If you have the Gathering Storm expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Gathering Storm expansion.

Note: This guide requires the Rise and Fall expansion.

Content from DLC packs (Poland, Vikings, Australia, Persia/Macedon, Nubia, Khmer/Indonesia) is marked as such.

Who should govern? The conquerers - those who use force and threat to impose their will upon the world? The tyrants - those who control their lands with an iron fist and no-one but themselves to guide them? The colonists - which see the rich world as a blank canvas, using the pretense of civilization to convert distant lands into their personal factories? Or perhaps the future belongs to the peace-makers; those who face the devastation of war and at last decide to turn the other way. Chandragupta Maurya. Ashoka. Gandhi. And perhaps you.


This guide is divided into multiple sections explaining how best to use and play against this specific civ.

• The Outline details the mechanics of how the civilization's unique features work and what their start bias is (assuming they have one at all).
  
• The Victory Skew section describes to what extent the civ (and its individual leaders where applicable) are inclined towards particular victory routes. This is not a rating of its power, but rather a general indicator of the most appropriate route to victory.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, government buildings, policy cards, age bonuses, pantheons, religious beliefs, wonders, city-states and Great People for the civ. Only the ones with the most synergy with the civ's uniques are mentioned - these should be given more consideration than they would be for other civs but are not necessarily the "best" choices when playing as the civ for a given victory route.
  
• Finally, the Counter-Strategies discusses how best to play against the civ, including a consideration of leader agendas if the civ is controlled by a computer.

Note that all costs (production, science, culture, gold, etc.) mentioned within the guide assume a game played on the normal speed settings. To modify these values for other game speeds:

• Online: Divide by 2
  
• Quick: Divide by 1.5
  
• Epic: Multiply by 1.5
  
• Marathon: Multiply by 3

Terminology used in this guide and not in-game is explained here.

AoE (Area of Effect) - Describes bonuses or penalties that affect multiple tiles in a set radius. Positive examples include Factories and Stadiums (which by default offer production and happiness respectively to cities within a 6 tile radius unless they're within range of another building of the same type) and a negative example is nuclear weapons, which cause devastation over a wide radius.

Beelining - The strategy of obtaining a technology or civic quickly by only researching it and its prerequisites. Some deviation is allowed in the event that taking a technology or civic off the main track provides some kind of advantage that makes up for that deviation (either a source of extra science/culture or access to something necessary for a eureka or inspiration boost.

CA (Civ Ability) - The unique ability of a civilization, shared by all its leaders. Unlike unique units, buildings, districts and improvements, civ abilites do not have to be built.

Compact empires - Civs with cities close together. This is useful if you want to make use of districts that gain adjacency bonuses from other districts, maximise the number of copies of the same district in the same area, or to maximise the potential of area-of-effect bonuses later in the game.

Dispersed empires - Civs with cities that are spread out. This is useful if you want to ensure cities have plenty of room for both districts and tile improvements. Civs with unique tile improvements generally favour a more dispersed empire in order to make use of them, as do civs focused on wonder construction.

GWAM - Collective name for Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. All of them can produce Great Works that offer tourism and culture, making them important to anyone seeking a cultural victory.

LA (Leader Ability) - The unique ability of a specific leader, which like civ abilities do not have to be built. Usually but not always, they tend to be more specific in scope than civ abilities. Some leader abilities come with an associated unique unit on top of the standard one every civ has.

Prebuilding - Training a unit with the intention of upgrading it to a desired unit later. An example is building Slingers and upgrading them once Archery is unlocked.

Start bias - The kind of terrain, terrain feature or resource a civilization is more likely to start near. This is typically used for civilizations that have early bonuses dependent on a particular terrain type. There are five tiers of start bias; civs with a tier 1 start bias are placed before civs of tier 2 and so on, increasing their odds of receiving a favourable starting location.

Complete information on start biases within the game can be found in the Civilizations.xml file (find the Civ 6 folder in Steam's program files, then go through the Base, Assets, Gameplay and Data folders to find the file). DLC and Expansion civs have a similarly-named file in their corresponding folders. If a civilization is not listed as having a start bias there, it does not have one, even if you feel like you keep spawning in the same terrain when playing as that civ.

Super-uniques - Unique units that do not replace any others, and are hence particularly unique. Examples include India's Varu and Mongolia's Keshigs.

Tall empires - Empires that emphasise city development over expansion, usually resulting in fewer, but bigger, cities.

Uniques - Collective name for civ abilities, leader abilities, unique units, unique buildings, unique districts and unique improvements.

UA (Unique Ability) - A collective name for leader abilities and civ abilities.

UB (Unique Building) - A special building which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal building and offers a special advantage on top.

UD (Unique District) - A special district which may only be constructed in the cities of a single civilization, which replaces a normal district and offers some unique advantages on top. In some cases, there may be minor disadvantages as well, but these are always outweighed by the positive features. All unique districts cost half as much to construct relative to the regular districts they replace.

UI (Unique Improvement) - A special improvement that can only be built by the Builders of a single civilization. Unlike unique buildings or districts, these do not replace a regular improvement. Some require a technology to unlock, and many have their yields improved with later technologies. "UI" always refers to unique improvements in my guides and not to "user interface" or "unique infrastructure".

UU (Unique Unit) - A special unit that may only be built by a single civilization, and in some cases only when that civilization is led by a specific leader. These usually replace an existing unit and offer extra advantages (and occasionally minor disadvantages as well in exchange for bigger advantages).

Wide empires - Empires that emphasise expansion over city development, usually resulting in more, but smaller, cities.

India has no start bias.

• May use the follower beliefs of all religions present in a city, regardless of the religion's founder.

• The War of Territorial Expansion casus belli is available with the classical-era Military Training civic, instead of requiring the modern-era Mobilisation civic.
  
  • As always, you still need to either wait five turns after denouncing a civ, or be the target of a denouncement in order to use the casus belli.
• For the first 10 turns after declaring a War of Territorial Expansion, all units gain +2 movement, and all military and religious units gain +5 strength.

• Gain +5 faith for every civ that has been met, has founded a religion and is at peace.
  
  • This includes Gandhi's India itself, so having a religion and being at peace guarantees a +5 faith bonus.
• Civs fighting against Gandhi suffer double war weariness

A classical-era heavy cavalry unit which doesn't replace anything

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Grand Master's Chapel government building, which requires either the medieval-era Divine Right or renaissance-era Exploration civics.

**If you have no access to oil, you may continue to build Varu even after researching Combustion.


Notable features

• Classed as heavy cavalry, unlike Horsemen which arrive at the same technology
  
• 40 strength, 4 higher than Horsemen but 8 lower than Knights
  
• 2 movement points, 2 less than Horsemen or Knights
  
• Sight range of 3 (most land units have a sight of 2)
  
• Reduces the strength of adjacent enemy units by 5
  
  • This stacks with other Varu. An enemy unit completely surrounded with Varu will have a -30 strength penalty!
    
