What's the deal with Uncle Fester !?!?

[CygnusZ]

I do tend to agree with the line of thought that excluding the "evil" leaders from the game was a decision that I was none too fond of. Hitler and Stalin were the greatest leaders of their respective civilizations and probably if life was fair they would have been made the leaders. Once again, this is a question of marketing, and while these *ARE* the greatest leaders, they are also offensive.

Louie the XIV, while a great example of a divine monarch, probably isn't in my opinon the equal of Charlamane (whom yes, he is another *GREAT* leader) or Napoleon. I tend to side with Napoleon because I think his comical body form would add a lot of character to the game (have him standing on a chair to speak to you or something

It would have been great to have both a male and female choice for every civilization. But it didn't happen. It took too much in time and resources to make them, so that's that. At least Queen Elizabeth and Cleopatra were good choices, even if Catherine the Great and Joan D'Arc are a bit "iffy" (Indiria Ghandi you FOOLS! put *HER* in!)

Once again, having the 1:1 ratio's doesn't hurt anybody, and it might help sell a few more units. The things which I think history buffs would really like to see are not the same as what the general populous would like to see. We're not the market, and I would love to see a MOD with the *REAL* greatest leaders in the world running their country.

Rulers I would like to see:
Indira Ghandi
Joseph Stalin
Adolf Hitler
Charlemenge (sp)
Napoleon
Lord Cromwell
Kublai Khan
Winston Churchill
Plato ("Philospher King")

Anybody want to append or MOD these in?

[Kc7mxo]

Hitler, a great leader? Um. Whatever. The only things hitler was good at were propaganda and politics. When it came to military, he was an utter buffoon, and he was no einstein when it came to the economy.

I would have to go for Bismark as the greatest leader in german history. He CREATED germany, and led it for years.

And I don't care to see stalin, or mao in the game, I would have prefered Peter the Great, but Catherine is good too. And for China, well, with some 3000 years of history, I think they've got more than their fair share of possible choices for a leader, so lets leave the modern era fella out.

[Faboba]

Hitler was a hell of a charismatic guy. If he hadn't been a) so racist, b) such an expansionist nut and c) a raving egomaniac, he'd probably be remembered as one of the greatest leaders in history. He took a broken country and got them motivated, got them to rebuild and gave them a direction. His opinions were deplorable, he was insanely arrogant but as far as leadership qualities like motivational speaking went he was right up there with the best.

As for the Stalin thing - What about Lenin? The lesser of two evils and easily as great an impact on Russian history - Stalin just continued what Lenin started.

[CygnusZ]

Yes... Hitler was *ONLY* a political genius.

He's not though, if you really think about it. He restorted a broken nation and brought Europe to its knees. Like or hate him, he is up there with Julius Cesar and Charlamagne (sp). He takes the cake politcally, socially and economically.

I side with Faboba that his expansionistic tendencies were his undoing. It puzzles me why great leaders like this just don't know when to call it quits. He could have restored Germany and just left it at that, instead of decided to attempt revenge (never works).

Lenin is a great man, but I dunno. He just doesn't have the same greatness that Stalin had though. If you consider all the political manipulations that he utilized in order to become the ruler of Russia, and then his paranoid nature and abilty to churn out massieve production I'd tend to say that Stalin was a more impressieve leader. Both are good though, and better than that Catherine crap...

What's with the Anti-Maoism? You just don't want to see any communist leaders? Somebody whom is well known is needed for all the civs, and I don't think Confusicous would make a very good leader. We got Monarchical, Democratic and Republican leaders, we need some Communists in there too for better representations!

[Shadowstrike]

Well, Mao rates right up there with Hitler and Stalin. Mass-murderer, meglomaniac, evil dictator.... you name it.

However, Mao also happens to have the unfortunate role of being the only memorable recent Chinese leader.

I still fail to see the logic of including Mao, but exculding Napoleon. Napoleon is a representation of France, when you think of France, you'd think of him, as Caesar is to Rome. Of course one could argue this, but frankly he's a lot more known then Saint Joan of Arc. Not that I have anything against Joan of Arc.

[Venger]

Leaders...

Okay...first of all, you CANNOT have Hitler. If you were German, would you want to play the Germans as Hitler? I don't think so...

France - I'd rather have deGaulle than Joan "Is that smoke?" of Arc.

Russia - Catherine the Great is as good as any other. Thing is, Russia has such a wierd history that is separate from the Soviet era. Stalin wouldn't have bothered me all that much though...

Egypt - blah. Cleofreakingpatra? They didn't even go for the cheesy Tutankhaman angle...I'd prefer Rameses I...

