[R&F] Chandragupta Maurya/India First Look

[bite]

Capital is Patna

Well Patna is on India's City List, so looks like there won't be a new city list

 

[Rosty K]

Well he looks great, isn't Gandhi, and seems absolutely terrifying during a war of territorial expansion with his Varu.

He's got almost Aztec colors for a reason

 

[Cerilis]

I wonder what his agenda is.

 

[pgm123]

Well he looks great, isn't Gandhi, and seems absolutely terrifying during a war of territorial expansion with his Varu.

He could bench Gandhi.

Bah, they went with the drama's representation of him rather than the historical statue...weird that the ability seems purely war-based. Was expecting some road or trade bonus.

Honestly, it would have been weird if he didn't get some sort of military bonus. In my head, I was trying to figure out how to tie together military and trade, but I basically came up with the Mongol ability. I didn't know anything about the roads until the clue (when I read the Wikipedia page). He's most known for conquest and for becoming a Jain monk to starve himself to death at the end of his life. The last part is likely not true (it was written by Jain's a thousand years later), but the first part definitely is.

 

[Turrdy]

I'm gonna call him Chandi, since his name is so complicated and this is similar to the other indian dude...

anyway: Chandi vs. Cyrus: who's got the better leader bonus?

 

[Phoenix1595]

Didn't catch any easter eggs in the background, alas. Just a short and sweet video of Chandra's LUA. He's soooooooo dreamy.

 

[pgm123]

Oof.

Varu are already incredibly powerful units in the early game, and having them hit you with 2 extra movement and 5 strength would be absolutely terrible for almost any civ.

But from what I see, the bonus only applies if India declares, not if someone else declares. So I guess what you'd want to do is declare on India before India declares on you if you border them. Not that Varu are fun to fight even without the bonuses.

You only need to worry if he's your neighbor, though. You only qualify for a war of territorial expansion if you're close to each other.

 

[Stilgar08]

I think its also possible that they have changed the UA of Cyrus.

This. They have to, don't you think? Otherwise Cyrus is just a bad Chandragupta now...

 

[DeepKing]

Very nice. I wonder what his agenda would be. Definitely has to be different than Ghandi's, maybe something akin to "dislikes empires who are within a certain number of tiles of his cities"?

I can't think of much else that would push him to early war with other competitors.

 

[earlc]

This will synergize nicely with the new loyalty and free cities dynamic. Shaping up to be a pretty interesting expansion.

The leader looks great, very happy in that respect. I might have preferred something non-militaristic, but I can also see myself cherry-picking the nicest cities of my neighbors with little warmonger penalty.

Now just tell us Chandragupta comes with an unfortunate bug that permanently removes Gandhi from the game...so sad...

 

[CPWimmer]

While we all knew Not-Gandhi was coming, I have to say it's a bigger let down than I figured it would be. I was really hoping for an ability that was something much more original (this is very similar to Cyrus) and potentially even using the new mechanics in some way. This could have been a $2.00 vanilla DLC (or packaged with a few other alternate leaders for a more robust offering).

This moves "War of Territorial Expansion" from early Modern Era (Mobilization) all the way back to Late Classical Era (Military Training) - which is good, except that when I am truly warmongering I don't care about CB's vs. Surprise wars. My opponents are going to hate me pretty quickly no matter what. A "War of Territorial Expansion" is a CB to attack neighbor if 2 of your cities are within 10 tiles of 2 of their cities, and only reduces Warmongering by only 25%. That's a lot of specific requirements for not a lot of penalty reduction.

Now it DOES grant 10 turns of +2 movement & +5 Combat Strength which can be pretty strong - but again this is so similar to Cyrus, that it's really not all that exciting to me at all.

It is the first disappointment of R&F for me (well maybe Polders not actually becoming land tiles). It's only an alternate leader, and it won't have any impact on my purchase, or probably my overall enjoyment of R&F, but it's 100% "blah" for me.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

This. They have to, don't you think? Otherwise Cyrus is just a bad Chandragupta now...

No. They don't balance things LUA vs LUA. They compare all the unique traits holistically. UA + LUA + UU + UI vs UA + LUA + UU + UI

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Not a fan of the purely war base ability. On the plus side, it's so similar to Cyrus' UA that Cyrus might get a change. Persia is a pretty good candidate for a bonus to governors.

 

[drubell]

You only need to worry if he's your neighbor, though. You only qualify for a war of territorial expansion if you're close to each other.

Yeah that's why I mentioned bordering them.

 

[bbbt]

I wonder what his agenda is.

The logical one would be "doesn't like civs that have cities too close to him"

 

[eso12por8]

I’m SOOOOOOOOOO excited for this!!

Not that I hate Gandhi as a person (some of his views I find questionable, as I do many of the other Civ leaders)... I’m just tired of him. How many presidents & British monarchs have we gone through yet all they gots is Gandhi. Praise the Lord there is more out there than just him.

As far as Maurya is concerned, I look forward to find him starting nearby. I feel I can count on the AI for that.

 

[drubell]

Also I'm happy to again see an Indian leader in Civ who isn't freaking Gandhi.

 

[marius_kaparius]

While we all knew Not-Gandhi was coming, I have to say it's a bigger let down than I figured it would be. I was really hoping for an ability that was something much more original (this is very similar to Cyrus) and potentially even using the new mechanics in some way. This could have been a $2.00 vanilla DLC (or packaged with a few other alternate leaders for a more robust offering).

This moves "War of Territorial Expansion" from early Modern Era (Mobilization) all the way back to Late Classical Era (Military Training) - which is good, except that when I am truly warmongering I don't care about CB's vs. Surprise wars. My opponents are going to hate me pretty quickly no matter what. A "War of Territorial Expansion" is a CB to attack neighbor if 2 of your cities are within 10 tiles of 2 of their cities, and only reduces Warmongering by only 25%. That's a lot of specific requirements for not a lot of penalty reduction.

Now it DOES grant 10 turns of +2 movement & +5 Combat Strength which can be pretty strong - but again this is so similar to Cyrus, that it's really not all that exciting to me at all.

It is the first disappointment of R&F for me (well maybe Polders not actually becoming land tiles). It's only an alternate leader, and it won't have any impact on my purchase, or probably my overall enjoyment of R&F, but it's 100% "blah" for me.

Hopefully it is because they are toning down the backstabber vibes for Cyrus? I've read some pretty valid criticism for that and his civlopedia entries here. Maybe they took note.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I wonder what his agenda is.

Probably something simple as in he doesn't like civs that border him and likes other civs who do not share a border with him.

 

[Guandao]

With Mohenjo Daro remaining a CS, there will probably be no Harappa Civ.

They are never becoming a Civ, due to undeciphered writing. Besides, they are Proto-India.

Capital is Patna

I wished it was renamed to Pataliputra, its ancient name, but oh wells.....