  • This does function on enemy adjacent naval units.
    
  • This does not function against cities and encampment districts.
• Costs 120 production, 50% more than Horsemen at 80.
  
• Maintenance cost of 3, 50% more than Horsemen at 2.

Enhancements

*This assumes you already have the enhancements of earlier eras.

In this section, the civ is subjectively graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Scores of 3 or more mean the civ has at least a minor advantage towards the victory route.


Culture is a fine backup victory route for India if religious victory doesn't work out. Faith can contribute to your cultural goals via Naturalists and National Parts as well as relics via Martyr Apostles or even cultural buildings from the Jesuit Education follower belief. Stepwells will provide plenty of housing to help your cities grow large early, which is great for building wonders. Gandhi generates more faith, but Chandragupta will be more effective at capturing wonders from other civs.

Domination victory is ideal for Chandragupta, and even Gandhi can perform reasonably well at it. Varu are incredibly strong for their time, and Chandragupta's speed and strength bonuses can make them even better than Knights for a lower cost and arriving at an earlier technology.

Religious victory is Gandhi's most effective route, and he can generate a lot of faith early on via his leader ability. That declines in prominence as the game goes on, but Stepwell faith will be worth more later. Chandragupta can also make a stab at religious victories by exploiting his leader ability to make religious units briefly faster and stronger. You can declare war on one civ while sending religious units in another direction.

Scientific victories, like culture, can be used as a backup victory path, although a strong faith output doesn't help as much there as it does for cultural victories. Stepwells can help grow large cities to help with space project construction, and excess faith can be used in conjunction with the Jesuit Education belief to construct science buildings, but that's a relatively small advantage.

An Apostle for Islam, eh? Let's see what they offer...


+4 faith per wonder? That looks nice... Good thing Meroë has lots of wonders!


When you're playing for a religious victory, starting near a strong rival religious civ like Russia can be a pain. They might take the beliefs you want first. They might push your religion back so much yours has barely any impact.

Meanwhile, those going for a domination victory might have a reasonable array of religious bonuses in captured cities, only to lose them once other civs send in their own Missionaries and Apostles.

India's civ ability helps to sort these problems out. All religions - including your own and those of other civs - provide the benefits of their follower beliefs in your cities so long as at least 1 citizen is of that faith. Your own follower beliefs should remain useful even if a rival faith dominates, and you can make use of good follower beliefs stolen taken by other civs without having to destroy the spread of your own religion.


India's civ ability essentially lets you get bonus religious beliefs in your religion so long as you balance the number of followers right. The maximum potential you can gain out of this ability increases on larger map sizes where more religions can be founded. The maximum number of religions for each map size is as follows:

• Duel: 2
  
• Tiny: 3
  
• Small: 4
  
• Standard: 5
  
• Large: 6
  
• Huge: 7

Theoretically, on a huge-size map, you could have a city with your pantheon, a founder belief, an enhancer belief, seven follower beliefs and a worship belief! That city would have to be at least size 8 (and more likely a fair bit bigger to account for religious pressure pushing out smaller faiths), but thankfully, the Stepwell improvement can help your cities to grow bigger, sooner, so getting multiple religions present in a city won't be as hard as it is for many civs.

There are nine different follower beliefs in the game. Here are all of them, in alphabetical order:

The impact of India's civ ability varies depending on how strong your religion is. For that reason, I've divided the rest of this section into "when your religion is strong", "when your religion is weak" and "when you don't have a religion".


If you've spread your religion effectively, it's possible for your religion to be too strong in your own lands. If your religion is strong enough at home to crowd out followers of all other faiths, your civ ability will be useless. The best outcome is for your faith to be consistently in the majority in your cities, while as many other faiths as possible have at least some presence.

There's a few ways you can achieve this. The best method is to send trade routes to a city of a rival religion; you'll send some of your religion's pressure to them, and you'll receive a small amount of their religion's pressure in return.

You can also try letting units of your own religion die in theological combat while near your cities. Consider carefully if the cost is worth it - you may want to use that faith for other purposes.

Finally, you can avoid placing Apostles or Inquisitors in your own lands to incentivise other civs to spread their religion.


If, despite your uniques, your religion is struggling to get off the ground even in your home lands, all is not lost.

Gandhi's passive faith generation means you should still be able to afford some religious units even when your religion is weak. Inquisitors may be necessary as an extreme measure (the passive spread of the strong rival religion should mean it can still re-establish in your cities). You can also set up a colony city far away from your own or other civs' existing cities, send a Missionary over, convert it, build a Holy Site and use it as a secure base for launching future religious units from.

Your own faith's follower beliefs will still be in effect in your own cities so long as your religion has at least one follower in them, but a dominant rival religion will lock you out of founder and worship beliefs. If you can't convert all your cities back to the one true faith, it might be worth targeting just your most important cities.

If Chandragupta has the Warrior Monks belief, even if his religion isn't a majority anywhere he can still purchase the units and use the Disciples promotion to add religious pressure for every kill they make. It's true that it means delaying the powerful Exploding Palms promotion, but you can use the ability of Varu to weaken adjacent units to make up the difference.


Not having a religion doesn't mean your game is ruined - faith can still be useful towards cultural victory via Naturalists and the National Parks they create, science via the Jesuit Education follower belief and domination via the Grand Master's Chapel building. It's true that it's quite a setback for Gandhi's India, but thankfully you're not hit as hard as most religion-focused civs if they lack a faith of your own.

In fact, if you lack a religion, your civ is likely to become a battleground for other civs' religious efforts - which is perfect for this civ ability. You can buy Missionaries in parts of your empire where one religion dominates, and send it somewhere else where it doesn't, ensuring that you can get as many follower beliefs in as many cities as possible. Alternatively, just send a bunch of trade routes to cities of various faiths to help boost your religious diversity.

• Try to find a balance between rival religions becoming dominant in your cities, and rival religions having no presence at all.
  
• International trade routes provide a good way of adding a few followers of rival religions in your own cities.
  
• Regardless of whether you have a religion or not, build plenty of Holy Sites as many founder beliefs interact with them.

Yep, even civilians gain extra speed, making it quicker to repair anything you pillaged.

Gandhi seeks a peaceful playstyle, but Chandragupta pushes India on the warpath. Varu combined with Chandragupta's leader ability are as fast as Knights and do even more damage against units. The problem is speed - you need to be able to unlock technologies and civics quickly and get an army trained fast if you want to have the biggest impact you can get.


In order to use the War of Territorial Expansion casus belli, you need at least two cities within ten tiles of at least two cities of the other civ. This isn't an exceptionally hard requirement, as you should have time to train a couple of Settlers early on that you can position reasonably close to another civ's cities. Avoid settling so close that you'll suffer loyalty penalties, as it's hard to circumvent that early in the game.

