Was Wu Zetian's inclusion in Civ 5 suppose to be controversial?

[LiamX]

I know this is kind of late but Wu Zetian is perhaps one of the worst if not the worst leader pick in Civ 5.
China is less amazing because she's the one leading it. Not mighty Chinese emperors like Tang Taizong and Han Wudi. Then when you look at other civs, they have among the best of their leaders: Rome - Augustus Caesar. Inca - Pachacuti. Japan - Nobunaga. And so on..

Not saying about her AI or the abilities they've given her but as a history geek, she's insignificant compared to the many much more competent Chinese Emperors. I can list at least 8 who are better than her.

Now I know she's the only female emperor of China but that really isn't a valid reason for me. You're a great leader because you've done something amazing for your nation, not what you are. Meritocracy in other word.

So, as the question goes, Was Wu's inclusion suppose to be controversial like Seondeok's in Civ 6?
If not, why is she there over Tang Taizong, Han Wudi, Yongle Emperor, Kangxi Emperor, Liu Bang, Wen of Sui, Qin Shi Huang, etc etc

 

[Equilin]

Because significance is not the only thing they care about when choosing leaders, especially for major civs like China. For minor civs, one-shot civs and such it will be one of their known significant leader, but for major civs who has lots of candidates Firaxis will try to get diversity in every aspect up, mostly gender diversity (to appeal to the normies).

 

[Volcanon]

It would have been fun if they had multiple Chinese emperors. Having just one is like having Ceasar count for all of Europe.

The Qin emperor would be the legalist ultra warmonger. The treasure ships guy would be the hopeful, exploratory Chinese emperor. Any of the Qing emperors would be isolationist. That sort of thing.

 

[LiamX]

Because significance is not the only thing they care about when choosing leaders, especially for major civs like China. For minor civs, one-shot civs and such it will be one of their known significant leader, but for major civs who has lots of candidates Firaxis will try to get diversity in every aspect up, mostly gender diversity (to appeal to the normies).

Hmm. I don't get where they get this gender diversity = good sales. Civ 4 is one of the best games Civ has ever had and we know how many male-female ratio there was. Plus there has been plenty of games with no gender diversity at all and are the most successful. I'm looking at you Total War.
So gender diversity and appeal to normies doesn't really go together at all in my opinion.

 

[Equilin]

Hmm. I don't get where they get this gender diversity = good sales. Civ 4 is one of the best games Civ has ever had and we know how many male-female ratio there was. Plus there has been plenty of games with no gender diversity at all and are the most successful. I'm looking at you Total War.
So gender diversity and appeal to normies doesn't really go together at all in my opinion.

Sorry if i wasn't being clear enough. By normies i mean the media, which tends to nitpick everything and whatever the media says can have an impact on the game. It can also means people who never knew Civ in any form before and can easily misunderstand by some trivial point.
Civ4 is one of the best games, by what standard? If it's CFC standard then it's not relevant in the picture of Firaxis. I never looked at the statistics so how is the sales between each iteration in comparison to each other? I heard Civ5 make quite a lot and it's considered bad here so......
Also it's not just games with gender diversity, it's "game representing the entire history of human civilizations with gender diversity". If the ratio is too low there will be random feminist group ranting about it on the media and as i said, it can have quite an impact. In Civ4 times i believe these movements don't really pick on it, but by 2010 it was different.
How is TW the most successful? They are good but i don't think "most successful".

For an example, let's say 3 civ iterations have China with just the usual male emperors, then there will be a critic saying "Are the devs trying to overshadow women's role in history?" then boom, damage done. Firaxis wouldn't want such a thing to happen even if the real damage is minor, better be safe.

 

[LiamX]

Sorry if i wasn't being clear enough. By normies i mean the media, which tends to nitpick everything and whatever the media says can have an impact on the game. It can also means people who never knew Civ in any form before and can easily misunderstand by some trivial point.
Civ4 is one of the best games, by what standard? If it's CFC standard then it's not relevant in the picture of Firaxis. I never looked at the statistics so how is the sales between each iteration in comparison to each other? I heard Civ5 make quite a lot and it's considered bad here so......
Also it's not just games with gender diversity, it's "game representing the entire history of human civilizations with gender diversity". If the ratio is too low there will be random feminist group ranting about it on the media and as i said, it can have quite an impact. In Civ4 times i believe these movements don't really pick on it, but by 2010 it was different.
How is TW the most successful? They are good but i don't think "most successful".

For an example, let's say 3 civ iterations have China with just the usual male emperors, then there will be a critic saying "Are the devs trying to overshadow women's role in history?" then boom, damage done. Firaxis wouldn't want such a thing to happen even if the real damage is minor, better be safe.

