Not Understanding The Strategic Advantage of Using India (Gandhi) As a Civ

J

JohnYoga

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Hello Folks,

As stated here: http://www.civfanatics.com/civ5/civilizations

Gandhi/India has the following bias:

Population Growth: Unhappiness from number of Cities doubled, Unhappiness from number of Citizens halved.

This is the only civilization which has a negative bias to using it.

Am I misunderstanding this bias?

Regards,

Marc
 
Strategic advantage for India: cities with huge population numbers producing much less :c5unhappy:.
 
At six population, India-unhappiness and non-india unhappiness are the same. That means at 7 and higher, indian cities are less unhappy than other cities. With the proper infrastructure, you can actually ICS pretty easily with India.
 
JohnYoga said:
What does "ICS" mean?
Click to expand...
ICS means Infinite City Spam.

This is a strategy in which you gather a couple of social policies or wonders to cover the 3 unhappiness you gain from each city (for instance the Liberty SP that gives +1 Happiness from each city connected to capital to get one of them) and then you build potentially infinitely many cities (as you have the unhappiness per city covered) but keep them low in population so as not to suffer too much from the unhappiness from population.
 
Thank you for that strategy tip, Kaspergm.

I have a tendency to expand rapidly and plot down cities rather quickly, too. What you mention is a good tip for me to use.

Marc
 
The toughest part of India are your first few cities, as it gives an immense happiness hit.

A mistake I sometimes still make when playing with India (often I choose random).
I'm too used to the 'normal' happiness hit when building a new city :p
 
India is broken along the lines of Austria.

Indian cities give more unhappiness at low population, but less at high population. That can limit them early, but once their cities start rolling, they have a valuable happiness advantage, and extra happiness is very rare from a UA, with only 3 leaders giving a happiness boost (and the other two providing it dependent on natural wonders and trading away your last lux).

Gandhi, I feel, is best used with a tall tradition start, transforming into a war machine, taking enemy cities with already high pop (taking advantage of his UA without the big buildup of a growing city), causing him to have fewer happiness issues than a normal warmonger.

Strange that he works so well like that, but India is one of the better war focused civs in the game.
 
Rooftrellen said:
India is broken along the lines of Austria.

Indian cities give more unhappiness at low population, but less at high population. That can limit them early, but once their cities start rolling, they have a valuable happiness advantage, and extra happiness is very rare from a UA, with only 3 leaders giving a happiness boost (and the other two providing it dependent on natural wonders and trading away your last lux).

Gandhi, I feel, is best used with a tall tradition start, transforming into a war machine, taking enemy cities with already high pop (taking advantage of his UA without the big buildup of a growing city), causing him to have fewer happiness issues than a normal warmonger.

Strange that he works so well like that, but India is one of the better war focused civs in the game.
Click to expand...

Rooftrellen: Excellent! I am noticing, by accident really, that my Indian Civ is picking up steam in it's war machine as the game wears on. BTW, what does Tall Tradition mean? Does this mean that one should start with few cities and build up their population (to get that unhappiness benefit at higher pop) vs doing a city sprawl? If this is the case, then, I really don't see the benefit of India. If the unhappiness is doubled for the beginnings of city up to, as Tryster mentions, above 6, then what's the point? Have more low pop cities sprawled about, to me, would be much better than having a few cities with huge populations. You can pump out units faster (if all cities had the same hammers), your land grab is more expansive, you would naturally have less citizen unhappiness, etc. Now, if this Population Growth: Unhappiness from number of Cities doubled, Unhappiness from number of Citizens halved was "fixed" to have it where the Unhappiness from number of Cities Doulbed, instead, halved, then, I can understand how there are some strong advantages. Either that or don't place that Cities doulbed unhappiness hit as a feature.

Regards,

Marc
 
Duke Maynard said:
Culture victory says hello.
Click to expand...

Thank you, Duke! Your one-liner, sparked me to Google and find the following:

http://www.alteredgamer.com/civilization-5/91272-civ-5-civilization-v-cultural-victory-guide/

Best Civilizations for a Cultural Victory
India
Siam
Egypt
France
You can get a cultural victory with any civilization but these are the four I’d recommend.

India is designed to be a small civilization as the unhappiness you’ll experience from having more cities is doubled, while the unhappiness created by large populations within cities is halved. Therefore you want a small civilization of large cities and since the culture cost for policies grows as your number of cities grows this is ideal. They also have great defence bonuses in the shape of the War Elephant and the Mughal Fort (which can boost defence, culture and gold).

Snip the rest.

Now, I understand...

Marc
 
JohnYoga said:
Rooftrellen: Excellent! I am noticing, by accident really, that my Indian Civ is picking up steam in it's war machine as the game wears on. BTW, what does Tall Tradition mean? Does this mean that one should start with few cities and build up their population (to get that unhappiness benefit at higher pop) vs doing a city sprawl? If this is the case, then, I really don't see the benefit of India. If the unhappiness is doubled for the beginnings of city up to, as Tryster mentions, above 6, then what's the point? Have more low pop cities sprawled about, to me, would be much better than having a few cities with huge populations. You can pump out units faster (if all cities had the same hammers), your land grab is more expansive, you would naturally have less citizen unhappiness, etc. Now, if this Population Growth: Unhappiness from number of Cities doubled, Unhappiness from number of Citizens halved was "fixed" to have it where the Unhappiness from number of Cities Doulbed, instead, halved, then, I can understand how there are some strong advantages. Either that or don't place that Cities doulbed unhappiness hit as a feature.

Regards,

Marc
Click to expand...

Tall refers to having few cities with a large population (wide is having many cities with less pop, and ICS is wide taken to the extreme).

Tradition would be taking the tradition policy tree, instead of Liberty or Honor, to start the game. Most of the time, taking tradition implies going with 4 cities for some time, as the tree has a policy and a finisher that benefit specifically the first 4 cities you have, but you can have more or less, though the 4 city opener is good.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=468487

With India, every city with a low population hurts your happiness, while every city with a large population gives you more happiness. I generally like big empires myself, but with India, you need to hold back, because 10 cities with 5 pop will give you more unhappiness than 5 cities with 10 pop, when compared to any other civ.

That's also why it's a good war UA. When you take a city, you'll get more unhappiness from the city being in your empire, but you'll get less due to the pop, and when you take cities mid to late game, they can often make an immediate impact to your empire, if you can swallow the happiness problems that can come with it, and India can better than anyone else.
 
JohnYoga said:
Thank you, Duke! Your one-liner, sparked me to Google and find the following:

http://www.alteredgamer.com/civilization-5/91272-civ-5-civilization-v-cultural-victory-guide/

Best Civilizations for a Cultural Victory
India
Siam
Egypt
France
You can get a cultural victory with any civilization but these are the four I’d recommend.

India is designed to be a small civilization as the unhappiness you’ll experience from having more cities is doubled, while the unhappiness created by large populations within cities is halved. Therefore you want a small civilization of large cities and since the culture cost for policies grows as your number of cities grows this is ideal. They also have great defence bonuses in the shape of the War Elephant and the Mughal Fort (which can boost defence, culture and gold).

Snip the rest.

Now, I understand...

Marc
Click to expand...

I never understood France as a culture civ. I always like them for expanding rapidly while being able to keep up with culture policy costs as I pursue other victories (Science? Domination? Diplo?)
 
I made an India Buff mod on the steam workshop. These are the new stats:
Their UA is now: -25% Unhappiness from Citizens
Their UB is now: +2 Culture, +2 Happiness, +1 Gold after Flight is researched
 
If this ability was -75% unhappy per citizen and +25% unhappy for each city then it would be nicer.
 
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