You'll also want Monuments built to help bump up your culture output. Military Training (needed for the boosted casus belli) takes longer to get to than Horseback Riding (needed for Varu), so you'll want lots of early culture so you can use it sooner.

Magnus (the Steward) should be your first Governor, and placed in whichever city has the most woods tiles. You can train some Builders ready for when you have Horseback Riding. Every woods tile cut down in a city with Magnus will provide enough production to cover the cost of a Varu. If you lack many woods tiles, consider moving Magnus between cities - keep an eye on that five-turn timer so you don't end up cutting down trees too soon.


There's two ways of getting to the Military Training civic: the fast way, where you beeline it, or the slow way, where you work towards it while also going for Political Philosophy. Launching an attack sooner has a bigger impact, so here's what you need for the faster approach:

• Code of Laws
  
• Craftsmanship (Boost: Improve three tiles. Tricky to get in time as it means training a Builder very early on. You may be better off training a Settler instead and just hard-researching this civic without the boost.)
  
• Military Tradition (Boost: Destroy a Barbarian Encampment. Not hard - you can use a Slinger or your starting Warrior to do this.)
  
• State Workforce (Boost: Construct any speciality district. An early Encampment can help you generate Great General Points, and a classical-era Great General will make your Varu even better. Still, that's hard to achieve in time.)
  
• Games and Recreation (Boost: Complete the Construction technology. Though Siege Towers arrive at Construction and are very useful, you're unlikely to get that in time. Just research this without the boost.)
  
• Military Training (Boost: Construct an Encampment. You should try and get the boost - Bronze Working isn't a huge technological detour and you'll want to start generating Great General Points anyway).

While you're doing this, you'll want to pick up the Horseback Riding and Bronze Working technologies. Irrigation (for Stepwells) can wait for now.


The War of Territorial Expansion requires you to denounce a civ and wait five turns (or be the target of a denouncement) before you can use it. That can be quite a pain as the other civ can end up turning that around and declaring a formal war on you instead. As such, after you've sent your denouncement, try to keep your Varu close together and close to your opponent. That way, if they try pre-emptively striking, you'll still be in a good position to attack.

With your casus belli used, all your units gain signficantly better mobility and strength for ten turns, starting immediately. This makes Varu fight at essentially 50 strength when attacking units - enough to kill Warriors and Archers in a single hit. The boost to mobility is particularly useful for Varu as they ignore zone of control, letting them easily slip around units, surround them, stack their strength penalties on the enemy units and kill them.

If you're up against city walls, you've got a couple of options. One is to use Siege Towers, but another is to use bombard-strength units like Catapults. Extra movement allows them to move and fire in the same turn, which usually isn't possible. Still, Siege Towers will probably be your best choice until you start facing foes with the Steel technology.

Finishing up wars quickly is important. Take any original capitals, cities necessary for them to maintain loyalty and any cities necessary to get another civ in range of the War of Territorial Expansion casus belli. You don't need to eliminate the civ, and you shouldn't; keeping them alive means you can activate the War of Territorial Expansion on demand at a later date.


When you're done with a war, denounce your next target immediately and set your units to heal up. You're quite likely to face counter-attacks once people get wary of your warmongering, so you need to be able to act fast and keep going.

Back at your home cities, you'll want to build up an infrastructure to support your conquests. Stepwells will help them to grow and hence be more productive, but you'll need to pay close attention to your amenity levels. Large amenity deficits make conquests incredibly hard as cities you take will swiftly flip to being free cities. As such, you might need to construct a lot of Entertainment Complexes. You'll also want enough gold to cover maintenance expenses, and plenty of culture and science to make the Varu to Tank transition as smooth as possible.

If you're the target of a war (or worse, an emergency), don't worry. Any civ you kept alive earlier can be targeted by a War of Territorial Expansion. They won't be strong enough to be a threat (unless they have a lot of allies), while your whole military will be able to exploit the speed and strength bonuses. This is also useful when you want to expand into new landmasses.


It's possible to play Chandragupta via a religious angle, but it means weakening the potential of initial Varu wars. You don't have time to develop Holy Sites and prepare for early warfare, so it can be better to forgo developing your religion to instead use Stepwell faith to purchase units (with the Grand Master's Chapel).

If you launch an attack early enough, you may be able to capture some Holy Sites and gain enough Great Prophet Points to found a religion from them. Era score from training a Varu and constructing a Stepwell can also make it reasonably easy to get a classical-era Golden Age and potentially the Exodus of the Evangelists dedication for an extra four Great Prophet Points per turn.

If you can found a religion, consider taking the Warrior Monks belief. Warrior Monks have a window of usage as broad (if not broader than) Varu, and can spread your religion via combat. Warrior Monks lack a weakness to anti-cavalry units helping them complement Varu reasonably effectively.

If you want a religious victory, invade a civ early on as normal and take most of their cities, so they're too weak to pose a threat. Use your faith to purchase Apostles and/or Missionaries. Declare war on the weak civ using the casus belli, and then you can exploit the religious unit strength and speed for ten turns.

• Expand to three cities and build Monuments so you can prepare for the War of Territorial Expansion casus belli.
  
• Remember after denouncing a civ there's a 5-turn gap before you can use the casus belli.
  
• Don't eliminate civs; it lets you use the casus belli on them later while fighting someone else.

While Chandragupta brings India to war, Gandhi pushes for a more peaceful religious playstyle. His leader ability comes in two parts - one us more useful in peace-time, and the other disincentivises other civs from invading.


For every civ you have met that has founded a religion and is not at war with anyone (including yourself), you gain +5 faith. Because you need to meet the civs in the first place, be sure not to neglect exploration; get Cartography reasonably early to let you cross oceans and find new continents.

Like India's civ ability, this bonus becomes more effective on larger map sizes. Here's the maximum faith per turn you can obtain from this ability:

• Duel: 10
  
• Tiny: 15
  
• Small: 20
  
• Standard: 25
  
• Large: 30
  
• Huge: 35

Early on in the game, this is likely to form a substantial portion of your faith output, but once warmongering civs start conquering, and coalitions form to take them down, you can lose out considerably. Alternative sources of faith will also begin to be more and more significant.

Wars between civs without religions needn't concern you, but any that involve at least one civ with a religion will directly hurt your faith output. It's especially bad if you have a civ that is strong at both war and religion (Poland and Spain being good examples). Still, it's worth considering that a civ at war will often struggle to do both that and play the religious game - their religious units can be pillaged by the military units of their opponents. A battlefield can make a nice opportunity for a neutral third party to slip in and convert both sides!

