Suggestion: historically accurate great people

[Úmarth]

It's always a bit jarring when you get Robert E. Lee born in medieval Germany or Aristotle in ancient China. In vanilla Firaxis made some effort to sync them up by ordering them chronologically, but RFC, being more tightly scripted, could do it much better. So my idea is to generate lists of great people categorised by civilization and by year, which with a bit of python magic Rhye could then add to the game so that the right people are born in roughly the right place at roughly the right time.

So, for example, here's a stab at England:

GREAT ARTISTS
Medieval
Wace
Geoffrey Chaucer
Thomas of Britain
William Langland
Thomas Malory

Renaissance
William Shakespeare
John Milton
Edmund Spenser
Thomas Nashe

Industrial
Charles Dickens
Oscar Wilde
Lewis Carroll
Rudyard Kipling
Alfred Tennyson
Robert Louise Stephenson
H. G. Wells
Edward Elgar
W. S. Gilbert
Arthur Sullivan

Modern
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
Mick Jagger
Keith Richards
Virginia Woolf
George Orwell
JRR Tolkien
Seamas Heaney
Roald Dahl
Douglas Adams



GREAT SCIENTISTS
Medieval
Bede
Thomas Aquinas
Anselm of Canterbury

Renaissance
Isaac Newton
Francis Bacon
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke
David Hume
John Dalton
Edward Gibbon
Joseph Priestley

Industrial
Charles Darwin
Charles Lyell
Thomas Malthus
Alfred Russel Wallace
James Clerk Maxwell
Jeremy Bentham
John Herschel

Modern
Ernest Rutherford (NZ, but where else would he go?)
Bertrand Russell
W. D. Hamilton
Stephen Hawkings



GREAT MERCHANTS
Medieval
I'm at a loss here.

Renaissance
Walter Raleigh
Adam Smith
James Cook
Thomas Roe
Anthony Jenkinson

Industrial
John Stuart Mill
Cecil Rhodes

Modern
John Maynard Keynes
John Cohen
Richard Branson



GREAT ENGINEERS
Medieval
????

Renaissance
Christopher Wren
Thomas Newcomen
James Watt

Industrial
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Charles Babbage
Charles Barry
John Rennie

Modern
Tim Berners Lee
Frank Whittle



GREAT GENERALS
Medieval
William the Conqueror
Richard the Lionheart
Edward Longshanks

Renaissance
Francis Drake
Oliver Cromwell
Robert Clive

Industrial
Horatio Nelson
Arthur Wellesley

Modern
Bernard Montgomery
T. E. Lawrence




Great Spies and Great Prophets pose problems. The former by definition didn't have their names written down. Great Prophets perhaps would be better being tied to religions than civilizations.

 

[JiimBV]

Isn't it Richard the Lionhearted? Ahh well. I like the idea. Including tying Prophets to religion.

We could categorize them into Europe, America, New World, Asia, Middle East/Africa and Mediterranean. As Mali, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Babylon, Khmer and Ethiopia seem hard to me, on their own. As groups it would be easier. And all the great people from Italian City-States would otherwise be no more.

Also, what about Prophets born into pagan or free religion nations?

 

[BurnEmDown]

Well there are plenty of those from history, I'm sure there are more than enough if you look at Greek or ancient Egyptian history, perhaps some from Babylon and Persia (For example Zoroaster just popped in my mind).

 

[Panopticon]

Most of the name-work is already done in a modcomp for BTS that's already out there.

 

[Cashie]

I would love to see it, but it's going to be tough getting them in.
Especially prophets and civs that aren't written about much.
Carthaginian Artists or Aztec Merchants, anyone?

A cute though impractical idea I had at one point was "Great Athletes" as a parallel to Great Artists.
Imagine: "Johnny Wilkinson has been born in Oosaka," "Carl Lewis has been born in Moskva"

 

[Deego3]

The only question I have is will Einstein be German or American?

 

[Leoreth]

I can't say how much I'd LOVE to see this in the game. It's the only aspect where RFC is needlessly ahistoric. And as Panopticon has already pointed out, there is already a BtS mod that does exactly this - so it only would have to be incorporated into the game

The only question I have is will Einstein be German or American?

There are two viable solutions:
1.) Start a bloody flame war to battle it out
2.) Simply give him to both civs. Firaxis has already done it with Joan of Arc in regards to Prophet vs. General.

 

[BurnEmDown]

I think Einstein should be American, after all he helped them more in the end

 

[civ_king]

The only question I have is will Einstein be German or American?

After one of them tried to kill him which country did he find refuge in?

 

[Panopticon]

Einstein = Swiss. Simple really

 

[Leoreth]

It seems we have settled for option 1

 

[fattythefat]

Niels Bohr and Tycho Brahe (great scientists) and H. C. Andersen (artist) for vikings... But what about great prophets?
Nuraldin (cant remember spelling) as a great warlord for Arabia.

 

[Leoreth]

Niels Henrik Abel (scientist) or Alfred Nobel (engineer) also come to mind. Prophets are difficult ... but there should be important missionaries during the Christianization or important persons from the Protestant reformation.

 

[fattythefat]

Brother Bartolemeo (prophet) for Inca or Spain... He abolished Incaslavery

 

[Leoreth]

Spain more likely ... according to Rhye's interpretation, Inca and Aztecs share no continuity with Peru or Mexico (unless vassalized), so them spawning great persons with Spanish names wouldn't fit in.

 

[daniel192]

Richard Feynman (scientist;modern) for America.
George Orwell (artist;modern) for English.

EDIT: George Orwell was English, not American. My bad.

 

[Úmarth]

George Orwell was English.

 

[fattythefat]

N. F. S. Grundtvig for vikings(DK) (GA) industrial