Some thoughts about leaders depiction and choices

Well, I was thinking to myself these last days (without turmoiling myself).

Am I the only one who thinks that, for instance, Montezuma is a bit ... "stereotyped". I mean, I read some books about the aztecs, and sure, they practiced human sacrifice and cannibalism for their rituals. But at the same time, they were a very refined people, and sacrifices were not the person which would appear : it had to be someone culturally close to the aztecs. If he was too close to their society, he was considered as a citizen, and could not be sacrificed, as they did could not sacrifice their own people. Same for people too far from their culture, they weren't apparently not good to the taste of their gods. And, yet, the sacrifices had a great ceremony before their demise. I'm not defending, of course, human sacrifice, but I think Moctezuma is depected a bit like ... a raging bloodthirsty killer who who every sacrifice he can. I mean, he codified the aztec law, expanded the empire, and the emperors were rather refined and, above all, known to be prodigious rhetoricians, which is a side I have some trouble to in him (Die ! Die ! Die ! ..., that sentence is profound).

The second part od what I thought, is about the ratio man/woman leaders. I mean, don't stone me to death, I'm not against adding female leaders : Isabella is and shall forever be the ruler of Spain in any game, as Elizabeth or Victoria for england, Catherine II for Russia (although it leaves me a bit sad for Peter the Great), or Maria-Theresa for Austria. But that will to add female for the sake adding female leaders is a bit problematic, as it shadows leaders who were far more important for that nation. For instance, Theodora. I'm not neglecting her role, I'm sure she did a lot for women of her time, and she came from nothing to become empress of the Byzantine empire. But let's be honest, as good as she is, Justinian is just too far important to be left out just because of that ratio question. Same for Maria I, how can she be included, with leaders such as John II, Manuel I, or the Marquis of Pombal ? Or Wu Zetian, while we have Liu Bang or Emperor Qin ? But the worse case of that ratio question is Dido, which is a legendary figure. I mean, they had Hannibal Barca, or Hanno II.
Of course, if they add Argentina, for instance, the first leader which comes through my mind is Eva Peron, and I would find that totally normal. Also, I'd find totally cool to add for Denmark, instead of Harald, Margaret I. I was also a bit disappointed that Gajah Mada was chosen as the indonesian leader instead of Tribhuwana, his queen.
But i don't like the fact of adding female leaders just for the sake of adding female leaders.
Also, why choose Darius for Persia, who is most known to have lost Marathon against the greek ? Why not Cyrus II ?

Well, I do agree some of the leader choices are odd. The most strange, IMHO, is having Gandhi as the governor of India, but since he's sort of the iconic face of the Civilization series (not to mention one of the most famous people who ever lived) I understand.

In terms of the male/female ratio, I do think it might be skewed towards women a bit too much. Including Dido was a bit strange. However, I think the developers are well-aware that the historically literate portion of their audience, while significant, is tiny compared to the average college-going casual who buys to play Gandhi and nuke everyone. At least they might have heard of Dido somewhere in high school.

Not that it's really that bad for the game, you want the average person to have SOME connection to the game, even if all they know about Greece came from the movie 300. Hence, why I wouldn't be surprised if Leonidas replaces Alex as leader of Greece in Civ 6, and Alexander gets Macedon to himself, now that everyone's caught Sparta fever. I view the leaders as more abstract "players" playing their Civilization in some sort of roundtable, instead of actually leading their people in the game.

In short, I see your point, but IMHO there are bigger fish to fry for Civ 6.

Dido isn't unprecedented, though. In Civ IV the Sumerians had Gilgamesh as their leaderhead. Hannibal's most famous for losing to Rome, which doesn't jive with your critique of Darius. I'm not saying Dido was a good choice, just that, given the options and given prior precedent, she wasn't necessarily a bad one.

