Gandhi, a leader of India in Civilization 6, unexpectedly ends up being one of the most violent opponents a player has to face. From the original Civilization title up to the latest New Frontiers season pass, Gandhi always seemed prone to nuke players despite having one of the lowest scores for aggression in the game.
The Civilization series is renowned for its attention to detail and historical accuracy, to an extent. However, the Indian leader, who is widely remembered as a peaceful icon, is unusually violent to players, especially in the late game after nuclear weapons become available. This personality trait was initially due to a bug in the original Civilization game, which came out in 1991 for MS DOS.
In the original Civilization title, which was one of the most complex and intense strategy games of its time, each leader in Civilization was given a score for aggression on a 1-10 basis with 1 being the lowest. Gandhi, being a pacifist icon, was given a score of 1/10. However when players progressed along the original tech tree and unlocked the Democracy form of government, Gandhi was thrown into a rage for a then-unknown reason.
Adopting Democracy as a form of government was meant to make leaders more peaceful. With Democracy, each leader’s aggression rating was lowered by two. However, when India adopted Democracy, Gandhi’s score of 1 was lowered to -1 (1-2=-1). This was a problem because in a world of programmed integers, -1 does not exist, only 0-256. This error caused -1 to underflow to 256, and then the apply the -1 to 256, leaving Gandhi’s aggression score to be 255 out of a possible 10. The democracy tech in Civilization also came at about the same time nuclear technology was discovered, so Gandhi went from peaceful to incredibly aggressive just as nukes became available.
When the bug was reported to developers, they were amused and kept it in the franchise moving forward. As the Civilization series went on, Gandhi continued to harass his opponents and cause nuclear fallout. The developers of Civilization 6 only added fuel to the nuclear fire when they assigned Gandhi the Nuke Happy hidden agenda for the latest installment of the Civilization franchise. He even compliments other players for building nukes of their own.
While it is impressive how historically accurate the Civilization series is, having characters with personalities makes the game feel much more in depth, even if they aren’t exactly historical. Nuclear Gandhi gives the game its own flourish and adds a late-game twist that veterans of the franchise have surely been troubled by before. Players should keep this in mind on their next Civilization 6 playthrough, and make sure they don’t let Nuclear Gandhi sneak up on them.