Leucarum
Deity
- Joined
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- Messages
- 2,198
Not going to lie, I definitely misread the word "guy" in that sentence.Well, if Friedrich is to be “Hat Guy,” I see no reason why Xerxes shouldn’t be “Beard Man.”
Do the leaders look historically accurate?
- Thread starter Hellenism Salesman
- Start date
Hellenism Salesman
Emperor
Well I suppose that would still be accurate
Rizal should be shorter than a bunch of other leaders, it's funny seeing him standing next to Napoleon and they're the same height, which makes the myth that Napoleon is tiny hilarious.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
I've already posted elsewhere on some of this, but just to add:
ALL pictures of people before the photography age are suspect, especially of Rulers. All too often, they wanted their image 'touched up' and in many cases the touching was so heavy we have only the vaguest idea what they actually looked like. Augustus is the prime example: all the statues, likenesses of him show a very young man, even when they were made at the end of his reign, when he was in his 70s!
Frederick the Great is one of the few historical rulers that we actually have several 'realistic' portraits of, painted from life and showing him in his later years (1770 - 1783) BUT, and this is another part of the problem - he took the throne in 1740, when he was just 28 years old, and fought his first battle that same year - so if in game his face looks 'unlined', that's because he could legitimately be shown as a very young man in either of his in-game personas. Not Alexander the Great or Charles XII of Sweden young, but definitely younger than we expect in a modern 'ruler'.
ALL pictures of people before the photography age are suspect, especially of Rulers. All too often, they wanted their image 'touched up' and in many cases the touching was so heavy we have only the vaguest idea what they actually looked like. Augustus is the prime example: all the statues, likenesses of him show a very young man, even when they were made at the end of his reign, when he was in his 70s!
Frederick the Great is one of the few historical rulers that we actually have several 'realistic' portraits of, painted from life and showing him in his later years (1770 - 1783) BUT, and this is another part of the problem - he took the throne in 1740, when he was just 28 years old, and fought his first battle that same year - so if in game his face looks 'unlined', that's because he could legitimately be shown as a very young man in either of his in-game personas. Not Alexander the Great or Charles XII of Sweden young, but definitely younger than we expect in a modern 'ruler'.
untitledjuan
Prince
And José Rizal, who wrote all his famous books in Spanish, or Lafayette with an English line, which I bet he learned while in serving in the Continental Army.
For the vanilla Ashoka I've gone over his attire before so just a repost:
Of the leaders pertaining to East Asia:
I'm still a bit bummed by the plainly visible historical errors on this guy's attire.
I'll preface this by saying I'm not an expert on Maurya period India nor someone with a large body of knowledge specifically in Indic cultures, but that type of sword hilt in 200BCE seemed awfully out of place so I tried to research their fashion a bit and these were my observations:
- The sword handle being mid-late 1st milennium CE, rather than a Mauryan style.
You can glean what those might have looked like here, no basket hilts, no handles past the pommel, no ring pommel, etc... the features of his sword are very typically "Indian" but not Mauryan.
- The use of stitched trousers which were also not accessible to people living in India at the time.
Again, culture of stitched garments developed later and I would expect a dhoti or a variant thereof instead. If you look for historical statues of Mauryans, that's their garment of choice.
- His depictions on statues also don't feature belts and this one seems elaborate enough to be based on some real artifact... but I could only find notes about soldiers sometimes using Persian belts, and again I'm slightly hesitant to make the call but Achaemenids seem to have a different kind of belt design culture.
- The large bling necklace seems to match the Mauryan artworks.
Again, I could be wrong on any of these points but given the importance placed on the leaders, I would expect a more attention to historical detail. At least in places where it has no impact on the presentation... obviously a historically authentic Mauryan female will never get in a game like Civ since the culture lacked a taboo for bare female chests, but Ashoka here would still wear something pant-like and brandish a sword, just one that existed in his time.
Of the leaders pertaining to East Asia:
- Confucius:
Looks very well done, I believe 8housesofelixir already commented in detail on his appearance before as well.
- Vanilla Himiko:
Is also very well done, with caveats:
- Her overall dress looks like the higher-class dress from the later Yayoi period (the right pair here), though it freely takes on elements of later Kofun pieces. Shouldn't be a single-piece shirt, though.
- The floral patterns on her dress are not accurate, Yayoi clothing did not have anything that detailed and the argument it's a Chinese import works, but anything resembling that floral style does not fit the fashion of Han Dynasty. I think it's safe to argue inspiration with pre-modern Japanese fashion.
- Same with the patterns on her skirt, though I don't know if Han did patterns resembling that or not.
- The Han dynasty brozne mirror is a great detail for actual imports, though you wouldn't carry it in your hands to use like that
- Her hairstyle is more of a Yayoi/Kofun period stereotype that doesn't fit what we know of female hairstyles of the period.
- The all-golden crown is accurate to Kofun period, but the sun motif is modern and western in origin, though again accurate to her stereotypical depictions. Kofun crowns drew heavily on patterns seen in Korea.
- She's wearing geta... now shoes for the rice-fields did indeed get transferred to Japan by that point, but they weren't the modern geta shoes, rather they looked like this. And of course she's no rice farmer, IIRC non-farmers would include the modern ones into their fashion only during Edo period.
