Civ4 Leaders Mod

[Llotyhy]

Nice! Nitpicking! Ok...

its a great mod, but if you want suggestions, i think the leaders you picked and the traits they carry could use some work.

aztecs- itzcoatl is not a terrible choice, but i think that ahuizotl definitely deserves to be included more. hell, i think montezuma I did far more than montezuma II ever did.

I think Itzcoatl is the most important Aztec leader, but we can of course have a different opinion on that... Ahuizotl and Montezuma I are both on the shortlist of becoming the third Aztec leader, dunno yet though.

mali- sundiata agressive? that doesn't make too much sense to me. i'd change it to industrious/financial.

You're right, my bad, changed it, will be on next version.

furthermore, you appear to have three leaders being philosophical and agressive, namely alexander the great, stalin, and abraham lincoln. i don't understand the justification for either stalin or lincoln. i would recommend that stalin be changed to aggressive and organized, and lincoln be changed to philosophical and organized. philip II can be changed to aggressive and creative.

Ehm... well, that's a different story. Stalin is noted wrong in the overview, I just realized, he's Philosophical/Industrious in the mod (that's not even debatable in my opinion, cause he wasn't aggressive at all.) Lincoln, well, that's nice of you to notice... if I could have made him 'just' philosophical I would have, but all the other traits didn't exactly fit in in my opinion, so I chose aggressive, but I think I will do as you said and change him into phi/org. It'll be changed next version as well. Philip II is far more organized than creative in my opinion... I think he should be most remembered for his organizational skills even. He disliked the idea of secretaries and such deciding for him, so he chose to read and reply to all letters by himself... the man organized an entire empire, not that easy.

two more leaders that i would love to see: chandragupta, who could maybe be philosophical and spiritual. charlemagne, perhaps expansive and creative or expansive and philosophical.

Chandragupta will be in next version phi/spi as you said. Nice that we both seem to think the same thing. Charlemagne will be in as well, dunno about the traits yet though, will need to brush up on my reading.

the other thing is the favored civics, but to be honest none of the included civs make any sense, so i wouldn't fool around with them too heavily.

Ok... but which one is the problem then? I tried to make them as accurately as possible. The choices are very limited though, I agree.

sorry if this is a lot of nitpicking, but i look at the game from a perspective of historical accuracy.

I *love* nitpicking... and it made me change two things in-mod and two things in mod-overview, so I'm glad.

 

[Llotyhy]

Some leaders that will definitely be included next version:

Charlemagne of France
Chandragupta of India
Xerxes of Persia
Marcus Aurelius of Rome
Franco of Spain

Some maybes:

Ahuioztl or Montezuma I of Aztec (Montezuma I is unlikely, because I don't like two people with the same name.)
Thutmosis III or Akhenaton of Egypt.
Túpac Inca of Inca (Not sure if this is the best choice, need to read some more)

The rest is still unknown...

Anyone some suggestions on the leaders that should be included as well? Japan and Greece I find difficult particularly...

Greetings and happy Civving,
Llotyhy

 

[niffweed17]

Ok... but which one is the problem then? I tried to make them as accurately as possible. The choices are very limited though, I agree.

if i were making a mod (which, sadly, i lack the technical knowledge to do very well) i would almost ignore the favorite civics of the leaders. they are inappropriately distributed to begin with and some civics (like the governmental ones) are used with four or five leaders, while some other civics (like the economics and religious ones) are used for one or no leaders.

furthermore, some leaders have some options that are just simply wrong. take gandhi for example. in the game his favorite civic is universal suffrage. i can only wonder what exactly the justification for not giving him the pacifism civic, which seems to be built just for him.


i don't know if this would require digging deeper into game files, but i would totally rework the civics for the original civs:

alexander- slavery
asoka- caste system
bismarck- bureaucracy
catherine- emancipation
cyrus- representation
elizabeth- freedom of religion
frederick- freedom of speech
gandhi- pacifism
genghis khan- caste system
hatshepsut- hereditary rule
huayna capac- hereditary rule
isabella- police state
julius caesar- bureaucracy
kublai khan- vassalage (i know this one's sketchy... i have to put vassalage somewhere)
louis XIV- mercantilism
mansa musa- free market
mao- state property
montezuma- organized religion
napoleon- police state
peter- serfdom
qin shih huang- serfdom
roosevelt- universal suffrage
saladin- theocracy
tokugawa- environmentalism
victoria- nationhood
washington- representation

as for the newer rulers, i'm too tired to deal with for now. but no more triplicates.

