What leaders would YOU choose?

What type of leaders would you pick?

  • Deserving leaders only

    Votes: 83 49.1%
  • Mix of deserving and famous leaders

    Votes: 86 50.9%

  • Total voters
    169

alexman

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Question: If you were put in charge of picking the leaders to be included in a future Civilization game, would you pick purely historic figures that "deserve" to be in the game, or would you pick a mix of historic figures AND other famous leaders, even if those leaders were not really in charge of an empire in real history?

Examples of deserving leaders: All leaders currently in Civ4, Gilgamesh of Sumeria, Justinian I of the Byzantine Empire, Pacal the Great of the Maya, Willem van Oranje of the Netherlands, Charlemagne of the Holy Roman Empire, Hammurabi of Babylon, Zara Yakob of Ethiopia, John II of Portugal, Suryavarman II of Khmer, Darius of Persia, Pericles of Greece, Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottomans, Tuthmosis III of Egypt, Harun al-Rashid of Arabia, Abraham Lincoln of the Americans, Alara of Nubia.

Examples of famous but not necessarily deserving leaders: Joan of Arc of France, Sitting Bull of the Sioux, Geronimo of the Apache, William Wallace of Scotland, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Fidel Castro, Nelson Mandela, Queen Hippolyte of the Amazons, King Arthur.

Edit: To put it another way: would you choose an obscure but deserving leader (e.g. Zara Yakob of Ethiopia) over someone famous who was not really a leader of an empire (e.g William Wallace of Scotland)?
 
Deserving leaders only. Many famous leaders are either:

A. Way too recent (Reagan, Clinton, Mandela)
B. Pretty much mythological with little verified history of them (King Arthur)
 
Why exactly is Gilgamesh a deserving leader? He wasn't even real.

While maybe not your choices, I'd pick a mix of the two. For example, Hannibal never led anything besides an army (Carthage was very different from Rome in that they had a seperation between government and generals). Although he certainly had influence, political leaders often abandoned him and chose to send troops to Sicily or Spain instead. But, as far as Carthage goes, you won't find a better choice for a leader, since he's the only one anyone has ever heard of.

I think deserving leaders would be a priority, followed by famous people who did at least influence the government (even if they didn't rule it), and semi-mythological people should be last on the list.
 
I would pick a mix as well. I would like to see America ran by Ben Franklin. Or maybe Thomas Jefferson as well. I always like having Joan of Arc as a leader for France also. I don't like "A" because who is to say who deserves a spot in the game? I think Joan, Ben, and Thomas all deserve a spot while others may disagree. Not like civ is all that accurate anyways.
 
I think it would be fun to have the option of mixing up leaders with civs. The reason I don't play certain civs is their leader traits just don't work for me. But I would like to play each civ and try their UU and just have fun with the variety. So why not an option to have, say, Gandhi as the leader of the Inca? You'd get a completely different set of leader traits with that civ, but keep your early UU.
Just as an option. I really can't see it being too hard to write into the game.
 
Since this is a fictional history game I would mix it up. Personally I do not like Washington as a leader choice. He was the first. Was he the most influencial? I would go with Ben on that one. But then there was Abe, the man that made this country ("Merca"), I say it as our current president does, and the waves that he made are still rolling.

It would be fun though to include some Literary people; they have made the masses sit up and think. A great person can become a great leader. Unfortunately in our history it usually does not happen.

Marquis de Sade? (sick but smart, and really did understand the people)
Charles Dickens
Feodor Dostoevsky or Tolstoy...hell even Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
Mark Twain
Franz Kafka
Ayn Rand (pick your country!)

Please give me a Asian influence on this!

Just do not mention that "person" that somehow managed to get a book out of his @$$!
 
Why not both? How difficult is it to create the artwork for the leaderheads, anyway? Why not just load Civ up with dozens of them, and make everyone happy?

Seriously, I'd pay $10-$20 for a leaderhead pack that did nothing but add a few dozen leaders.
 
JFK..No, sadly died before he could reform anything.

*; that was the one!

Lenin: Yes, but what about Ivan?

Trudeau; had to do a quick search but obviously a major playor in the politacal scene. Sorry us mercans are igno'ant!
 
:lol: Another thread that MAY bring back the old Hitler debate....

But why not while we're here go for controversal leaders as well!!!!

Like Pol pot, Pinochet, Kim jung* (well the north korean one), Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ben, George, Dick, Mussolini, Hitler, Caligula, Neron, Attila, Alexander VI (pope), Ceasar Borgia, Vlad the impaler!!!!
 
