Rufustfirefly1
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2015
- Messages
- 5
I'm sure a lot of you have heard about the glitch in the first civilization game regarding Gandhi. He would suddenly become incredibly more aggressive when adopting democracy, which often led to nuked continents. The developers of the game, along with everyone else, thought this was funny, and kept it written into every version of the game. However, it is my belief that the developers of civ 5 bnw have taken it a step further. It is not simply a matter of computer AI. Gandhi is set up nicely to kick some butt, if you just play him properly. (Gandhi 2 clip from UHF here)
The first thing to get out of the way is to deal with their unique ability. in my opinion, it is the most misunderstood ability in the game. People often make the mistake of locking into cultural victory mode with India. But India actually has one of the most useful bonuses for any victory type. Unhappiness doubled for number of cities, unhappiness halved for city population. Basically it means that you need to be able to grow each city you found, and should not have multiple new cities. However, you should never shy away from growing through founding cities or through conquering puppet empires because once any city reaches a population of 6, it is getting bonus happiness, and a happy empire can grow better. In general, Gandhi can use the extra population to produce and support a bigger military, and also the extra happiness means that it is easier to conquer other civilizations without going into unhappiness.
I highly recommend you use tradition, then patronage, then rationalism, depending on the map type.
I have discovered that Gandhi also has a very misunderstood unique unit. War elephants are awesome, if you understand them and use them properly. Technically, they are a replacement for the chariot Archer, but they are so much better. Usually, I don't bother building chariot archers, but in the case of India, they are basically a Composite Bowman with a movement of 3 instead of 1. That means it's a composite Bowman who can move into rough terrain and still fire. As India, your most vulnerable time is in the very beginning. Asap, build up your economy so you can build a few elephants to defend the empire early, then by the A.D.s, you can saturate the field with them and their support troops. Your enemies might Kill a few, and a single one is not that powerful, but you can get huge amounts of damage from all that firepower converging on one spot.
Then you just keep building up size, and an army to match. The war elephants make great support troops when you start bringing in more crossbowmen, then cannons. And when you beeline for artillery, the elephants can upgrade to cavalry to take the cities quickly.
If anyone is still around after that, nukes can break a stalemate pretty well if you get them first.
Their unique building is not amazing, but I think a defensive building that gives extra culture and tourism is never useless.
Based on my experience, I think the designers thought it would be funny to hide a great wartime civilization behind Gandhi, and a bonus that so often leaves people scratching their heads, or locking into cultural victory.
"This is one bad Mahatma you don't want to mess with."
The first thing to get out of the way is to deal with their unique ability. in my opinion, it is the most misunderstood ability in the game. People often make the mistake of locking into cultural victory mode with India. But India actually has one of the most useful bonuses for any victory type. Unhappiness doubled for number of cities, unhappiness halved for city population. Basically it means that you need to be able to grow each city you found, and should not have multiple new cities. However, you should never shy away from growing through founding cities or through conquering puppet empires because once any city reaches a population of 6, it is getting bonus happiness, and a happy empire can grow better. In general, Gandhi can use the extra population to produce and support a bigger military, and also the extra happiness means that it is easier to conquer other civilizations without going into unhappiness.
I highly recommend you use tradition, then patronage, then rationalism, depending on the map type.
I have discovered that Gandhi also has a very misunderstood unique unit. War elephants are awesome, if you understand them and use them properly. Technically, they are a replacement for the chariot Archer, but they are so much better. Usually, I don't bother building chariot archers, but in the case of India, they are basically a Composite Bowman with a movement of 3 instead of 1. That means it's a composite Bowman who can move into rough terrain and still fire. As India, your most vulnerable time is in the very beginning. Asap, build up your economy so you can build a few elephants to defend the empire early, then by the A.D.s, you can saturate the field with them and their support troops. Your enemies might Kill a few, and a single one is not that powerful, but you can get huge amounts of damage from all that firepower converging on one spot.
Then you just keep building up size, and an army to match. The war elephants make great support troops when you start bringing in more crossbowmen, then cannons. And when you beeline for artillery, the elephants can upgrade to cavalry to take the cities quickly.
If anyone is still around after that, nukes can break a stalemate pretty well if you get them first.
Their unique building is not amazing, but I think a defensive building that gives extra culture and tourism is never useless.
Based on my experience, I think the designers thought it would be funny to hide a great wartime civilization behind Gandhi, and a bonus that so often leaves people scratching their heads, or locking into cultural victory.
"This is one bad Mahatma you don't want to mess with."