Mao and other despicable leaders in Civ 4

If PC issues are a concern, why then include one of the greatest mass murderers of all time as a leader in the game? Stalin and Hitler are not included, so why Mao?

because mao is an historical figure i wouldn't mind having stalin or hitler in the game but then people would complain about it

leave mao allone he wasn't that bad he pulled china out of a civil war, mad it an indutrial country and he did a lot of good, ofcourse there where a lot of dead but well you have to do something to achive your goal


(damn sorry for my bad english)

I don't understand: are you arguing for Hitler and/or Stalin, or against Mao? I don't like arguing about a leader's "moral" qualities simply because history is full of atrocities and the scumbags who led them. Sure there is a matter of scale, but who is to say Napoleon wouldn't have turned Europe into a sea of ash had he had atomic bombs? Hell, thats why we play civ to find out. But seriously I somewhat agree Mao was a horrible leader and civ needs to spend the art resources elsewhere like in Soviet Russia and here is why:

I'm against Mao being in simply because his policies, more than simply being morally bankrupt, were completely counter-productive to Chinese development and held their nation back for decades. (And a quick edit to the post directly above me, it was bad for China that Mao won the civil war because the KMT were better at running a nation, if how Taiwan turned out is any example) For the same reason, Hitler probably wouldn't make a good German leader choice.

On the other hand, Stalin reshaped a nation from a giant hole in the mud to a world superpower at the height of its power by the time he died. It did leave tens of millions of people dead and hundreds of millions more enslaved in its wake, but that shouldn't take away from the fact that he greatly transformed Russia's power like not even the greatest czars ever did.

yes, i believe it was him that coined the phrase "you cant make an omlette without breaking some eggs", 10 million dead eggs is alot of eggs!

I dont think we should have ANY leaders, just randomly generate the names and pictures

The point is either include mao stalin and hitler, else none of them.

History seldom pain leaders as they really are. The further back the history, the harder it is to be sure of the facts behind what was being said. So I'm petty sure most leaders perpetuated some atrocities as well... except maybe Gandhi.

Mao's regime in China still exists. Hitler's and Stalin's are gone already. So we cannot use the same measure of what's "Politically Correct" for the those two leaders for Mao. For all the bad he did, he brought order and unity back to China and the final judgement on him is still out.

I also suspect there are more Chinese without problems with Mao in the game than there are (in percentage) Germans with Hitler and Russians with Stalin.

Joseph Stalin said:

because mao is an historical figure i wouldn't mind having stalin or hitler in the game but then people would complain about it

leave mao allone he wasn't that bad he pulled china out of a civil war, mad it an indutrial country and he did a lot of good, ofcourse there where a lot of dead but well you have to do something to achive your goal


(damn sorry for my bad english)

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I guess, you should read your history books once again. Mao was the initiator of what later was called "the lost decade" and of the "cultural revolution", both of which costed millions of lives. And what would have been the "lot of good" you are referring to?

Unfortunately, the 20th century has seen some of the most criminal characters have come to power. Granted, other socalled "great people" made their way into the history books only by walking over the dead corpses of their people, but there are some who are (in an absolute negative way) outstanding and therefore, I wouldn't like to see any of them in the game:
Hitler
Stalin
Mao Zedong
Pol Pot
Idi Amin
come to mind immediately.
All of them in fact were not leaders but dictators who saved their power by killing millions of people. In fact, they killed their own population for the most crazy reasons.
To have any of them in the game just gives a very bad taste.

I agree that Mao is a bad idea, especially for the fact that he's held China back more than anything. Again, the nationalists in Taiwan accomplished a hell of alot more. Also, when Mao was in power, 1949-1976 it was just one goddam disaster after another, Great Leap Forward (to starvation!) folowed by the cultural revolution (destroy everything not associated with Mao and waste ten years for nothing). No, Mao utterly failed China, if anyone deserves credit for putting China back into the reasonable shape that it is today, its Deng Xiaopeng, who did away with all that Maoist nonsense. Also, China has a far older history than Germnay or Russia, so its not like its difficult to find good leaders, my suggestion would be Wu-Di, who consolidtated the Han dynasty, and defeated the Hsuing-Nu, thus freeing China (for a couple centuries) of raids from the steppe dwellers to the North.
(Interestingly enough, the Hsiung-Nu MAY have been the predessessors of the Huns, driven West by the Chinese, and ended up helping to finish off the Western Roman Empire a few centuries later...goddam Wu-Di)

If you ever played Civ1, Stalin was in Civ1. I suppose they took it out because the Soviet Union wasn't around anymore, so they went with pre-Soviet Russia.

