Not sure the Germans count, they conquered most of Europe, except the parts that were allied or strictly neutral (Switzerland, Sweden) so its a wash. The Dutch sucessfully fought off the Imperial Spanish. Poland had problems with Prussia/Autria-Hungary and Russia including a number of partitions that wound up with it disappearing from the map for extended periods. We have lots of cultures in the game that disappeared, they may be the only one that came back from the dead. And there is a Polish pope, could he be the leaderhead? Great costumes avalable through the history of the papacy. Probably not, I don't think they use any living individual as leaders. Probably a rights problem. Also some dead people have heirs who restrict use of the image, you couldn't have a John Wayne or Marilyn Monroe leaderhead, unless you paid their estate, or whatever organization holds the rights. May be the reason the most modern western leader I can think of right now who is represented in the game is Lincoln, who died in 1865.
Some of the very creative leaderheads I have seen that involve living people, or ones who have died recently probably can't be used in a commercial game. Not at all clear on British law, but it probably would be difficult to get the rights to use Winston Churchill, or FDR. CIV 1 already used Stalin. And we have Mao as a leader and he died what, about 30 years ago? So ignore my thought about Lincoln. China probably does not have or doesn't enforce the same kind of rules about copyright for an individual's image.
Does anyone know more about what the legalities are using living or recently dead images in a commercial game? I've seen some Canadian leaderheads that used living persons, if you consider a politician a person.
.
