Which female leaders would you want for various civilizations?

Who remembers Civ 2's list of female leaders? I don't know many offhand except for Eleanor Roosevelt. It was pretty hilarious iirc.

Though if the U.S. did have a female leader it should be Woodrow Wilson's wife since she did actually seem to run the country after Woodrow Wilson's stroke. I could go with more recent ones, but let's not delve into modern politics shall we.
 
I do think VII can get away with depicting atrocity better now that (a) leaders are treated as entities separate from civs and (b) it seems we aren't getting any representation of current polities that might affect nationalist sentiment/strife.

By contrast, I think VI, the game which leaned the hardest on specifically modern national identities, had to be a lot choosier with its leaders and couldn't really afford to paint anyone in a bad light.
I'm not sure I understand the viewpoint you're exactly pushing here.

Now that civs don't need leaders and leaders don't need civs, Queen of Sheba actually could work in VII. If we call her Bilquis, I guess I could stomach her as a magnet leader for civs around that region. I just don't particularly care about Bible-mining for historical figures.
So, basically, disregard the source of the figure, and double down on bad pop culture tropes, pretending they're a superior choice? I don't at all agree with that.
 
Who remembers Civ 2's list of female leaders? I don't know many offhand except for Eleanor Roosevelt. It was pretty hilarious iirc.

Though if the U.S. did have a female leader it should be Woodrow Wilson's wife since she did actually seem to run the country after Woodrow Wilson's stroke. I could go with more recent ones, but let's not delve into modern politics shall we.
I remember them. I still play Civ2 (though almost exclusively custom mods and sceonarios over the vanilla game - which predominate, by far, like in the Civ3 community, as well).
 
I'm not sure I understand the viewpoint you're exactly pushing here.

More than any other game in the franchise, VI seemed quite deliberately trying to fit civs into modern nationalist pride, presumably to appeal to gamer markets they hadn't fully tapped into before. Including very large modern civs like Canada and Australia, choosing folk music for themes, and personifying the leaders as quirky yet still uniformly pleasant caricatures really pushed a sort of "celebration of the diversity of global heritage (and YOU, you gamer from...wherever" vibe, rather than the typical rote running down of big empires. I think things like the addition of Scotland, Vietnam, a very Belgian Gauls, selecting "personifications" of countries like Tamar and Tomyris, really solidify the notion that they were using modern national borders and mythos to guide the overall design.

So, naturally, if VI was a pleasant, Disneyfied party of modern nationalism, it had very little incentive to choose problematic leaders. Indeed, we didn't get many and most of the usual tyrants were completely avoided.

So, basically, disregard the source of the figure, and double down on bad pop culture tropes, pretending they're a superior choice? I don't at all agree with that.

I feel like you are being belligerent AND misreading me? I said I don't care for Biblical references (which aren't a great source), and implied that I think for that reason she would be a pop culture trope.

What I AM saying, is that in VII, "Ethiopia" (Aksum, Abyssinian, Empire, whatever) technically doesn't need any leader. Even if, imo, it probably deserves one and will likely get one for surviving in some form across all three eras.

But under VII's separation of leaders from civs, we could have a totally different leader representing a totally different civ or paradigm that is used to unite the region. The idea of an antiquity "Arabian peninsula" leader being used to coalesce civs like Aksum, Nabataea, Ajuran into a historical throughline is on the table, and it needn't necessarily come from any of them (ala the Zhou, Yamatai, and Hausa leaders already revealed).

For example, I am totally expecting things like Alexander without a Macedon civ, Maria Teresa without an Austrian civ, Simon Bolivar without a Gran Colombia civ. The figure's regional impact, particularly if it helps glue together some of these historical pathways, will be more important than giving each of them a civ (though some will have civs anyway).

And that of course opens the possibility of leaders, like Sheba-lady, who never really worked under the old concept of Civ because they didn't really have a strong concept of a civ to lead. All I am saying is that she is now technically an option. An option I don't really want, but I could see her sneaking in like Gilgabro did if the devs really wanted her to. If we wanted a female leader from that region, I think she compares favorably to Arwa (who could just be represented by a wonder), but honestly to my mind they should skip a female leader from that part of Arabia and just go with Zenobia over vague figures like Sheba or Semiramis.
 
Now that civs don't need leaders and leaders don't need civs, Queen of Sheba actually could work in VII. If we call her Bilquis, I guess I could stomach her as a magnet leader for civs around that region. I just don't particularly care about Bible-mining for historical figures.

I don't see why mining the Bible would be any worse than mining the Aeneid, Epic of Gilgamesh, or any other work written that long ago.
 