If another civ declares war on you, or you declare war, you'll lose the +5 faith bonus your own religion is contributing, but Gandhi's other bonus will take effect...


War weariness isn't a whole lot of fun to be up against. Losing amenities means losing bonuses (or gaining penalties) to all sorts of yields as well as loyalty.

• A city with a deficit of 7 or more amenities is in revolt. It stops growing, has a -60% penalty to all non-food yields, has -6 loyalty pe turn and will cause Barbarians to spawn based on the civ's current military technology every few turns.
  
• A city with a deficit of 5 or 6 amenities is in unrest. It stops growing, has a -30% penalty to all non-food yields, has -6 loyalty per turn and will cause Barbarians to spawn based on the civ's current military technology every few turns, albeit in smaller numbers than if it's in revolt.
  
• A city with a deficit of 3 or 4 amenities is unhappy. It has a -30% growth rate, a -10% penalty to all non-food yields. and -6 loyalty per turn.
  
• A city with a deficit of 1 or 2 amenities is displeased. It has a -15% growth rate, a -5% penalty to all non-food yields and -3 loyalty per turn.
  
• A city with no surplus or deficit of amenities is content has no yield bonuses or penalties.
  
• A city with a surplus of 1 or 2 amenities is happy. It has a 10% bonus to growth, a 5% bonus to all non-food yields and +3 loyalty per turn.
  
• A city with a surplus of 3 amenities or more is ecstatic. It has a 20% bonus to growth, a 10% bonus to all non-food yields and +6 loyalty per turn.

Any civ up against Gandhi's India will have to deal with double the war weariness, but what does that all mean? Here's some details about how war weariness works This CivFanatics thread[forums.civfanatics.com] was the original source of this information.

First of all, war weariness is measured in points, although this isn't shown in-game. Every 400 points of war weariness costs you an amenity. Amenity loss skews towards larger cities near the battle, before spreading out to smaller cities near the battles and your cities in general.

You gain war weariness through combat. The base value scales through the eras (based on your highest technology/civic, not the game era), in line with rising base warmonger penalties.

• Ancient era: 16
  
• Classical era: 25
  
• Medieval era: 34
  
• Renaissance era: 43
  
• Rest of game: 52

This is modified by use of casus belli (so for example, formal wars reduce this by 25%).

Next, the war weariness is affected by the location of combat and whether or not your unit was killed.

• 1x if in owned territory (or 4x if the unit dies)
  
• 2x if outside owned territory (or 5x if the unit dies)
  
• 2x if it's one of your cities attacking or being attacked.
  
• 12x when you're launching a nuke (regardless of how many units are hit in the process)

With that initial score, additional modifiers can be considered:

• A civ at war with Gandhi will have the war weariness doubled
  
• Retiring the Great Admiral Joaquim Marques Lisboa reduces your future war weariness accumulation by 25%. If you have the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus wonder (requires the Persia and Macedon civilization pack) you can do this twice.
  
• The Propaganda military policy card (modern era, requires Mass Media) and the Martial Law military policy card (modern era, requires Totalitarianism) reduces your war weariness accumulation by 25% each. They stack to provide a 50% reduction.
  
• The Defence of the Motherland military policy card (modern era, requires Class Struggle) prevents war weariness from combat in your own territory.

War weariness decays by 50 points per turn at war, and 200 points per turn at peace. Declaring peace lowers war weariness by 2000 points, and this stacks if you make peace with multiple civs (including city-states) at once.

So, the key point out of all this is if you want to maximise the impact of war weariness on your enemies, kill your enemy's units while they're in your lands. Thankfully, the Varu UU is a very good unit-killer. When your enemy's amenity loss gets severe enough, their cities will struggle to grow and their yields will suffer. This includes things like faith, so if a religious civ declares war on you, the faith loss they'll receive from war weariness helps to counterbalance the loss you've suffered from the fact religious civs are at war.

More importantly, the opposing civ will suffer from loyalty penalties making it hard for them to hold onto anything they capture. Eventually, after enough dead units, amenity penalties and flipping cities, the other side will be strongly encouraged to make peace. Or be overrun by Barbarian rebels. Either way is fine.

Alternatively, you can turn a defensive war into a great opportunity. Doubled war weariness for your opponents means when you're fighting in their lands, they'll be hit by it as much as you - not bad for wars of attrition. And yes, you can consider the use of nuclear weapons to create massive amounts of war weariness for your foes (although remember that it produces war weariness for yourself as well).


Gandhi's two bonuses aren't the easiest to control, but provide you with an incentive to explore fairly early for a decent faith bonus and provides other civs with a disincentive to declare war on you. Fewer wars means you can spread your religion safely, so both bonuses can help out with religious victory.

They're slow, and they're expensive, but Varu are the strongest unit prior to the medieval era. Rome's Legions are equivalent in raw strength, but the ability of Varu to make adjacent units weaker essentially makes them even stronger.

The strength penalty Varu place on enemy units stacks based on the number of Varu you have adjacent to them. 2 Varu next to the same enemy unit will give them a -10 strength penalty, 3 will make a -15 strength penalty, and so on. Because the result of combat is determined by the difference in strength between the attacking and defending units, you can think of it instead as your units receiving a strength bonus (although keep in mind that the enemy unit's strength can't be reduced below 0).

Here's a table showing you what a strength advantage means in terms of damage output:


A +30 advantage is an instant kill on average. Or, in other words, surrounding a pre-medieval unit with Varu lets you kill them in one hit. This obviously isn't always possible. Still, you can fairly consistently get the -10 penalty from two Varu affecting an enemy unit which essentially makes Varu stronger than Knights.


The strength penalties Varu offer doesn't just help themselves; it's great for ranged attacks as well. Even city ranged attacks gain from this! Whether on the defensive or the offensive, building some ranged units can be a good idea as they're cheaper to build and maintain than Varu and can provide some extra damage.

There's a catch to all this strength, however - Varu only provide strength penalties to adjacent units, so enemy ranged units two tiles away won't be affected. Furthermore, the penalty doesn't affect cities and Encampment districts. On top of all this, Varu are pretty expensive both to build and maintain, so you'll probably want to use Manoeuvre policy card to build them faster, and Conscription later on so you can afford them all.

Another distinct bonus of Varu is their high amount of sight. Though not very useful for exploration considering their slow speed (and Chandragupta won't want to waste his speed bonus on revealing a few extra tiles), this still has a number of helpful applications. Having tiles within your line of sight prevents Barbarian Encampments spawning there. More sight lets you see when enemy units are coming sooner. Finally, in peace-time, placing a Varu unit on a hill adjacent to rival lands allows you to know what they're up to without needing open borders.