You have to remember that the leaderheads in Civ V are really characters before they are historical figures. Justinian is certainly a more important historical figure than his wife, sure, but what would his leader screen bring to the table that we don't already have with all the other "old dudes sitting on a throne" portrayals? Theodora makes for an interesting and unique character to play with or against.

personally i'm just relieved this wasn't another hitler>bismarck thread

I think Dido is a much better choice than Theodora actually. The problem with Carthage is that they really isn't a better choice (although I guess I don't know Hanno II, which you mention, he might fit the bill). The obvious alternative is Hannibal, but he was really just an amazing general, not a political leader. In fact, he consistently failed to get the Carthaginians in power to agree with him, so I don't think he's a good fit for a leader at all. Dido is party legendary for sure, but she's also partly historical. There probably was a Phoenician princess from Tyre who ruled over Carthage somewhere around the 9th Century BC. It's not like Virgil is the only one mentioning her.

Theodora is a bit ridiculous though, considering the other obvious choice is her freaking husband.

There are Hitler>Bismarck threads ? Geez.

Teproc said:

I think Dido is a much better choice than Theodora actually. The problem with Carthage is that they really isn't a better choice (although I guess I don't know Hanno II, which you mention, he might fit the bill). The obvious alternative is Hannibal, but he was really just an amazing general, not a political leader. In fact, he consistently failed to get the Carthaginians in power to agree with him, so I don't think he's a good fit for a leader at all. Dido is party legendary for sure, but she's also partly historical. There probably was a Phoenician princess from Tyre who ruled over Carthage somewhere around the 9th Century BC. It's not like Virgil is the only one mentioning her.

Theodora is a bit ridiculous though, considering the other obvious choice is her freaking husband.

There are Hitler>Bismarck threads ? Geez.

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Well, I am certainly not going to pick Hitler above Bismarck. In fact, Hitler is pretty down on my list of german rulers^^ Before getting to him, he has to beat Otto I, Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Frederick II of Prussia, ... (there are a lot of Fredericks ...). But certainly, Bismarck remains, in my opinion the best choice of a german leader.

About Dido, maybe ... Hanno II or herself. Indeed, there may be a story behind a phoenician princess, but it still buzzes me a bit. As you said, perhaps Hannibal might not be the best choice.

About the Gandhi, it's indeed a bit sad for people like Ashoka or Akbar. It really is. But well, at the same time, I guess Ghandi is an opportunity to add leaders of the 20th century, which are rather rare.

I just hope they wouldn't add, for Civ 6 Charles de Gaulle as the french leader. The guy, in my opinion, is historically toooooooooo overrated.

I think Firaxis would be pretty hard pressed to pick de Gaulle over someone as iconic as Napoleon or Louis XIV. Ghandi is the India leader mainly because his presence in Civ I became a meme; picking Democracy in that game would reduce an AI's warmongering flavor by 2, which brought Ghandi's down to -1. If you're familiar with how game programs often times address negative numbers, you can probably guess that this is what happened:



If Firaxis wanted more modern leaders they could just pick more modern civs. Argentina seems to be a relatively popular choice for an expansion civ; America could definitely go with a leader closer to the American heyday, probably one of the Roosevelts. A boisterous, gun-toting Teddy would be very entertaining and FDR in his wheelchair would certainly be unique.

Hah, I disagree. If he had just been there for the Liberation, sure, he wouldn't a great French leader, but our current regime (for better or for worse) is pretty much entirely of his making, and the current political scene is still heavily influenced by gaullisme, particularly as far as foreign policy goes. He would be my fourth choice for a French leader, behind, in that order, Napoléon Bonaparte, Philippe Auguste and Louis XIV. You could make a case for François Ier above him though.

And yeah, Bismarck is so obviously the better choice for a German leader that it boggles my mind that people would actually want Hitler instead.

I think Hannibal, or a Hanno would be better for Carthage than Dido. I really do not like the use of legendary leaders if there are alternatives available (Hiawatha, Gilgamesh). Wu Zeitan, Maria I, and Theodora are also obviously just attempts to include more women. (I find it especially annoying that Taizong has only ever made it in the Chinese version of IV.) Hatshepsut, who was included in IV, is a great female choice. Margaret is another, but what fun is Denmark without a Viking age leader?

