Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
Alexander the Great btw didn't really conquer anything. He simply took over an existing empire, the Persian Empire. His conquests are more comparable with those of the Bolsheviks, than of a people like the Mali or like...
You're right. He should be a leader of both France and Germany.
Saying Alexander didn't conquer anything is disingenuous. He brought various Greek states under his control, destroyed the Persian Empire, directly led to the rise of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt and even conquered part of western Asia. He is justly famed for being one of the world's greatest ever generals.
Personally, I'll be happy as long as Babylon is in the original 18 - I'm a major ancient near east geek. If Sumer is in there too I'll be overjoyed, and either Byzantium or Khmer would also be totally and completely awesome.
Though Byzantium should totally have multiple leaders - they're the longest enduring empire in western history, they shouldn't have to play second fiddle to some damn english monarchs. I vote for Justinian and Alexius Comnenus myself. And maybe Basil II. But apparently he was really ugly, so who knows.
Also, we should be able to play as famously crappy leaders. I think it'd be hilarious to play rome as Nero or Warren G. Harding. Also Egypt having Akhenaten would tickle my funny bone.
my vote is Justinian, Basil II or Heraclitus. not this Komenos crap. as i recall they recovered the Empire, but totally destroyed it in the end. didn't one of the leaders of that dyantasy want to take the throne and enlisted the 4th crusade to help?
You're right, I forgot about Heraclius. But I disagree with your reasoning on the Comneni - sure, the later ones sucked, but the first three (Alexius, John, Manuel) were awesome. And saying that you shouldn't have a leader because his dynasty ended up being crappy invalidates Augustus Caesar (Caligula, Nero) and Trajan and Hadrian (Commodus). If you count political parties as dynasties, it invalidates Lincoln because of Warren G. Harding and Dan Quayle! Anyway, Alexius is still awesome.
Surely the insane mindless warmonger spot is represented by Genghis Khan/Montezuma...
We don't need Shaka.
Having the Byzantines is a waste of a perfectly good space, especially for Vanilla.
EDIT: And yes, there's tons more African civs. For example, Ghana, Songhai, Shona, Benin, Oyo, Kongo, etc.
The whole issue with African civs is that, yeah, they were big and had a lot of people, but were they really that great and innovative, or powerful.