Nuclear Gandhi & Vimana Unit for Civ6 Mod or Civ7

[King Phaedron]

This is a redesign for India centered around the Nuclear Gandhi theme. This was a bug that started back in Civilization 1, but there is actually some historic reasoning to explore with this. Call it Synchronicity or Coincidence, but I don't believe in Coincidence.

http://ancientnuclearwar.com/

Plenty of Evidence for Ancient Nuclear War in India. If you look into the Hindu Vedes, there is talk of flying machines and weapons of Mass Destruction. There seems to have been an interplanetary war resulting in the destruction of planet Phaeton / Tiamat / Lucifer, which is now the Asteroid Belt.

So here is my redesign for India, it gives them strength in War, Religion, and to a small extent, Science and Tourism. The starting +1 faith helps India secure an early pantheon and sets the foundation for their creating a strong Religion. Additional bonuses for garrisoning their unique units, the Vimana.

Nuclear Gandhi: Begin the game with a Free Nuke, always maintain one nuke maintenance free. +1 Culture, +1 Science, and +1 Faith per Nuclear and Thermonuclear Device in Gandhi's arsenal. Get a second free nuke discovered in Indian lands when the world enters the Industrial Era.

Unique Unit: Vimana. Ancient Era Bomber, can only be built in the Ancient Era, 1 Gold Maintenance, +1 gold maintenance per era. (2 Gold in Ancient Era) Melee and Ranged strength increases with Metal Casting and Steel.

Vimana
20 Melee Strength (40 after Metal Casting, 70 after Steel)
30 Ranged Combat Strength (60 after Metal Casting, 90 after Steel)
4 Range (+1 with Metal Casting, +1 after researching Steel)
Can be built without an Aerodrome district.

Since Vimana is being manned by what is basically an ancient Era Archer, it has to fly in low range, and inputs a little Anti Air Strength onto Ranged and Seige units. When it attacks ranged units, it takes damage like a melee unit attacking another melee unit. (This restriction is lifted with Metal Casting.)

When the normal bomber becomes available, the same unit is upgraded or promoted to 8 range, +5 melee and +10 ranged combat strength compared to the Bomber, and is slightly more expensive to build.

Flying Palace: A garrisoned Vimana or UFO Vimana adds +3 loyalty to a city and doubles yields of Tourism and culture / faith of any great work in the Palace when garrisoned in the capital. Also acts as a flying temple and provides +1 faith to a city IF the City has a majority Religion. +1 Science if the City has a Campus upon researching Mathematics. +1 culture and +1 tourism if the City has a theater in the Renaissance Era.

May only be constructed in the Ancient Era and after researching Advanced Flight. (India loses the tech to make them, and is barely able to operate them, being primitives who probably gained them as a gift from the gods.) More costly then the war cart to build, and since you can only maintain one flying unit per city, you won't have more then a couple of these before the world enters the classical era. There is no card to help building them, and they are expensive.

(However, this puts India at a disadvantage when starting the game from a later era, but the same is true for ANY early game unique unit. Maybe India could get another bonus if starting the game from era later then the Ancient, since the Garrisoning of your, at most 4 or 5 Vimana (They are costly to build in the Ancient Era) provides additional bonuses to cities, if you keep the units and don't discard them, but they are also expensive to maintain. The idea is to limit them so you can't have 20 cities and 1 in every city. Maybe a better solution would be to limit you to making no more the 4 maximum until Advanced Flight is researched.)

With a range of only 4, they aren't very useful except as defense. Rebasing and nuclear range is slightly better. India could easily capture an early game capital using it's Nuke and Vimana, but it would lose the +1 faith, culture, science from the nuke, and would have to have settled a city near the enemy city to do it.

Unique Unit: UFO Vimana. The upgraded UFO Vimana has +10 melee and +20 ranged combat strength over the normal Jet bomber and is more expensive to build, and range of 12. The normal Vimana doesn't require a strategic resource, but the UFO Vimana requires an Aluminum. Gains 4 additional abilities when unlocking the promotions for the Giant Death Robot. These are +1 range, +10 ranged strength, +5 melee strength, and double tourism and culture / faith from all great works when garrisoned in a city.

