Should Stalin and/or Hitler be a leader in Civ?

[Willem]

It's a question of semantics really. When you're talking about death in the millions, I don't really see the distinction between genocide and general slaughter. Both are abhorently evil. Stalin would probably have been just as vilified as Hitler if he would have been defeated in a war against the allies, and his atrocities exposed. After all it's generally the victor that writes the history books, and since Stalin was on the winning side, his reputation is not nearly as tarnished as the guy who lost the war.

[Locutus]

Oh god, I can already see this going the same way as religion in the vanilla game...

This discussion was part of the Warlords announcement thread but taking it over. I moved it to a seperate thread. Feel free to continue to discuss the question in the topic here, but it has great potential for going off-topic, please don't let it or I'll have to close it.

[Willem]

Well in keeping with the new topic, I see no reason not to include Stalin in the game. He was a very important leader in Russia's history after all. However, in light of his atrocities, I see no reason not to include Hitler as well, if just for a historical scenario. I can't really see him in the regular game though.

[MPower]

Player1

As you can see I am Ukrainian, so forgive me if I tend to sympesize with them, but it was Stalin who took the food from the Ukrainians, therefore they starved. Ukraine was often called the "Bread Basket" of the SU, a famine is not a common thing there, trust me, I lived there for eleven years. Stalin would come just before the harvest and collected the crop. And talk about homiside. Stalin wanted all of the Christians dead (just like Hitler, they both wanted a race/religion to die). They even promised in the 1980s that they will show the lest Christian on TV, because of Stalin influence. Ironicly, exectly ten years later, the SU broke oppart.

No one masses with GOD.
Praise HIM.

sory for the long History lesson, and no hard feeling Player1, I love everyone, even Russians. LOL.

[MPower]

opps sory for getting of topic, I would realy like to see a WWI and WWII senerios in the game, therefore I completely Agree with Willem

Sory again

[Alexander I]

Stalin had his own anti-Semitic pogroms. He killed as many Jews as Hitler. Nobody helped the Russian Jews either.

[potoroo]

Originally posted by Alexander01
Stalin had his own anti-Semitic pogroms. He killed as many Jews as Hitler. Nobody helped the Russian Jews either.

Stalin's reputation wasn't affected by Western guilt over 2,000 years of state and religious sponsered anti-Semitism as Hitler's was. Maybe it should have been but it wasn't, which is why Hitler is the poster child for evil in the West and Stalin et al are not. Stalin was from Georgia, a place most people hadn't heard of, whereas Hitler was German (nee Austrian), from the land of Beethoven and Goethe, a powerhouse of European culture and therefore the German atrocities undermined the prevailing sense of Western European identity as Russian atrocities couldn't. Russians were *them* but Germans were *us* and *we* weren't supposed to be capable of such things.

Only *we* were.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Willem
...I see no reason not to include Hitler as well, if just for a historical scenario. I can't really see him in the regular game though.

Yeah, probably some kind of WWII European Theater scenario. I am wondering what kind of trait you can give him.

[Cartimandua]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Yeah, probably some kind of WWII European Theater scenario. I am wondering what kind of trait you can give him.

Definitely aggressive and expansionist.


I would love to see a WWII scenario, but it wouldn't feel right to have FDR, Churchill, and Stalin and no Hitler.

[One_more_turn]

Hitler and Stalin are ok in scenarios, but politically unacceptable to too many potential customers.

[potoroo]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Hitler and Stalin are ok in scenarios, but politically unacceptable to too many potential customers.

That's true but this thread does touch on an important moral point.

For example, Ghengis Khan's Mongols were so ruthless the Europeans of the time called them Tartars - literally, men from Hell. How is that playing as Ghengis Khan is acceptable but playing as Hitler isn't?

[Cartimandua]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Hitler and Stalin are ok in scenarios, but politically unacceptable to too many potential customers.

For those of you living in an alternate universe, this is a GAME. Politics shouldn't even be an issue in a game about world history. Every civilization has had its villians. Should we overlook them because the atrocities they have committed were not politically correct? Maybe we should eliminate the American civ for its attempt to eradicate Native Americans and their use of Africans as slaves?

History is history and rarely (if ever) is it politically correct.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by potoroo

That's true but this thread does touch on an important moral point.

For example, Ghengis Khan's Mongols were so ruthless the Europeans of the time called them Tartars - literally, men from Hell. How is that playing as Ghengis Khan is acceptable but playing as Hitler isn't?

See, this is the double standard that I'm talking about. Everybody's got their bad guy, their "dirty secret," but all the villains should be viewed as what they are. Genghis Khan wanted to depopulate all of northern China as a pasture for his horses until General Subotai convinced him otherwise, and no one had a problem with including him.

[Rommel2D]

CIV is a game produced in the core of Western Civilization and for the most part marketed within that culture. Stalin/Communism I think is largely viewed in the 'first world' as either dark comedy or tragedy- a form of entertainment. Hitler/fascism is a genuinely horrifying reflection of values held close to the core of Western Civlilzation. Dealing with those topics is a soul-searching journey few will take willingly.

As art or a cultural reference tool, Hitler somewhat belongs in it. As a commercial venture to generate revenue and to support a group of owners/employees, its unlikely to happen...

[armchairknight]

What I think is funny here is that we're naturally comparing Hitler to Stalin, but not comparing him to Napoleon. The little Emperor is, after all, actually in the game and so gives us a useful device to measure Hitler's 'value' within Civ. Right? Napoleon brought good and ill wherever he went, but much more ill (esp. as time went on). He was incredibly bloodthirsty. The damage he inflicted to France and much of Europe is undeniable and yet he is in the game. No one can argue that Napoleon could be considered as evil as Hitler, he wasn't, but it seems to me to merely be a difference of degree. I think it would've been a loss to the game if Napoleon wasn't included. The same does not seem to me to be true for Hitler. Why? Not because of Hitler himself, but because of our continued reaction to him. I don't think we would be having a thread like this being discussed like this if Charlemagne had been in the game in Napoleon's place. Just my opinion, of course. Great discussion!