Civ 6 India Guide: Gandhi Strategy (Religion & Science)

Analysis of high-level gameplay shows that Gandhi’s strength lies in the powerful synergy between his faith-generating abilities and specific religious beliefs that bridge the gap between church and state, or in this case, temple and laboratory. By following this path, you can create an unstoppable engine of progress, leaving other civilizations struggling to compete with your scientific output, all while maintaining a formidable defense underwritten by your spiritual economy.

Understanding the Core Mechanics: Gandhi’s Unique Abilities

To execute this strategy, a deep understanding of Gandhi’s toolkit is essential. Every component is designed to work in concert, creating a feedback loop of faith, growth, and stability.

• Leader Ability: Satyagraha
  • Effect: Grants +5 Faith for each civilization India has met that has founded a Religion and is not at war with Gandhi. Opposing civilizations receive double the war weariness for fighting against Gandhi.
  • Strategic Implication: This is a foundational ability for your faith economy. Many players make the mistake of isolating themselves. The correct approach is to explore aggressively in the early game. Send scouts in every direction to meet as many civilizations as possible. The more religions founded on the map, the more passive Faith you generate, which is the primary currency for this strategy. The war weariness component is a powerful defensive deterrent, making protracted wars against you exceptionally painful for the aggressor.
• Civilization Ability: Dharma
  • Effect: India receives the Follower Beliefs of every Religion present in their cities.
  • Strategic Implication: While seemingly chaotic, this ability is a significant boon. When rival religious units convert one of your cities, you don’t just suffer a loss—you gain their Follower Beliefs in that city. This can lead to cities with powerful belief combinations, such as stacking production bonuses from one religion with amenity bonuses from another. Crucially, it means you are less penalized by enemy apostles and can focus your own faith on other priorities. Your primary goal is to ensure your own chosen religion, with its key beliefs, is dominant in your core cities.
• Unique Unit: Varu (Elephant Archer)
  • Replaces: Knight
  • Effect: A Classical Era mounted unit that reduces the Combat Strength of adjacent enemy units by -5. This effect does not stack.
  • Strategic Implication: The Varu is the backbone of your mid-game defense. It is not an offensive conquest unit. Professional gamers suggest building a perimeter of 3-4 Varu to protect your borders. An enemy attacking into this zone will have their entire army weakened, allowing your city garrisons and other units to trade far more effectively. Their presence alone can deter declarations of war, allowing you to focus on your economic development.
• Unique Improvement: Stepwell
  • Effect: Provides +1 Food and +1 Housing. Gains +1 Faith for each adjacent Holy Site, +1 Food for each adjacent Farm, and +1 Housing for each adjacent District. Unlocked at Irrigation.
  • Strategic Implication: The Stepwell is one of the most versatile and powerful unique improvements in the game. Its placement is a critical skill to master.
    • Early Game: Prioritize placing them for Food and Housing to accelerate city growth. A Stepwell next to two farms, for example, provides 3 Food and 1 Housing.
    • Mid-Game: They become a key source of Faith. A well-planned city will have a Holy Site district surrounded by several Stepwells, each generating significant Faith. This supplements your Satyagraha income and fuels your purchasing power.

The Early Game Plan: Forging the Foundation (Ancient – Classical Era)

Your first 75 turns are the most critical. Failure to establish your foundation here will cripple the entire strategy. The goal is singular: found a religion and establish a strong, growing core of cities.

1. Settling and Exploration:
* Capital Placement: Your first city must have access to fresh water. Look for a location with high food yields (Wheat, Rice, Cattle) and ideally some production (Hills, Woods). Proximity to a river is a major bonus.
* Build Order: The community-accepted optimal build order is typically: Scout -> Slinger -> Settler -> Holy Site Prayers (Project) -> Holy Site -> Shrine.
* The Scout is non-negotiable. It meets other civilizations to activate Satyagraha and finds tribal villages.
* The Slinger provides basic defense and can be upgraded to an Archer.
* A second city early is vital for securing land and another location for a Holy Site.
* Running the Holy Site Prayers project accelerates your Great Prophet point generation, ensuring you get one.

2. Securing a Pantheon:
You will likely be the first or second player to a Pantheon. Your choice here sets the stage for your faith generation.
* Top Tier: River Goddess. If your capital and future cities are on rivers, this provides +2 Amenities and +2 Housing in cities with a Holy Site on a river. This solves early happiness and housing issues, allowing your cities to grow tall and productive.
* Excellent Alternative: Religious Settlements. A free Settler is a massive tempo boost, allowing you to claim a third city location much faster than your opponents.
* Good Option: God of the Forge. If you anticipate early aggression, the +25% production towards Ancient and Classical military units can be a lifesaver.

3. The Race for a Religion:
Do not leave this to chance. After building your first Holy Site, immediately begin running the Holy Site Prayers project. Use your first Governor title on Magnus in your capital with the Provision promotion to build Settlers without losing population, or on Pingala with the Connoisseur promotion for a culture and science boost to accelerate your progress towards key civics and technologies.

Founding Your Religion: The Linchpin of the Science Pivot

Getting a Great Prophet is only the beginning. The beliefs you choose will determine the success of the entire strategy. This is where you forge the link between Faith and Science.

