William of Orange

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Why did they use William of Orange as the Dutch leader, when he is more famous as the king of Britain and Ireland from 1689-1702? Yes, I know that he was originally Dutch, but it would be like using Hitler as the leader of Austria. William the Silent (great-grandfather of William of Orange) would have been a better choice, IMHO.


William of Orange


William the Silent

Screen Shot 2024-02-20 at 2.10.55 AM.png

Civ 3's William - clearly William of Orange, even though they straightened both his hair and his nose, looks far more like William of Orange than like William the Silent, even his clothes look inspired by the painting of William of Orange.

Were they originally planning to use this leaderhead for Early Modern England in some scenario that got scrapped early in development?
 

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I am very much confused by this thread.

Willem van Oranje is Willem de Zwijger is William of Orange is William the Silent, i.e. this guy: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_Oranje
He is the leader of the Netherlands in both Civilization III and Civilization IV.

If only one leader could be chosen to represent the Netherlands, I think every single Dutch person would choose this one.
 
According to Wiki, the later William was also known as William of Orange (at least in the English-speaking world).

I guess the Firaxians just used a portrait of the wrong William, when they designed their leaderhead...
 
The Firaxis Civ 3 leaderhead shows Jan de Witt. :)


... and here is a CCM leaderhead of William of Orange:

WilliamofOrange.gif
 
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I am very much confused by this thread.

Willem van Oranje is Willem de Zwijger is William of Orange is William the Silent, i.e. this guy: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_Oranje
He is the leader of the Netherlands in both Civilization III and Civilization IV.

If only one leader could be chosen to represent the Netherlands, I think every single Dutch person would choose this one.
In English, "William of Orange" usually means his great-grandson, William II & III, who invaded Britain and Ireland in 1688.
The Firaxis Civ 3 leaderhead shows Jan de Witt. :)

I don't think it's Johan de Wit. I think it's William II & III, aka William of Orange. All the pictures of Johan de Wit that I found had him with a mustache, and none of them have him wearing a suit of metal armor with a handkerchief, whereas there are two paintings of William of Orange dressed like that on Wikipedia, and no pictures of him with a mustache. The most likely explanation is that Firaxis looked up "William of Orange" when designing the leaderhead, found this image, and based the leaderhead on it.
 
There exist several prominent pictures of Johan de Wit, showing him with no or nearly no mustache and it is a fact that he is expressively named by Firaxis in the civilopedia entry.

Temporaly attached:

Johan De Witt.jpg
 
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