Chandragupta relies on Varu as the driving force behind his early conquests. One of the biggest disadvantages of Varu - their slow speed - is eliminated for the first ten turns after declaring a War of Territorial Expansion, while their greatest advantage - their high strength - is made even bigger. Chandragupta's Varu have essentially 50 strength when attacking a unit. Be sure to build some Encampments and Stables so you can secure yourself a Great General for even more strength and mobility.


High mobility and the fact Varu ignore zone of control lets you move Varu into position before you attack. Be careful which order you attack units in - moving this Varu before the one north-east of it maximises my damage output and minimises the damage I take. Even when you're exceeding a +30 strength advantage, it still helps to make your foes as weak as possible.

Varu can generally handle Ancient Walls at first, but you'll want to get a Siege Tower or two to join them after you launch your first attack. Even then, cities will continue to be one of the biggest obstacles you'll face on the warpath. Try to put cities under siege by surrounding them before you attack - not only will it prevent the city healing, but any units trained in the besieged city will be exceptionally weak.

Varu remain useful even into the early industrial era if you can form them into corps and armies and keep a classical era Great General with them. Remember to form corps and armies by combining a new unit with a promoted one (rather than combining two promoted units together) - that way, you can keep them all strong. An easy way to get new Varu is to have the Grand Master's Chapel building so you can purchase them with faith.

Nonetheless, if you start facing Pike and Shot corps, modern era units or significant quantities of Cavalry, it's probably a good idea to hold off on making conquests for a while until you can upgrade most of your Varu to Tanks. You can still keep some Varu around to weaken enemy units, but avoid keeping them in harm's way. Try moving them in, attacking with a more advanced unit, and moving the Varu out again.


Gandhi's India should mainly use Varu defensively. Units in enemy territory gain double the war weariness they would in their own land, and units that are killed lose it even faster. With a few Varu and ranged units, you can slaughter would-be invaders causing their amenities to plummet. Low amenities means low loyalty in cities they may capture, meaning they'll struggle to get much out of a prolonged war.

• Varu are really good unit-killers offensively and defensively
  
• Varu are key to Chandragupta's strategy but less important for Gandhi.
  
• Use policy cards and chop down woods to handle their high cost
  
• Later in the game, move a Varu in to weaken enemy units, attack those units with your own contemporary units, then move the Varu out to prevent it being killed.

Some unique improvements come with very specific placement requirements, or yields which may be of niche usage, but Stepwells are worth building near every city. They're most effective adjacent to both a farm and a Holy Site; +2 food, +1 faith and +1 housing is a strong yield in the ancient era. Even with just farm adjacency, +2 food and +1 housing is exactly twice as good a bonus as offered by a farm (until Feudalism, at least).


When playing as Gandhi, be sure to get Irrigation as soon as possible - strong food and housing yields will help your cities to become bigger than nearly anyone else's at this point of the game, which is wonderful for building Varu and religious buildings. You may need more Builders than most civs early on to ensure you have adjacent farms (even if you're not working them) but the rewards are considerable.

Chandragupta may want to hold off for a bit to emphasise getting Varu trained. They'll still be useful as a cheap source of housing, but beware that your fast-growing cities may end up depleting your limited amenities making warfare a challenge. You may have to assign your cities to avoid growth. To do this, click on a city and click on the circle next to its food output twice to set it to avoid food tiles where possible.


The housing yield is particularly notable - farms, camps, plantations and fishing boats only offer 0.5 housing compared to 1 for Stepwells. Once you have Sanitation in the industral era, they'll offer 2 points of housing - as much as a Sewer - reducing your need for Neighbourhoods. Two of the main sources of housing in the game (Aqueducts and Neighbourhoods) have to be constructed using a city's production, and the ability to get around that using Builders (which are much more affordable and can be purchased with gold, or even faith during a classical, medieval or renaissance Golden Age with the Monumentality dedication) is a very useful one. Ultimately, the housing boost is the most important thing offered by Stepwells - early food is great, as is the faith, but housing is what will give your cities a powerful edge.

Faith is still useful, especially when it's on a tile you'll want to work anyway. With Feudalism and an adjacent Holy Site, you're getting +2 faith - as good as a Shrine. You can potentially get up to three Stepwells adjacent to a Holy Site per city, but 1-2 is a more reasonable number most of the time. Generally, you should build Holy Sites with its adjacency bonuses in mind rather than those of Stepwells as the bonus to faith will usually turn out better. Getting a +2 faith bonus from a Holy Site instead of +1 at the cost of two potential Stepwell spots sounds bad on paper, but when you consider the Scripture economic policy card (classical era, requires Theology) doubles Holy Site adjacency bonuses, there's no problem.

With the modern-era Replaceable Parts technology, farms gain food based on farm adjacency, meaning they can completely eclipse the food output of Stepwells (even taking into account the extra food from the atomic-era Professional Sports civic). Optimal placement of improvements can prove difficult - you'll want housing to increase your city's population cap, but you'll also want food to reach it faster. If you need more of the latter, don't be afraid to dismantle a few Stepwells to allow for more farms.


A consequence of the timing of Stepwells and Varu is that India will get a lot of era score at once. You can choose to build them in the ancient era and go for a classical-era Golden Age, or hold off a little until the classical game era starts to boost your chances at a medieval-era one (or even a heroic age if you end up with a classical-era dark age).

Chandragupta may be better off avoiding a classical era Golden Age unless you can be sure you can avoid a medieval-era Dark Age. Entering a Golden Age increases the threshold needed to achieve future Normal and Golden Ages by 5, and the penalties to loyalty from Dark Ages can make it quite hard to secure conquered cities. As such, consider delaying your first Stepwell until the classical game era starts.

Gandhi, meanwhile, benefits significantly from a classical era Golden Age. The Exodus of the Evangelists dedication gives religious units (except Gurus) extra charges when trained in the era as well as +2 movement, which really helps you make use of his relatively high early faith output. If you haven't quite got a religion yet, you'll get +4 Great Prophet Points - not enough to secure you a religion on your own, but in conjunction with some early Holy Sites you should be fine.

• For the first two eras, Stepwells are super-effective farms helping your cities to grow tall and strong.
  
• Once farms produce more food, Stepwells are primarily useful for the housing output, especially after Sanitation.
  
• The faith yield is a nice bonus that helps with religious victory, but don't go overboard trying to maximise it at the expense of Holy Site adjacency.

Note that the Administration sections strictly cover the options that have particularly good synergy with the civ's uniques. These are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options you should consider more than usual if playing this civ relative to others.


Tier One

Chandragupta can use Autocracy or Oligarchy effectively. Autocracy has reasonable bonuses for development at home, and having two military policy cards is fine considering you'll probably want to take both Manoeuvre and Conscription. Oligarchy has a good range of policy cards and adds an experience bonus, but the +4 strength bonus doesn't work on Varu.

Chandragupta's favoured government building is the Warlord's Throne, which can provide a significant boost to empire-wide production as you take cities.

