Gandhi Declaring War

[timerover51]

Does anyone have an answer to why Gandhi is always declaring war on me unless I have either a massive tech advantage or a massive military advantage. I am playing on the Faeron from the Forgotten Realms map (see user-created maps) as the Scandinavians, and encountered India. I traded him 500 gold for a world map, then two turns later, he drops a Swordsman on one of my islands and declares war. After taking a couple of cities, I got a peace treaty, but I can tell that another war is only a matter of time. Given India and the Aztecs trading tech, I have a slight Tech advantage, and with Steam Power and coal, followed by Ironclads, I have a bit of a military advantage. I also have Nationalism with my boosted Rifleman, which has no resource requirement. So if India starts a war, I will likely win again.

However, this is the normal response of India when I come in contact with it. I have adjusted the aggression setting for India, but this keeps happening. Does anyone have a solution to this, or should I just exclude India from the game, or make sure that it is on some very remote island a long way away?

 

[Plotinus]

I have fond (ish) memories of Gandhi constantly declaring war in Civ1. The Indians and the Mongols shared a colour, meaning that you could only encounter one of them in any given game; it made little difference which though!

 

[timerover51]

I have fond (ish) memories of Gandhi constantly declaring war in Civ1. The Indians and the Mongols shared a colour, meaning that you could only encounter one of them in any given game; it made little difference which though!

Actually, I have both India and the Mongols on the map, but the Mongols are on the eastern edge, while the Vikings are on the western side. I would have to check the colors.

From what you say, it sounds like this behavior of Gandhi has been around quite a while. I wonder if it is a bug or deliberate part of the program.

 

[Vuldacon]

India has been in many wars and the Civs behavior is probably deliberate.

List of wars involving India - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Ozymandias]

If you Google "civilization games ghandi" you'll get a lot of hits. It bizarrely runs throughout the entire series. "Common wisdom" has been that:

"It came from an overflow error. Every leader in Civ is assigned an aggression rating between 1 and 12. Gandhi's was 1, but get this: whenever a country adopted democracy, its leader's aggression rating automatically went down by two points. Because there was no way of reading a value for -1, Gandhi ended up going to zero, and then to the opposite end of the spectrum, boasting an aggression rating of 255."

An elaboration (meaning, both a denial and a clarification ... sot of) can be found in GAMERANT:

"In his biography, Meier addresses the bug and the logic behind how it occurs. The designer bluntly says that the rumor of the negative stat is not true, but made sure to confirm that Gandhi's behavior is indeed a bug. Meier states that why Gandhi is so prone to war is just "one of those mysteries that it's almost fun to keep mysterious." While this confirmation from Meier is likely the ending for the gaming anecdote, it isn't exactly surprising. Last year Kevin Schultz, a marketing manager at Firaxis Games, speculated the validity of the bug, opening up questions for players to start exploring the rumor."

Why a bug from Civ 1 is still around in Civ 6 ...


@timerover51

 

[timerover51]

Thanks so much for the replies. That does confirm my suspicion that it is a built-in feature of the game, and that for India, the aggression setting is meaningless. So if India is in the game, assume high aggression unless you have a big edge. I manage that in the Test of Time scenario for Play the World, sometimes, but even with a big edge, Gandhi will still go crazy on me. Also note, make sure that India does NOT get nukes. I tend to limit them in the game anyway.

I will make a post in the General Discussion Thread on this.

 

[Predator145]

"Our words are backed by nuclear weapons". I remember as kid hearing about the nuclear tension between India and Pakistan and thinking that's what the game tried to portray

 

[timerover51]

I thought that India and Pakistan would exchange nuclear greeting cards before 2000 rolled around. So far, they have not, but that is the area of highest likelihood for a nuclear exchange.

 

[Alekseyev_]

The civ3 AI doesn't really have many personalities, and the "aggression" rating only has a minor effect in the end. AIs love attacking undefended (or weakly defended) cities, enough for them to declare wars even against superior enemies that they actually have great relations with.

 

[Ozymandias]

I've not compared India and Rome head-to-head, but Rome is definitely hard-coded to be aggressive. My "What will the AI build tests" of long ago confirmed this, and other modders have also anecdotally confirmed this. That Rome had some hard-wiring built in should be obvious from the Roman Legion having a " " Worker job allocated to it.

 

[Alekseyev_]

Did these tests account for the "build often" flags in the editor settings?

 

[timerover51]

I think that I may have slightly (well, maybe more than slightly), overdone it with the Dinosaurs in India, intended to keep India otherwise occupied. In my latest game of PTW Test of Time, I am playing the Russians, which is a major change for me, as I normally play a civilization that is on the coast. The Barbarians have been quite aggressive, they are set to Raging, and I had problems maintaining a road to the coast. However, I am now progressing nicely in the Medieval Age, closing in on the Industrial Age. I have made contact with India, at the cost of several scouts (Barbarians and my boosted Dinosaurs). My latest check with him shows Gandhi still with only Delhi as a city, one Spearman for defense, and with very few technologies researched. I am actually thinking about giving him some technologies, or putting together a couple of Armies, and simply conquering him. I do have to fight my way through the Barbarians and Dinosaurs though. My Barbarians are the Gallic Swordsman with 3 extra hit points and the Nomadic Horseman with 3 added hit points. My Dinosaurs are quite nasty. Thinking of living tank units for the big ones. I may post something in the Stories and Tale thread on this one. I am also giving thought to trying playing India as well to see if maybe I should back off a little on him.

 

[timerover51]

After trying India in my modified Test of Time, I have decided that I definitely overdid it with the Dinosaurs in India. The starting turn was an unending series of attacks by Raptors, taking out everything in the city. Grim is not the word for it. I will need to consider how to fix this, or do I keep it the same unless I am playing India. Pondering time.