• Follower Belief: Jesuit Education
  • This is the absolute, non-negotiable cornerstone of the strategy. It allows you to purchase Campus and Theater Square district buildings with Faith. Instead of spending precious production on Libraries, Universities, and Research Labs, you will buy them outright. This frees up your cities to focus on building other districts, wonders, and units. Many professional gamers argue this is one of the most powerful beliefs in the game when used correctly.
• Worship Belief: Stupas or Dar-e Mehr
  • Stupas: Provide +1 Faith and +1 Amenity. The amenity is incredibly useful for keeping your growing cities happy and productive.
  • Dar-e Mehr: Provides +3 Faith and +1 additional Faith for each era since constructed or last repaired. This is a pure faith-generation choice, accelerating your ability to purchase buildings later on. The choice depends on whether you need more happiness or more raw faith.
• Founder Belief: Cross-Cultural Dialogue or Lay Ministry
  • Cross-Cultural Dialogue: +1 Science for every 4 followers in foreign cities. As you naturally spread your religion for defensive purposes, this provides a direct, passive boost to your science output.
  • Lay Ministry: +1 Faith for each Holy Site and +1 Culture for each Theater Square in a city following this religion. This is a solid choice for boosting your two key yields.
• Enhancer Belief: Holy Order or Religious Colonization
  • Holy Order: Reduces the Faith cost of Missionaries and Apostles by 30%. This makes it cheaper to defend your religion against rivals and to spread it when necessary.
  • Religious Colonization: Your religion is automatically spread to new cities you found. This saves you the effort and Faith cost of converting your own expansions.

The Mid-Game Pivot: From Faith to Scientific Ascendancy (Medieval – Renaissance)

With Jesuit Education secured, the pivot begins. Your empire, built on a bedrock of faith, now transforms into a scientific powerhouse.

1. The Faith-Buying Spree:
Your gameplay loop is now simple but devastatingly effective.
* Build a Campus district in a city.
* Immediately use your accumulated Faith to purchase a Library.
* Once you research Education, use Faith to instantly purchase a University.
* Later, upon researching Scientific Theory, use Faith to buy a Research Lab.

This allows you to leapfrog opponents in technology. While they are spending 20-30 turns hard-building a University, you are creating one instantly and using that production to build another Settler, a key wonder, or defensive units.

2. Government and Policy Cards:
* Government: Rush the Theocracy government. The 15% discount on all Faith purchases is a massive economic boost that directly synergizes with your core strategy.
* Key Policy Cards:
* Scripture: +100% Holy Site adjacency bonuses. A foundational card for maximizing Faith income.
* Rationalism: +50% Science from Campus district buildings, but only if the city has at least +3 Amenity. Thanks to your Stepwells and Worship Belief, keeping cities happy is easier for you than for most. This card is a major science multiplier.
* Praetorium (or Colonial Offices): +2 Loyalty per turn for cities with a Governor. Essential for managing your expanding empire.

3. City Planning and Stepwell Optimization:
In this era, your city planning should revolve around maximizing adjacencies. A common strategy is to plan a diamond-shaped core for your cities: a Government Plaza at the center, with a Holy Site, Campus, and Commercial Hub/Industrial Zone surrounding it. Place Stepwells adjacent to the Holy Site and any farms to gain the maximum benefit of Food, Housing, and Faith. A single Stepwell can yield +1 Food, +1 Housing, and +1 Faith before any modifiers.

Late Game Synergy: Winning the Space Race (Industrial – Information Era)

As you enter the late game, your strategy doesn’t change; it accelerates. The infrastructure you built now pays exponential dividends.

1. Patronizing Great People:
Your immense Faith generation gives you an unparalleled advantage in the Great Person game. You should be using your Faith to patronize nearly every Great Scientist and Great Engineer.
* Analysis on forums shows that saving a large sum of Faith (10,000+) to instantly recruit a game-changing scientist like Albert Einstein (+1 Eureka and +4 Science per University) or Isaac Newton is a popular and powerful tactic.
* Similarly, Great Engineers who can rush Space Race projects are your top priority. Faith-buying these individuals saves you from having to compete for them with production.

2. The Power of a Religious Ally:
Your Satyagraha ability continues to be a major asset. Maintain peaceful relations with other religious civilizations. The constant stream of Faith they provide can be the difference-maker in purchasing the final Spaceport projects or the last Great Scientist you need. You are not aiming for a Religious Victory, but your religion is a diplomatic and economic tool. Use your Apostles with the Debater promotion to defend your borders from rival religions, ensuring your core cities maintain the crucial Jesuit Education belief.

3. Final Policy and Government Choices:
* Government: Transition to Democracy or Communism. Democracy’s discount on purchasing with Gold and bonus yields from trade routes is powerful. Communism’s massive production bonuses can be useful if you need to hard-build any of the final projects.
* Key Policy Cards:
* Five-Year Plan: +100% Industrial Zone adjacency bonuses.
* International Space Agency: +10% Science per city-state you are the Suzerain of.
* Integrated Space Cell: +15% Production towards Space Race projects.

By this stage, your civilization is a finely tuned machine. Your cities, grown large with Stepwells, generate immense production. Your campuses, with buildings bought instantly by Faith, produce staggering amounts of science. You can out-tech every opponent, all while defending yourself with a military that can also be purchased with Faith in an emergency.

Conclusion: The Path of the Enlightened Powerhouse

Gandhi’s India is a testament to the power of flexible, synergistic strategy in Civilization 6. The path from a faith-focused early game to a science-dominant late game is not just viable; it is one of the most potent strategies available. By understanding that faith is not an end in itself, but a currency to be invested, you transform a seemingly peaceful leader into an unstoppable force of progress. The core loop is elegant: use exploration and development to generate Faith, choose religious beliefs that convert that Faith into Science, and leverage that scientific advantage to achieve victory. This approach demonstrates that the most powerful empires are not built on swords alone, but on the seamless integration of culture, faith, and intellect.