Strategy for capturing India's Capital in the Early Game:

Ideally, rush them into war before they able to build Vimana or Archers. If the City has a Vimana, send in the Archers, Catapults, and Slings before any melee units. The Vimana will be weakened after attacking them 3-5 times. AI India will use it's early game Nuke if it's capital is put under Siege. Otherwise it won't want to lose the +1 faith, culture, science for maintaining it. Send in the expendible units first. In all likelihood, India's capital cannot be taken without casualties. Even worse if they also have an Archer.

Strategy for Capturing Cities or Capitals with Early Game India:

Settle a city 4 tiles away from the city you want to capture. Now you are free to wear it down with the Vimana. Or Settle a city 6-8 tiles away from the City you want to Nuke. There are no airstrips or aircraft carriers until the late game, so you must settle near cities to attack them. You also can't settle the city too far away from your other cities, as you won't be able to Rebase the Vimana over great distances. Because the range is only 4, the Rebasing and Nuclear range is also less then a normal Bomber.

UFO Vimana

Vimāna are mythological flying palaces or chariots described in Hindu texts and Sanskrit epics. The Pushpaka Vimana of the king Ravana (who took it from Lord Kubera; Rama returned it to Kubera) is the most quoted example of a vimana. Vimanas are also mentioned in Jain texts.

The Sanskrit word vi-māna (विमान) literally means "measuring out, traversing" or "having been measured out". Monier Monier-Williams defines Vimana as "a car or a chariot of the gods, any self-moving aerial car sometimes serving as a seat or throne, sometimes self-moving and carrying its occupant through the air; other descriptions make the Vimana more like a house or palace, and one kind is said to be seven stories high", and quotes the Pushpaka Vimana of Ravana as an example. It may denote any car or vehicle, especially a bier or a ship as well as a palace of an emperor, especially with seven stories.[1] In some Indian languages like Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Hindi, vimana or vimanam means "aircraft", for example in the town name Vimanapura (a suburb of Bangalore) and Vimannagar, a town in Pune. In another context, Vimana is a feature in Hindu temple architecture.

Vedas[edit]

Pushpaka vimana depicted three times, twice flying in the sky and once landed on the ground.
The predecessors of the flying vimanas of the Sanskrit epics are the flying chariots employed by various gods in the Vedas: the Sun (see Sun chariot) and Indra and several other Vedic deities are transported by flying wheeled chariots pulled by animals, usually horses.

The existing Rigveda versions do not mention Vimanas, but verses RV 1.164.47-48 have been taken as evidence for the idea of "mechanical birds":[by whom?]
47. kṛṣṇáṃ niyânaṃ hárayaḥ suparṇâ / apó vásānā dívam út patanti
tá âvavṛtran sádanād ṛtásyâd / íd ghṛténa pṛthivî vy ùdyate
48. dvâdaśa pradháyaś cakrám ékaṃ / trîṇi nábhyāni ká u tác ciketa
tásmin sākáṃ triśatâ ná śaṅkávo / 'rpitâḥ ṣaṣṭír ná calācalâsaḥ
"Dark the descent: the birds are golden-coloured; up to the heaven they fly robed in the waters.
Again descend they from the seat of Order, and all the earth is moistened with their fatness."
"Twelve are the fellies, and the wheel is single; three are the naves. What man hath understood it?
Therein are set together spokes three hundred and sixty, which in nowise can be loosened." ("trans." Griffith)
Dayananda Saraswati interpreted these verses to mean:
"jumping into space speedily with a craft using fire and water ... containing twelve stamghas (pillars), one wheel, three machines, 300 pivots, and 60 instruments."
Hindu epics[edit]

Ravana rides his Vimana, Pushpaka.
Ramayana[edit]
In the Ramayana, the pushpaka ("flowery") vimana of Ravana is described as follows:

"The Pushpaka Vimana that resembles the Sun and belongs to my brother was brought by the powerful Ravana; that aerial and excellent Vimana going everywhere at will ... that chariot resembling a bright cloud in the sky ... and the King [Rama] got in, and the excellent chariot at the command of the Raghira, rose up into the higher atmosphere.'"[3]
It is the first flying vimana mentioned in existing Hindu texts (as distinct from the gods' flying horse-drawn chariots). Pushpaka was originally made by Vishwakarma for Brahma, the Hindu god of creation; later Brahma gave it to Kubera, the God of wealth; but it was later stolen, along with Lanka, by his half-brother, king Ravana.