Yeah, I kinda agree with you on the media. It's really sad what they've come to these days. Putting personal political stuffs over real unbias news. Sad most companies have to give to their whims. That's why we needed movements like Gamergate. I would fully support Gamergate now if they were to revive.

As for sales. hmm, Civ 4 made 3 million while Civ 5 made 1.69 million. Civ 3 had 2 million. The civ iteration that had the most "gender diversity" Civ 2 made the least with 1 million copies.
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/43507/sid-meiers-civilization-v/Global/ - for Civ 5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games - for the other 3

Lastly, if we're going by representing the history of the human civilizations then there should be much more men than women than what's shown in civ 5 / civ 6. In many civilizations, there's only like 1, 2 or 3 female leaders in its history compared to the many male leaders. China for one, since we are talking about China, only had 1 female Empress in its entirety of its history and China began in like 2100BC if we count the Xia Dynasty.

 

[Equilin]

Lastly, if we're going by representing the history of the human civilizations then there should be much more men than women than what's shown in civ 5 / civ 6. In many civilizations, there's only like 1, 2 or 3 female leaders in its history compared to the many male leaders. China for one, since we are talking about China, only had 1 female Empress in its entirety of its history and China began in like 2100BC if we count the Xia Dynasty.

Kinda agree with you (also btw afaik most sources will cite Shang as the first dynasty in Chinese history since (I assumed) the first writing is from that period).

The leaders (as I heard somewhere in this forum) are picked from interesting period of that civ. And when a woman stepped to the throne (or equal counterparts) that period will (most of the time) become interesting for that civ's history, then devs exaggregate "interesting" to include more female leaders on that basis. Some works fine (Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth of England, Catherine of Russia) but others don't, sadly.

 

[SLGray]

Do you believe everyone in the world would say Augustus Caesar was the best leader to pick. No you would not. they tried to pick a diverse group of leaders in the civs. For example: Alexander the Great. He was not even Greek. He was Macedonian. He conquered the Greek city-states. Do you think they believe he was the greatest ruler. The leaders they picked can be looked at as good, bad, or who cares. They should add the ability to have different rulers in one game. Like dynasties.

P.S. For England, I would have picked Victoria. Reasons: longest reign, rules over a large area of the world, tried to help her subjects including the Irish, created a family connection between many royal families, etc.

 

[LiamX]

^ I think diversity is already filled up when we're talking about civ. I mean we have Asian civs, European civs, African civs and so on..
So choosing the best leaders and have them as all-male for example would still make the game diverse. In fact, it's way more interesting than what they did.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

That's why we needed movements like Gamergate. I would fully support Gamergate now if they were to revive.

So you would fully support harassing and sending death threats to random women a mob of man-children deemed a threat to their feeble gamer feelings?

I honestly wish in Civ7 literally every single leader were a women just so it would piss people like you off.

Previous iterations of Civ had Mao and Stalin as leaders and nobody bat an eye until fascists came crawling out of the woodwork again and started to whine about why their boy Hitler wasn't available as well a few years ago. (Mandate of) Heaven forbid a civ that has been in every game of the series so far and will continue to be in every installment of the series in the future is led by the one female emperor it had a single time in-between constant re-appearances of Mao and Qin Shi Huang!

Also:

You're a great leader because you've done something amazing for your nation, not what you are. Meritocracy in other word.

Meritocracy, lol. You do realize that China has for most of its history been a dynastic monarchy? Matter of fact, most civilizations all over the world were. Most civilizations, including China, have also been patriarchies for most of history. Rising to the top of a society that usually treats people of your gender as sub-human scum is an achievement by itself I'd say. Theodora of Byzantium is a similar example. To my knowledge the Hongwu Emperor is the only other Chinese Emperor with a comparable rise from the absolute bottom success story.

The real problem with Civ5 (well, one of many problems, but the one most relevant to this specific issue) is having only a single leaderhead per civ to begin with instead of several you can choose from.

 

[miaasma]

i really did just read the phrase "that's why we needed movements like gamergate" in the year 2018

truly, harassing women online and making them cancel public appearances out of fear for their own safety is a shining example of modern day martyrdom

wu zetian's inclusion is not controversial. nobody, except for deluded bigots like you, cares

 

[Volcanon]

There's a number of rags-to-empire stories in Chinese history, not just the Hongwu emperor. Mao and most of the top leadership of the PRC weren't exactly nobility, if you want a recent example. The same can be said for the ROC's leadership (1905 to 1949/present). Without bothering to confirm anything I believe the Han and Ming were both started by people of fairly middling social status. Probably quite a few more, especially people who started dynasties and people who were in charge during inter-dynastic periods.