As for the Byzantines, I think including Justinian and Theodora as a couple would be awesome. I guess Justinian could do most of the talking. You could also do the same with Isabella and Ferdinand, but make Isabella the primary speaker.

Gandhi, while a Civ tradition, is not appropriate and frankly a little boring. Asoka, Samudragupta, or Akbar would each be better. Nebuchadnezzar II isn't a bad choice and I can understand wanting to break tradition from Hammurabi, but now both Mesopotamian leaders are from the tail end of that area's independent history. It's unfortunate that there is no leader to represent Mesopotamia before the Bronze Age collapse.

Aside from Gandhi, Hiawatha, and the female choices listed above, the only galling leader is Haile Selassie. They clearly only included him because he's famous, mostly from Reggae. He lost control of Ethiopia twice! Menelik II is the obvious choice, so much so that he's the leader in the Scramble for Africa scenario. An Axumite ruler like Ezana would also be really neat.

All the other choices are good, but it would be nice to see: One of the Roosevelts for the US; Cyrus the Great, Artaxerxes I, or a Sassanid ruler (Shapur, Khosrau, etc.) for Persia; Trajan for Rome (or go back to Julius Caesar. Man, I miss him.); Victoria for England; Frederick the Great, or Otto of Saxony for Germany (Bismarck is the obvious choice, but Fred is sooooooo cool. ); Canute for Denmark; Sigismund II Augustus for Poland.

That's my 8 or 9 cents. I've obviously thought too much about this.

Highly relevant and very interesting read.

Also, how is Dido the worst case? Whether her story was strictly true or not, she's literally the personification of Carthage. You can't really get a more appropriate representation than that. Especially given what Civ5 actually is, founding your first city, and nurturing your civilization to stand the test of time. Who does that sound like?
I'd say she has to be one of the best choices.

what makes you think leaders should be chosen because of their importance to their nation? or that they're adding female leaders for the sake of adding female leaders? i think leaders should be chosen so the player encounters a wide range of personalities and they should vary from game to game. also keep in mind this game is about creating history rather than re-enacting it

Abraxis said:

Highly relevant and very interesting read.

Also, how is Dido the worst case? Whether her story was strictly true or not, she's literally the personification of Carthage. You can't really get a more appropriate representation than that. Especially given what Civ5 actually is, founding your first city, and nurturing your civilization to stand the test of time. Who does that sound like?
I'd say she has to be one of the best choices.

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That's a really good point about Dido. I guess I'm biased towards realism, but the way that Civ plays it does make more sense to use figures that personify their civ.

As for the link: That was an awesome series of articles. I'm gonna have to read that blog regularly!

j51 said:

I think Hannibal, or a Hanno would be better for Carthage than Dido. I really do not like the use of legendary leaders if there are alternatives available (Hiawatha, Gilgamesh). Wu Zeitan, Maria I, and Theodora are also obviously just attempts to include more women. (I find it especially annoying that Taizong has only ever made it in the Chinese version of IV.) Hatshepsut, who was included in IV, is a great female choice. Margaret is another, but what fun is Denmark without a Viking age leader?

As for the Byzantines, I think including Justinian and Theodora as a couple would be awesome. I guess Justinian could do most of the talking. You could also do the same with Isabella and Ferdinand, but make Isabella the primary speaker.

Gandhi, while a Civ tradition, is not appropriate and frankly a little boring. Asoka, Samudragupta, or Akbar would each be better. Nebuchadnezzar II isn't a bad choice and I can understand wanting to break tradition from Hammurabi, but now both Mesopotamian leaders are from the tail end of that area's independent history. It's unfortunate that there is no leader to represent Mesopotamia before the Bronze Age collapse.

Aside from Gandhi, Hiawatha, and the female choices listed above, the only galling leader is Haile Selassie. They clearly only included him because he's famous, mostly from Reggae. He lost control of Ethiopia twice! Menelik II is the obvious choice, so much so that he's the leader in the Scramble for Africa scenario. An Axumite ruler like Ezana would also be really neat.