Jain literature[edit]
Vimāna-vāsin ('dweller in vimāna') is a class of deities who served the tīrthaṃkara Mahā-vīra.[4] These Vaimānika deities dwell in the Ūrdhva Loka heavens. According to the Kalpa Sūtra of Bhadra-bāhu, the 24th tīrthaṃkara Mahā-vīra himself emerged from the great vimāna Puṣpa-uttara;[5] whereas the 22nd tīrthaṃkara Ariṣṭa-nemi emerged from the great vimāna Aparijita.[6] The tīrthaṃkara-s Abhinandana (4th) and Sumati-nātha (5th) both[7] traveled through the sky in the "Jayanta-vimāna", namely the great vimāna Sarva-artha-siddhi, which was owned by[8] the Jayanta deities; whereas the tīrthaṃkara Dharma-nātha (15th) traveled through the sky in the "Vijaya-vimāna".[9] A vimāna may be seen in a dream, such as the nalinī-gulma.[10][11]

Ashoka Edict IV[edit]
Ashoka mentions vimana or an arial chariot as part of the festivities or procession which were organised during his reign.[12]

In times past, for many hundreds of years, there had ever been promoted the killing of animals and the hurting of living beings, discourtesy to relatives, (and) discourtesy to Sramanas and Brahmanas. But now, in consequence of the practice of morality on the part of king Devanampriya Priyadarsin, the sound of drums has become the sound of morality, showing the people representations of aerial chariots, elephants, masses of fire, and other divine figures.

— Ashoka, Major rock Edict no IV

 

[Vandlys]

Your poll does not give an option for those who do not accept this "theory" (I'm putting it in quotes because it is not a scientific theory).

I read your source, wanted to write some counter arguments, but there is waaaaaay too much to unravel. There are so many leaps and assumptions I don't want to spend my precious time picking it all apart. However, I do notice there is a lot of "does this sound like X to you too?" Well, sure, but it also sounds like other things. I mean, just inserting a possible explanation doesn't it make it true.

Also, the website you quoted writes:

But of course I hear some people saying right now, that that Bible isn't legitimate history (even though it has never been categorically proven false - in fact most archaeological finds we make seem only to validate Biblical recorded history, rather than disprove it).

"It has never been categorically proven false" as a whole? Firstly, has it been proven false as a whole? No. Does it need to be? No. Has it been proven false in parts? On -many- occasions. It is a credible source for world history on its own? No.
Secondly, just because something has not been proven false does not make it true (speak to my friend the flying spaghetti monster if you don't believe me). The burden of evidence lies on those making the claims.

So, my answer to your poll would be "No. I do not accept your claim and I see no evidence, and no grounds on which this is to be called a theory."

I did already write little bit tot start with so I will leave that here.

Let's start off with ways that the Bible supports the idea of an ancient nuclear war, global in theatre...

This is a huge assumption. Your source reads a passage in the Bible and inserts his own interpretation, then says it supports his narrative. That's not science...

If we open up the latter part of the book of Genesis in the Old Testament, we read the intriguing account of the Israelite prince named Joseph, captured and sold as a slave in Egypt. In short, through a series of crazy events, he rises in power until he is also a prince of Egypt, second only to the Pharoh himself.

Then Joseph has a dream warning him of impending famine. So for seven years, he stockpiles every spare bit of grain and food available in Egypt.

Then? DISASTER.

A famine hits the ENTIRE ancient world, that lasts for SEVEN years (and Egypt survives, as does likely the entire human race due to Prince Joseph's foresight).

The description of this famine fits modern scenarios and projections of a nuclear winter following a global, all out nuclear war, a winter (or mini-ice age) that is projected by modern meteorologists and war planners to last between 5 and 10 years...

This passage does not support the idea of an ancient nuclear war, and not even a global war. The disaster is clearly written to be a famine, so why would we all of a sudden assume that is a metaphor? And if we assume that is a metaphor, why don't we assume that the stockpiling is a metaphor too? You can't cherry pick this stuff and say it's evidence.

Furthermore, there is hardly anything global about this famine. It hits the "ENTIRE ancient world" (I love the capitalization there, as if screaming something makes it true). The world in ancient times depended entirely on where you live. At the times of ancient Egypt there were humans scattered all over the earth who did not encounter this famine. Different translations of the Bible either say "all the lands" or "the entire earth", both of which do not necessarily mean the world as we know it.
So, even if we accept that it wasn't a famine but a war, nuclear or not, there is nothing global about this. To the Assyrians, the end of the world was modern-day Kazachstan.


