All hail Gandhi

[Trimlin]

I'm on my second game after bailing on my Japanese game (massive expansion led to unhappiness and a broken economy trying to pay for courthouses & happiness buildings)

I've learnt alot from my first game, mainly that happiness is important for a large empire to last. This is because I refuse to use the lame strategy of just ignoring happiness (can't wait for that to be fixed!)

The biggest cause for unhappiness is the number of citizens in the empire but with india this is cut in half at the expense of doubling the unhappiness from the number of cities. The unhappiness from the number of cities is much less to begin with so doubling it isn't too bad and it can be negated once you build the Forbidden Palace! Also once you get Theology (another -20% unhappiness from number of citizens) and all of a sudden you're able to build large 10+ pop cities with farms & mines.

I've also got a good ammount of luxury goods & the social policy giving +1 happiness for each garrisoned unit.

Bottom line - 430 science from 210 people (my science advisor is singing about the scientific efficiency) 110 GPT with a military unit in every city and a field army, and +25 happiness without any happiness buildings. I've got tons of gold to spent as I see fit (2500 atm - could buy more units or buildings but nothing's pressing) I'm the superpower on my continent and I'm assuming the other continent isn't much furthur.

Getting golden ages pretty frequently from happiness and when I'm not there's usually a GP around to start one. In the 1500's (could be 1600's, I'm at work here!) with artillery & riflemen and working towards railroads. I've conquered the only two civs which could've grown into a threat - simply burn the cities with a settler not too far behind

Yay India!

 

[bhavv]

One thing that a lot of people dont understand is that playing as Gandhi doesnt mean fewer cities.

Playing as anyone else, at around 6 cities I had 14 from number of cities, and around 40 from population. As your population grows, your from that becomes much more significant than what you get from number of cities.

As Gandhi, even if you build the same number of cities as anyone else, you will still have less overall from population, and be able to support more population in them.

And ofc, Forbidden Palace and a couple of other policies really help. Theres a ton of choices you can take, the -20% in the piety tree, -50% in order, +1 per garrisoned city in honor, or +1 per city connected to the capital from Liberty.

 

[DarkMaster]

Yeah, I didn't play as Gandhi yet but I think that "best suited for small empires" is crap. Pop unhappiness is so much worse than city unhappiness that Gandhi truly is the ultimate conqueror. Get the -50% City Unhappiness from the Planned Economy and -50% from the Wonder and unleash hell over the world. Gandhi, the Great.

 

[Bibor]

A Paper Maker pays the upkeep of a colloseum and a library in every city. How about that.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Yeah, I didn't play as Gandhi yet but I think that "best suited for small empires" is crap. Pop unhappiness is so much worse than city unhappiness that Gandhi truly is the ultimate conqueror. Get the -50% City Unhappiness from the Planned Economy and -50% from the Wonder and unleash hell over the world. Gandhi, the Great.

Interesting thesis that will almost certainly prove true once the Happiness mechanic is fixed. As long as the average pop of your cities is five or more (and it will be thanks to Maritime and tiny AI food boxes), you're always ahead on Happiness with Gandhi relative to any other civ with the same group of cities and improvements. That's true throughout the game irrespective of Planned. Great observation.

A Paper Maker pays the upkeep of a colloseum and a library in every city. How about that.

Assuming that the reason you're having Unhappiness problems is for want of Gold. No doubt that China is strong, though. And certainly faster at plowing through cities.

 

[12agnar0k]

Ghadi is indeed a powerful Civ, I knew this from the first time I saw his Uinque Ability, However I have yet to play him.

On my second game, I was having fun playing as Iqorouis placing cities carefully so that I had barely any roads maybe 10 in total in my empire (and no harbours) yet tons in trade route income. (One mistake I made was not getting "the wheel" for a while thinking I didnt need roads for trade routes, but the tech is needed for trade routes themselfs, which it didn't specify anywhere). I had fun conquering germany using crossbows, not as good as the longbow which I made use of in my first game as England, (im going on here a bit I know, ill get to the point soon). After this the only person left on my continent was Alexander, he was about 3x my size and military power, but I figured I would eventually take him on using superior human tactics, I got a carvel for now and went exploring, when I came across the other continent in the world, a little bigger than my own I met Ghandi, who had a ridiclious amount of Luxuries (not just in numbers of different luxuries but had vast multiples of them all), so I traded for lots of extra lovely happiness. Ghadi was a nice fellow, quite content to be my friend, but the same could not be said for his continent, his score was about x7 of mine, and in the chart of pointiest sticks I eventually saw, I had 1,000 (pretty puny ), Alexander had 3,000, Ghadi had 14,000, he also had a tech lead, a social policy lead, and he had Allied a gargantuon of City States. At this point my options were clear, I wasn't going to win Conquest/Science/Cultural or Diplomatic (Alexander was still alive too with his bonus, although I don't think that would of mattered he seemed in a Conquest mood and had conquered all the city states on our continent).
So at this point I just quit, if Alexander wasn't enough to contend with lol.
Ghandi is indeed one to watch out for, but he is not alone, I have seen several Civ's become military powerhouses so far. It is indeed a wonder to behold.

