I got the impression that the most recent release of the New Leader Pass was the final release of that expansion and likely of this game, and feel that they missed a fun opportunity which would punctuate the game by bringing the series full circle.
With the history of the civilization series being what it has been, there have been great innovations and opportunity for different gameplay introduced in each installment of the game. But there is one feature... one bug... one mishap that has garnered more notoriety to this franchise than any other element of the game. It is simultaneously beloved and hated by the players, the strongest association that gamers who don't play this game have to it, and it's fame has made it a recognizable term to people who aren't even in the gaming community. A meme that predates memes, I'm of course referring to Nuclear Gandhi.
For anyone unfamiliar, the unsubstantiated urban legend is that in the original game (some argue the second game), each leader had a parameter that influenced/controlled their aggression level that was assigned a value between 1-10 (some say 1-12.) Mahatma Gandhi had the lowest possible aggression rating of 1. When the AI changed it's government to democracy late in the game (which was preferred by more peaceful nations like India) it's aggression level would decrease by 2, resulting in Gandhi's aggression rating being -1. But that value was stored as an 8-bit unsigned integer variable that could only range from 0-255 (two to the eighth power minus one) and couldn't be negative, so it changed his aggression rating to 255. Note that this wasn't just the max level but twenty-five times the normal max level. Also note that the tech tree had the advent of democracy relatively close to the advent of nuclear weapons. Consequently, AI Gandhi's India would radically change from the least threatening pacifist in the game to indiscriminately declaring war and dropping nukes on anyone and everyone in range. Up until the release of Civ5, most felt that Gandhi was still programmed to be a nuclear menace but the developers insist this was a misconception. But at the release of Civ5, it became official that the developers (particularly Jon Shafer) intentionally set the AI programming for Gandhi to have values of "make nukes" and "use nukes" at the maximum level. Now in Civ6 with its secret agenda mechanic, Gandhi has a 1st level agenda of "peacekeeper" but (supposedly) has a much higher chance of having one of his secret agendas be "nuke happy."
What fascinates me the most about this meme isn't the hysterical portrayal of a man who's name is synonymous with peace, who protested through civil disobedience, being characterized as the man who has become death and destroyer of worlds, it's the radical Superman-3-esque late game change from ultimate pacifist to global killer. It was almost as if there were two different people, or better stated an Alternate Persona... And huh, those are a thing now.
So that's what I want/wanted to see and was kind of expecting it. The original Gandhi would be renamed "Pacifist Gandhi" or something similar and remained the same (maybe a bit of a buff? That +5 faith per met civ that has founded a religion isn't much and Alexander is immune to war weariness. As some leaders have unique units that are specific to them instead of their nation, I'd love to see Pacifist Gandhi have a unique civilian unit that helps increase his yields (for balance) and increases the penalty for being at war with him (for historically-related relevance), which also calls back to a previous iteration of the game, Civ4 India having the only unique civilian unit.) And then we have the alternate persona, Thermonuclear Gandhi.
Thermonuclear Gandhi (or if the devs can have a sense of humor about themselves, just go ahead and call him "Bugged Gandhi") has an ability "Oppenheimer's Fear" which allows Gandhi the ability to make nukes faster and in larger numbers - I propose he can faith-purchase nukes for X faith (500? 1000? 2500? escalating cost?) and to remove the restriction of the amount of nukes you have being limited to the amount of uranium in your lands, as well as the steep maintenance cost by giving him the new caveat that started with Byzantium and now shared by Lincoln - "nukes purchased through faith have no maintenance cost or resource consumption." His agenda is obviously that he makes nukes, but more importantly that he "likes civs who USE nukes (not "have" but "use" nukes) and dislikes civs that have nuclear weapons stored and not being used. Possibly the best part is his leader quotes, which I recommend having done in a Canadian or American accent and in English as this persona was created in North America.
Agenda Approval - "Ah yes. Let's watch the world burn!"
Agenda Disapproval - "Come on! You know you want to."
Attacked - "So you fight with blades and guns? Here, let me show you something."
DoWing - "If we don't end this quickly, you're gonna need a bigger boat."
Defeated - "That's okay. I have a feeling we're all going to be together again soon."
