If you have the Rise and Fall expansion, click here for the updated guide.

This guide is no longer updated, but will remain for the sake of those without the Rise and Fall expansion.

Note: This guide only covers content released prior to the Rise and Fall expansion. Content from any DLC pack released between the base game and Rise and Fall is marked as such.

The Rise and Fall counterpart to this guide may be found here.

Gandhi's India is one of peaceful religious co-existence, sanitation developments allowing cities to grow to great size, and co-operation with neighbours. But you don't necessarily have to follow this path - you can heap misery onto your opponents in war as you lead a charge of powerful war elephants and bend the world to your will. It is up to you, but remember you need to decide your path quickly or else you shall fail at both.


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.
  
• Multiple sections for Uniques explain in detail how to use each special bonus of the civilization.
  
• Administration describes some of the most synergistic governments, civic cards, 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.

Civic cards - Another name for policy cards; you fill up your government with these for additional bonuses and can switch them for free every time you unlock a civic.

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.

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). 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.

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.

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

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

*Purchasing units with faith requires the Theocracy government, which in turn requires the renaissance-era Reformed Church civic. This number does not take into account Theocracy's 15% discount on faith purchases.

**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
  
• Only two movement points, two 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 graded based on how much it leans towards a specific victory type - not how powerful it is. Any score of 3 or above means the civ or leader has some kind of advantage to the victory route above a hypothetical civ with no unique features. A score of less than 2 means some kind of aspect of the civ actively discourages a particular victory route. All values are subjective and may be edited in future.


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.

Domination is fairly effective for India. Doubling war weariness to enemies means you can wear out your enemies faster, and the Varu is a very effective unit-killer.

Religious victory is India's most effective route. India's civ ability is more effective if you can found a religion of your own, and both Gandhi's leader ability and Stepwells contribute to your faith output. Gandhi's leader ability in particular can be very strong early on, while Stepwell faith will become more prominent starting in the medieval era.

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 and therefore help you build spaceship parts, but by the information era, mechanised farms and Neighbourhoods mean your advantage won't be as notable.

Some followers of Taoism, eh? Let's see what it offers...


+4 faith per wonder? That looks nice...


I've already got a couple of wonders and I'm working towards more. Thanks, China! Your faith bonus is much appreciated.


One of the most annoying things to deal with when going for a religious victory is starting near another civ that founds their own. And probably got Stonehenge as well. And a faith natural wonder or something. To make a long story short, you'll have to deal with another civ's religion pushing into your cities. Sometimes, opposing religions can become so powerful, your own has no impact at all. Your own religious followers are locked behind a sea of those of some strange heathen faith.

Then, there's another annoyance - another civ has taken a founder belief you really wanted. Maybe you've constructed some early wonders and want Divine Inspiration, for example. You could let the faith spread to dominate in your city, but that would mean weakening your own faith.

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.

The second-best method is to:

• Obtain a Missionary, Apostle (especially good if they have the Martyr promotion) or Guru.
  
• Use up all but one of its spread religion charges abroad (this helps you make the most out of your faith but isn't strictly necessary), or heal charges in the case of Gurus.
  
• Return the unit back to your own lands
  
• Let the unit die in religious combat.

Place Inquisitors around your cities so opposing Missionaries and Apostles are put off from using their spread religion charges, pushing them to fight your religious units instead. When your religious unit dies, your religion will lose a slight amount of pressure in nearby cities while the rival religion gains pressure. This won't be enough to convert the cities in most cases but should result in there being followers of the rival religion present in your cities now.

An alternative method which costs more faith but depends a bit less on the actions of another civ is to:

• Settle a city near to the holy city of a rival religion
  
• Build a Holy Site and Shrine there
  
• Once the rival religion spreads to that colony, buy a Missionary there
  
• Bring the Missionary back to your main cities
  
• Use one spread religion charge per city to establish some followers of that rival faith. Be aware that Missionary religious spreads will slightly erode the share of followers held by other faiths.

