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

[Arrian]

Originally posted by 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.

The only trouble is if you end up in a cramped situation. Then in order to leverage ORG, you gotta fight. It's not that Asoka can't fight, but, well, there are better options, ya know?

As with all the leaders, there are situations that make them look great, and situations that make 'em look not so great.

-Arrian

[Yosho]

Originally posted by 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.

The real key is that Gandhi lets you build wonders without really slowing down your economic development. I'll admit I have not tried Gandhi on Emperor yet, but on Monarch, playing for a culture win, he's very strong. The fast worker makes chop-wonder stratagies even more effective, too, even after the patch.

Along with grabbing some early wonders you wouldn't have been able to get otherwise, the amount of hammers you save over the course of a game is actually pretty significant, between wonders and national wonders.

[uberfish]

Spiritual is great for fighting from the midgame onwards, you can switch between war and peace civics on the fly. Nationhood for 5 turns to draft riflemen then switch back is particularly good. Theocracy for units, Org Rel for buildings.

I agree Asoka isn't the best early rusher but more or less any civ can put together an Axe/Sword rush if really backed into a corner by the AI, and he can pay for his conquests well.

[spammurabi]

Asoka is a GUY? Oops.

I voted Gandhi, but this thread has made me realize that oh, Spi + Org has ridiculous synergy. I'll have to try that sometime soon.

[PaganPaulwhisky]

This one is really close, (although I think the mongol leaders are even more closely matched). I haven't had much experience with these leaders, but I give a slight edge to Asoka since I am a huge fan of the organized trait. With most leaders this would be no contest as organized is really much better than industrious, however the fast worker really complements the industrious trait and gives a big edge in building wonders. I normally do not really concentrate on building wonders and tend to restart if I get an industrious leader, however Gandhi is the best industrious leader IMO and I would consider a wonder based strategy with him.

Spiritual is not a top tier trait IMO, but ranks just below organized and financial. It used to be my favorite trait, but after playing so many games I have changed my mind. Its main value is the ability to shift from a commerce centric focus into a military powerhouse. I really like the vassalge/theocracy combo especially when combined with WP and Pentagon. This can give you a huge advantage on continent domination games. In the late game I switch between representation to Univ suffrage to police state ALOT and I love having spritual at this time, but my games sometimes end earlier than this.

I must confess that I don't really make the best use of this trait in the early/mid game. The little things like changing to caste system to get border expansions and GP quickly, nationalism to draft a sizable army, and changing to vassalage and mercantilism when approriate can be huge. I usually just end up running beuracracy and organized religion for too long instead of making intelligent use of spiritual.

[Generaldoktor]

For my GPP game, I played Gandhi on a Highlands map with boodles of trees. This was pre-v.161 where chop was God! I chopped my way to virtually all the wonders, then stopped the game for awhile, though I'm planning to finish it to practice war with the ever-belligerent Tokugawa. Obviously, my power rating is very much ahead of everybody. This makes me a big Gandhi fan, but I like Napoleon too. Don't forget, Industrious also breeds forges.

My current game with Asoka, which I did deliberately for comparison (with Gandhi,) features all the "improvements" of v.161. I'm not doing so well, but haven't really expanded enough yet to get benefit from the "organized" trait. I lost Oracle, which bothers me, but I seem to have the South hinterlands on a continent full of "raging Barbs." This being my first v.161 game, I guess I should expect some setbacks from lack of familiarity with that, too. The "Ragers", who were also in the Gandhi game, sure don't help.

However, whoever said here that RB hurts AI bigtime too I think is mostly right. It kind of depends on your position. On the Gandhi Highlands map I was backed up in the southwest corner and only had to push two ways against barbs; other player/AI took the brunt of them I think and thus could not expand against me. In the Asoka game, which features continents and oceans, I'm in that position where they are appearing from unexplored land I can't get to yet. AI Peter and others to the south are benefiting from me being the buffer. But I guess this discussion would be better in a thread about barbs.

Back on subject, from my two test games, the jury is still out, but the patch is a mitigating factor. I voted for Gandhi though, because I also believe he's a "wonder machine" and I see it as hard to lose if you've got a mess of wonders. My pre-patch game seemed to bear this out.

[Yosho]

Originally posted by PaganPaulwhisky
I must confess that I don't really make the best use of this trait in the early/mid game. The little things like changing to caste system to get border expansions and GP quickly, nationalism to draft a sizable army, and changing to vassalage and mercantilism when approriate can be huge. I usually just end up running beuracracy and organized religion for too long instead of making intelligent use of spiritual.

It's situational, but another very useful thing to do with spiritual in the early game is to switch religions multiple times for diplomatic reasons; spiritual also give you no anarchy when you switch religions.