Information Drought?

[Arachnofiend]

I would rather face Joan over Pocahontas any day. Frankly would be one of the top 3 worst leader choices in Civilization history

I'm curious to know what prevents her from being a shoe-in #1. I'm sure Shakala is one of the picks but who is your #2?

 

[Ikael]

The thing is, for all the focus that this gradual exposition is putting on new civs, we have al yet to see a big chunk of gameplay elements not related to them and that frankly, I am more interested in seeing:

- Reformation beliefs
- The new social policies
- Ideological tenets
- New regular units
- Reformed old civs a la France

 

[Dragonflow]

I'm curious to know what prevents her from being a shoe-in #1. I'm sure Shakala is one of the picks but who is your #2?

I would say that #2 is probably Amaterasu from Civ2.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I think the past couple have been at the end of the week because the mid-month landed on a weekend. I'm partial to thinking that Wednesday has the highest chance of success because it's the Ides of May.

The 15th of April was a Monday, though. If they wanted to release it bang on mid-month then why not then?

Still think it's going to be Friday (not that I won't be perfectly happy to see a new reveal today, tomorrow or Thursday...)

 

[wigwam]

All this whining about female leaders is ridiculous, and even worse is the phony piety of "it'd really be less sexist to have no female leaders at all."

Dido is probably the goofiest choice they've made for a female leader since Civ III (the less said about Civ II, the better), but she's not any stupider than Hiawatha, Ragnar Lodbrok, or Gilgamesh. How often do people complain about those three? By contrast, Maria, Wu Zetian, Theodora, and Jeanne d'Arc are all actually reasonable choices, not nearly as outrageous as people paint them. By the standards that people apply to these female rulers (was never actually head of state, never controlled the civilization's entire territory, didn't do anything "noteworthy," etc.), Bismarck, Gandhi, Kamehameha, Oda Nobunaga, Pacal, Pericles, "Smoke Jaguar," and every male Celtic ruler that's ever been in the series should also be criticized (and, to be fair, I know that some of those leader choices—especially Gandhi—have been roundly criticized, but not all of them have, and few have been criticized as loudly as the above-mentioned women).

Female leaders are an important part of women's history as a whole as well as the histories of their own countries, which too few people here seem to appreciate. Wu Zetian, for instance, may not even be one of the five greatest Chinese emperors (although, again, people here understate her importance and accomplishments), but she's the only women in the country's history to rule. She overcome more just to sit on the throne than most male rulers in most of the world ever experienced in their entire lifetimes.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I was very close to agreeing entirely with the above post until I saw Jeanne d'Arc's name mentioned. She should not ever have been a leader and I really hope they won't make this mistake again.

 

[wigwam]

I was very close to agreeing entirely with the above post until I saw Jeanne d'Arc's name mentioned. She should not ever have been a leader and I really hope they won't make this mistake again.

She's just as good (or bad, if you prefer) as any of the Celtic leaders we've gotten, and better than a fictional character like Ragnar, Gilgamesh, Hiawatha, or Dido.

I admit I wouldn't be happy to see her in Civ VI, but I don't think she's such an insane choice. She was a real person who really led French armies in battle and had a genuinely significant impact on the course of French history.

 

[alpha2117]

I was very close to agreeing entirely with the above post until I saw Jeanne d'Arc's name mentioned. She should not ever have been a leader and I really hope they won't make this mistake again.

This comes up again and again it needs to be debunked a little. People see the word leader and assume it's the Head of State but design wise they haven't done that Dido, Theodora, Gandhi, Hiawatha etc. Civ uses real world societies to base its purely fictional versions of those societies on. It's a What If World Builder and as such most anyone is a viable choice as a Leader. I agree in most cases a head of state would make sense but Winston Churchill was a Prime Minister not a head of state and nobody would complain if he was picked. If someone is a significant religious, cultural, revolutionary figure then they may be applicable. Jeanne d'Arc isn't a great choice for a French leader but she was a significant figure in their military and cultural history as well as a religious one - she certainly isn't a joke choice. People need to get over the idea that the person needs to be a head of state because it's not the way they do things - it's not the way they have ever done things and there's no use wasting energy arguing over something that you simply cant alter. If they want a teenage female general then they will pick a teenage female general.