Greeting - "India extends her hospitality to you. Don't mind the Geiger counter."
With the history of the civilization series being what it has been, there have been great innovations and opportunity for different gameplay introduced in each installment of the game. But there is one feature... one bug... one mishap that has garnered more notoriety to this franchise than any other element of the game. It is simultaneously beloved and hated by the players, the strongest association that gamers who don't play this game have to it, and it's fame has made it a recognizable term to people who aren't even in the gaming community. A meme that predates memes, I'm of course referring to Nuclear Gandhi.
For anyone unfamiliar, the unsubstantiated urban legend is that in the original game (some argue the second game), each leader had a parameter that influenced/controlled their aggression level that was assigned a value between 1-10 (some say 1-12.) Mahatma Gandhi had the lowest possible aggression rating of 1. When the AI changed it's government to democracy late in the game (which was preferred by more peaceful nations like India) it's aggression level would decrease by 2, resulting in Gandhi's aggression rating being -1. But that value was stored as an 8-bit unsigned integer variable that could only range from 0-255 (two to the eighth power minus one) and couldn't be negative, so it changed his aggression rating to 255. Note that this wasn't just the max level but twenty-five times the normal max level. Also note that the tech tree had the advent of democracy relatively close to the advent of nuclear weapons. Consequently, AI Gandhi's India would radically change from the least threatening pacifist in the game to indiscriminately declaring war and dropping nukes on anyone and everyone in range. Up until the release of Civ5, most felt that Gandhi was still programmed to be a nuclear menace but the developers insist this was a misconception. But at the release of Civ5, it became official that the developers (particularly Jon Shafer) intentionally set the AI programming for Gandhi to have values of "make nukes" and "use nukes" at the maximum level. Now in Civ6 with its secret agenda mechanic, Gandhi has a 1st level agenda of "peacekeeper" but (supposedly) has a much higher chance of having one of his secret agendas be "nuke happy."
What fascinates me the most about this meme isn't the hysterical portrayal of a man who's name is synonymous with peace, who protested through civil disobedience, being characterized as the man who has become death and destroyer of worlds, it's the radical Superman-3-esque late game change from ultimate pacifist to global killer. It was almost as if there were two different people, or better stated an Alternate Persona... And huh, those are a thing now.
So that's what I want/wanted to see and was kind of expecting it. The original Gandhi would be renamed "Pacifist Gandhi" or something similar and remained the same (maybe a bit of a buff? That +5 faith per met civ that has founded a religion isn't much and Alexander is immune to war weariness. As some leaders have unique units that are specific to them instead of their nation, I'd love to see Pacifist Gandhi have a unique civilian unit that helps increase his yields (for balance) and increases the penalty for being at war with him (for historically-related relevance), which also calls back to a previous iteration of the game, Civ4 India having the only unique civilian unit.) And then we have the alternate persona, Thermonuclear Gandhi.
Thermonuclear Gandhi (or if the devs can have a sense of humor about themselves, just go ahead and call him "Bugged Gandhi") has an ability "Oppenheimer's Fear" which allows Gandhi the ability to make nukes faster and in larger numbers - I propose he can faith-purchase nukes for X faith (500? 1000? 2500? escalating cost?) and to remove the restriction of the amount of nukes you have being limited to the amount of uranium in your lands, as well as the steep maintenance cost by giving him the new caveat that started with Byzantium and now shared by Lincoln - "nukes purchased through faith have no maintenance cost or resource consumption." His agenda is obviously that he makes nukes, but more importantly that he "likes civs who USE nukes (not "have" but "use" nukes) and dislikes civs that have nuclear weapons stored and not being used. Possibly the best part is his leader quotes, which I recommend having done in a Canadian or American accent and in English as this persona was created in North America.
Agenda Approval - "Ah yes. Let's watch the world burn!"
Agenda Disapproval - "Come on! You know you want to."
Attacked - "So you fight with blades and guns? Here, let me show you something."
DoWing - "If we don't end this quickly, you're gonna need a bigger boat."
Defeated - "That's okay. I have a feeling we're all going to be together again soon."
Greeting - "India extends her hospitality to you. Don't mind the Geiger counter."