Which leaders would be offensive?

[paydro]

*shrug* he overextended and his empire collapsed. If Stalin lost we'd be calling him a failure. It was certainly under Hitler that Germany recovered from the Depression, rose to superpower status, and nearly succeeded in conquering Europe, basically alone. Certainly he was a great leader, even if he was an evil man. There's no real reason for him to not be in the game if Stalin and Mao are... except that there are already 2 German leaders and they don't really need a fourth. Plus Charismatic/Expansive is already taken (by Washington, of all people? He should really be Charismatic/Organized or something).

 

[szemek77]

There were some comments on Stalin which I thoroughly disagree.

Saved the Europe? C'mon.... If not Americans he wouldn't have ended his
march in Berlin, but in Rotterdam, Brest and Lisbon.... Europe truly would have
been saved, as Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Eastern Germany had. Lucky Austrians, escaped in last moment from the mouth of red dragon.

And it is really funny how people think that Hitler started the war, and Stalin was just a cruel leader.... On August 26th 1939 Hitler and Stalin signed a pact about Poland's division. Hitler attacked on September 1st, and Stalin just on 17th..... Besides USRR stormed Finland on November 30th... Stalin's idea was to let Western Europe fight for 2-3 years and then he was going to invade the whole Europe.

 

[IronCrown]

Hitler and Stalin were both very bad people... they were also critical and important historical figures and leaders of their nations,

Hitler ruled for a mere 12 years, and all he achieved was the destruction and death of millions of people, especially his OWN people (well, rather the people he ruled, after all he wasn't german). And he brought not only destruction, he also made his nation accursed and despised all over the world. People may admire cruel regimes for their military achievements or effectiveness, but Hitler and the Nazis are simply hated and despised for their extremely cowardly mass murders of their unarmed subjects. Except by some whackos, of course.

I wouldn't want to be represented in this game by such a man when there are so many german leaders in history that were so much better. Maybe if Germany had five leaders instead of two in the game.

Now the same is true for Stalin... I can't think of anything positive he achieved or anything new and brilliant he introduced. He even weakened his own army during war-time by murdering or deporting many high officers whom he in his insanity suspected of treason.

Though one might argue that Russia has a long and unbroken history of aggression and oppressive regimes that continues to this day. So picking dictators as their in-game representatives is only fitting.

 

[Jazzmail]

Alot of good points have been mentioned of why Stalin and Mao, but not Hitler.
I'd like to add one: consider the ideology behind those regimes.

Sure communism failed and the result was oppressive police states, but there is nothing at all positive to say about the nazis.
The proponents of communism atleast thought they did it to improve the lives of the common worker. In china, communism atleast elevated the position of women from worthless trash to fellow comrade.

There's a smidgeon of good intentions there that prolly contributes to Mao still being revered in China and Stalin appearing good in the books in Russia.

 

[IronCrown]

There's a smidgeon of good intentions there that prolly contributes to Mao still being revered in China and Stalin appearing good in the books in Russia.

Well, that has more to do with the fact that the regimes of Mao and Stalin were never overthrown, their heirs rule to this day. There was no "de-nazification", instead the 'glorious past' was (or still is) mystified and may not be publicly criticized.

 

[Airefuego]

how about this :

The reason Hitler isn't in the game is because he was no good as a leader.

I'm not talking about his popular following at the time, and let's put aside for a moment his ideology and what his opponents think of him. Put it in Civ terms. I'm talking about results for Germany here.

He took a fairly wrecked country and 12 years later he died and gave it back VASTLY worse off still! Sure, he had short term gains but he lost it all in 12 turns. In every measure - industrial capacity, economy, land area, number of germans alive... Germany was massively worse off in all of these by the time his reign finished. He also earned giant diplomatic negatives with nearly every other Civ on the planet and chased away a whole bunch of great people (Einstein?!?!). The only thing he did was discover a couple of techs (rocketry and whatever enables panzers).

So on that basis, he doesn't deserve to be in the game.

 

[dante alighieri]

You know, IronCrown, Jazzmail and Airefuego, we should take your last few posts, combine them and put them in a big fat flashing sticky at the top of this forum. Because too many people will always keep going on and on about how Hitler has been unfairly cut out of the game. Its like a freaking godwin's Law Groundhogs day.

