From the very first game in the series through to today, India’s supposedly-peaceful leader Gandhi has been famous for one thing: dropping nukes. And there’s a very good reason for it.
It’s not your mind playing tricks on you, or a case of myth becoming accepted fact, he really does drop nukes more than other civs. Like any other leader in the series, Gandhi has pre-determined statistics that govern his behaviour, making him more likely to do certain things and behave in certain ways.
His preference for nukes doesn’t just make the latter portions of a game messy, though, it’s a behaviour that stands in such stark contrast with his pacifist approach in the real world that it’s become Civilization’s defining joke.
So why does he do it?
In the original Civilization, it was because of a bug. Each leader in the game had an “aggression” rating, and Gandhi – to best reflect his real-world persona – was given the lowest score possible, a 1, so low that he’d rarely if ever go out of his way to declare war on someone.
Only, there was a problem. When a player adopted democracy in Civilization, their aggression would be automatically reduced by 2. Code being code, if Gandhi went democratic his aggression wouldn’t go to -1, it looped back around to the ludicrously high figure of 255, making him as aggressive as a civilization could possibly be.
In later games this bug was obviously not an issue, but as a tribute/easter egg of sorts, parts of his white-hot rage have been kept around. In Civilization V, for example, while Gandhi’s regular diplomatic approach is more peaceful than other leaders, he’s also the most likely to go dropping a-bombs when pushed, with a nuke “rating” of 12 putting him well ahead of the competition (the next three most likely to go nuclear have a rating of 8, with most leaders around the 4-6 region).
So the next time you see the AI lay waste to an entire continent, and wonder if it’s just co-incidence or a quirk of the game that it’s Gandhi, know that it’s not. He’s meant to be an asshole, because he’s programmed that way.
Comments
17 responses to “Why Gandhi Is Such An Arsehole In Civilisation”
This is the greatest thing I’ve read so far this week. And while we have quite a bit to go to finish this week, I feel it will still be the best thing I’ve read at the end. Ghandi you bastard, I KNEW something was up with you.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer. You take one down, pass it around, 255 bottles of beer on the wall!
Scratch that – THIS is the greatest thing I’ve read so far this week
I want to know where this magic wall is located.
Every time Gandhi finishes the Manhattan Project in Civ 5 I get a chill down my spine.
Headline is a work of art, simple, to the point and mildly offensive without context =D
The three key elements of a great headline.
At last, the mystery has been solved! I applaud you Luke!~
Buffy: Hey Ken, wanna see my impression of Gandhi?
[beats him to death with a club]
I find it interesting that the title of the article has ‘arsehole’ but the slug has ‘asshole’.
Having a bet each way in order to keep both sides of the Pacific happy.
kotaku’s “localisation” normally only covers headlines, not the body of stories.
So Ghandi isn’t impaled into a donkey?
Relevant
So what your telling us is it’s not Gandhi’s fault just that people made him that way.
And the fact that he hated the blacks.
Ummm…Why is ghandi white in the top picture?
I always wondered why that was the case. Thanks!
India discovered Manhattan Project before me. I saved and exited the game, haven’t played that game since.