To me those are the only ones glaring you in the face. The others are pretty good. Of course, debate still rages if some of the deserve Civ3 inclusion status at all...

Venger

[Solmyr]

Re: Leaders...

Originally posted by Venger
Okay...first of all, you CANNOT have Hitler. If you were German, would you want to play the Germans as Hitler? I don't think so...

Russia - Catherine the Great is as good as any other. Thing is, Russia has such a wierd history that is separate from the Soviet era. Stalin wouldn't have bothered me all that much though...

If you were Russian, would you want to play the Russians as Stalin? I wouldn't, except in a WW2 scenario.

I'm thankful the Civ series have finally disengaged from the notion that Russians=USSR. I would have preferred a male Czar though, but Catherine is good enough. She should have been made younger-looking though; she was good-looking even at 60 (she died aged 67).

Here's a link about her: http://www.ursulashistoryweb.f2s.com/CGREAT.HTM

[Easy Rhino]

This is fun.

Okay, I'm trying to think up good alternate gender leaders for each civ. Unfortunately, I can only come up with a few good ones:

Romans: Madonna!
Greeks: Helen? (of Troy)
Germans: Marlene Dietrich? Maria von Trapp?
Chinese: Mulan? Jian Qing (leader of Gang of Four)?
Japanese:
Indians: Indira Ghandi
Aztecs:
Iroquois:
Egyptians: Ramses, or maybe Sadat
Babylonians:
Russians: Uncle Joe!
Americans: (tricky) Susan B. Anthony? Geraldine Ferraro? Jane Fonda? Hillary?
French: Napoleon, of course! (Charlegmagne and de Gaulle both good)
Persians: Andromache (Hector's wife, technically Trojan)
Zulus: Winnie Mandela (yeah, she's wrong, and not even Zulu)
English: Henry VII, or Churchill

Well, er, I can see why they didn't do both genders for every civ, since this is HARD. I don't know enough about too many civs, and, of course, if they did come up with good leaders, I don't know how many people would recognize them. Oh, and the stuff in italics I cheated on and did a web search to get ideas.

I suck.

ER

[Solmyr]

Several civs have obvious choices for the other gender.

Greeks: Helen of Troy, as you said, or any other female figure from mythology
Germans: Maria Theresia (Austria's Catherine the Great)
Indians: Indira Gandhi, as you said
Egyptians: any number of famous Pharaohs
Babylonians: Semiramis (Hanging Gardens anyone?)
Russians: any number of famous Czars
French: any number of famous kings/emperors
English: any number of famous kings

Even less obvious civs have choices:

Japanese: Suiko (only female empress ever) or Hojo Masako (matriarch of the Hojo family, virtually controlled her male relatives who held shogunate and regency positions)
Persians: Terken Khatun (powerful mother of Shah Muhammad of Khwarizm) or Roxanne (Persian wife of Alexander)

On a related note, I'd feel much better with Catherine de Medici as the female ruler of France, if they had to have one. Another option is Eleanor of Aquitaine.

[Grumbold]

Unless I'm mistaken, you only see the animated leader faces for the opposition and you can change your name. So you can be playing your nation as anyone you like, its just the faces you get to stare at that stay the same. I don't think of playing any Civ as one RL leader. I play as myself and exceed the performance of any historical figure, if only in longevity of office

The leader animations are so cartoon like and the choices so unusual that it reminds me of mothing so much as the '80's puppet show Spitting Image anyway. Done for humor more than realism. On that basis Joanie is as good as anyone to lead the French while I crush them underfoot

[klesh]

Regarding Leaders...

I agree that Germans shouldnt want to play as Hitler, as well as the Russian player playing as Stalin. Unfortunately Stalin is represented as a 'great leader' type of unit... I am very happy they opted to not include Hitler as an army leader.

To those who are decreeing that Stalin continued what Lenin started... this couldn't be farther from the truth. Lenin's revolution was in no way a 'starting' of State Capitalism of Stalin! I would've prefered to see Lenin controlling the Russians, by far. But I also agree what one poster said about separating the USSR from Russia. In this vein I would prefer to see Peter as the leader of the Russians.

I just don't want to play a game with a leader that looks like my grandmother.

-FMK.

[CygnusZ]

Well some of us would like to play as the actual greatest leaders of their given country, even if it is "offensive". It's dumb not to be able to lead Germany with Hitler. Oh well, I suppose the MODS will do just fine.

On the other hand, Helen of troy as a leader? Are you people mad? She's anything *BUT* a leader. Weak woman defined!

[Venger]

Robbing Peter to pay Paul...

I forgot about Peter the Great...great choice.

Venger