Another thread that MAY bring back the old Hitler debate....:mad: :mad:

And I had hand in it (my fault)....................................................................................................................Please NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo.

(bastard! that has got to be the 7th time I got sucked!)
 
TylerDurdon said:
:lol: Another thread that MAY bring back the old Hitler debate....
I knew that would come up.

I think revolutionaries should be included. I would love to see obscure but that's just me. I personally take a lot of joy over being introduced to a topic through the civilopedia that I never would have researched, ever, ie anything that's obscure enough not to really hear anything about. I have spent weeks researching things I first read about in Civ. I can see why obscure might not go over well with people who aren't history nerds like I am, but I would love obscure as long as it isn't a fictional figure.

I could see JFK being in. Anyone alive when he was assassinated (and some who weren't) consider him to be one of the best Presidents we ever had. And he facilitated a resolution to the Cuban missle crisis, the event that brought the world closer to a nuclear war than ever before as well as afterwards (thus far).
 
alexman said:
Harun al-Rashid of Arabia

Oh god, YES! :love: That would be the day!

I voted deserving only. I would have prefered a mix of deserving and famous, but I don't much care for many of your examples. Now, Sitting Bull, Geronimo and William Wallace, that would be something, though!

But if all the leaders currently in the game are examples of deserving leaders, I'll stick to my vote.

Louis XXIV said:
For example, Hannibal never led anything besides an army (Carthage was very different from Rome in that they had a seperation between government and generals).

Not entirely true. Hannibal actually became a statesman after his campaign in Rome. As I understand it he actually had quite an impact on the balance of power between the Carthagenian "branches of government". Of course, he was never really the leader of Carthage as such.

Louis XXIV said:
Why exactly is Gilgamesh a deserving leader? He wasn't even real.

Again not entirely true, but good point. While historians mostly agree that the main character of the Gilgamesh epic has some distant root in a historical king, there are as good as no sources as to his actual acomplishments. The same thing goes for Ragnar-filthy-Lodbrok.
 
I'd rather not see the leaders be people who weren't actually leaders. That's what the great people are for. Famous revolutionaries are a possibility, but it might be more appropriate to have them as barbarian civs once somebody mods a good civil war possibility.
 
Joan d'Arc, Ben Franklin, Charles Dickens as leaders? What preposterous suggestions. Leaders should be leaders - or if not leaders people with huge historical significance who had a say in the government (but i feel that even this is a little silly too). To include someone like Dickens or Joan of Arc, instead of Hitler or Lenin is ridiculous. Some people may find it quirky and fun to play against Benjamin Franklin or Joan or Arc in a Civ game, but personally it ruins the immersion factor for me and just gets on my nerves in the end. Save it for the mods i say, and include real leaders.
 
I voted deserving only. If we stick with having only a leader or two for every civ in the game it wouldn't make much sense to me to throw in non-leaders as leaders. I would change my vote if, as FranklinNoble suggested, a great many 'extra' leaders were included in the game. I would love it, too, if they were!
 
I say Mix because it really doesn't matter to me. When I'm not playing Random, I'm choosing a leader because of their Traits/UUs. You could Pepe Le Pew instead of Napoleon and I'd still play him.

Of course, I do miss my dear sweet Civ3 Joan :love: :sad:
 
I voted mixed- maybe each civ could have two leaders; one who's most deserving, and one who's best known. There are already some leaders in cIV who shouldn't technically be included. Gandhi, although he was one of history's most influential figures (and just about the only influential historical figure who never killed anybody) was never the ruler of India. And Victoria had no more actual power than the queen does today.

I don't think there should be a Canada civ (I know we suck), but if there was, Trudeau would be the man! Charismatic and Philosophical- I would gladly march to my death for him... only he was such a great guy, he would never ask me to do that!

Baru said:
Just do not mention that "person" that somehow managed to get a book out of his @$$!

Is that "person" big Billy Clinton? Just guessing that you're not his biggest fan, because you quoted George W. earlier in your post.
 
george_manet said:
And Victoria had no more actual power than the queen does today.

[offtopic] While she didn't have power, Victoria had a heckuva lot more influence than the modern monarchs. She actually interacted with the PM, not to mention the fact that she ended up being related to pretty much every monarch in Europe.

I would say Gandhi falls under the "influential" leader heading as well. Maybe we need a 3rd category for this discussion?
 
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