I don't see why mining the Bible would be any worse than mining the Aeneid, Epic of Gilgamesh, or any other work written that long ago.
1. It's just not great historicity for a game that is supposedly about history.
2. Western culture is too obsessed with treating the Bible as some sort of historical canon. I reflexively want to push back against it every time it comes up, even for more defensible historical figures.

Again, I would not be surprised if we saw the Queen of Sheba appear in VI. It would be somewhat consistent with things like Gilgamesh, Dido, Tomyris, and Kupe of the past (and somewhat Himiko now). But I still wouldn't like it much and wish Civ would just stop doing it.
 
1. It's just not great historicity for a game that is supposedly about history.

Again, I don't see how it's any worse than the Aeneid, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.

2. Western culture is too obsessed with treating the Bible as some sort of historical canon.

What?

I come across more people who consider the Bible to be complete fiction than people who consider it to be completely accurate.

It would be somewhat consistent with things like Gilgamesh, Dido,

Yes, it would be. Which is precisely why I compared it with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Aeneid in the first place.
 
Again, I don't see how it's any worse than the Aeneid, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.



What?

I come across more people who consider the Bible to be complete fiction than people who consider it to be completely accurate.



Yes, it would be. Which is precisely why I compared it with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Aeneid in the first place.
I live in a red state, the Bible is the unifying cultural fiction for a good chunk of America. Even if people don't totally believe every part, it is irritating how often they slide into Biblical references, analogies, assumptions that Biblical events actually happened.

Again, I own that it is my own personal triggerpoint involving my own culture's particular brand complacent ignorance. Every part of the world has their "Bible." This is me griping, I would like to be some rational basis but still totally just my personal irritation.
 
Perhaps the Bible belt in the US is not a good representation of Western Culture as a whole?
Perhaps not of western culture as a whole. It is, unfortunately, a very good representation of about half of the US. Not to mention, we aren't even including the major Catholic states in the west: Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Italy. I don't think it is wrong at all to categorize the west as mildly sheeply when it comes to Christian myth and superstition.
 
Perhaps not of western culture as a whole. It is, unfortunately, a very good representation of about half of the US. Not to mention, we aren't even including the major Catholic states in the west: Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Italy. I don't think it is wrong at all to categorize the west as mildly sheeply when it comes to Christian myth and superstition.

Not everyone who is Christian, nor even everyone who actively practices Christianity, considers the Bible to be a fully accurate historical document.
 
Not everyone who is Christian, nor even everyone who actively practices Christianity, considers the Bible to be a fully accurate historical document.
Many believe more of it than is reasonable. Plus, I think humans have an unconscious habit of slipping further into magical thinking. What a person may or may not believe when being rationally engaged with a thing is certainly subject to being overruled by superstition and heuristic when brains are tired or lazy.

More to the point, a lot of one's worldview is shaped simply by the knowledge one is exposed to. Whether a person fully or partially or barely believes in the Bible as fact, they can still be remarkably small-minded and irritating conversationally if they don't have many foundations, examples, analogues, logic, etc. outside of the Christian canon to pull from. It's that frustrating little twinge I get on a lot of message boards, like reddit, or here, where the odds are so high that one of the first ideas proposed in a think tank is propped up by Christian or Judaic exceptionalism.

Someone proposes Queen of Sheba because of course Biblical figures are at top of mind. Someone proposes Judea as a civ because of course that was such an influential kingdom pre-Christianity. Someone proposes some leader or civ because "they converted X to Christianity" (as if that's anything unique or even all that admirable).

It isn't just America, or my part of America, because I see it on forums like these all the time. It's unimaginative, it's small-minded, and it gets old running into constantly. They should just make their own Bible 4X game instead of proposing those ideas for Civ or more worldly ventures.
 
Last edited:
This is an odd thing to bring up in this thread. Other than the Queen of Sheba, how many of the leaders proposed in this thread are biblical? What fraction of the civs suggested in this forum are biblically inspired, or related to the spread of Christianity? Some I'm sure, but really not all that many. Yes, in an English language forum, things that are deeply rooted in English, American, or Western European culture tend to come up a bit more often than not - some degree of Eurocentrism is unavoidable from a pool of people coming predominantly from Europe (or from places dominated by European culture). But I'm simply not seeing the massive deluge of biblical reference / inspiration that you're suggesting. I think this might be a bugbear of yours because it is present in the narrow context of where you live, and this makes you be overly sensitive to it when it happens elsewhere, which leads to you greatly overestimating its actual frequency.