With Italy likely to be coming in they have a lot of choices from the old city states and frankly they could choose a Pope or a Politician or a Duke or they could pick Leonardo Da Vinci - they might pick a post unification leader but who knows. The Leader is only ever designed to add flavor to the civ anyway - I'd think playing against Da Vinci might be kind of cool or a Borgia or a Medici or Mussolini.

 

[blackcatatonic]

She's just as good (or bad, if you prefer) as any of the Celtic leaders we've gotten, and better than a fictional character like Ragnar, Gilgamesh, Hiawatha, or Dido.

I admit I wouldn't be happy to see her in Civ VI, but I don't think she's such an insane choice. She was a real person who really led French armies in battle and had a genuinely significant impact on the course of French history.

This is the rub for me, though. I don't believe that someone who was at best nothing more than a military leader (and I still regard her as more of a galvanising figurehead than a true general) should be the leader of their Civilization. Bertrand du Guesclin was a great military leader, but he shouldn't be leader of the French either. Not to mention that Jeanne was all but forgotten by the French for several hundred years, until they decided to romanticise her, make her into a saint and a nationalistic symbol (you can't move for statues of her in every French city now, even after she was used for propaganda purposes by the Vichy Regime). Jeanne only got in because France has a really bad (read non-existent) history of allowing political leadership to women.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Gandhi probably shouldn't be leader either, but at least he was a political figure and a true spiritual leader of India. Jeanne can never claim to have been that. A lot of people thought she was bonkers at the time, and if she was such a great heroine, more effort would have been made to free her. Her achievements were more symbolic than substantial - it still took France over twenty years after her death to get rid of the English, and there's no telling that it wouldn't have managed it without her ever having been born.

ETA: To be honest, I have less of a problem with the likes of Dido, Gilgamesh and Hiawatha than I do with Jeanne - sure, they might not have been real, but they're important national leaders in the cultural history of their nations. And Theodora at least was Empress, if not the actual regnant.

 

[blackcatatonic]

On the subject of legendary or semi-legendary leaders: I wonder if we'll get Lady Trieu for Vietnam...

 

[wigwam]

Yeah, we both agree that Jeanne is a pretty weak choice, and one thing you didn't actually mention that I'm happy to volunteer is that with some of the other civs that have had weak leader choices (especially the Maya and Sumer), there just aren't a lot of good choices. Whereas France has a lot of great leaders to choose from, some of whom, like Henri IV and Louis XI, haven't ever been represented in the series.

I actually think Napoleon is pretty boring too, for what it's worth. He was a fascinating figure in real life, and arguably France's greatest leader ever, but in the game it's hard to tell him apart from Alexander. I'd love to see Henri IV in the next game, or even Louis XIV again.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Yeah, we both agree that Jeanne is a pretty weak choice, and one thing you didn't actually mention that I'm happy to volunteer is that with some of the other civs that have had weak leader choices (especially the Maya and Sumer), there just aren't a lot of good choices. Whereas France has a lot of great leaders to choose from, some of whom, like Henri IV and Louis XI, haven't ever been represented in the series.

I actually think Napoleon is pretty boring too, for what it's worth. He was a fascinating figure in real life, and arguably France's greatest leader ever, but in the game it's hard to tell him apart from Alexander. I'd love to see Henri IV in the next game, or even Louis XIV again.

Agreed. While in many ways, Napoleon is the obvious choice, I would have liked to have seen someone different. A medieval leader - Philippe-Auguste or Saint Louis would have been really cool. So that's the one thing I like about Jeanne as a leader, I guess

 

[LordProtector]

For me, enjoying the leader of a Civ has absolutely nothing to do with their weight in history, either within their nation or without, but everything to do with flavour, and personality, and contrast, (if those are different things).

A leader that's a minor player in history, but is counter-cast against it's uniques and general era setting, is really interesting to play as, and play against. Whereas a leader who is the father of a nation and spiritual leader to it's people (or mother, but TBH, rare), but is up against other leaders who fill the same criteria, and has an era specific unique set, is really boring to play.

