Asoka Vs. Gandhi: Who Truly Rules the Indian People?

[monkspider]

Here is one of the more interesting choices as multiple leader civs go. India benefits from what most expert players consider to be one of the best UUs. Moreover, India is one of those lucky civs to start off with mysticism making an early religion-centric strategy a definite possibility. So India is definitely a powerhouse, and your choice of leaders can have significant ramifications in marshalling the full power of this top-tier Civ.

Gandhi is one of the most popular leaders in the game, if you fire up a multiplayer session, odds are you will see Gandhi in 90% or more of your games. Asoka is a bit more underrated, but in my opinion, far superior to the Mahatma.

Both civs start with spiritual, which is in my opinion the most powerful trait in Civ IV, even more powerful than financial. So it comes down to organized vs industrious. For me, this is no contest, as I consider industrious to be the weakest trait. What really puts Asoka over the top though is the incredible synergy between his two traits. Spiritual of course gives you the ability to switch between the various civics at no penalty. Organized allows you to run the civics of your choice cheaply. So running the expensive organized religion when you on a peaceful footing, and switching to expensive civics like police state or vassalage when you're gearing up for war can be done without fear of prohibitive cost. This is very powerful, and combined with the infastructure that the fast worker provides, you can become an unstoppable juggernaut. If I had to choose the single most powerful leader in Civ IV, it may well be Asoka. He would certainly be in my top 5 along with other top-tier leaders like Mansa Musa and Catherine.

To Gandhi's credit, he's probably the most powerful industrious leader in the game. He of course is blessed with the powerful spiritual trait, and starting with mysticism puts him in a very strong position to claim one or more of the key early wonders.

[sprudl]

I don't know which one is better. I picked Ghandi only in my very first game. I've never played Asoka but I've crushed him a few times

Your analysis of Asoka's traits is very interesting. It sounds very powerful indeed. I'm definitely going to give it a try in one of my next games.

In my games the AI playing Asoka never really rises to the top. Perhaps it has problems exploiting the possibilities of switching civics quickly.

[Velociryx]

It depends on how your game is structured. Pound for pound, there's nobody in the game that can grab wonders like Ghandi (especially the early ones). He's got a leg up on the spiritual side of the house (starting with Mysticism), and the combination of fast workers + Ind is just about unbeatable. The guy's a wonder building beast. The only other possible contender is Fin/Ind, but that doesn't make up for the power of the fast worker, IMO (if we're talking early game wonders, that's slightly faster research vs. heaps of turn advantage via the fast worker....the gap reverses by the late mid game, but in the early game, fast worker wins, hands down).

On the other hand, for my particular style of play, Asoka works wonders, because you can grow a big empire, radically change your civics configurations (on a dime, and with no penalty), and run combinations that would otherwise be ruinously expensive. Hippie rules.



-=Vel=-

[Yosho]

Well, it depends on the map and on your goal. For general purpose use, Asoka is probably stronger. However, when I play an Arcapelago game at normal speed and want a culture win, I'd rather have Ghandi then any other leader in the game; he's amazing for grabbing both early wonders and multiple religions on the harder settings, both of which are key for a cultural vicotry. The economic benifit of early wonders can huge, and of course pyramids + spiritual is an incredibly powerful combination.

[axisworks]

Ghandi seems to be a polarizing force, from my experience. AI's either love him without question, or they want to kill him until their last breath. Asoka tends to be a bit more active in manipulating and changing opinions around at random... I'm never sure who he's trying to ally with.

[Blake]

Asoka in the hands of the AI is a sneaky bastard and is more dangerous than Gandhi.

Anyway, in MY hands I prefer Asoka due to his wonderful expansion-synergy, get a religion, use org to expand like crazy, org.rel to spread that religion, shrine income ramps up... Asoka + Great Lighthouse results in godly expansion capability.

Gandhi can pull off some neat slingshots and stuff but he is a leader with no economic traits and I admit I do kind of rely on getting some extra beakers that I didn't have to "pay" for - that's where the profit comes from in my empire, over and above what is paid for upkeeps. Then again I can see how he is very good for those who don't feel burning need to constantly expand.

