Contemplations of Gandhi

[Thyrwyn]

...Beyond that point, it won't be forced to play any differently than any other civ.

In fact, beyond that point, it will be able to have a higher overall population than any other civ, and will enjoy a clear advantage. Extra pop means more beakers and more gold from trade routes.

 

[Earthling]

Nonsense. That would suggest that the UT was worse than nothing (since clearly the AI wouldn't have to be specially programmed to deal with not having a UT). Ideally, you may want to think about number of cities to best take advantage of the ability, but (with the new restriction on creating settlers) I doubt that it's even possible to spam cities fast enough for it to become a meaningful disadvantage, and it certainly wouldn't be something that happens unless you're specifically trying to do it as a proof-of-concept.

Again, I'm not saying on single player a good player wouldn't do well with that the trait. That's not the end-all be-all of balance though.

I suspect it will become a bit of a disadvantage in war, the multiplayer community might not like it is the biggest example I'd think of, especially for the opportunity cost. We're not designing "gank" and "carry" civs here.

It shouldn't be specifically worse than nothing for the AI but it could be worse than the blandest benefit of any other civ (say, America) for the AI if they don't get the AI right. AI already have devastating problems with, say, settling overseas anyway and a Ghandi with weird preferences could easily be worse.

even under you clarified and thus now universally understood meaning of the phrase, which was the original meaning, I believe the statement to be false.

I'm very certain I'm right about what we will see as the Ghandi AI. It will be far more limited in order to remain competitive with the other AI, because the opportunity cost of not having other traits means it has to really specialize. Especially with the evidence of AI personalities we already have, and on top of that very, very similar situations with similar AI in previous civ games (Kurios, specifically, in FFH2)

 

[King Jason]

Quite amusing to me, so I had to come here and post this, this is quote from a programmer;

Like in the previous games in the series, each of the 18 civilizations receives unique units, buildings and traits to give it special abilities during the game. However for Civ V, we’ve worked hard to ensure that these bonuses dramatically shift your experience while playing the game. There is a world of difference between playing India (who has bonuses to create an empire of few, heavily-populated cities) and playing Russia (who is very good at spreading out over the entire map and claiming resource sites, despite having a low population density). My own favorite is the Ottoman Empire who recruits barbarian naval units to their side and can then use them to terrorize the coastlines of other players. And trying out all these unique play styles to figure out your own personal favorite is a large part of the fun.

Source

I'm very certain I'm right about what we will see as the Ghandi AI. It will be far more limited in order to remain competitive with the other AI, because the opportunity cost of not having other traits means it has to really specialize. Especially with the evidence of AI personalities we already have, and on top of that very, very similar situations with similar AI in previous civ games (Kurios, specifically, in FFH2)

Well maybe you're right. We'll know for sure over the course of the next few days. I've exhausted myself in this debate, I just didn't like the accusation of being pedantic. My belief is my belief regardless of word usage.

 

[Ahriman]

I think Jason has a reasonable point.

It appears strongly that unhappiness from citizens is always much larger than unhappiness from number of cities. So in any strategy that doesn't involve spamming very small cities, India will end up having less unhappiness overall than any other civ, regardless of playstyle or strategy.

So, I think India's ability is actually fairly generalist. You don't have to have a small empire to utilize it. You can still have a large empire with lots of big cities.

With 10 cities of size 12, and assuming the as yet to be proven 2 unhappiness per city, a regular civ has 140 unhappiness, whereas India has 100 unhappiness.

That is a *vast* difference.

 

[Svest]

India has incredible potential for both warmongering and teching in addition to the expected cultural option. They are certainly not in any way limited to small numbers of huge cities. In fact, they are extremely flexible and can adapt many strategies based on the map.

In previous Civ games the mantra everyone used was "land is power." In reality it wasn't the land that gave you power, it was the number of citizens you had working the land. The correct saying should have been "population is power." However, with the game mechanics of previous games, the only way to increase your population in a quick, meaningful way was to get more cities and therefore more land. This is why the idea of "land is power" still worked.

This is no longer the case in CiV. Now adding a new city does not automatically increase your empire's maximum population, unless it gives you quick and easy access to happiness resources. In fact it reduces your max population until you can construct certain buildings.

India's special ability simply allows them to have a greater population than anyone else. It would take a whole lot more cities for another civ to catch up with India's potential max population. This extra population can be harnessed for anything you want it to use it for.

If you want to warmonger, use it to produce an army. As long as the city they take is at least size 4 it has no more negative effect on happiness than for any other civ. If it has greater than 4 population it will actually hurt India's happiness less than it would other civs. Combine this with early access to an very powerful unique unit and India can be a very effective warmonger.

India can be extremely effective at teching too. More population = more science. Not to mention fewer cities will produce great scientists faster so you can bulb your way up the tech ladder. Not to mention having to build fewer science multiplier buildings and therefore being able to spend those hammers elsewhere.

Finally, there is the cultural option which the OP did a good job of explaining already.