Which leaders would be offensive?

[Crowqueen]

It will be a short explanation. His decision to Bomb Dresden, the bombing of dresden is a War Crime, which nobody has been prosecuted for and D-day sending thousands of young men in to death, only because the Russians where ending the war already.

I agree. BUT...

...Bomber Command was run by the bastard Harris, was responsible for Dresden. Seeing him try to justify it on the World At War was awful and having to see his statue outside LSE day-in, day-out for three years I wished the anti-capitalists would do something drastic to it rather than the cenotaph. I agree, Harris should have been on trial with the others at Nuremburg, but then so should Hitler and Stalin and they killed many more in a much more deliberate manner.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Cromwell is a general in the game, he just lead my Mongolian troops to Constantinople in a violent crushing of the Byzantine empire, oh yeah! People as pale as Justinian should not randomly declare on Kublai Khan.

As for my opinion of Hitler's abilities and achievements. I think his great skills were into the cunning and leadership he had to have to actually reach the chancellery and become a dictator. As soon as war started, his faults and lunacy quickly became evident and paired with some incredible stubbornness, could only lead to where it did.

 

[HerrDoktor]

I don't know if you consider me to be into the PI bandwagon. I'm definitely not satisfied with PC turning into the new Christianity, and confounding people by mixing in the same taboo structure some obviously evil stuff - as Hitler and Jim Crow laws - and some highly debatable topics as the fairness of capitalism, moral individualism, cigarette smoking and the human influence in Global Warming. That's because I'm a libertarian, in one way or another at the opposite field of both conservatives, liberals, communists and nazis.

So, as for Hitler, I'm not playing him, but I'm generally happy in placing my virtual hands in all of the German WWII hardware, as I do when playing flight sims as IL2 Sturmovik. But, now that's my point, I found it disturbing, a genuine PC historical falsification akin to Stalin's photo manipulations, that in the WWII scenarios Hitler is absent, while you have Mussolini, Gen. Tojo, nazi Sweden and all the rest of the scum.

 

[HerrDoktor]

I agree. BUT...

...Bomber Command was run by the bastard Harris, was responsible for Dresden. Seeing him try to justify it on the World At War was awful and having to see his statue outside LSE day-in, day-out for three years I wished the anti-capitalists would do something drastic to it rather than the cenotaph. I agree, Harris should have been on trial with the others at Nuremburg, but then so should Hitler and Stalin and they killed many more in a much more deliberate manner.

Don't be anachronistic, pals. The air doctrine of WWII was called terror bombing - yeah, terror, sic, this just damn name. It was used for everybody, starting with the Germans and Japanese. Generals believed that you could subdue a country by terrorizing their civilians until they eventually would overthrow their governments. Foolish and cruel as it looks, it worked on Hiroshima. But just because emperor Hirohito was not really excited about leading all of his country into a collective seppuku. Nuking Hitler would surely not have yielded the same result, unless that convinced his generals to kill him.

Terror bombing was perceived as fruitless and discontinued, but left an heir, the Assured Mutual Destruction policy. This time you may cheer, as you and me are all alive just because of it.

 

[Supr49er]

... Sitting Bull: The end of the Battle of Little Bighorn is probably comparable to the bombing of Dresden as a war crime...

I assume you're referring to the Native American belief/custom of depriving their enemies use of their limbs, ears, eyes, etc. in the afterlife by cutting them off their dead enemies after the fight. No women or children were killed by the Native Americans at Little Big Horn, but Custer began the battle by sending Major Reno to attack the Native encampment (with women and children).

The United States Army committed many atrocities against women and children in its Indian campaigns - see Sand Creek and Wounded Knee for just two examples.

I don't see how Little Big Horn compares to Dresden.