All the other choices are good, but it would be nice to see: One of the Roosevelts for the US; Cyrus the Great, Artaxerxes I, or a Sassanid ruler (Shapur, Khosrau, etc.) for Persia; Trajan for Rome (or go back to Julius Caesar. Man, I miss him.); Victoria for England; Frederick the Great, or Otto of Saxony for Germany (Bismarck is the obvious choice, but Fred is sooooooo cool. ); Canute for Denmark; Sigismund II Augustus for Poland.

That's my 8 or 9 cents. I've obviously thought too much about this.

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Indeed, Hatshepsut, or Cleopatra, are great choices as female leaders. And certainly, if they add a sumerian civ, I really hope they don't go for Gilgamesh again ... I mean, why go for the legendary and mythological figure when they could simply add Ur-Nammu or Shulgi ?

Hiawatha is more complicated choice ... is there another person which could replace him ?

And about Wu Zetian, I totally agree. Certainly, she's the only empress throughout chinese history. Same for Maria I or Theodora (who was not even regnant empress). Maria I almost gives me the impression that she's only in the game to highlight Brazil, instead of the portuguese.

Nebuchadnezzar doesn't actually bother much, and Ashurbanipal was an obvious choice for the Assyrian (although there huge choices aside him, like Sennacherib or Sargo II).

And Haile Selassie ... I never thought it that way, but you're kinda right. Menelik II and Tewodros II would certainly have been better choices.

Cleopatra would be an awful, awful choice for Egypt. If they want to make a Ptolemaic civ, sure, she can be a leader, but not for Egypt.

Nebuchadnezzar is a good choice. Hammurabi is arguably more important, and certainly has a better image (as it turns out, burning the Temple of Jerusalem makes you look bad in the eyes of judeo-christian societies), but Nebuchadnezzar is a good way to change things up a bit, and was a much better ruler than his reputation suggests. Much like Darius, who wouldn't be anyone's first choice for Persia, it's good to have diveristy from one civ game to another.

I think Haile Selassie made sense for BNW because they were introducing the World Congress, and Selassie is well known for his belief in international organizations and his speeches at both the League of Nations and the UN.

Gandhi is a bad choice, but I'm fine with it because of how iconic he's become for the game Civilization. Same with the Zulus being a civ when they really don't need to be.

Justinian and Theodora as a couple is a great idea.

I don't have a problem with legendary leaders because they almost always have a basis in historical fact. I mean, there's a line there : Gilgamesh is probably past that line, kind of like having King Arthur for the Celts or something, but all leaders are legendary to an extent, especially for older civilizations.

I have always thought Lincoln should have been the CiV choice for the American leader. Maybe in Civ 6? I know he was and option in Civ 4. I just like the variety of different faces. Not that Washington is a poor choice, not at all!

I would love for the game to not rely on the 3D depictions of the leaders, something that becomes rather old and tedious a few games in. IT also sucks valuable money from...let's say... improving the AI.

I think each CIV should have a number of leaders (let's say 20). Then, when you start up a game, a CIV like America could have Washington, Lincoln, Bush, Obama, Jefferson, or even Taft as its leader. I'm all for some random action in the game.

Teproc said:

Cleopatra would be an awful, awful choice for Egypt. If they want to make a Ptolemaic civ, sure, she can be a leader, but not for Egypt.

Nebuchadnezzar is a good choice. Hammurabi is arguably more important, and certainly has a better image (as it turns out, burning the Temple of Jerusalem makes you look bad in the eyes of judeo-christian societies), but Nebuchadnezzar is a good way to change things up a bit, and was a much better ruler than his reputation suggests. Much like Darius, who wouldn't be anyone's first choice for Persia, it's good to have diveristy from one civ game to another.

I think Haile Selassie made sense for BNW because they were introducing the World Congress, and Selassie is well known for his belief in international organizations and his speeches at both the League of Nations and the UN.

Gandhi is a bad choice, but I'm fine with it because of how iconic he's become for the game Civilization. Same with the Zulus being a civ when they really don't need to be.

