Nuclear Gandhi

The claim was mentioned on the TV Tropes wiki in 2012, and continued until 2020, when the series' creator, Sid Meier, confirmed that the bug would have been impossible in the original game.

[6] In Civilization's technology tree, nuclear weapons are generally unlocked only after democracy, so Gandhi's aggression level would have already spiked by the time India became nuclear-capable.

[3][4][10] One possible origin of the legend could be India's tendency to discover nuclear technology before most of its opponents because of the peaceful scientific nature of this civilization.

[10][4] Reynolds noted that all leaders in the game become "pretty ornery" after their acquisition of nuclear weapons, and suggested that this behavior simply seemed more surprising and memorable when it happened to Gandhi.

[10] Through Civilization IV, a popular misconception held that Gandhi was "still" programmed with a tendency to use nuclear weapons as an Easter egg, but no such behavior was purposely added to the games by Firaxis.

Following the game's release in 2010, players noticed Gandhi's incongruous behavior; it was addressed in The Escapist magazine's comic Critical Miss.

[3] In 2014, the story gained publicity after a reposted Critical Miss comic caused a discussion in the comment section on Reddit over why Gandhi was made that aggressive.

[3] Moreover, as the "Nuclear Gandhi" meme spread, many people remembered that they were particularly annoyed by India in the first games of Civilization series, a false memory attributable to the Mandela effect.

[4] On June 18, 2019, Firaxis marketing manager Kevin Schultz posted a tweet stating that he was going offline for two weeks due to a business trip to China, and offered to reflect on the question, "What if the widely shared and reposted story about Gandhi's love for nukes in the original Civilization being caused by a bug is totally false?"

The next person Bratt contacted was lead Civilization II game designer Brian Reynolds, who replied: "Although it's been ~20 years since I've seen the Civ 1 code, I can still tell you with 99.99% certainty the Gandhi bug is completely apocryphal."

: A Life in Computer Games, was released, containing confirmation that the Gandhi software bug was fabricated and a detailed background of the urban legend's formation.