The Civilization saga needs no introduction. If you want a huge dose of turn-based historical strategy, you'll definitely find it there. The early games could create very strange situations, like spearmen destroying tanks, but the biggest prize goes to Mahatma Gandhi. Remembered for his peace-loving tendencies and non-violent resistance, Gandhi becomes an avatar of evil within Civilization, dropping nuclear bombs in every direction. The question is: why?.
Each entry in the Civilization series has special advantages, errors, weaknesses and curiosities that stand the test of time. Fans have developed all sorts of strategies to maximize resources and military power, but that doesn't stop the artificial intelligence from doing its own crazy things.
One of the most famous cases is that of the Eternal War in Civilization II, a completely stuck game that lasted over ten years, with three nations fighting to dominate an apocalyptic world. And then there's... Mahatma Gandhi, or rather, Mahatma "The Nuclear Weapons Madman" Gandhi.
Nuclear Gandhi: The Bug Behind the Meme
Once the game progresses far enough, the activist turns to the Dark Side and responds by dropping atomic bombs. Radiation for me, radiation for you, radiation for everyone. What leads a symbol of peace like Gandhi to sow death with uranium and plutonium? Well, in the first Civilization it all comes down to a bug.
The original game set an aggression value for each leader, and as expected, Gandhi had the lowest, 1. The problem is that when a player changes their government to democratic, the aggression level drops by two points. Upon adopting democracy, Gandhi should have negative aggression, but the game just flips the counter, interpreting -1 as 255. In other words, if it were possible, Gandhi would jump off the screen and rip our heads off.
Slowly, Nuclear Gandhi became a meme, with hundreds of images and videos dedicated to him. That led to some amplification of his reputation, when in reality Gandhi only goes full nuclear under certain conditions. One of them is participating in a game with six players. Another is that Gandhi can only drop bombs if he is already in a military conflict with the player, because democracy prevents him from declaring war unless he is attacked first.
Later versions of Civilization removed that error, but the developers decided to leave some details as references to the atomic madness of the pacifist. In Civilization V they gave him the highest predisposition to build and use nuclear weapons (12 out of 10), and in Civilization VI they are part of his secret agenda. Bug, Easter egg, meme and... canon? At least within the game. If you cross paths with him, don't give him a chance. Finish him off.