I mean, I love having Dido in the game, and I'd much rather her than Hannibal; we have Genghis, we have Attila, and as you say we even have Alexander and Napoleon, how many more buff warrior leaders do we need?, they all traversed continents, sacked cities and were infamous for their cavalries. Fine achievements but diversity is sexier. The same for Gandhi really. We could have a modern spiritual leader, who urged his nation to develop in harmony, but then goes mad and throws nukes at barbarians, interesting, or we could have a rich, white, foreign, aristrocratic Viceroy, yawn, or a Mughal and yet another mounted war lord emperor, doubleplusyawn.

But it goes the other way too, I don't doubt the appropriateness of Katherine the Great for Russia, but in a game where we have Elizabeth, and Wu, another sexed up, ruthless, autocratic Queen is a bit boring.

Leader choices are never going to perfect across the board, but as long as there is enough diversity within them as an entire cast, even at the cost of 'getting it right', we'll have a highly playable game.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

She's just as good (or bad, if you prefer) as any of the Celtic leaders we've gotten, and better than a fictional character like Ragnar, Gilgamesh, Hiawatha, or Dido.

Fictional or not, playing as Gilgamesh in Civ IV was awesome.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I agree with LordProtector to a certain extent, although, as I've argued, 'weight in history'/actual leadership role are qualities that I do find important.

Your argument especially holds true in CiV, where the leader screens are things of beauty and you actually get to be immersed in a fully-rendered scene, rather than just having an animated cartoonish portrait making faces at you. Personality and flavour of leaders are more important in CiV than they've been with any previous Civ game. I think this is why the developers have made choices like Wu instead of Qin Shihuangdi (although her leader screen is kind of meh), Theodora instead of Justinian, Dido instead of Hannibal and so on - and I respect those choices. It might even explain why they went for Maria the Mad instead of Henry the Navigator or Joao II - having a completely mental queen might be kind of interesting...

I think it's also important to try and get a good balance of leaders and civilisations from different historical periods. Currently in BNW we have one Ancient leader, one Medieval, two late-Renaissance/Early Modern and one Modern. It'll be interesting to see how this balances out with the remaining Civs - I predict at least two more modern-ish leaders.

I do draw the line at people like Jeanne d'Arc and the hypothetical Leonardo da Vinci for Italy, though. These people made the kind of significant contribution to their civilisations' histories that is best reflected by making them Great People, not leaders.

 

[wigwam]

For me, enjoying the leader of a Civ has absolutely nothing to do with their weight in history, either within their nation or without, but everything to do with flavour, and personality, and contrast, (if those are different things).

[…]

Leader choices are never going to perfect across the board, but as long as there is enough diversity within them as an entire cast, even at the cost of 'getting it right', we'll have a highly playable game.

Ha, yes, you're quite right about all of that, and I should stress that none of the post-Civ II leader choices in the series has really bothered me; I was just holding up the fictional leaders as something more deserving of criticism than the inclusion of, say, an historically important, perfectly capable queen who happened to have the misfortune of going insane later in life. I do think the series is full of wasted opportunities, though.

If we're always going to have a Mongol Khan, Montezuma, Alexander, and a Roman Emperor (although wouldn't it be cool if we got a Roman leader from the Republic for once, somebody like Gaius Marius?), we don't need warmongers leading France, Germany, Japan, America, and Russia too. What about Louis XI, the cunning diplomat? Hermann, the proudly independent barbarian chieftain? The technology-and-reform-minded Meiji Emperor? Honest Abe? Famous beard-hater Peter the Great?

Gandhi's actually a bit of a bore in Civ V, I think (although I am always shocked when he invades me, no matter how many times it's happened now). He's usually a bit too much of a wallflower; I've rarely seen India last into the late game, and never as a major power. I'd actually be happy to see a Mughal—Akbar the Great could be tough and willing to fight, but concerned more with cultural pursuits, religious harmony, etc. (nothing to stop them from getting a little fanciful). I'd also love to see Margrete Valdemarsdatter get the nod for Denmark instead of yet another bloodthirsty Viking.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Can we get back to talking about how much information we aren't getting?

 

[blackcatatonic]

My rain dance must have worked, because it's raining buckets in England today... if only we could magically turn it into info-rain!

 

[Loaf Warden]

and better than a fictional character like Ragnar, Gilgamesh, Hiawatha, or Dido.

None of those are fictional. Many of their exploits clearly are, but as far as is known they were real people whose lives were embellished into legend, not made-up characters.