 

[troytheface]

a few flaws in regard that reasoning- Montezuma was a horrible leader that lost an empire and as stated by others, "left the country worse off than before".
Boudica- loser- empire gone - Hannible- loser - empire gone,
Darius, (Marathon) who started the idea to invade Greece, and thus
started the beginning of the end- loser.
Napoleon- loser... ect.

 

[paydro]

Exactly, troytheface... if the Germand had won WWII, or even had simply stopped at a tenable point in their advances, Hitler would be in much the same place as Stalin: Cruel, horrible, but successful.

The 12 years argument is even worse, since Roosevelt only made it to 12, Lincoln 8, DeGaulle 13, Washington 8, etc.

IronCrown... Stalin achieved nothing? In 1917 Russia was incredibly backward, by 1945 it was one of two superpowers. Stalin's improvements to the Russian economy were enormous, far greater than a great deal of the leaders in Civ. His methods were terrible and brutal, but ultimately effective. His paranoia hurt the army's leadership, but without his industrial programs, they'd probably be more comparable to Poland than the United States or Germany.

 

[HerrDoktor]

It depends on who these leaders murdered. You get what I mean

And to be strict, Mao did not "murder" his people. He indirectly and unintentionally caused the death of his people because of his romanticized ideology and pathetic love for political conflicts. I always say the most dangerous people in the world are charismatic idealogues with ambition turning prominent politicians.

Well, HITLER was a charismatic idealist. Or can anyone here think he had gained all of his political success with statements in the line "I will kill everybody, Jews first, bring war, rape and destruction to the whole Planet, bwahahahaha!"? Actually, Hitler discoursed far more about Germany's glory and beauty, jumping to the "enemies" of such greatness - Jews, capitalists, and most of all, capitalistic Jews - just as when he gained his audience's romantic dreams. Obviously, he didn't appeared to be "evil" to his followers, instead he promised the ultimate good for the world, Germany first. Nothing different from the Commies.

 

[HerrDoktor]

Alot of good points have been mentioned of why Stalin and Mao, but not Hitler.
I'd like to add one: consider the ideology behind those regimes.

Sure communism failed and the result was oppressive police states, but there is nothing at all positive to say about the nazis.
The proponents of communism atleast thought they did it to improve the lives of the common worker. In china, communism atleast elevated the position of women from worthless trash to fellow comrade.

There's a smidgeon of good intentions there that prolly contributes to Mao still being revered in China and Stalin appearing good in the books in Russia.

No way! Nazis also had their promised land utopic "goodness" for the people, and were far-fetched populist "defenders of the small people". After all, the name of the party was "Germany National-Socialist Worker's Party". The case is far more simple: the Nazis lost the war and were put to trial, having all of their nastiness revealed. If Hitler had made peace in 1942 and his government continued just as "an opposing force to mainstream capitalism", I'm absolutely sure that there would be a whole bunch of Nazi-sympathizing professors in Stanford up to the date.

 

[Soduka]

I'll never understand people's willingness to argue over what digital representation of a person should be in a game. It's history, it happened and you'll have to deal with it. I hate Political Correctness and all things accompanying it. Every leader has a dark side just as every good person may not be so good when not in public view. Withholding game content because people don't agree with the choices is ridiculous.

I can bet good money that if we took every single person on this board and asked their opinion there would be some negative commentary for every single leader ever presented in the Civilization Franchise. I enjoy playing this game because for a few hours I can imagine I control a vast empire in real life and use that power to get what I want. Adding to the realism is the capability to be any leader you want in the world who has ever lived. Even moreso having "Evil" people in the game is always fun because when you meet them you have a determination to crush them and conquer everything they've ever built.

I consider it annoying and a waste of everyone's time when someone takes "Offense" to something.

"Boo hoo Hitler's in the game, let's go have protests about some crazy nazi while we don't realize there are several other people in history who committed far "Worse" crimes against humanity."

Ahh, I feel better. I'll go back to using the wonderful mods here to act out history.