 

[Al Capwn]

History will always favor the victor and cast a dark shadow over the defeated. Take, for instance, Abrahm Lincoln.
I personally like Lincoln and think that he was a brilliant politician (could you imagine it if the current president chose to have his primary political opponent as his cabinet head???). However, if you had asked many of the american people during his presidency what they thought of his policies I believe you would get a much different impression. Lincoln took several liberites with the "Presidential Wartime Powers" in the constitution. The US constitution states that during a time of war the President is granted speacial wartime powers but nowhere does it define what these new wartime powers actually are (sarcasm - nice planning Jefferson). Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, had political opponents jailed and tried before military tribunal rather than a trial by jury of peers, put entire states under martial law (see Maryland), suspended the freedom of assembly, and did many, many things that would make modern americans stand in disbelief. The average american never hears about all of his not-so-democratic policies though, all they hear about is how he freed the slaves and reunited the country because the North won the war. Had the North lost, Lincoln would have been painted with a much less favorable brush.
My point is that all of history is biased on the side of victors and we rarely hear anything about the vanquished. The leaders in the game should be included if they made a major contribution to:
1) Their country
2) The world

I also agree that since almost all conceivable leaders are available through mods people who complain about X or Y not being in the game should just find them in the mods, play with them, and be happy.

 

[HerrDoktor]

And that's, Al Capwn, why Stalin and Mao are not taboo. They just didn't lose. See, all of Hitler's atrocities were detailedly scrutinized after the war, all were made very public, not by the books, but by television and movies, so all of the Average Joes in this Planet have an "informed" opinion on what a Nazi was (something remembering of their mothers-in-law, I suppose). Ask your plumber about Hitler. Now try asking him about Mao and Stalin.

 

[Crowqueen]

Don't be anachronistic, pals. The air doctrine of WWII was called terror bombing - yeah, terror, sic, this just damn name. It was used for everybody, starting with the Germans and Japanese. Generals believed that you could subdue a country by terrorizing their civilians until they eventually would overthrow their governments. Foolish and cruel as it looks, it worked on Hiroshima. But just because emperor Hirohito was not really excited about leading all of his country into a collective seppuku. Nuking Hitler would surely not have yielded the same result, unless that convinced his generals to kill him.

Terror bombing was perceived as fruitless and discontinued, but left an heir, the Assured Mutual Destruction policy. This time you may cheer, as you and me are all alive just because of it.

You're right, and in the context of Hiroshima, Coventry and the Baedecker raids, and other terrorist activities like the annihilation of Warsaw (greater % collateral damage than Hiroshima) and the final solution, Dresden adds just one more sorry tale to that whole hideous conflict. However it was strategically undesirable and it came at a time when the war was more or less won; Hiroshima and Nagasaki I would call the harbingers of MAD because they forced the Japanese into capitulating, were strategic targets (heavy industrial towns) and actually achieved something, namely the surrender of Japan when it realised that its battle for survival against the Americans was not going to be a long, drawn out war of attrition but a case of total devastation, and that Tokyo - and the Emperor - was next. It probably saved millions more lives than it took. You just can't say the same for Dresden which was sheer vindictiveness on the part of a victorious country with a rogue element at Bomber Command.

In the context of the whole war, Dresden is a little part, but it was unnecessary and of little strategic value so late in the war. That's why I asked my friends in the anti-capitalist movement (me, I'm Tory, but I do have friends who aren't ) to do something drastic to the statue. Unfortunately they weren't able to but hopefully if I ever get to be Prime Minister I'm having the thing taken down and melted for scrap. Harris was essentially a war criminal.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Out of curiosity, did Lincoln give the powers up when the war was done? Or is that one of the reasons he was killed?

Since I'm of the overall opinion that if things have come to a war, there's no longer any good guy, I can't really discuss the relative merits of wartime leaders.