PS. Used to feel bad about mispelling Gandhi. Now I see everyone in this thread has done it except the OP. It's Gandhi people, the h comes at the end .
At least no-one has called Asoka a girl (yet).

[couerdelion]

Most people here recognise Industrious as a poor trait, which it is. All it really does is save you hammers although I suppose you could also argue that it does perhaps enable some wonders that you would probably forego. So on paper, Asoka is probably a good deal stronger than Gandhi.

Gandhi’s industrious trait does, however make him a viable candidate for the Stonehenge-GP-Oracle sling to Philosophy and Pacifism. Alternatively, if you have plenty of trees (and perhaps stone), he’s a strong candidate for building and chopping the Pyramids. For early game variation, Gandhi can actually be a very flexible choice but Asoka still wins here.

[Eli]

What are these slings you people keep mentioning?

[JackRudd]

Strategies involving building the Oracle and getting an expensive free tech from it.

I prefer Gandhi to Asoka, but then I am a Wonder junkie.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Eli
What are these slings you people keep mentioning?

Sorry, I had the same problem when I started reading here but it's part of the local vocabulary

More precisely, a sling is anything that can be used to give you a significant turn-advantage in the game but normally refers to any sudden tech gain. It could even be a hut discovery but will normally be a deliberate game strategy, the most common of which is to build the Oracle to gain a free tech.

Two other options are:

Burning a GP to “lightbulb” a tech
Gaining a free tech from being the first to discover Liberalism

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Velociryx
It depends on how your game is structured. Pound for pound, there's nobody in the game that can grab wonders like Ghandi (especially the early ones). He's got a leg up on the spiritual side of the house (starting with Mysticism), and the combination of fast workers + Ind is just about unbeatable. The guy's a wonder building beast. The only other possible contender is Fin/Ind, but that doesn't make up for the power of the fast worker, IMO (if we're talking early game wonders, that's slightly faster research vs. heaps of turn advantage via the fast worker....the gap reverses by the late mid game, but in the early game, fast worker wins, hands down).

It's interesting that Gandhi has the second lowest chance to build wonders according to the Civ4LeaderHeadInfos.xml file, second only to Montezuma. I wonder if this was done to handicap Gandhi when he's played by the AI.

[Arrian]

Depends on your situation.

I started a new game last night as Asoka. I chose a Fractal map (I'm trying to figure out what Fractal is supposed to be) and ended up at the far end of a supercontinent that has all the civs on it (Pangea, I guess, just not shaped like the usual Pangea). I had plenty of room to expand, hampered only by barbs. I also had good starting terrain.

In that situation, few if any are better than Asoka. ORG allows you to grow like a fungus and not cripple your economy. You can found early religions (I founded Buddism, and could've had Hinduism too if I'd wanted it bad enough). You can switch civics on a dime. Building all of the wonders but Stonehenge helped, of course.

By the way, I'm starting to believe that raging barbs, despite the AI's huge bonuses vs. barbs, really hamper the AI more than the human. At least at a lowish level like Prince.

-Arrian

[monkspider]

Arrian: The fractal map supposedly uses the pre-1.61 continents script. Apparently with 1.61's continents, civs very rarely start on small islands, and are more balanced size-wise. This was something Soren said during one of the early patch threads.

[uberfish]

Asoka. For more or less the same reasons Velociryx posted, his traits work perfectly together. You can build a big far-flung empire and then shuffle in and out of Universal Suffrage, Nationhood, Slavery, Caste, Theocracy, whatever is useful to develop specific aspects of the empire for a few turns, without taking an anarchy hit.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by monkspider
Arrian: The fractal map supposedly uses the pre-1.61 continents script. Apparently with 1.61's continents, civs very rarely start on small islands, and are more balanced size-wise. This was something Soren said during one of the early patch threads.

I've generated three Fractal maps so far. All three have been pangeas (but shaped like a continent from a... continents map, just bigger/connected).

-Arrian