 

[The Snug]

a few flaws in regard that reasoning- Montezuma was a horrible leader that lost an empire and as stated by others, "left the country worse off than before".
Boudica- loser- empire gone - Hannible- loser - empire gone,
Darius, (Marathon) who started the idea to invade Greece, and thus
started the beginning of the end- loser.
Napoleon- loser... ect.

Hmmm. Sounds like most of the "great" conquerors were, in the end, losers.

Napoleon's wars caused the starvation of 25% of Europe.
The economic policies of England and France caused 100 million people to starve in India, and an additional 100 million to starve in China (not to mention the mass drugging of the entire nation).
The elder Bush's war caused a million Iraqi's to starve and decimated a generation with birth defects brought on by DUP (depleted uranium used in the bombs that shelled Iraq).

Truly, for any leader to be remembered in history they must commit an atrocity worth remembering.

 

[Silence101]

Q: Which leaders would be offensive?
A: The leader declaring war is offensive.

 

[Rub'Rum]

I also have a hard time with the word "offending", I'm not sure I know how it feels to be offended, it's really some sort of social hysteria if you ask me. Plus, the figures we see in the game itself are basically caricatures, and every monster of history has already been caricatured anyway. I guess it's hard to put yourself in the mind of a German who would see his nation or bloodline in a popular game represented by Hitler, but again, to me, it's a caricature... Even the nation is caricatured and his summed up by a few vague traits, technologies, a unit, a building... Yeah... It's a game... For me, the more historical figures are in the game, the merrier.

 

[nimling]

nein! no more hitler!

(ahem... i thought we got de gaulle specifically to cheese off the "include hitler" crowd, by putting in a frenchman from the same era with a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_moustache"</a>toothbrush mustache</a>.)

 

[dante alighieri]

I'll never understand people's willingness to argue over what digital representation of a person should be in a game. It's history, it happened and you'll have to deal with it. I hate Political Correctness and all things accompanying it. Every leader has a dark side just as every good person may not be so good when not in public view. Withholding game content because people don't agree with the choices is ridiculous.

I can bet good money that if we took every single person on this board and asked their opinion there would be some negative commentary for every single leader ever presented in the Civilization Franchise. I enjoy playing this game because for a few hours I can imagine I control a vast empire in real life and use that power to get what I want. Adding to the realism is the capability to be any leader you want in the world who has ever lived. Even moreso having "Evil" people in the game is always fun because when you meet them you have a determination to crush them and conquer everything they've ever built.

I consider it annoying and a waste of everyone's time when someone takes "Offense" to something.

"Boo hoo Hitler's in the game, let's go have protests about some crazy nazi while we don't realize there are several other people in history who committed far "Worse" crimes against humanity."

Ahh, I feel better. I'll go back to using the wonderful mods here to act out history.

Glad you got that out of your system.

But you got it wrong, since Hitler isn't in the game its more like "Boo Hoo Hilter's not in the game. Lets make another in the 3 gazillion threads about it to complain.".

there fixed that for ya.

 

[Slip de Garcon]

I didn't call him the one of the most "evil" but one of the offensive leaders (a difference). And about Dresden, go and read about it. We all know about the crimes of the Germans, but we forget about the crimes against them. Where both fight, there will be crimes.

Something about Churchill's army liberating Holland from the Nazis obviously annoyed you....

Joking apart, if we excluded all the leaders who'd killed a fair few people, we'd be left with not many.

 

[Jazzmail]

No way! Nazis also had their promised land utopic "goodness" for the people, and were far-fetched populist "defenders of the small people". After all, the name of the party was "Germany National-Socialist Worker's Party".

The name NSDAP was intended to confuse people. The nazis weren't socialists.
The nazis did need the vote at the time to win the election when germany was still the Weimar republic. The name helped.

The nazis were capitalists, not out of any real conviction, but greedy people simply tend to gravitate towards capitalism.
Nazis had no problem with rich factory owners and self-enrichment, as long as they were white and nazi.
If you're strong enough to take it just take it, was pretty much the philosophy there. Noone could challenge the rule of the fuhrer and other top nazis ofcourse, but lower party members could sometimes get away with usurping lower officials if they had plenty supporters.

Even if every german was somehow supposed to gain from this, to do so deliberately at the expense of others, slavery and extermination, there is nothing good about that.

 

[neckface]

Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism dude, at least its an ethos.