Still, it's important to remember that if the benefit from getting extra beliefs in your cities doesn't outweigh the faith costs involved, it's not worth doing this. If you're going for a religious victory and your faith output isn't exceptionally high, you'll probably want to go no further than letting Marytr Apostles die in religious combat.


If, despite your uniques, your religion is struggling to get off the ground even in your home lands, all is not lost. Try settling a city far away from major religious centres and send a Missionary there (Gandhi's leader ability should provide you with enough faith to afford that even if your faith output is otherwise lacking). Once the religious sanctuary is established, build a Holy Site there. You now have a safe place to buy Missionaries of your own religion.

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.


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 Theocracy government. It's true that it's quite a setback, but thankfully India isn't hit as hard as most religion-focused civs if they lack one of their 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.

Gandhi's leader ability comes in two parts; one focused on peace and one is generally intended for defensive wars.


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 and 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.


France (which hasn't founded a religion) is at war with China (which has).


Because of this, my faith bonus drops from +15 to +10.

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 killed in one shot 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.

• 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 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 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 and a -10% penalty to all non-food yields.
  
• A city with a deficit of 1 or 2 amenities is displeased. It has a -15% growth rate and a -5% penalty to all non-food yields.
  
• 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 and a 5% bonus to all non-food yields.
  
• A city with a surplus of 3 amenities or more is ecstatic. It has a 20% bonus to growth and a 10% bonus to all non-food yields.

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. Click here for the source of this information.[forums.civfanatics.com]

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, 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%, except in the ancient era).

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 and Scenario 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 for India, 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. Eventually, after enough dead units and amenity penalties, 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. Yes, at 40 strength they may appear to be equal to Roman Legions, but remember that their ability to make adjacent enemy 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, considering the slow speed of Varu. 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 is a good idea as they're cheaper to build and maintain than Varu and can provide extra damage.

There's a catch to all this strength, however - Varu only provide strength penalties to adjacent units, so 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.

Nonetheless, Varu are very effective unit-killers and can be decent defence even into the industrial era if you form corps with them. Although at 50 strength Varu corps they may struggle in direct combat, they can still be moved next to a unit to provide the strength debuff and moved out again before other enemies can retaliate. Forming a corps helps to provide additional security for the unit so it can survive in case it gets hit.

So, there's a lot you can do with Varu defensively, but that's not all. Bring some siege support and you can do surprisingly well on the offensive as well. Varu aren't good against fortified cities but can massacre enemy units leaving a window of opportunity for your main siege units to move in. If you keep Varu together, enemy Pikemen shouldn't cause too much of a problem and other units generally shouldn't cause any trouble until the renaissance era.

To make offensive wars even stronger, consider building some early Encampments so you can start earning Great General points. Only Hannibal Barca, Boudica or Sun Tzu can boost the strength and movement speed of Varu, but if you can earn one, you'll have Varu that fight in melee combat at 50 combat strength - still in the classical era!

Of course, warmongering tends to make other civs dislike you, but Gandhi's war weariness penalty to other civs provides a reasonable disincentive for them to retaliate.

If that's not enough, Varu can also provide a support role as well thanks to their high amount of sight. You can use that to prevent Barbarian Encampments from spawning (they don't appear in revealed territory), check for incoming enemy units or even spy on rival lands in peace-time by placing Varu on a hill next to their border.

• Varu are really good unit-killers offensively and defensively
  
• Use policy cards carefully 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). Be sure to get Irrigation as soon as possible - strong food and housing yields will help your cities to become bigger than 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.

The housing yield is particularly notable - farms, camps, plantations and fishing boats only offer 0.5 housing. 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) 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 estimate. 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, and religious civs should almost always take it, there's no problem. Also consider that district adjacency boosts the faith yield of Holy Sites further; surrounding a Holy Site with Stepwells therefore isn't as effective a strategy as it might at first seem.

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.

• For the first two eras, Stepwells are super-effective farms. Do not neglect them - they'll make your cities tall and strong early on.
  