- Trung Trac:
Even "nuking it from orbit" wouldn't be enough, I'm afraid. She's running the same fictional image of the historical person as her predecessor in Civ 6, where donning French clothes et al was confirmed as intentional design by Firaxis, courtesy of their GDC talk. Having that in mind, I'll try to only point out things which clash with the historical nature of the game (past-WW2 things are NG), or which reference something historical but misinterpret it. Without further ado:
- Nguyen* Dynasty turban turned into a Russian wedding headdress (detail from ingame for comparison). Likely Russian influence on propagandist paintings seeping into her depictions in Vietnam.
- Nguyen* Dynasty straightsword was, for some reason, bent out of shape to have the appearance of a sabre.
- Her teeth should be dark black and lips a deep red color, both effects of betel chewing that spans all the way back into times contemporary to her. An understandable omission, but it is what it is.
- The mantle she's wearing is mistakenly drawing on Thai tradition. If you look at Nguyen Dynasty drawings you will see something that looks very similar, but it is in fact a decorative pattern not a separate article of clothing/armor outside of opera troupes' costumes.
- I can't really comment much on her dress as it doesn't ring any bells for me. If pushed, I'd say it's inspired by historical Ao Dai (before it got modified by Parisian fashion to be form-fitting, reveal the legs) but contains none of the details. The brown decorations on the skirt/wrists are likely there for game-aesthetic reasons (to avoid it looking too plain).
- Yes, she is indeed striking kung-fu poses with that sword.
- And finally, she's wearing modern flip-flops.
Barefoot would be the way to go historically. Or Ho Chi Minh sandals, as a neat reference? The way these hold the leg matches pre-modern sandals and although not popular, could have served as an alternative to modern dollar store footwear.
*Note that both the turbans and the straightsword are older than Nguyen Dynasty but they most likely used historical references from that era.
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Leyrann
Deity
Yessssss, teach me history, Civfanatics!
Hellenism Salesman
Emperor
Alright, bringing this thread back nearly a month later now that the full Crossroads of the World pack is upon us.
For starters, I've compiled the comments of @untitledjuan (an actual Colombian!) on Simon Bolivar's somewhat bizarre visual design. Here's the design for those of you who missed it:
For starters, I've compiled the comments of @untitledjuan (an actual Colombian!) on Simon Bolivar's somewhat bizarre visual design. Here's the design for those of you who missed it:
Hellenism Salesman
Emperor
Next up, I was curious if there are any comments to be made on Ada Lovelace's in-game appearance. It somewhat resembles a real-life photograph of her, minus the dress.
Hellenism Salesman
Emperor
And juuuuuust for good measure, I'm gonna tag @Paisley_Trees in case she has any comments to make about some leaders we haven't spoken on yet, or more architectural details for Civs!
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I wondered if Ada was based off of a actual photo.
Revolutionary Napoléon may as well be called First Consul Napoléon, as his outfit is a very good reconstruction of the red velvet civil uniform he adopted after taking power in the Coup d'État du 18 Brumaire
- Joined
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Napoléon may have had his faults but choice of clothing material was not one of them.
Hellenism Salesman
Emperor
Well, that one's spot-on!Revolutionary Napoléon may as well be called First Consul Napoléon, as his outfit is a very good reconstruction of the red velvet civil uniform he adopted after taking power in the Coup d'État du 18 Brumaire
And I think it's safe to say his other persona looks fairly accurate, seeing as it's based on his iconic outfit.
Willie5000
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2016
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- 185
I think Catherine’s appearance is based on her depiction in The Great more than on actual history. Civ VI did this sort of thing too.
Machiavelli is another story. Frankly he shouldn’t be in the game to begin with but this is amplified by the fact that Firaxis unironically went with pop-culture Machiavelli over what he actually believed and this is reflected in his dress…
Ada Lovelace is a bit too plain.
Augustus is described in some sources as being a bit of a scrawny teenager, the Prima Porta statue is deliberately idealized.
Hatshepsut should be wearing the fake beard that all the pariahs are usually depicted as wearing.
Pachacuti’s colors are just far out.
Machiavelli is another story. Frankly he shouldn’t be in the game to begin with but this is amplified by the fact that Firaxis unironically went with pop-culture Machiavelli over what he actually believed and this is reflected in his dress…
Ada Lovelace is a bit too plain.
Augustus is described in some sources as being a bit of a scrawny teenager, the Prima Porta statue is deliberately idealized.
Hatshepsut should be wearing the fake beard that all the pariahs are usually depicted as wearing.
Pachacuti’s colors are just far out.
untitledjuan
Prince
I know that YouTube or Instagram comments are far from representative of the general opinion, let alone the opinion of Civfanatics from this forum, but there seems to be A LOT of backlash on Simón Bolívar's First Look videos regarding his leader model. People, apparently from Latin American, seem to think that he doesn't look neither iconic nor recognisable enough. Some have even claimed that he looks like El Zorro and not like the actual Simón Bolívar we all know and "love".
Guandao
Rajah of Minyue, Hlai and Langkasuka
Seems like they went with a generic Hispanic/racially ambiguous look for Bolivar. Firaxis has had issues with portraying ethnicities correctly before, so it doesn't surprise me.
j51
Blue Star Cadet
Yeah it’s Philip II in VI all over again.
It’s wild when there’s documentation of what someone looked like and firaxis is just straight up like “nah:” Alexander in III and IV, Gustavus Adolphos in V, and of course Bolivar himself in Civ IV Col!
queenpea
Emperor
I think Bolivar looks great 
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