Gandhi should go with Classical Republic as a government. If you don't have a religion yet, the bonus to Great Person Points will help with that, and the amenity bonus helps you handle your growing Stepwell-enhanced cities.

Gandhi's best government building is either the Audience Chamber or Ancestral Hall depending on how you want to expand. Faith is largely generated on a per-city basis, making the Ancestral Hall a good choice, but the Audience Chamber complements Stepwells nicely if you want powerful cities early - particularly handy if you intend to construct a lot of faith wonders.

Tier Two

Theocracy is great for both leaders, helping your faith output to go further.

For Chandragupta, Theocracy pairs nicely with the Grand Master's Chapel to provide a great use for excess Stepwell faith.

For Gandhi, the Intelligence Agency may be helpful as a means to weaken other civs and strengthen yourself without going to war. The other buildings may be helpful if you find yourself on the receiving end of a lot of wars, however.

Tier Three

Chandragupta should go with Fascism to build on his militaristic advantages.

Chandragupta benefits from the War Department more than many other warmongers, never mind more so than Gandhi. The speed and strength bonuses from declaring a War of Territorial Expansion don't last long, and the need to leave units to heal can really dent his plans. Healing up on kills stops that being so much of a problem.

For Gandhi, Democracy works well as a government due to its good set of policy card slots.

The Royal Society is Gandhi's preferred government building, as Builders can be spent to rush Holy Site Prayers projects, hence letting you indirectly convert excess gold into additional faith.


Ancient Era

Conscription (Military, requires State Workforce) - Varu cost a lot to maintain, so this policy card is pretty important even with a relatively small force.

Ilkum (Economic, requires Craftsmanship) - Getting strong Stepwells up and running can be expensive in terms of Builder charges due to the need to build both them and farms. Ilkum helps you train Builders faster, addressing that problem.

Manoeuvre (Military, requires Military Tradition) - Varu are expensive for their time, but with this policy card they become a little more affordable.

(Chandragupta) Strategos (Wildcard, requires Military Tradition) - Only classical-era Great Generals will make Varu stronger, so you'll want to get plenty of early Great General Points. This policy card will help with that.

Medieval Era

Professional Army (Military, requires Mercenaries) - You probably won't need to put this to substantial use until the modern era, but it'll be quite important at that point to cut down the immense cost of upgrading Varu to Tanks.

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - When your cities are bigger than other civs thanks to Stepwells, you need amenities to help support them. For Gandhi in particular, this policy card is a good way of doing that without taking the place of precious economic policy cards.

Renaissance Era

Liberalism (Economic, requires Enlightenment) - A much-needed source of amenities.

Logistics (Military, requires Mercantilism) - Still using Varu? This will allow them to not be quite so slow in your home territory, saving a little time while in defence or when launching a new attack.

(Gandhi) Wisselbanken (Diplomatic, requires Diplomatic Service) - Made an ally? Want you to grow your cities to meet your Stepwell-enhanced housing? Use this policy card and trade with them.

Modern Era

(Gandhi) Arsenal of Democracy (Diplomatic, requires Suffrage) - With Sanitation, every Stepwell provides 2 housing each. You'll want plenty of food to help meet that increased housing cap; Arsenal of Democracy can help provide it by offering you extra food when you trade with allies.

Collectivisation (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - Collectivisation is a great food source if you can't find any allies for policy cards like Arsenal of Democracy.

(Gandhi) Defence of the Motherland (Military, requires Class Struggle) - Gandhi's leader ability already means that enemies fighting in your land in a defensive war will suffer at least four times as much war weariness as you will, rather than the usual two, but this policy card takes that one step further. Defensive wars can considerably hurt your opponent's amenities while not impacting yours at all.

(Chandragupta) Martial Law (Military, requires Totalitarianism) - Chandragupta's tendencies towards conquest and large cities means amenities are tight, and you therefore can't afford to suffer much war weariness. This policy card, along with the earlier-arriving Propaganda, should help out there.

New Deal (Economic, requires Suffrage) - Who needs Neighbourhoods when you have Stepwells and New Deal? Well, probably you eventually, but for the time being it's quite a nice production-saving and space-saving bonus. You'll also get some amenities as well, at the cost of 8 gold per affected city.

(Chandragupta) Propaganda (Military, requires Mass Media) - Reduces war weariness, much like Martial Law, and stacks with it.

Atomic Era

Sports Media (Economic, requires Professional Sports) - Professional Sports boosts Stepwell food, so it's a civic that's worth picking up. It also lets you build Stadiums and use this policy card to enhance them further. Amenities will be helpful for both leaders.


Only bonuses with notable synergy with the civ's uniques are covered here.

(Gandhi) Exodus of the Evangelists (Golden Age, Classical to Renaissance eras) - Gandhi has a good early faith output, but no direct advantage to founding a religion. Thankfully, with both uniques offering era score available early, getting a classical-era Golden Age and therefore this dedication isn't too hard. You can't rely on its Great Prophet Points alone to get you a religion - you'll still need plenty of Holy Sites and Shrines - but you should be building those anyway for the faith. With a religion founded, your religious units (except for Gurus) will be faster and get more charges, letting you convert civs more effectively.

(Gandhi) Monasticism (Dark Age, Classical to Medieval eras) - Gandhi's lack of direct advantages to Great Prophet generation means you need to build a lot of Holy Sites early on. That means you have to neglect other districts, like Campuses. Though you should aim for a classical-era Golden Age for the Exodus of the Evangelists dedication, this can be a good choice if you end up in a medieval-era Dark Age afterwards.

Divine Spark - India doesn't get bonuses to Great Prophet generation aside from the incentive to build Holy Sites early on, so this pantheon may be necessary, especially on fairly small map sizes where all the religions tend to be taken early.

Fertility Rites - A fairly weak bonus, but meaningful, as you'll want to grow cities faster to reach the Stepwell-enhanced housing cap.

God of the Forge - Varu are costly, but this pantheon helps you produce them at a more reasonable rate, as well as any units you might want to support them with.

(Chandragupta) God of Healing - The less time your units spend healing, the more you can make out of the War of Territorial Expansion casus belli before the strength and speed boost expires.

Goddess of the Hunt or Goddess of Festivals - The effectiveness of these depends on which resources you start near. If you start near plenty of the corresponding resources, then these pantheons can be a great way to help grow your cities up to the housing cap.

River Goddess - A civ that grows cities tall early on (thanks to Stepwells) and is encouraged to push for religious victory does well out of this pantheon. A Holy Site next to a river gives you +1 amenity in the city, which will allow you to support two additional citizens.


You can have one founder, one follower, one enhancer and one worship belief as part of your own religion. All follower beliefs are covered in the Civ Ability section, but ones that are particularly effective for India to found for themselves are covered here as well.