 

[Guerra]

You know, to us Westerners, we could say "Sure, Gorbachov would be a good pick for Russia." But just because WE like him, doesn't mean the Russians do. The Russians consider Gorbachov a traitor. They freaking hate him. And you know what? Stalin was as horrible man, most of the western world agrees on this, and it's historical fact that he's to blame for tens of millions of deaths in Russia caused by starvation. But you know what? A lot of Russians love him. Love him a lot. Same with Mao, we hate him, sure there are some Chinese who hate him, but there are MANY people who love Mao. You have to pick leaders based on how their own people feel about them, not so much about how foreigners think of them. Our heroes could be their traitors.

Someone like Ayatollah Khomeni, well, that's iffy. Cyrus was the perfect pick for Persia, but they do need a 2nd leader. The problem is, do you pick someone beloved? Someone famous? Or someone with the biggest impact on their country? Xerxes? Darius? Certainly not the Shah, since he was a puppet, though.

and why mention Castro? The Americans hate Castro, and thats about it. To the Cuban people, Castro is so beloved you can't even imagine it. He rescued them from the American backed dictator Batista. Keep in mind that just because we love democracy and capitalism doesn't mean the rest of the world and other societies do. But anyways, Cuba is a country, a nation, but not so much a civilization, so not really appropriate to mention him.

And I think most of us agree Hitler would be a bad pick, since even his own people hate him. Plus, the Germans have enough leaders that unless you're playing a WWII mod/scenario, not worth adding. The game is Eurocentric enough as it is.

 

[paydro]

It's not really about whether the country "likes" the leader... heck, a lot of people in the US hate the fact that FDR drastically expanded the government during the 30's and 40's. A lot of leaders in Civ weren't beloved, or aren't especially well-regarded now. That's certainly not the standard that is, was, or ever should be used.

Bandobras: No, the suspension of habeus corpus was not part of Booth's reasoning. It only occurred along the border, where rioting and militia actions threatened the stability of the nation. To be honest, NOT doing it would have been extremely stupid and might have lost the war before it began.

Crowqueen: There are really three questions here... 1) Did Dresden have military value? (Yes) 2) Are attacks on civilians wrong? (Debatable) 3) Was an attack on Dresden necessary at that stage in the war (probably not).

In my opinion, conducting a bombing operation on a city when the war was almost over is not a war crime. Determining, years after the fact, that Hiroshima "worked" (it didn't, of course, because Nagasaki happened afterwards) and Dresden "didn't" is poor logic in my opinion. Dresden is not universally agreed to be a war crime, any more than Hiroshima or Tokyo are. Tokyo was really dramatically worse than Dresden, frankly, but I guess because the USSR didn't make a big deal out of it nobody cares.

One more quick note... Al Capwn, Jefferson did not write the Constitution, just the Declaration of Independence. Mostly it was James Madison who was responsible for the Constitution. Actually the President is not allowed any specific war powers by the constitution, only the right as "commander in chief" and to be reported to by military leadership. Congress is actually specifically permitted to suspend habeus corpus in times of insurrection.

 

[HerrDoktor]

You know, to us Westerners, we could say "Sure, Gorbachov would be a good pick for Russia." But just because WE like him, doesn't mean the Russians do. The Russians consider Gorbachov a traitor. They freaking hate him. And you know what? Stalin was as horrible man, most of the western world agrees on this, and it's historical fact that he's to blame for tens of millions of deaths in Russia caused by starvation. But you know what? A lot of Russians love him. Love him a lot. Same with Mao, we hate him, sure there are some Chinese who hate him, but there are MANY people who love Mao. You have to pick leaders based on how their own people feel about them, not so much about how foreigners think of them. Our heroes could be their traitors.

Someone like Ayatollah Khomeni, well, that's iffy. Cyrus was the perfect pick for Persia, but they do need a 2nd leader. The problem is, do you pick someone beloved? Someone famous? Or someone with the biggest impact on their country? Xerxes? Darius? Certainly not the Shah, since he was a puppet, though.

and why mention Castro? The Americans hate Castro, and thats about it. To the Cuban people, Castro is so beloved you can't even imagine it. He rescued them from the American backed dictator Batista. Keep in mind that just because we love democracy and capitalism doesn't mean the rest of the world and other societies do. But anyways, Cuba is a country, a nation, but not so much a civilization, so not really appropriate to mention him.