And I think you and others might just be desensitized to it, as many people who grew up in Christian cultures and/or are "practicing" Christians are. Again, I did acknowledge that this was just a personal gripe, and also know that this sort of line of attack--calling out dumb, rote Christian mythos--gets a lot of people super defensive online. Which, in my opinion, is their own personal bugbears for personally identifying so much with the fairy stories of less enlightened times.

Two sides to it, I don't really care to keep defending myself. Mythological figures in historical games are kind of stupid and pander to lazy minds; the Bible deserves no exceptions.
 
and also know that this sort of line of attack--calling out dumb, rote Christian mythos--gets a lot of people super defensive online.

Or perhaps, the issue is that insulting people (or their beliefs) and being derogatory towards ideas and concepts is just not appreciated.
 
he issue is that insulting people (or their beliefs) and being derogatory towards ideas and concepts is just not appreciated.
Moderator Action: Indeed, we discourage that here as well, we have OT if you want a robust discussion on these things but these are the gaming forums so please get back to the topic on hand --NZ
 
Maria Skłodowska-Curie for Poland
Lesia Ukrainka for Ukraine
Grace O'Mailley for Ireland
Kosem Sultan for Ottomans (to be fair she would borderline qualify for a regular leader position ;) )

In general I really want to see some Muslim female leader

Maria Skłodowska for Poland would be glorious; not only she is one of the most famous and celebrated people (not just women) in our history, she was also massive Polish patriot and pro-independence activist

Lakshmibai would be fantastic for India - anticolonial rebel Indian warrior queen, who was also personally strong fan of wrestling, so many stereotypes broken at once :love: I really hope she will get here instead of Gandhi as modern Indian leader, I get it we got pacifist India many times (also late Ashoka got pacifist anyway), I want hot tempered Indian tiger (tigress?) for once
 
I agree. I would love to have one, but as I said... who would it be? There's no single notable character.

Oh right, some people mentioned Michiel de Ruyter, I just remembered. He could maybe work, but to be honest he might be a bit too niche.

Oh, I can think of a very high profile Dutch leader, and I'm not sure if he would be very well received.

Peter Stuyvesant.

(Personally, I would prefer De Ruyter or De Witt :-) )
 
Oh, I can think of a very high profile Dutch leader, and I'm not sure if he would be very well received.

Peter Stuyvesant.

(Personally, I would prefer De Ruyter or De Witt :) )

I don't think he's that high profile. New Amsterdam wasn't exactly the primary priority of the Dutch colonies. If it weren't for Civ 4: Colonization, I don't think I'd ever even have heard of him.

Lakshmibai would be fantastic for India - anticolonial rebel Indian warrior queen, who was also personally strong fan of wrestling, so many stereotypes broken at once :love:

I was about to object that too many stereotypes broken isn't a good thing either, then I realized that this is an issue in stories, not in the real world. (when writing a story, you want to avoid a stereotype-breaking woman being read as "look at how hard I'm trying to break stereotypes" or "oops I don't have a notable female character, guess I'll last-second change a guy into a girl")
 
More than any other game in the franchise, VI seemed quite deliberately trying to fit civs into modern nationalist pride, presumably to appeal to gamer markets they hadn't fully tapped into before. Including very large modern civs like Canada and Australia, choosing folk music for themes, and personifying the leaders as quirky yet still uniformly pleasant caricatures really pushed a sort of "celebration of the diversity of global heritage (and YOU, you gamer from...wherever" vibe, rather than the typical rote running down of big empires. I think things like the addition of Scotland, Vietnam, a very Belgian Gauls, selecting "personifications" of countries like Tamar and Tomyris, really solidify the notion that they were using modern national borders and mythos to guide the overall design.
The portrayals of Canada, Australia, and Scotland were based on goofy stereotypes, not Nationalistic pride. As a Canadian with Scottish heritage on my Mother's side, they were cringeworthy, not pride-inducing.

I feel like you are being belligerent AND misreading me?
Please, no false and baseless accusations.

said I don't care for Biblical references (which aren't a great source)
The figure is from the Bible, whether accurate historically or not, even in her Ethiopian portrayal. I was merely correcting the reference name in someone else's list.
 
Oh, I can think of a very high profile Dutch leader, and I'm not sure if he would be very well received.

Peter Stuyvesant.

(Personally, I would prefer De Ruyter or De Witt :) )
Wasn't he the default explorer for the Dutch in the original version of Colonization?
 
What about that Dutch Prime Minister who got eaten by his own people? Johan something.
 
Top Bottom