I apologise for the thread derailment, but I must respond.
That's just it: I don't think you can put up a good case for it. Saying it's relevant to the modern day is just a argument of semantics to say: "I only know what happened during the time I was alive, so I want something similar to that."
I would say that the two world wars, and the subsequent internationalisation and globalisation of the world, with the creation of trans national corporations, and multi-national organisations, has had a considerably higher influence on today's society than ancient history. Not to say that ancient history has not had a considerable impact.
Again, it's great for a game that focuses on the 20th century (and now the 21st) exclusively. But that's not Civ! Never was!
Well, the point is to ask whether or not Civ
should be like that. I agree and don't think it should. I think there should be a balance of ancient and modern leaders, with a slight weighting towards modern leaders, as shown in the game currently. However, I think that there should be more modern leaders, which would also mean more ancient leaders, or more leaders overall.
Here is a list of the periods of the leaders in the game, as of Warlords:
15th Century BC- 1
13th Century BC- 1
6th Century BC- 1
4th Century BC- 1
3rd Century BC- 4
1st Century BC- 1
1st Century AD- 1
9th Century AD- 1
10th Century AD- 1
12th Century AD- 2
13th Century AD- 1
14th Century AD- 1
15th Century AD- 2
16th Century AD- 4
17th Century AD- 2
18th Century AD- 3
19th Century AD- 4
20th Century AD- 5
As you can see, I've split up the centuries into arbitrary, but I think suitable, time periods (by colour); Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern. And I have bolded the big century from each period. As you can see, leaders are generally concentrated around time centres. In this case, there is the 3rd Century BC, the 12th Century AD, the 17th Century AD, and the 20th Century AD. Now, assuming equal importance for each era (even though I think the modern era is much more important, and relevant, not just due to recentism (?), but also due to the acceleration of development, population, and everything in general), the Ancient Era has the same number of leaders as the Renaissance era, and only 2 less than the Modern Era, which is this slight weighting that I talk about. Now, I gather that in BtS, a number of Ancient leaders are added, like Pericles and Darius, along with more of the Medieval and Renaissance leaders, as well as 2 (I think) modern leaders. This addresses the slight imbalance even more so, IIRC.
Now, as these statistics also show, there is an absence of Medieval leaders. The balance is 10-
6-10-12. This is the area that is probably lacking the most. However, I understand you could argue that it had less importance to history than the other eras, hence why it is often called the 'Dark Age', but, if you count it back from about the 3rd/4th Century AD to the beginning of the 15th Century, it is over 1000 years largely unaccounted for. Assuming that the biggest influence on the world today, and all of human history, is the Christian faith, then this period is actually almost as significant as the others, and so needs more leaders.
I'm not saying you have to trace WW1's causes all the way back to the split of Carolingian kingdom in 843, but at least tracing it back to Napoleon and the Franco-Prussian wars gives some semblance of continuity. If you were to ask me which leaders I would select for France and Germany in this example, I'd stick with the Firaxian choice of Napoleon and Bismarck, not Poincaré or Wilhelm II.
Oh, I would definitely agree. But why not add in these other leaders also? If not just for just a World War One scenario? The more leaders the better, I would say.
My biggest issue with this is people post and debate modern leaders almost exclusively. Anyone before the 19th (or even some 19th century leaders) doesn't even get mentioned. Everybody latches onto Franco for a second Spanish leader, just because they heard his name on TV once. Do you really think he has the chops to be up next to Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Hannibal, and Julius Caesar?
No, I don't think Franco should be the 2nd Spanish leader. He didn't really have a big impact on the world. However, other modern leaders, such as Wilhelm II (or more appropriately, Hindenburg), did have a large impact on the First World War, which was, after all, the first time in all of history that war was spread right across the world. This was at least as important as the Napoleonic Wars, and yet it is somehow seen that Napoleon is more important. I mean, he was very, very important to world history, but so were a lot of other modern leaders. More so, than, say, ancient leaders.
Tell me, anyone who is backing Hitler as a third German leader: can you at least name two other Medieval or Rennaissance German leaders you at least considered?
The German Reich only came into being in 1870. Before that, you would have to separate it up into the states, with Prussia being used in the game, for instance, and before that, there was the Holy Roman Empire, which would fit nicely into the Medieval and Renaissance Eras, even going into the Modern Era. That is present in BtS. So, German leaders should really only be from the end of the Holy Roman Empire onwards. And Bismarck and Hitler are definitely the most important two of them.
Hitler is not in the game, not due to historical mediocrity, but due to sales, as I'm sure you would know. You cannot, under any circumstances, argue that he was not one of the most important leaders in all of world history. He was at least as great as Napoleon, again, just in terms of conquest, and then if you look at the people the died as a result of his rule and subsequent events (WWII), his importance sky-rockets. Sure, you cannot base entrance into the game on how many people died, but in this case, it gives a fair indicator as to the historical scale of his rule.
So, what I am saying is that the leaders in the game should come more or less equally from the four eras that I outlined, with a slight weighting towards the modern era, for relevancy and appeasement. I think that there should be more modern leaders, but not in a disproportionate manner. It would be part of a general rise in the number of leaders in the game, overall.
) and UB is the Research Institute (or possibly Collective Farm: replaces ???, plus 1
, but 1 
).