Burial Grounds (Founder) - Need some space around your Holy Sites for Stepwells? This belief will give you all the tiles surrounding a Holy Site when you build one (unless the tile is more than three tiles away from the city centre, or has another civ's completed district, wonder or national park present).

Feed the World (Follower) - Helps you in getting enough food to meet the Stepwell-enhanced housing cap.

Gurdwara (Worship) - Mosques are generally the best choice if you're after a religious victory, but Gurdwaras aren't bad thanks to the food contribution they make, helping your cities to grow.

(Gandhi) Holy Order (Enhancer) - Important for making your faith go further as you push towards a religious victory.

Pagoda (Worship) - In case you wanted yet more housing.

Religious Community (Follower) - If food is plentiful, this, combined with Stepwell housing, allows you to avoid other sources of housing (such as Aqueducts) for quite a long time.

Stupa (Worship) - Offers an amenity - Useful for a growing city with lots of Stepwells.

(Chandragupta) Warrior Monks (Follower) - Warrior Monks provide a use for your faith, can handle anti-cavalry units better than Varu and have a similarly wide window of usage.

Zen Meditation (Follower) - Large cities need amenities to support them; this belief helps with that.


Buenos Aires (Industrial) - Every different kind of bonus resource you have is worth 1 amenity. Not "1 amenity for four cities" like luxury resources, but just one amenity for the city that needs it most. That's still useful for supporting your Stepwell-enhanced cities.

Jerusalem (Religious) - Your religion struggling to assert itself within your own borders? Having Jerusalem as suzerain makes all your cities exert religious pressure as if they were holy cities. Just be warned that excessive use of Jerusalem's suzerain bonus might push other religions out, reducing what you get from the civ ability.

Muscat (Trade) - Even more amenities, so long as you have a few Commercial Hubs. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

Palenque (Scientific) - A growth bonus will help you hit the housing cap sooner. Requires the Vikings Scenario Pack.

(Gandhi) Yerevan (Religious) - Being able to pick any promotion for Apostles lets you use Martyr every time. Why is that useful? Because you can use all but one charge overseas, return home and have the unit die in religious combat, giving you a Relic while also giving a few followers of foreign religions in your home cities.

Zanzibar (Trade) - Provides up to 12 amenities, if you have at least six cities. All those amenities helps you support growing Stepwell-boosted cities.

Hanging Gardens (Ancient era, Irrigation technology) - Coming at the same technology as Stepwells, the Hanging Gardens will help you grow your cities to fit the increased housing limit they offer. Furthermore, the Hanging Gardens also offers housing itself, allowing you to make one city very strong early in the game.

(Gandhi) Stonehenge (Ancient era, Astrology technology) - It's a risky wonder to build considering how competitive it can be, so it's probably a good idea not to build it if you're in a high-difficulty singleplayer game. Otherwise, it's very powerful. Gandhi's Leader Ability gives you a very strong early faith output which doesn't offer a lot until you found a religion; found a religion early and you can quickly unleash your faith on the world. Chandragupta should generally focus on working towards building a Varu-led military instead.

Temple of Artemis (Ancient era, Archery technology) - In conjunction with Stepwells, you can make a mighty early city.

Colosseum (Classical era, Games and Recreation civic) - An excellent source of amenities which will help to ensure your large, Stepwell-enhanced cities won't go into revolt. Also provides a good culture output letting you get through key religious civics like Reformed Church sooner.

Jebel Barkal (Classical era, Iron Working technology) - A very strong source of faith which your Stepwell-enhanced cities should have a good shot of being able to build. Requires the Nubia civilization pack.

(Gandhi) Mahabodhi Temple (Classical era, Theology civic) - By this point in the game, Stepwells should give your main cities a slight size advantage over those of other civs. That's a great opportunity to pick up this wonder and enjoy two free Apostles. You can use them to enhance your religion, launch an inquisition (allowing you to purchase Inquisitors) or just spread your faith overseas.

Angkor Wat (Medieval era, Medieval Faires civic) - Grow your cities even taller with +1 housing and +1 food in every city. Requires the Khmer and Indonesia civilization and scenario pack.

Mont St. Michel (Medieval era, Divine Right civic) - Here's the plan: You purchase some Apostles, spread your faith around until they have one charge left, bring them home and let them die in theological combat. That allows you to gain some followers of a rival religion in your own cities, which goes nicely with India's civ ability. With this wonder, you'll also get a relic (and hence more faith and tourism) for your trouble.

Estádio do Maracanã (Atomic era, Professional Sports civic) - Stepwells gain some extra food at Professional Sports, but it's not a bad idea to also consider this wonder. By providing 2 amenities to all your cities, you can allow them to grow larger. With Stepwell housing and plenty of amenities, all you'll need now is food.


Classical Era

Hannibal Barca or Boudica or Sun Tzu (Great General) - The only three Great Generals that can offer a strength and speed bonus to Varu, helping them stay strong for longer.

Medieval Era

El Cid (Great General) - Forming an early Varu corps will give you a unit essentially as strong as a Musketman in the medieval era, and even better if you have one of the three classical-era Great Generals.

(Gandhi) Hildegard of Bingen (Great Scientist) - A good way to help catch up in science when you've been pushing for early Holy Sites.

Industrial Era

John Spilsbury (Great Merchant) - One of four Great Merchants offering special luxuries, and therefore amenities.

Joseph Paxton (Great Engineer) - Joseph Paxton's bonus lets you make more out of a single Entertainment Complex rather than you needing to build more.

Modern Era

Joaquim Marques Lisboa (Great Admiral) - For Chandragupta, securing this Great Admiral helps prevent your limited amenities being strained even further. For Gandhi, by taking this Great Admiral for yourself, you deny everyone else the war weariness reduction they offer, ensuring attacking you remains a huge risk to their amenities. Unless they're Alexander.

Atomic Era

Helena Rubenstein (Great Merchant) - One of four Great Merchants offering special luxuries, and therefore amenities.

Jane Drew (Great Engineer) - A late-arriving boost to housing and amenities for one city.

Levi Strauss (Great Merchant) - One of four Great Merchants offering special luxuries, and therefore amenities.

Information Era

Estée Lauder (Great Merchant) - One of four Great Merchants offering special luxuries, and therefore amenities.

India can play the religious game reasonably effectively even if they lack a religion of their own. They can grow large cities early on and have good defence. Both Gandhi and Chandragupta play in very different ways, but both have a few glaring weaknesses that can be taken advantage of.


The most important thing to remember is that sending trade routes to India can provide a moderate - but manageable - amount of pressure for the religion present in your own city. If you're not going for a religious victory, that could give India a considerably better advantage than what you're getting.

If you have a religion of your own, definitely send any Proselytiser Apostles to India. They'll eliminate most of the presence of religions other than your own, turning India's diverse set of bonuses into something much less effective.