Edit: I also wanted to quickly point out that the website you quote makes a lot of claims but does not provide an immediate source after the quote to show where they got their information. Handy that...

he bomb site of India and radioactive ruins...

In short, the government of India wanted to build a new housing community. So in the region of Rajasthan, India, an area that covers a three-square mile area, ten miles west of Jodhpur, they surveyed the land and built houses. People moved in, but started getting sick. ALOT of people. When they went in to find out why, they discovered that the entire area was inexplicably radioactive, and in a circular pattern (with a very radioactively hot ground zero point) consistent with what occurs underneath a typical air-burst nuclear detonation.

They evacuated the area, and it is now essentially a quarantined wasteland.

They have also excavated entire cities where the people and their skeletons have been fossilized, frozen in time at their moment of instantaneous death, and the skeletons are RADIOACTIVE.

No sources for this. I tried using different search engines but couldn't find anything but websites and blogposts that link to each other for support. No credible sources of studies whatsoever.

Your source also writes:

And don't believe the 200 million yr old date. The nuclear war skewed the radiological dating standards but no one either realizes or will admit it.

The funny thing is, you can't say this about anything and sound credible. "Just trust me, everyone is wrong". No source, no evidence, just a claim.

 

[King Phaedron]

Another idea would be to make the Vimana's more like the helicopter unit, flying over any terrain with ease, but I would prefer ranged over making it a light cavalry. The big reason I designed it as a bomber was so that it could launch a nuclear device. No point in having an ancient era nuke if it's impossible to use. That you can only make one per city is also a good way to limit them. Basically a bombing unit with less range, but more attack power. It would be way too good if it had full range right away. I guess it would fine to make them available at any time. I envisioned them as being built in the Ancient Era. because they are essentially lost technology that it's people don't fully understand.

 

[King Phaedron]

Okay, I've been giving this some thought.

Lets make it a range of 6, realistically Vimana would be built at the end of the ancient or during the classical.
They take damage from anything they fight, they can get in about 3 good hits before needing to rest and repair.
Like every unique unit, they would shine in their era, no upgrades afterwards. You may want to keep them for the garrison bonus.
Garrison bonus to just be: +1 faith in the city it's garrisoning, 2 gold maintenance, and double all yields of the great work in the capital.

If India is your neighbor, beat them in the ancient era while they are still making warriors and settlers.
Leave them alone in the classical, or send in a lot of troops.
In the Medieval and onwards their 30 attack strength won't accomplish much.

They are good for dealing with Barbarians, and invaders, and cities settled 6 tiles away. (Which could be nuked)
I still think the Nuclear Gandhi is good as it is "+1 faith, culture, science, per nuke." It won't mean much by the time you can make nukes.

Since units have to replace units, this would still have to replace the regular bomber. When advanced flight is discovered, just change the Vimana's stats to that of the regular bomber and remove the taking damage on attack, handicap. (Or build it into the promotion itself, is advanced flight has been unlocked) Their production cost might be an issue. (I reckon bombers are harder to produce then a unique classical era unit)

On upgrade, they simply become the normal Jet Bomber, (but then lose the Flying Palace Garrison faith bonus, by then they won't need it.)
Just like every other unique unit, it only needs to shine during it's era. (There aren't any Vimana in the modern age anyway)

-
If Replacing the Horseman
Probably something like 42 attack
4 movement
(all terrain cost 1 like the Helicopter)
and able to launch a nuke

This version also has merits because the unit could move to wherever it's needed.
And you can easily still get the garrison bonus (at the very least I think doubling the great work in the palace is a great idea.)

This version would probably be easier to code. (If you can give the unit the ability to launch a nuke that is.)

 

[Zaarin]

Plenty of Evidence for Ancient Nuclear War in India. If you look into the Hindu Vedes, there is talk of flying machines and weapons of Mass Destruction. There seems to have been an interplanetary war resulting in the destruction of planet Phaeton / Tiamat / Lucifer, which is now the Asteroid Belt.

The asteroid belt is nowhere near sufficient mass to be the remains of a planet. That was debunked decades ago. I'm not even going to touch the part about trying to use the Rig Veda as evidence of ancient astronauts...