 

[Llotyhy]

Not at all, it's quite easy to edit even... so, next version will also contain better trait-distribution... I'll take a look at your list for that... Thanks!

 

[blunt3d]

Are you going to change the regular civ leaders to still images too?

 

[jeepguy]

Not at all, it's quite easy to edit even... so, next version will also contain better trait-distribution... I'll take a look at your list for that... Thanks!

Most of the above civic suggestions are very good, but two in particular strike me as being quite incorrect.

Roosevelt should have Universal Suffrage. Washington should probably favor Representation above all else.

It was during the WWII era that the United States domestic production was kicked into overdrive due in large part to women entering the workforce in droves, encouraged to do so by the government, Rosie the Riveter et al. Given the boost to production offered by this civic, it's clearly best applied to this American leader above any other.

By contrast, in Washington's era women were without the right to vote, as were slaves (Washington was a slave owner).

I understand the idea is to assign every trait to at least one leader, but Emancipation doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for FDR, and Universal Suffrage makes no sense at all for Washington.

Give Lincoln Emancipation, FDR Universal Suffrage, and Washington Representation, for the most historically accurate civic assignment for the Americans.

 

[Llotyhy]

Are you going to change the regular civ leaders to still images too?

Not planning to.

 

[Llotyhy]

In next version you will (probably) find:

Marcus Aurelius of Rome
Ogedei Khan of Mongol
Franco of Spain
Wu Zetian of China
Thutmose III of Egypt
Themistocles of Greece
Xerxes of Persia
Harun al-Rashid of Arabia
Tupac Inca Yupanqui of Inca
Auítzotl of Aztec
Charlemagne of France
Mansa Wali Keita of Mali
Minamoto no Yorimoto of Japan
Chandragupta of India

 

[cckerberos]

Hehe, yeah, but the man was called Mutsuhito, Meiji means just enlightened, because that's what characterized his reign.

Well, Mutsuhito was his name, but he was never actually "called" that Seriously, though... I'm a Japanese history grad student, and the name Mutsuhito is obscure (unknown by virtually all Japanese), and pretty much never used. Meiji would have been a more natural choice (as it's more often used as his name in both Japan and the West).

I've made the man philosophical/industrious though, unlike you suggested... Philosophical because of that enlightenment, and because of his realization that Japan needed to learn from Europe in order to become a great power in Asia...

Meiji wasn't behind the Meiji Restoration or the decision for Japan to modernize; that was the decision of the Meiji oligarchs (genro). His was a symbolic, largely powerless monarchy, and little is actually known about the man himself and his opinions. I agree with his inclusion in the list as a symbol of the Meiji era, but just wanted to clarify about the man himself

I've downloaded the mod and look forward to trying it.

 

[Llotyhy]

Ok, you convinced me, he'll be called Meiji next version...

 

[MSpencer]

Stalin not aggressive? This might be going back a bit, but Stalin was hardly a peach. Josef Stalin ordered the purges of the 1930s which resulted in the majority of the red officer corps being eliminated or imprisoned (There goes any claim for organized...), and also, shortly after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 (The same pact which made the United Kingdom reasonably believe that Soviet Russia was going to completely ally with Nazi Germany), Stalin attacked and invaded Finland, a war which only ended in spring of 1940. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact also agreed on the partition of Poland, an action which resulted in the Red Army going to war with Poland and invading. During the late stages of Barbarossa, and before Blau, Stalin and Churchill jointly invaded Persia. In 1945, Stalin readied troops to invade Japan, surrender or no surrender. In 1950, Stalin authorized North Korea to attack South Korea, and today there is evidence that it was completely his idea. Stalin was hardly anything more than an iron-fisted brute out for Soviet domination.

 

[Llotyhy]

There are *tons* of leaders constantly choosing the military option whenever they could... Stalin wasn't like that I think, more choosing the opportunities when they showed themselves, like the other leaders not falling in the first category.

Furthermore, I think the most important trait is industrious for him, because of the enormous industrial growth in that period. Second trait is either aggressive or philosophical (because of the communism, in whatever lousy form it was in), but since practically every leader can be said to be aggressive, I chose philosophical.

EDIT: He has very low warrand settings though, meaning he'll be very likely to go to war often.

 

[niffweed17]

Most of the above civic suggestions are very good, but two in particular strike me as being quite incorrect.

Roosevelt should have Universal Suffrage. Washington should probably favor Representation above all else.

It was during the WWII era that the United States domestic production was kicked into overdrive due in large part to women entering the workforce in droves, encouraged to do so by the government, Rosie the Riveter et al. Given the boost to production offered by this civic, it's clearly best applied to this American leader above any other.