For non-religious civs, remember that India's civ ability will be useless as long as one religion dominates in their lands. It could be one of their rivals, but it could be their own as well. If you fight a religious rival to India, you can fight or pillage their religious units (lowering their religious pressure in nearby cities) thus lowering the religious diversity in nearby Indian cities. If you're fighting a rival to Gandhi, this is useful as it prevents you having to deal with Gandhi's war weariness, and also lowers their faith output in the meantime (as Gandhi's faith bonus relies on founders of religions being at peace).


Chandragupta's leader ability is horrifying to be at the receiving end of, but you're given a lot of prior warning.

First of all, if you start near him, keep an eye on his civics progress. He can't use his special casus belli until he's reached classical-era civics, giving you time to train some Archers or other defensive units.

Secondly, he has to denounce you and wait five turns before he can declare war with the casus belli. That allows you to counter with your own declaration of war, preventing him from using the speed and strength advantage.

If you can't stop Chandragupta from using his ability, try to stall him for as long as possible. Fast units can provide a reasonable distraction, and making use of hilly areas makes it harder for him to surround your units.


Chandragupta seeks to expand his empire, and dislikes civs that have cities close to his own. He likes civs that keep their distance.

This agenda makes Chandragupta likely to attack civs that are near him, which can make it difficult to avoid being on the receiving end of a declaration of war. If you can't build up an adequate army to defend against Varu, you may want to favour expanding away from him rather than settling cities too close. That should push him into attacking someone else instead of you.

If instead you start far apart, Chandragupta is a decent candidate for a level 2 military alliance. That gives you shared visibility, which will uncover all the lands and seas he's aware of. That's quite useful for revealing more of the map.


As a warmongering civ, you can hurt Gandhi without even having anything to do with them - simply declare war on a religious civ and Gandhi will lose some faith generation. Completely eliminating a religious civ completely eliminates a +5 faith bonus for India as well.

On the other hand, warmongers have to deal with Gandhi's doubling of war weariness. In your own lands, Gandhi will suffer as much war weariness as you do, but in India, you'll suffer four times as much as them. And that's not even taking the casus belli into account! Be especially careful about losing units, as that'll triple your war weariness for that round of combat.

So, how should a warmonger deal with India? The most effective way is to rush them early on before Varu can be built. When warmonger penalties for declaring war is low, so are war weariness penalties. If that isn't possible, it may be a good idea to hold off until you can either amass Pikemen or Pike and Shot units to counter their Varu, or until you can make good use of casus belli to minimise warmonger and war weariness penalties.

For other civs, keep in mind that Gandhi's ability gives them a strong faith edge early on, but it drops off in effectiveness later in the game. Your main concern will be if Gandhi can found a religion before other civs can; in which case you should keep a close watch on where their Missionaries are going so you can react if a religious victory from India seems likely. Consider dedicating a cheap unit or two like Scouts for this purpose.


A computer-controlled Gandhi will never declare war if the act of declaration would contribute towards warmonger penalties. As such, Gandhi will only declare war to liberate conquered cities, as part of a joint war or to join an emergency. This thankfully means you will rarely be on the receiving end of a Varu attack from him unless you started the war in the first place.

Furthermore, Gandhi likes peaceful civs and hates warmongers more than other leaders. For many scientific and cultural players, he can make a pretty reliable ally, but any civ that pushes towards even the slightest bit of combat may find it tough to befriend him.

In addition to the main agenda, Gandhi is likely to have the Nuke Happy hidden agenda, as the latest installment of a long-running in-joke in the Civilization series. Just think of Gandhi being replaced by his evil counterpart Ghandi once the atomic era starts. This agenda means while at war, India will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons despite the diplomatic consequences for them. Remember that nuclear weapons produce 10 times the normal war weariness, which stacks with the doubled war weariness from the leader bonus! Don't worry, however - Evil Ghandi still has the Peacekeeper agenda, so you'll pretty much only be attacked by India's nuclear weapons if you started the war in the first place. Nukes also arrive very late in the game, so if you're going for a domination victory, you can usually avoid the threat if you're careful not to leave eliminating India too late. If you have nukes of your own, know that Evil Ghandi also likes civs that project power with nuclear weapons.

Further Reading: Why Does Gandhi Like Nuclear Weapons?

AI opponents in Civilization games have typically been coded with a set of biases on a scale of 0 to 10 to determine how they generally play (Civ 6 also has certain specific coded behaviours to allow them to use some of the more unusual unique abilities). In the very first Civilization game, Gandhi was coded with the lowest bias for aggressiveness of any leader, and was inclined towards Democracy government late in the game.

Problem is, any leader that adopted the Democracy government was coded to lose a couple of points to their aggressiveness bias. For Gandhi, this meant that his already-low aggressiveness bias fell below 0 and underflowed to 255/10. With this change happening around the time nuclear weapons became available, Gandhi's India became infamously associated with them.

Though originally a bug, this behaviour has homages in later Civ games. In Civ 5 for example, Gandhi has a bias to build and use nuclear weapons set at 12/10.

Though incredibly powerful against units for their time, Varu thankfully are costly to build and maintain as well as slow.

At first, go ahead and amass some Spearmen and Archers, and exploit terrain defensive bonuses. Spearmen with the Echelon promotion essentially have 40 strength against Varu and cost just over half as much to build (and a third as much to maintain). With a front line of Spearmen, a second line of Archers can help pick off Varu without the risk of being attacked themselves. Archers also won't have their damage output weakened by the strength penalty Varu add while they're firing from two tiles away.

Away from cities, you should always try to target enemy Varu first both to set back India's production and to avoid the strength penalty. If you're up against multiple Varu, make try to prevent them staying together; pick off those in the middle of a formation, for example.

When besieging cities, Varu won't do too much damage so long as you keep your fortifications strong and keep siege weapons at bay. A Spearman, Pikeman, Archer or Crossbowman stationed in a city can safely deal damage to besieging elephants, wearing them down and encouraging a retreat.

While Pikemen and Crossbowmen will perform well against Varu, once you can make use of Pike and Shot units, they shouldn't really be a problem any more.


India's Stepwells help them grow larger cities early in the game, and again in the industrial era when their housing bonus doubles. However, India doesn't get a bonus to amenities. Exploit that! Denying them city spots with luxuries they don't have, turning down trade deals which would provide them with luxuries and taking wonders and Great People that offer amenities so India will struggle from unhappiness. What can be even more effective is cutting them off from a source of amenities they previously had and relied on, such as a city-state they're suzerain over.

If you're fighting India, pay attention to where the Stepwells are. Unlike farms, which only provide up to 50 health when pillaged, Stepwells heal pillagers to full health. They should be fairly evenly distributed across India's lands, ensuring you're rarely far away from one.

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