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

[Sebastian88]

Why is everybody so worked up about this? This thread is getting huge!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zoid
I wouldn´t mind playing as Hitler. He´s just another historical figure as far as I care. I´ll be as happy to grind the enemy to dust under my SS Panzers as any other...

There are two distinct groups:

1. People who either play Hitler or don't care if he's in the game

2. People who are dead set against Hitler being in the game

It really don't matter how many are in the first group, it matters how big the second group is.

Well theoretically there's a third:

3. People who must have Hitler in the game

I don't think this group matters in the least, at any rate.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are two distinct groups:

1. People who either play Hitler or don't care if he's in the game

2. People who are dead set against Hitler being in the game

It really don't matter how many are in the first group, it matters how big the second group is.

Well theoretically there's a third:

3. People who must have Hitler in the game

I don't think this group matters in the least, at any rate.

I suppose that's true. I wouldn't mind having him in the game, but if enough people would be offended, they wouldn't put him in.

[Rook]

Originally posted by Alexander01

P.S. My Avatar is currently Nebuchadnezzar, who was a bloodthirsty conquering tyrant. I just noticed this. Why is it that I'm not offended by his atrocities (Jerusalem-burning, etc.) but am offended by Hitler's?

The farther something is in the past, the less shocking and horrific it becomes. It shouldn't be that way, but it just is. Just 100 years ago after WWI everyone said "Never Again." but just a generation later, we were ready to throw are young men into the meat grinder again. I think people like Hitler and Nebuchadnezzar stop actually being humans and they become villians in a book about history.

Hitler is just too recent to forget and Stalin's crimes are less known by the average person. As far as Nebuchadnezzar goes, the average person doesn't even know who he is.

[greenday_234]

Personally I'd like to have Hitler and Stalin in the game so that I might roll over them with my massive armies

Honestly I don't mind having them in. They were, as horrific and terrible as they were, important pieces of history that must never be forgotten. So I say include them, and then we can all have fun destroying them in every game, our own virtual payback.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by greenday_234
Personally I'd like to have Hitler and Stalin in the game so that I might roll over them with my massive armies

Honestly I don't mind having them in. They were, as horrific and terrible as they were, important pieces of history that must never be forgotten. So I say include them, and then we can all have fun destroying them in every game, our own virtual payback.

Yes, Civ is about what might have been, rather than utterly abject fantasy.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


There are two distinct groups:

1. People who either play Hitler or don't care if he's in the game

2. People who are dead set against Hitler being in the game

It really don't matter how many are in the first group, it matters how big the second group is.

Well theoretically there's a third:

3. People who must have Hitler in the game

I don't think this group matters in the least, at any rate.

Well, the number 2 group is quite a lot bigger than the number 1 group and I´m pretty sure there´s noone here who really belongs to the number 3 group

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Zoid


Well, the number 2 group is quite a lot bigger than the number 1 group and I´m pretty sure there´s noone here who really belongs to the number 3 group

Probably true enough.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zoid
Well, the number 2 group is quite a lot bigger than the number 1 group and I´m pretty sure there´s noone here who really belongs to the number 3 group

Yeah, I don't think there that many skinheads and neo-Nazis who play the game.

[Son of David]

The problem here is what Jared Taylor once called the problem of good intentions. The people that will object to a cartoony depiction of Hitler in a PC game played mostly by intelligent (and probably also mostly liberal) persons will be those middle class, rich young people who have taken sociology and media studies degrees and who believe that uneducated plebs (i.e. anyone without a sociology degree) is not to be trusted with such things and it is therefore necessary for these valiant sociologists to protect us ignorant savages from the danger of our own impulses.

I bet most Jews don't care whether Hitler gets depicted or not. I sure don't! (Since there is not a WWII scenario in 'Warlords' I am no longer so bothered about it.)

[conmcb25]

Nope they should not.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by greenday_234
Personally I'd like to have Hitler and Stalin in the game so that I might roll over them with my massive armies

Honestly I don't mind having them in. They were, as horrific and terrible as they were, important pieces of history that must never be forgotten. So I say include them, and then we can all have fun destroying them in every game, our own virtual payback.

I have fun destroying Tokugawa in every game and he wasn't really that bad a leader!

Originally posted by Son of David

The problem here is what Jared Taylor once called the problem of good intentions. The people that will object to a cartoony depiction of Hitler in a PC game played mostly by intelligent (and probably also mostly liberal) persons will be those middle class, rich young people who have taken sociology and media studies degrees and who believe that uneducated plebs (i.e. anyone without a sociology degree) is not to be trusted with such things and it is therefore necessary for these valiant sociologists to protect us ignorant savages from the danger of our own impulses.

