Old Civs, New Leaders

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Do you think diplomats and foreign ministers should also be candidates for Leaders?

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Do you think diplomats and foreign ministers should also be candidates for Leaders?

Maybe, then:
Klemens Von Metternich for Austria
Henry Kissinger for America
John Jay for America (Secretary of War, who cares)
Vittorio Orlando for Italy
Talleyrand for France

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Maybe, then:
Klemens Von Metternich for Austria
Henry Kissinger for America
John Jay for America (Secretary of War, who cares)
Vittorio Orlando for Italy

I was actually thinking Talleyrand for France

 

[Patine]

Henry Kissinger for America

As far as I'm concerned, adding him is just as bad as adding Hitler or Stalin, frankly.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

As far as I'm concerned, adding him is just as bad as adding Hitler or Stalin, frankly.

Oh, sorry. I didn't know what he did.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

I was actually thinking Talleyrand for France

I still gave you what you wanted, right?

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I still gave you what you wanted, right?

I don't know what you mean?

 

[Caesar of Bread]

I don't know what you mean?

You still got a list of diplomats, right?

 

[Phrozen]

Do you think diplomats and foreign ministers should also be candidates for Leaders?

If you want a meiji restoration era Japan you have to. Though in reality while Meiji was in charge and great at using the bully pulpit his position granted him, he was guided by his ministers.

 

[Patine]

Though in reality while Meiji was in charge and great at using the bully pulpit his position granted him, he was guided by his ministers.

He wasn't nearly unique among historical monarchs, for this though...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

How the heck have the Inca been around as a playable Civ without their most obvious leader???
View attachment 653677

Eh, I'd prefer Yzma.

I mean we already have Kronk, the best one, in game as Pachacuti.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Do you think diplomats and foreign ministers should also be candidates for Leaders?

Especially when they held great power in addition to or even instead of the purported Leader, like:
Shang Yang of Qin, China
Chanakya of Mauryan India
Alcuin of Charlemagne's court
Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Cordoba
Nizam al-Mulk of the SeljuqTurks
Gajah Mada of the Majapahits (who was a Leader in Civ V, I believe)
Tlacaelel of the Aztecs
Thomas Cromwell of England
Todar Mal of the Mughul Empire
Axel Gustaffson Oxiensterna of Sweden
Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu (of course!)
Gaspar de Guzman y Pimental, Count-Duke of Olivares of Spain
Benjamin Franklin of the United States
Tallyrand, Charles-Maurice de Tallyrand-Perigord of France
George Marshall of the United States - a far, far better choice than Kissinger, besides which Henry is still alive.

That's the short list, anyway . . .

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

For Aleksandr of the Neva (Nevskii) his most important title was Grand Prince of Vladimir, which meant he was the highest-ranking Russian puppet under the Mongol khans of the Golden Horde based at Sarai (near modern Volgograd) on the Volga. While he was a very good military leader against the Christian west, he was completely subservient to the Mongols. That means his capital could be either Novgorod or Vladimir, but it also means he could do nothing without looking over his shoulder towards Sarai or Karakorum.

A better choice, and like Ivan IV also not a Romanov, would be:
Dmitrii Ivanovich (Demetrius Ioannovich)Donskoi - Dmitry of the Don, Prince of Moscow and Grand Prince of Vladimir and a Saint of the Orthodox church.

There are three great 'field battles' in Russian military history, and Dmitrii won the first of them: Kulikovo Field against the Mongol Golden Horde in 1380. He was the first Prince of Moscow to openly defy the Mongols and get away with it, because after Kulikovo by the Don River the Mongols never came back, Moscow stopped paying tribute, and under Dmitrii the city state of Moscow became the first really independent Russian polity and his son became Prince of Moscow without consulting the Mongol khans.
He also started the building of the Moscow Kreml (kremlin) in stone (there had been a wooden fort there for at least 300 years already) as a fortress, which put a punctuation mark on the independence of Moscow and the Muscovites. If anybody 'founded' independent Russia, it was Dmitrii, not Alekandr.

I'd still slightly prefer Ivan IV for Russia, though - also a pre-Romanov and also with a claim to 'founding' Russia - he was the first Grand Prince or Prince of Moscow to also adopt the title of Tsar of Russia.

What are tributes Mongols (Including Kublai Khan of Yuan) extorted from Muscovy? is there any records of Muscovian concubine inside Yuan era Forbidden City?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Charles VII 'The Well Served' for France.
Again. that lil peasant girl would claim the King's glory for herself but without his approval (and some good administrations) France wouldn't be able to deny English Plantagenet claim to their Throne, nor could push off English army. In addition Charles VII DID somehow approved her.
UU would be Jean Bureau's Trunion cannons (the first definite 'Field Cannon' that the basic familiar shape is his thinking or what? but he definitely deployed it against John Talbot's host to the great success. his Fieldgun shape remains basically unchanged for Four Centuries until breech loader artillery with recoil mechanism finally devised in the final years of 19th Century.)