• 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.

The administration section covers the governments, policy cards, pantheons, religions, wonders, city-states and Great People which have particularly good synergy with Indian uniques. Be aware that these are not necessarily the best choices, but rather options that you should consider more than usual if playing as India relative to other Civs.


Classical Era Governments

Classical Republic is a good choice if you're not interested in war. 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.

If you want to use Varu extensively, consider Autocracy. It 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, but the +4 strength bonus doesn't work on Varu.

Medieval/Renaissance Era Governments

Theocracy is your best option most of the time thanks to its discount on faith purchases and bonus to theological combat.

Modern Era Governments

Assuming you're still after a religious victory, Democracy works well; its bonus to district projects works well with Holy Site Prayers to provide you with 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 (as well as the need to improve various bonus, luxury and strategic resources). Ilkum helps you construct Builders faster and hence helps address that problem.

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

Medieval Era

Retainers (Military, requires Civil Service) - When your cities are bigger than other civs thanks to Stepwells, you need amenities to help support them. 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) - Although faith-boosting policy cards should generally take priority at this point in the game, getting amenities is still useful considering the housing boost of Stepwells.

Modern Era

Collectivisation (Economic, requires Class Struggle) - With Sanitation, every Stepwell provides 2 housing each. You'll want plenty of food to help meet that increased housing cap; Collectivisation is ideal for that purpose.

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.

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.


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.

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. 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 for a civ aimed at religious victory, but Gurdwaras aren't bad thanks to the food contribution they make, helping your cities to grow.

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.

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

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 for India. 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. In smaller maps, this wonder can be your key to a fast religious victory.

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.

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 and scenario pack.

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.


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) - Particularly useful if you start near the city, but a rival has a strong religion. Jerusalem helps add a lot of pressure for your religion helping to ensure you won't lose your follower belief.

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.

Preslav (Militaristic) - A bit of a niche bonus, but it means enemies can't rely on hill defences to minimise the damage they receive from your Varu.

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.


Remember that these are only the ones that have particular synergy with Indian uniques, not necessarily the most effective options.

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.

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

Renaissance Era

Mimar Sinan (Great Engineer) - Helps if you've been putting off constructing housing-boosting things such as Aqueducts, or if you just want more amenities to help handle your growing Stepwell cities.

Industrial Era

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

Joseph Paxton (Great Engineer) - If you've built the Colosseum for its amenities, you'll have an Entertainment Complex. Joseph Paxton's bonus lets you make more out of that district rather than you needing to build more.

Modern Era

Joaquim Marques Lisboa (Great Admiral) - 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 is one of the more effective religious civs around, with decent defensive advantages and strong early-game cities. However, they also have a few glaring weaknesses that can be taken advantage of - even if you barely interact with them at all!


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. This avoids having to deal with Gandhi's war weariness, and also lowers India's faith output in the meantime (as Gandhi's faith bonus relies on founders of religions being at peace).


As a warmongering civ, you can hurt India without even having anything to do with them - simply declare war on a religious civ and India 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 India's penalties to 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 assuming you're fighting a war without warmonger penalties! 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 to counter their Varu, or until the renaissance-era Diplomatic Service civic offers you some casus belli options to minimise warmonger and war weariness penalties. Alternatively, joint wars can work well - you can avoid warmonger penalties while another civ on your side can do some fighting on your behalf.

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 Scout or two to this.


An AI 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 or as part of a joint war. This thankfully means you will rarely be on the receiving end of a Varu attack in singleplayer 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 that situation, it might be a good idea to check carefully for civs that are friends of India but hate you - those are likely to start a joint war that India may get involved with.

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.


The nastiest of India's uniques to face, Varu thankfully are costly to build and maintain as well as slow, so you shouldn't have to deal with them in large numbers before you have Pikemen available. Pikemen will beat Varu in direct combat, although they're more expensive to build.

Until then, 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.

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.

At 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.


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 with 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.

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