Gandhi to profit from war, not peace? Honest discussion

[Glemt]

So, one of Ghandi's features that was presented is that any civ waging war with Gandhi loses happiness. I'm not entirely sure how this will pan out, but isn't it strange to lose extra (note, extra) happiness when Gandhi attacks you, not the other way around? Sure, if you attack a peaceful, religiously accepting civ, your people will become extra grumpy, but this way I just see it happen that the AI sees it as a tacticle advantage.
"You don't seem to have a lot of happiness, I'm going to war with you, and let your civ be destroyed from the inside out. What's that? You need more production to defend yourself? But, your civilians don't want to work that hard, now do they? Don't be saaaaad, Ghandi's coming to make everything better, just close your eyes..."

Of course, that's all reasoning with how Civ V worked, but maybe some of you like to help brainstorm? : )

So: Won't Gandhi profit from waging war, and therefore won't he declare war on other civs?

[ballomatic]

This is old bug from civilization I, google "Nuclear Gandhi". In short: he have 1 (lowest) point of aggression, but democracy subtraction 2 points. Because -1 is not allowed, he have highest possible level of aggression, and send nukes everywhere. In civilization II and later developer make him psychopath to "recreate" that famous bug.

[Glemt]

Originally posted by Sig:

This is old bug from civilization I, google "Nuclear Gandhi". In short: he have 1 (lowest) point of aggression, but democracy subtraction 2 points. Because -1 is not allowed, he have highest possible level of aggression, and send nukes everywhere. In civilization II and later developer make him psychopath to "recreate" that famous bug.

Yes. I'm aware of that, but still thank you for the concise summary : ) However, it has nothing to do with what I wrote : P Do you have any reaction to the proposed notion in the OP?

[Barbarossa]

Well, the immediate disadvantage Gandhi gets from declaring war is that he doesn't get his usual faith bonus from them. Remember, he gets a huge faith bonus for every civ with a religion he's met, but only if that Civ is not at war. And from India's bonuses, it seems that the best strategy is to get as much faith as possible in order to buy units and rush Great People.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, his ability is not just simply "any civ he's at war with loses happiness" but rather, "war weariness is increased for all civs who war with Gandhi". This means that all civs, including India, get a happiness penalty for continuous war, but this penalty is simply increased for anyone who wars with Gandhi.

And in regard to his personality, I hope that Firaxis does the same thing they did in Civ V. That is, not make him an aggressive warmonger, but still keep the joke alive by giving him a ridiculously high nuking probability.

Edit: Also, there's the obvious drawback of leaving yourself open to attack if your only reason for declaring war is to cripple another civ's happiness.

[BadMojo]

Don't forget the Agenda system. I don't recall hearing his agenda in the First Look, but i imagine peace will be his guiding principle. He may use war as a last resort, and simply turtle the whole game while going for a cultural or religious victory.

[Glemt]

Originally posted by BadMojo:

Don't forget the Agenda system. I don't recall hearing his agenda in the First Look, but i imagine peace will be his guiding principle. He may use war as a last resort, and simply turtle the whole game while going for a cultural or religious victory.

Originally posted by Captain_Barbarossa:

Well, the immediate disadvantage Gandhi gets from declaring war is that he doesn't get his usual faith bonus from them. Remember, he gets a huge faith bonus for every civ with a religion he's met, but only if that Civ is not at war. And from India's bonuses, it seems that the best strategy is to get as much faith as possible in order to buy units and rush Great People.

Also, if I'm not mistaken, his ability is not just simply "any civ he's at war with loses happiness" but rather, "war weariness is increased for all civs who war with Gandhi". This means that all civs, including India, get a happiness penalty for continuous war, but this penalty is simply increased for anyone who wars with Gandhi.

And in regard to his personality, I hope that Firaxis does the same thing they did in Civ V. That is, not make him an aggressive warmonger, but still keep the joke alive by giving him a ridiculously high nuking probability.

Edit: Also, there's the obvious drawback of leaving yourself open to attack if your only reason for declaring war is to cripple another civ's happiness.

All extremely valid points. Thanks a bunch : )

[Darkwing]

Yeah it's not really a "profit from war". It's just additional war weariness for the opponent, which is something that would never really single handedly make or break a war in past games. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if, when we get more information, we learn this additional war weariness only applies when Gandhi is not the belligerent in conflict.

[CrazyVulcan]

Remember there is a new mechanic with war being that you have to justify it lest you take a large warmonger hit. As India I can imagine that any offencive war will count extra against yourself. That and if the war is just I imagine your target does not suffer any extra war weariness than usual.

Now when I play as India I will try to be as annoying as possible to get my opponent to attack me. So I will have my war and the nifty debuff against my attacker.

[Glemt]

Originally posted by Thunder:

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if, when we get more information, we learn this additional war weariness only applies when Gandhi is not the belligerent in conflict.

I was thinking that to be a possibility, but I checked back in the video and they definitely didn't phrase it that way. In another video, I can't remember which, they definitely were very clear indicating that "it" (can't remember) had to come from one side. So I assumed they'd have done the same here too.

Originally posted by CrazyVulcan:

Remember there is a new mechanic with war being that you have to justify it lest you take a large warmonger hit. As India I can imagine that any offencive war will count extra against yourself. That and if the war is just I imagine your target does not suffer any extra war weariness than usual.

Now when I play as India I will try to be as annoying as possible to get my opponent to attack me. So I will have my war and the nifty debuff against my attacker.

Lol : P

The thing is I like all these things, and hope they work out well. In Civ BE they kind of introduced these things a bit, but the AI needs to really have been fleshed out to make sense out of these things. Otherwise the reasons will always still be BS.