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Especially when they held great power in addition to or even instead of the purported Leader, like:
Shang Yang of Qin, China
Chanakya of Mauryan India
Alcuin of Charlemagne's court
Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Cordoba
Nizam al-Mulk of the SeljuqTurks
Gajah Mada of the Majapahits (who was a Leader in Civ V, I believe)
Tlacaelel of the Aztecs
Thomas Cromwell of England
Todar Mal of the Mughul Empire
Axel Gustaffson Oxiensterna of Sweden
Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal Richelieu (of course!)
Gaspar de Guzman y Pimental, Count-Duke of Olivares of Spain
Benjamin Franklin of the United States
Tallyrand, Charles-Maurice de Tallyrand-Perigord of France
George Marshall of the United States - a far, far better choice than Kissinger, besides which Henry is still alive.

That's the short list, anyway . . .

Oh, I should have added Oxiensterna and Thomas Cromwell (better make it sure it's not Oliver!) What about Klemens Von Metternich or Vittorio Orlando? Were they just presidents/prime ministers or did you have a reason?
I didn't know anything about Kissinger, sorry. What did he do?

 

[Zaarin]

I mean we already have Kronk, the best one, in game as Pachacuti.

Complete with the wrong lever for a staff. (Why do we even have that lever?)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Oh, I should have added Oxiensterna and Thomas Cromwell (better make it sure it's not Oliver!) What about Klemens Von Metternich or Vittorio Orlando? Were they just presidents/prime ministers or did you have a reason?
I didn't know anything about Kissinger, sorry. What did he do?

Metternich is controversial. On the one hand, he dominated European diplomacy from the Congress of Vienna for half a century, on the other hand, he was absolutely against anything resembling constitutional government or just about any other kind of political or social or civic reform that threatened Absolute Autocracy supported by "a strong army, a secret police, and a compliant bureaucracy". You can still get historians arguing about him and his policies, so including him in the game would require extreme care.
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando was Prime Minister of Italy, or the actual head of the government in addition to his stints as Foreign Minister, Minister of Education, and Minister of Justice. I'd rather leave him available as a Leader for modern Italy with far more talent than Bennie the Moose.
Kissinger, where to start. I served in the Vietnam War and afterwards in the US military, so I kept track of Henry K because his machinations directly affected my Life and its potential curtailment. I think the best summary is that he attempted to play 19th century Realpolitik in the late 20th century and he reacted to events instead of directing them. And, IMHO, he has been almost uniformly wrong in his characterization of diplomatic events and actions for the past 50 years. And finally, he is still alive which puts him outside of Civ's usual selection criteria for named people in the game.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What are tributes Mongols (Including Kublai Khan of Yuan) extorted from Muscovy? is there any records of Muscovian concubine inside Yuan era Forbidden City?

The Mongols never collected just a single Tax or Tribute, and the methods of collecting changed during the 200 or so years in which it was collected (mid-13th century to late 15th century). They started by appointing Russians to do the collecting, and did not collect directly from Russian princes or city states until late in the period, and the total amount gathered seems to have varied.
The best estimate I've seen, extrapolating from figures in Novgorod's tax burden, is that the Russian T'ma, or tax districts owed about 1.5 tons of silver or the equivalent in other goods (Novgorod, for instance, paid a part of the tax in furs) every year in the 13th century, rising to 2.5 - 3 tons of silver or equivalent by the late 14th century. They also had to provide recruits for the Mongol/Golden Horde armies, just like other provinces in the Mongol Empire, but there is NO evidence that they were required to provide any civilian slaves, concubines, or forced labor, contrary to later frenzied European accounts.
Ironically, the 'Mongol Tax' burden was considerably lighter than the extractions of the Russian princedoms and city states themselves during and after the 'Mongol Yoke' - or, for that matter, the tax percentage extracted from individuals in modern states - as near as can be determined, the Mongols extracted between 3 - 10%, which would be considered amazingly light today, since it included road, individual, and 'sales' taxes all combined.

 

[Caesar of Bread]

Kissinger, where to start. I served in the Vietnam War and afterwards in the US military, so I kept track of Henry K because his machinations directly affected my Life and its potential curtailment. I think the best summary is that he attempted to play 19th century Realpolitik in the late 20th century and he reacted to events instead of directing them. And, IMHO, he has been almost uniformly wrong in his characterization of diplomatic events and actions for the past 50 years. And finally, he is still alive which puts him outside of Civ's usual selection criteria for named people in the game.

I am really sorry for the pain you had to suffer in Vietnam. I didn't know that Kissinger was that bad. Please forgive me sir.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

Who would be good leaders for a classical Greek civilization, preferably those who haven't appeared before in the series?