I bet most Jews don't care whether Hitler gets depicted or not. I sure don't! (Since there is not a WWII scenario in 'Warlords' I am no longer so bothered about it.)

Fortunately, I am not young and as what Americans call Libertarian, not really liberal, though we are often confused with them by what is called here the "New Right," which in turn isn't really "conservative," more like "statist." I do have a minor in sociology and think people who haven't been exposed to it are a little...well, never mind. I really wouldn't mind Hitler in the game myself, but I think people will object and it will be bad for the public image of the game and its community. So I don't know if that puts me in Arbitrary Category #2 mentioned above or my own "rebel" grouping?

I really question if our Jewish friend can speak for the whole group sharing that faith (or is it also an ethnicity?). People from Jewish groups have been consistent in objecting to Nazi or Hitlerian (how's that for a word?) depictions, deemphazing the brutal, as have the repentant Germans; this last group trying to control, I hear and maybe overrreacting to, resurgent skinhead/fascist movements in their country, including, surprisingly, a lot in the newly reannexed eastern regions. I suppose Anglo-American "liberals" would be another "interested party."

Now I don't really spend quality time with any of these groups in my isolated U.S. Southern burg, but do read a lot of foreign news and I just don't think this thing (inclusion of a Hitler depiction) will fly. I think Son of David makes a valid point that there are a lot of self-righteous "gatekeepers" around effectively limiting "free speech," the U.S. has mobs of them; though I don't think its necessarily a "young, liberal, intelligent," thing; at least not alone. These groups are powerful, it was the Anti-Defamation League that raised the initial objections to the TV movie I mentioned earlier and they successfully obtained a script rewrite from CBS. I think the inclusion would seriously damage the reputation of Firaxis and this gaming community.

Another example is the slander of the famous board RPG "Dungeons & Dragons" in the U.S. during the Reagan Eighties. Fundamentalist groups got on the bus that the game promoted indiscriminate killing and "paganism" and "Satanism" and seriously diminished that game's reputation. One kid even used it for his criminal defense. The gaming community survived, at least one related cinema feature was released and a whole new generation is playing the game, but the whispers are still there 20 years later and who needs the hassle? Need I mention either the current furor over Danish Muslim cartoons?

[Alexander I]

Interestingly enough, the Simpsons has done a "cartoony" Hitler on numerous occasions and the American public has lapped it up.

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Alexander01
Interestingly enough, the Simpsons has done a "cartoony" Hitler on numerous occasions and the American public has lapped it up.

Even though "The Simpsons" frequently echoes my political line, (amazing for a show from Rupert Murdoch's Fox Network, look what they did to make "24" a New Right polemic, after the first season; ) I have avoided watching it for its entire run. I always thought it was crudely drawn and while some of the humor is sophisticated, much of it is crude slapstick. (I've seen fragments of about three episodes, out of the total of sixteen seasons; some 350 episodes; but heard of at the water cooler or read of many more.) Everybody has something they don't like--my father has never seen "Titanic."

This of course, doesn't address the point, other than I was unfamiliar with the analogy (to Civ.) One way the cartoon's producers get away with this I think, is that a lot of the humor does appear to qualify as "political satire." I am curious how they got by the censors in Germany, but a quick check of the "L.I.S.A." "semi-official" website indicated that episodes are routinely censored in a wide variety of markets anyway.

This would appear to be a counter-example to the ones I've mentioned. Whether it's enough to make Firaxis feel safe including Adolf, at some point, (evidently not in "Warlords,") I don't know. I've said earlier ("clarifying" an "objection" earlier still, in classic imitation of George Bush,) I personally wouldn't object to the inclusion; I just fear others would and that this would hurt the gaming community and the commercial viability of the continued game.

[Badtz Maru]

Hitler was a Sensitive Man

Hitler was a sensitive man
Hitler was a sensitive man
Hitler was a sensitive man
Hitler was a sensitive man

He went to art school when he was younger
He wanted to be a painter
Hitler was a vegetarian
He was also a non-smoker

Hitler was a sensitive man (x4)

He hired gay and handicapped officers
He was concerned about overpopulation
If Hitler was alive today
He'd listen to The Cure, The Smiths, and Depeche Mode

Hitler was a sensitive man (x4)