And I think most of us agree Hitler would be a bad pick, since even his own people hate him. Plus, the Germans have enough leaders that unless you're playing a WWII mod/scenario, not worth adding. The game is Eurocentric enough as it is.

HAHAHAHAHA... So Germans never, ever loved Hitler, and so never, ever, had the necessity to forbid someone to love him. Nevertheless, yo-ho, all Russians love Stalin and all Cubans love Castro. You know, that dissident thingie is just for us, Westeners (some of you would not consider me a blessed "Westener", a thinking person, if I told you which my country is). For the primitive, the ant-people, the all-agree people, there's no such thing as Freedom, a 100% western folly. In all of their wisdom, they decided for totalitarian dictatorship, and forced love to the Great Leader - at least that's what their polls say. And now, you know, we can call Churchill a dictator, but Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were 100% genuine cultural articles, mere byproducts of the local folklore, no ideas involved. Because they're ants, see, and any 3rd world or communist dictator has no thing such as selfishness, because, you know, all those peoples lack a self.

 

[HerrDoktor]

^^^^ IRONY WARNING.

 

[paydro]

Umm... okay... to me that response didn't make any sense in relation to Guerra's post. I don't think Guerra's right about how Civ has picked its leaders, or how it should pick its leaders. It's also silly to say that because the Germans regret Hitler that now he's a bad choice, or to say that Stalin and Mao are necessarily "popular" now.

But he doesn't claim that anyone likes to be oppressed, or even that there's unanimity about these leaders. That some people admired Mao or Stalin or Castro is really not debatable... the degree is, but he never suggested that those leaders are perfect or that 3rd world people are "ants."

 

[HerrDoktor]

What I'm telling you is that the reasons you would hate Hitler, Stalin, Castro or Mao are the exact same reasons a local dissident would have to hate them. But cultural relativism treats this as a "natural occurrence", an exotic "cultural phenomenon", except for Germany, which is not exotic, but a "brother", that is, a country worth of being judged by the same standards. I hate, I really hate to see cultural relativism being applied, for one big reason: as I live in such a "non-Western" country, this double standard makes people from, say, USA and France support all kind of populist criminals they would never, ever tolerate in their own countries. It's like there's no dissidence outside the "West", there's no critical thought. All non-Western peoples are almost implied as a bunch of walking androids with not but one collective conscience. They don't discuss ideas, they discuss folklore.

 

[HerrDoktor]

But let's cool down, I know the standard response from moderators when we start discussing politics. I"m offended by cultural relativism because I am part of such "protected" peoples, the ones you can't judge and by thus, you don't consider your moral equivalents. For me, that's just imperialist spirit dressed in cuddlier words.

 

[paydro]

Okay, I just didn't really think that was what Guerra was suggesting. I don't know how popular Castro is (or was, I suppose) in Cuba. Nor do I know how popular Ahmadinejad is in Iran. But he's a lot more popular there than here, and for rational reasons. I don't support Ahmadinejad, but if he were of enormous importance to Iran (which he's obviously not) he would make sense to be a leader of that Civ. I think that's all Guerra was saying.

 

[Rotty]

The Hitler ban is just one of those parochial things you have no hope of arguing. If the designers were Indian, Stalin would be the most objectionable leader.

 

[Jazzmail]

No-no... That's what the commies told everybody to avoid compromising comparisons regarding the collectivist, totalitarian ethos of both ideologies. And the commies were masters in this game of, in the words of Lenin, "blaming them of what yourself do".

Just how socialist or lack-thereof, national-socialism was, has been argued between respected historians. To blame this view on the commies, they'd have needed control over information flow in the West, which is rediculous.