 

[Morningcalm]

Wu, like Hatshepsut, was a rarity--a powerful and successful ruler who happened to be an ambitious woman. For this, both were criticized by men later in history. Wu was, however, not without significant military and domestic accomplishments, so while she may not be China's so-called "greatest", her inclusion hasn't seemed as controversial as say, Catherine de Medici's inclusion in Civ VI.

Mountain out of a molehill if you ask me.

And I sincerely doubt it was intended to be controversial. Firaxis has kowtowed to China in many ways from IV through VI, and upsetting such a major country's playerbase cannot have been the plan. Same with Seondeok, a capable ruler who some Korean men with inferiority complex issues saw as an affront.

 

[LiamX]

i really did just read the phrase "that's why we needed movements like gamergate" in the year 2018

truly, harassing women online and making them cancel public appearances out of fear for their own safety is a shining example of modern day martyrdom

wu zetian's inclusion is not controversial. nobody, except for deluded bigots like you, cares

I haven't heard of Gamergate harassing women but even if they did, men get harassed too all the time. Why should we give women special treatment? That's the true definition of misogyny right there, thinking women are weak and can't handle a simple harassment in the internet like men can.
Yeah, with corrupt journalists and SJWs infecting our games, I stand by my ground, we NEED the likes of Gamergate.

@Morningcalm
Wu was ok. Not too bad, just ok. If she was in a country with not so many strong leaders, her inclusion wouldn't have been a problem. However, she was a leader of China. I can name at least 10 Emperors who are far better than her. None of which with the exception of Qin Shi Huang was included and she was chosen instead.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Are you fifteen years old?

 

[miaasma]

I haven't heard of Gamergate harassing women but even if they did, men get harassed too all the time. Why should we give women special treatment? That's the true definition of misogyny right there, thinking women are weak and can't handle a simple harassment in the internet like men can.
Yeah, with corrupt journalists and SJWs infecting our games, I stand by my ground, we NEED the likes of Gamergate.

i have to admit this response surpassed all possible expectations i could have had

 

[LiamX]

Are you fifteen years old?

Being close-minded with opposing opinions without leaving a logical response and went down to name-calling. I'm older than 15 but I know a lot of 15 year-olds who are more mature than you. In fact I know of a 6 year old who is better than you.

Anyway, back on topic. Yeah, Wu Zetian definitely didn't deserve to lead China since there were several others who were much better than her and the gap is that big. What can you say about that?

 

[beetle]

No, none of the leader picks are “suppose to be controversial” as the main reason they are included. I am sure Firaxis appreciated the free publicity from the discussion (and speculation, when a new version is due to be released), but picking poor leaders just for the controversy would be counter-productive.

What can you say about that?

I say that it is great that the devs went out of their way to pick as many female leaders as they could, and it is all the better that they could do so with civs that have a history of misogyny. I say it is a feature when the devs picked historical figures that western players are not familiar with.

...since there were several others who were much better than her...

You are missing the point that the leaders selected (1) are all legitimate, (2) that they do not have to be “the best” to be picked, and actually (3) being a little obscure is a feature.

 

[LiamX]

No, none of the leader picks are “suppose to be controversial” as the main reason they are included. I am sure Firaxis appreciated the free publicity from the discussion (and speculation, when a new version is due to be released), but picking poor leaders just for the controversy would be counter-productive.
I say that it is great that the devs went out of their way to pick as many female leaders as they could, and it is all the better that they could do so with civs that have a history of misogyny. I say it is a feature when the devs picked historical figures that western players are not familiar with.
You are missing the point that the leaders selected (1) are all legitimate, (2) that they do not have to be “the best” to be picked, and actually (3) being a little obscure is a feature.

Yup, you confirmed it. Wu Zetian was picked ONLY for her gender and nothing else.
And also, again, she's not just not one of the best, she is miles behind. If they were looking for someone obscure, they had a lot to choose from and all of which were far more competent and /or interesting than her. It's China. There's a lot of great emperors there. They shouldn't have picked China to be sacrificed to the feminists.

 

[leif erikson]

Yup, you confirmed it. Wu Zetian was picked ONLY for her gender and nothing else.
And also, again, she's not just not one of the best, she is miles behind. If they were looking for someone obscure, they had a lot to choose from and all of which were far more competent and /or interesting than her. It's China. There's a lot of great emperors there. They shouldn't have picked China to be sacrificed to the feminists.

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