Justinian and Theodora as a couple is a great idea.

I don't have a problem with legendary leaders because they almost always have a basis in historical fact. I mean, there's a line there : Gilgamesh is probably past that line, kind of like having King Arthur for the Celts or something, but all leaders are legendary to an extent, especially for older civilizations.

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I'm not too much on Egypt's history, and I must say I didn't make my homework As I said about Nebuchadnezzar, I don't really bother. Both him and Hammurabi are great figures, and both deserve to be on the spots. But Darius ... Well, maybe I'm being a bit fierce towards him. After all, Greece was his only big failure, and a failure that didn't have much consequences to the achemenid empire. After all, he was the one who pushed the persian empire to its greatest extent. So, even though I believe Cyrus II is a far better choice, Darius is not that bad.
Well, Haile Selassie was not intruduced in BNW, but in GnK ... in that logic, Zara Yaqob would have been a good choice, although I'm not a huge fan of the guy. Yet, you can defend Haile Selassie's inclusion as leader of the rastafarian thing (needless to say that I don't know anything about rastafarism, and that stuff).

About Gandhi, even though he became an iconic image, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick someone else for a change. India has such a long history, it'd be sad to not add other great rulers. At least, the zulus have the excuse of covering a badly exploited part of the world.
And legendary figures ... maybe because, as someone said earlier, I'm too realistic, or maybe I'm too biased, but I still think that someone who has some historical background other than killing monsters, making journeys in hell, or tricking a king with an oxhide. But well, it's merely my opinion, and trying to impose it would only clash into a debate which would know no end.

Still, I'm pretty sad that the aztecs are represented in such a bloodlusty way. It's so stereotopycal that it feels like having Maria I with a moustache and surrounded by cods, Isabella with toreros around her, Napoleon with a baguette bread and a beret, or Nobunaga eating sushis and commiting seppuku after in his loosing speech ...

Teproc said:

I think Haile Selassie made sense for BNW because they were introducing the World Congress, and Selassie is well known for his belief in international organizations and his speeches at both the League of Nations and the UN.

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Selassie was introduced in the game with G&K, I don't think they had the idea of the WC in mind. He's surely the best known ethiopian leader, at least is the last Emperor of Ethiopia, he synergies well with the UU and UA.

Liufeng said:

Still, I'm pretty sad that the aztecs are represented in such a bloodlusty way. It's so stereotopycal that it feels like having Maria I with a moustache and surrounded by cods, Isabella with toreros around her, Napoleon with a baguette bread and a beret, or Nobunaga eating sushis and commiting seppuku after in his loosing speech ...

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100% agree.

George Abitbol said:

Selassie was introduced in the game with G&K, I don't think they had the idea of the WC in mind. He's surely the best known ethiopian leader, at least is the last Emperor of Ethiopia, he synergies well with the UU and UA.

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He doesn't synergize nearly as well as Menelik II.

Liufeng said:

But i don't like the fact of adding female leaders just for the sake of adding female leaders.
Also, why choose Darius for Persia, who is most known to have lost Marathon against the greek ? Why not Cyrus II ?

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As your own sequence of thoughts shows, preferential selection for women leaders is harmless since there's no such thing as a perfect set of choices that will please all critics anyway. If every leader but the women you listed as approved were men... there would still be the men who are "wrong."

Anyway I fall into the "depictions should be distinct" camp but do think they probably over-did it... by BNW, a second Maria doesn't really stand out at all.

If the dev's intentions for equal representation were more than just face-saving token choices, they would have invested at some point in alt figures for great artists, scientists, merchants, as well as post-atomic infantry (get rid of the mobile inf minivan), or at the least have included diversity in the new figure that they budgeted and designed for BNW, architects. No ok uh here's another empress we r so diverse.

El Caballerion said:

I would love for the game to not rely on the 3D depictions of the leaders, something that becomes rather old and tedious a few games in. IT also sucks valuable money from...let's say... improving the AI.

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I don't think the time of the art directors has much to do with the programming aspects of the game