 

[Katzenkrimis]

-I've learnt alot from my first game, mainly that happiness is important for a large empire to last.
- simply burn the cities with a settler not too far behind
-Yay India!

That's how I played. His ability impressed me the most.

Considering the way this game was made.

 

[Lacerda]

I did a tryout with Gandhi, and I saw myself with 6 cities, and with the default unhappiness even with Gandhi.

Am I doing it wrong, by not going to the -unhappiness policies, or with Gandhi I just have to be careful have a few more cities?

-8 Unhappiness from number of cities
-18 Unhappiness from number of Citizens
Total : 26

With Gandhi
-8 Unhappiness from number of cities = becomes 16
-18 Unhappiness from number of Citizens = 8
Total : 24

For a upgrade so little on happiness, what I am doing it wrong by not fulfilling the potential of gandhis ability?

 

[bhavv]

For a upgrade so little on happiness, what I am doing it wrong by not fulfilling the potential of gandhis ability?

Dont forget that Gandhi's ability becomes even better as your 6 cities grow larger.

 

[Lacerda]

Dont forget that Gandhi's ability becomes even better as your 6 cities grow larger.

But aren't we talking on small, too small numbers, to be worth to invest in such civilization?

If the change is around 2 / 3 happiness than with another Civilization, I question if it's actually worth it.

 

[CivMonger]

your penalty for 6 cities is always going to be the same, but the bigger your cities get the bigger your advantage for being Ghandi is. Towards the later game when most of your cities are 10+ its a very large difference. Compound that with fewer happiness buildings needed to offset the unhappiness and you're saving a good chunk of change on buildings, saving hammers building them, and so forth.

 

[Trimlin]

A Paper Maker pays the upkeep of a colloseum and a library in every city. How about that.

If I didn't go India I was going China for that exact reason! I'm figuring b/c happiness is so important atm it makes these two Civs much better than the rest. The UU for China is pretty good and extra great generals means more golden ages since I only keep one or two around for the military bonus - speaking of which, the description says it makes their great generals more effective - how much so? 50% instead of 25%?

I'm figuring they're going to patch happiness to make it less severe which will balance the civs a little more, but when you're playing a Huge map, number of citizens is always going to be a concern.

 

[Surgeon]

- speaking of which, the description says it makes their great generals more effective - how much so? 50% instead of 25%?

It's 45%. Not quite 50% but still huge.

 

[Roxlimn]

Trimlin:

Don't count out the other Civs just yet. The Civ UUs and traits interact in interesting ways. Songhai's +gold from barbs and pillaging makes for a potent, long-term cavalry strategy in war.

Another interesting case in point is the much-maligned Bismarck of Germany. I used his UA to amass a bunch of Warriors and went Barb-hunting for gold. No need for tactics. No need for Honor. Just get lots of dudes whacking lots of other dudes.

No need to make more than the first Warrior, either. Eventually, it snowballs with you investing mainly in infrastructure, not Warriors.

With the money and the tech, I used the GL to CS slingshot for the usual farming bonus, snagging Landsknechts in the deal. They're 50 hammer (same as Spearmen!) spearman-class units with 10 Strength, cheaper and stronger than Hoplites. More importantly, once I was in Medieval, the barb camps starting spawning Spearmen instead of Brutes. And Spearmen upgrade to Landsknechts at a cost of 10 gold...

I took out every Civ (4) in quick succession on my continent in an avalanche of Landsknechts - about 12 units, I think, on a Standard map, on Prince. No need for Archers. No need to strategize. No need for horses. No need for Iron.

Of course, I've played China as well. Very strong, but the slingshot to Machinery is a lot more cumbersome than the slingshot to CS.

 

[bhavv]

But aren't we talking on small, too small numbers, to be worth to invest in such civilization?

If the change is around 2 / 3 happiness than with another Civilization, I question if it's actually worth it.

The numbers arent small at all once you have 6 size 10 cities.

 

[Knut_Are_M]

India is a happy powerhouse.
i went and buildt a 2 city empire + puppet states.
well my exsperiences from that game is as follows units are dirt cheap to maintain with only 2 cities+puppet states amass. 70 units cost only 200 gold, 3 gold a piece.
buildings ended up costing me 1200 gold, and improvements cost me 238 gold.
so pretty much puppet states cost alot of gold, but you can usually afford it, the truble is building a big enough army.
Ps preventing the cultural victory is impossible with lots of productive puppet states.
A puppet state completed the utopia wonder for me in 20 turns!

and since it was a puppet state i could not stop it without annexing it.

this game uses additive+- on persentages. Honor tier 3 + pentagon =free upgrades.
planned economics+forbidden palace is -1 unhappy face per city.
theocrazy -20% is calculated as 1-0.2-x-x-x, where x can be other bonuses such as indias for -50% or -50% for specialists as freedom.

 

[Eejit]

Ps preventing the cultural victory is impossible with lots of productive puppet states.
A puppet state completed the utopia wonder for me in 20 turns!

Don't max out 5 trees?

Do puppets not give +20% cost of social policies as extra cities do?

 

[Guardian_PL]

Don't max out 5 trees?

Do puppets not give +20% cost of social policies as extra cities do?

No, they don't

To the OP - yessss, I saw that coming: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=375878