Of course, they should have put in Deng Xiaoping, since his economic policies are at least partially responsible for China's current economic success. And they should have Tang Taizong instead of Qin Shi Huang; you aren't called "China's greatest emperor" for nothing.

I see no real harm in these people being in the game. It is a game at the end of the day and not a passing of judgement on the nation in question. I suppose they must stay out in the name of political correctness. But thats what mods are for add them if you feel the need.

though it was during the period of warring states, i think the rulers during the romance of the three kingdoms wud be interesting just b/c of the mythical fame that have come from these rulers - not to mention zhuge liang shud be some kind of leader in the game for his famed brilliance and wisdom.


yeah the difficulty is that even today, mao is revered, although doesn't the chinese version of civ3 have a diff. ruler for china ('cuz they don't want mao to be reduced to a video game character that u can beat). if u put deng, u'll still have plenty of people arguing about his role in the tianament square crackdown. while mao is very much responsible for millions of deaths as well as the disastrous economic policies and cultural revolution, his charisma (whether u like him or not fact is millions followed him) helped lead him from a poor almost defeated man (during the conflicts w/ the kmt, long march) to one that opened china to the west, faced the ussr balancing its relationship btw the soviets and the us (which had several important implications for the us in the cold war - china's influence eventually proved favorable for the us), and reunited a war-stricken conquered nation to a major force in the east.

it's a different mentality looking from the us/western view, often putting things in black and white - he's good, he's bad, etc. but in asia, it's not that simple - again, even today, mao is still revered. when he died, it was a day of mourning, not celebration. tough call, at the end, when u're dealing w/ foreign leaders.

They should use leaders, that are representative for the majority of the nations' history.
Meaning: You should leave extremists out - use the great ones whose values stand for the nation.

Bismarck for Germany is a very good choice. A substitute could only be someone like Konrad Adenauer (first chancellor of West-Germany, 1949-1963) or Friedrich der Grosse (Prussian king, 18th century). But not Hitler or Walter Ulbricht (East-German leader, 1949-1971, if I remember correctly).

England: Maybe Queen Victoria, but not Cromwell.

USA: George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy, but not Nixon or Carter.


Therefor, the Stalin for the Russians in Civ1 was a poor choice - as is Mao for China today. They should've taken a great leader from china's past. It's a country with a history of more than 5000 years - the communists dominate this country for about 60 years...why not Yu Huang-Shang Ti, the first emperor? Or a Tang-emperor? Or a Ming-emperor?

Hitler is a bad choice since he practically destroyed his country and left it divided for 50 years.

I think Stalin is a good choice, and I hope they included him.

I would have really liked to see Theodore Roosevelt as one of the leaders for America. His foreign policy and unique qualities helped to bring America into the modern era.

RickiusMaximus said:

yes, i believe it was him that coined the phrase "you cant make an omlette without breaking some eggs", 10 million dead eggs is alot of eggs!

I dont think we should have ANY leaders, just randomly generate the names and pictures

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I've always wondered about that saying. Is it to say that you can't make food out of people without killing them first?

I wouldn't like to have randomly generated names for the leaders. Among other things, Civilization is a game about history. I like to have real names for the leaders, for the religions etc. That makes playing more engrossing. I don't have very good imagination.

Fortunately China has two leaders in Civ4 (Qin Shi Huang and Mao) but still there are better choices as Chinese leader than Mao.

Hitler's out for a simple reason. Doesn't Germany have a law against anything vaguely resembling Nazi propaganda, including games where you can play as Hitler? It wouldn't do to deny yourself a whole marked just to put one leader in the game.

the funny thing is, qin shi huang was also known as a brutal and somewut paranoid ruler - he was the first to unite china, which was a great achievement, but ruled as a tyrant. he was also known for his quest for immortality, sending expeditions to mythical immortal islands in the east and trying a number of concoctions, including drinking mercury which is believed to have led to his death. he prepared the famous terrocotta tombs, near xi'an, which was to protect him and serve him, even after death. he also began what wud eventually become the great wall, as a number of defensive barriers in the north were built.

in hero (the movie), the emperor is qin shi huang (so if u know ur chinese history, it kinda spoils the ending)

Mao wasn't evil, just stupid. He didn't kill that many people on purpose, but put in crazy policies that resulted in the indirect death of millions. Stalin is a maybe, he was historical, but like hitler, he might raise anger. I don't think you should exclude leaders simply because of their moral qualities, after all, genghis khan, shaka zulu, and napoleon were mass murderors as well.