By contrast, in Washington's era women were without the right to vote, as were slaves (Washington was a slave owner).

I understand the idea is to assign every trait to at least one leader, but Emancipation doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for FDR, and Universal Suffrage makes no sense at all for Washington.

Give Lincoln Emancipation, FDR Universal Suffrage, and Washington Representation, for the most historically accurate civic assignment for the Americans.

while this idea about the three american leaders is fine, each trait should be given at least once to each original leader, of which lincoln is not one. nonetheless, you're probably right about this, since catherine also has emancipation (because she tried her darndest to free the serfs in russia until she got sick of hearing them bicker with each other).

so i will make that change to my list. i will also update the list to include the newer leaders as i think they fit most accurately in the near future.

 

[slaxton]

i love it. great idea, ive been saying it from the very beginning that civ4 needed more leaders. personally i say the more the better, no reason to leave out anyone. i couldnt understand why they didnt put in more leaders, or more civs for that matter (i read somewhere, one of the programmers said that they tested with more of each, as well as religions, and decided that it was best not to add more.... i think thats just an excuse to be lazy and not put in everything that would have made this game perfect from the beginning (instead, they decided to leave it up to the fans to perfect it for themselves by making it as modable as possible))

 

[Ad Hominem]

Very good idea. Suggestions for Greek leaders coming up:


Dionysios of Syracusae (famous leader of Syracusae)
Financial/Industrius
favors police state

Basil Bulgaroktonos (one of the greatest Byzantine emperors)
Aggressive/Creative
favors slavery

Alexios Komnenos (another great Byzantine)
Philosophical/Creative
favors hereditary rule

Eleftherios Venizelos (greatest modern Greek leader)
Expansive/Creative
favors nationhood

Since we had only ancient, tried to strike a balance.

 

[Llotyhy]

Themistocles will be added version 1.1. Dionysos of Syracusae in 1.2... but that's quite far from now... since I am quite busy with uni-work atm... in a week or so that'll be over though, and then I'll add a lot of leaders...

For the Greeks, I wasn't planning to add Byzantines because they're not really Greeks in my opinion. Neither are they Romans... just Byzantines.

 

[Llotyhy]

Niffweed, for your civic list:

Version 1.1 (sure to be added within the week)
Marcus Aurelius of Rome
Ogedei Khan of Mongol
Franco of Spain
Wu Zetian of China
Thutmose III of Egypt
Themistocles of Greece
Xerxes of Persia
Harun al-Rashid of Arabia
Tupac Inca Yupanqui of Inca
Ahuitzotl of Aztec
Charlemagne of France
Mansa Wali Keita of Mali
Minamoto no Yoritomo of Japan
Chandragupta of India

Version 1.2 (probably within two weeks)
Lenin of Russia
Charles de Gaulle of France
Ludwig II of Germany
Augustus of Rome
Timur of Mongol
Kangxi of China
Toyotomi Hideyoshi of Japan
Samudragupta of India
Cleopatra of Egypt
William I of England
Pelayo of Spain
James K. Polk of America
Al-Mansur of Arabia
Dionysios of Syracusae of Greece

Have fun... I'll completely copy what you'll decide, so go ahead! Thanks in advance!

 

[JDexter]

Nice mod idea, BUT Charlemagne was NOT French, he was from a german tribe (which founded the Franconian empire, not the French empire, big difference). The follow-up empire of which was the "Holy Roman Empire of German Nationality" (which is why Hitler called his empire the Third "Reich").
Also, Charlemagne's capital (btw his other name is "Karl der Große" = Carl the great) was Aachen - which is a German city even today (although Germany is much smaller than the Franconian Empire was).
There also is a region in Bavaria that is still called "Franken", because the Germanic tribe that lived around the Aachen-area settled there after some wandering around.

Please do NOT include him if it's French, that just hurts!

 

[Llotyhy]

Point is, both France and Germany claim their legacy to begin with Charlemagne... and, to be honest, both are correct in my opinion. However, one needs to make choices for a mod like this, and Charlemagne would (whatever his country) be a great addition. Germany has some interesting leaders to add (Hitler for example just had to be in) but for France it's difficult to even find a third that's interesting.

 

[Jecrell]

Even though James K. Polk seems like a pretty good idea -- he doesn't really fit in imo compared to other American leaders that people would be more likely to play. Such as Thomas Jefferson, Harry S. Truman, and Bill Clinton or George Bush Jr. (modern presidents).