German industrialists where conducted to the Nazis by their conservative naive leaders, who thought of the Nazis as least a menace than the communists. It was a question of the Nazis asking "your purse or your life" and the communists asking "your purse AND your life". But Hitler himself was in no way a capitalist, laissez-fare, classical liberal.

I never suggested Hitler was a liberal.

Capitalism just isn't anything special. The rare alternatives are state property and primitive tribal communities.

By "Jewish corruption", he meant capitalist consumerism and materialism - communism being the other face of the coin. By "socialism", he meant returning to Bismarck-era welfare state, and he really meant and did that with all sorts of welfare programs including collective task forces, and welfare payments to mothers and elders.

While welfare is a social measure, it is hardly a defining Socialist trait. All Western-european nations have some degree of welfare, but are still very much free-market capitistic.
The debate between left and right does include just how much welfare, but having no safety net at all, isn't even considered.

Even the extermination of the genetically diseased and mentally ill was to him a sort of "welfare program".

...nice... :-(

All of the German industries had to be conducted under the supervision of a NSDAP official. It was not capitalism, it was big-state mercantilism to say the least.

I'll grant it's definitely not free-market.

Anyway, a Socialist (in the definition I adhere to, atleast) is all about class stuggle. Racial struggle isn't it.
Welfare is something in the program of any moderate, the very wide spectrum of leftist and right-wing moderates.

I recommend you reading Hitler (1972) by Joachim Fest. Then you will understand what was Nazism all about, and why Hitler was a Wagnerian daydreamer turned into the World's top tyrant by a strike of luck, not the Devil incarnate since the beginning.

I'm going to try to read about Joachim Fest and his views first.

 

[The Snug]

There is another unique factor to Hitler's legacy (at least in America) that does not exist with any of the other leaders, and that is the persisting segment of Neo-Nazi's who view Hitler as a sort of prophet to their cause. We don't find any Bonapartists still clamoring for the return of Napoleon, and I am not aware of any group of Stalinist fans. There is no one calling for the return of Caesar (or the Csar). There is no militant faction of communists in America (there are some peaceful ones). But there does indeed exist an on-going, virulent and frightening Neo-Nazi movement whose verbiage calls for the completion of the final solution and for a sort of cleansing of the "dark" complexioned ppl within the US.

This sort of persistent fringe group seems rather unique, and is something that I believe Firaxis remains sensitive concerning. I can see why they would not wish to encourage such behavior in any fashion. It is not simply that the victims of the Third Reich are so fresh in our memories, but that there yet remain elements that still worship the tenets of the Third Reich and who still broadcast those evil machinations.

Certainly, if there existed large groups of Stalinists who clamored for continued starvation of the Ukraine, or if a segment of Maoists yearned to see millions more purged, then perhaps we might not see their inclusion within the civ game.

It should also be noted that Hitler's very name has been more fully linked to the personification of evil than any other name. Whether merited or not, within our conscious mind Hitler's name surpasses any other name in the history of the world.

Perhaps, if the world society created numerous movies concerning the evil exploits of other world leaders we might come to realize that Hitler should not stand alone atop the pedestal of evil--maybe even that he is not the gold medal winner for that event. But until that day when the world takes a true heartfelt ownership of the evil nature of warfare, our global cinema will continue to aggrandize conquerors. Vis-a-vis Bush in our present day.

In truth, almost all of the leaders of the civ game should not be immortalized in our memories; enshrined within our consciousness.

Perhaps, of all the civ leaders, only two should remain. Firstly, Gandhi, that saintly man who eschewed violence of any sort and thus never took part in its bloody conflicts. And, secondly, Asoka, who once having seen the brutal nature of warfare, repented from it, abdicated his throne and spent the remainder of his days preaching peace--becoming the last of his line to rule by the sword.

If we truly wish to become evolved persons, than we should seek out men such as these from within all of the present civilizations; subsequently extolling these virtues rather than the overriding unvirtue of the conqueror.