You might come across headlines like "Gandhi Is Still An Asshole In Civilization VI" or legends about “nuclear Gandh”. Sounds intriguing, but what's really behind this meme?
I first heard about this story in a lecture CS50, available in Ukrainian on the platform Prometheus (free programming course). There, in the context of the topic integer overflow, explained how when a variable overflows (due to incorrect data type or lack of verification), the value of “can turn to the maximum limit.
As an example, they allegedly cited a bug in Civilization: Peaceful Gandhi had the lowest level of aggression - 1. When he became a Democrat, the “game subtracted a few more points of aggression, the indicator went into the red, and when it overflowed 8-bit unsigned variable (0–255) he suddenly became as aggressive as possible - 255 - and began to create a nuclear apocalypse.
This legend spread so much in gaming circles that in Civilization V the developers deliberately made Gandhi “Easter - the maximum desire to build and use nuclear weapons (12/12) to support the meme. And in Civilization VI it has both “peacekeeping” and “nuclear-happy” behavior, making it an even more absurd rival.
Пошук за запитом Nuclear Gandhi
However, Sid Meyer himself in his book Sid Meier's Memoir! refuted the story, stating that there was no overflow in the original game: all the variables were iconic, democracy did not affect Gandhi's aggression, and the idea itself probably appeared as an internal joke by the developers, which then grew into a cultural meme.
If you want to dive deeper into history and check the facts, I recommend a video from People Make Games - Did Nuclear Gandhi Ever Really Happen in Civilization? (in English) In it, journalists conducted their own investigation, talked to developers and found out how this myth actually appeared and why it still lives in the hearts of gamers:
Information from Kotaku and Wikipedia was used when writing the post. The nuclear Gandhi on the cover is generated by ChatGPT.
