happiness is too easy, now. After the first 50 or so turns, happiness might as well not exist as a game mechanic because you'd have to do something really silly to be unhappy.
Click to expand...

If that was the case i would have four 15+ cities by turn 100 every time i play, each one producing a wonder every 10 turns.
 
I've notice the ease of happiness too. I was doing a wide empire as Polynesia, grabbing all the space I could on them islands. First I was capping cities at the local happiness they currently had. Then I let it go to the max local happiness I could have including yet unbuilt happiness buildings. Then it was the max happiness if I built every happiness building available to me including buildings I hadn't researched yet. Then I captured the city with the forbidden palace and all bets were off. I could just let them all grow at will.
I think I founded 20 cities on a standard archipelago map and captured more, so you'd think I'd have had some trouble with happiness. If you can go far into trying to use up happiness and not quite get there then there's probably too much. Even in games playing a wide-empire strategy I've been able to sell a lot of luxuries. Often ever my last copy of them.
I've been playing on King by the way.
 
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