One quick point about the Chinese Civ

[chocoballs]

Most modern/current Chinese people define themselves as Tang or Han people...citing their preference to be associated with the merits of those dynasties

It's odd that in all 3 CIVs, the chosen Chinese leader is Mao. Just off the top, doesn't that make him the most contemporary leader in the game...running one of the most ancient civs in the world?

Chinese civ started around 4000BC around the Yellow river with the first political identities forming around 2700 BC (Yellow Emperor (part man, mostly myth)).

I think a more representative Civ leader should have been Qin ShiHuangdi - the First Emperor of China (united the Great Wall around 250 BC)

My point and query is, how were these leaders chosen? By modern recognizability? (Why not Hitler instead of Bizmarck or Lenin instead of Catherine) Or by virtue of achievement for their particular Civ (Chandragupta (Mauryan empire) instead of Gandhi) Or by general likability (Joan of Arc over Napoleon. But Alexander was pretty unlikable (for anybody but the Greeks) in his day too)

In fact, with the exception of a few (Hammurabi, Caesar, Elizabeth, Alexander and Xerxes) how many of the others were really into Empire building. True, most were all significant during their time and advanced the cause of mankind in general (Ganghi and Lincoln), but this is a Civ building game. Where are all the folks who truly fought to expand their borders or to spread their culture? That said, where the heck is Cortes or whoever it was who sent him (Isabella?)?!

I think, though of course arguable, the leaders shoud be:

montezuma - aztec
hammurabi - babylonians
Frances i or Napolean - france
qin shihuang - china
ramses or ptolemy - egypt
liz - english
alex - greeks
chandragupta - indians
Should the iroquois even be here. where are the spanish?!!
yorimoto - japanese
xerxes i - persian
caesar - roman
Peter i - russia
shaka - zulu (50 year empire a little short though)
washington - americans

by the selection of the leaders and even civs, looks like there was more effort to include a wider demographic (politically inclusive) appeal than selection based on merit.

where are the Spanish?

[Solmyr]

Just as a note, Catherine the Great of Russia was most definitely into empire building, with her extensive wars against Turkey that among other things resulted in annexation of Crimea; as well as the partition of Poland which she engineered along with Prussia and Austria.

[Martinus]

chocoballs,

I agree with your proposals save one: Persians. Xerxes was as much a great leader of Persia as Cleopatra was of Egypt.

Darius would be much better choice.

[cavebear]

Chocoballs - Two quick thoughts about Mao as the Chinese Leader. First, might he developers have been specifically trying to avoid offending either of the two main Chinese groups by chosing someone of neither group? Second, they were probably trying to chose a Leader (in all the civs) known to most of the people who would be playing the game.

At least they didn't make the Chinese Leader Fu Manchu or Ming the Merciless.

[chocoballs]

cavebear

good point. just a quick one. which 2 groups were you referring to? the nationalists on taiwan and the communists?


fu manchu would have been killer. or even kane from kung fu the legend.

[PMLF]

Maybe Charles Magne should be the French leader. Even if he was a Frank rather than a French, but these peoples (Frank and French) were almost the same.

[squeeze truck]

Re: One quick point about the Chinese Civ

Originally posted by chocoballs

I think, though of course arguable, the leaders shoud be:

montezuma - aztec
hammurabi - babylonians
Frances i or Napolean - france
qin shihuang - china
ramses or ptolemy - egypt
liz - english
alex - greeks
chandragupta - indians
Should the iroquois even be here. where are the spanish?!!
yorimoto - japanese
xerxes i - persian
caesar - roman
Peter i - russia
shaka - zulu (50 year empire a little short though)
washington - americans

Ptolemy is not a good choice for Egypt, because he was a greek.

I agree about China. Mao is a horrible choice. At least it wasn't Generalissimo Chiang.

I think you mean "Yoritomo" of the Japanese. I think most Japanese would select Nobunaga as the greatest classical leader though. Certainly the greatest conqueror.

Thinking about the Zulu thing... Why are the Zulu even here? I'll tell you why, because they wanted to include a black guy, and Shaka is a tad famous for wiping out a British regiment once. Why not include a real African empire, like the Songhai Empire, or Mali? Or maybe the Nigerians?

And I think Jimmy Carter should lead the Americans. Thank you, and good night.

[conquistadore]

chocoball, i agree that Mao is a horrible chioce. Aside from founding the PRC, he did nothing. Deng, at least, could be credited for bringing the cultural revolution and modernising China...

Anyway, i feel that the leader should be the one in power during the country's golden era, which makes Tang Taizong the most suitable candidate or at the least, Han Wudi.

[IncreduloDriver]

Mao leading China? I think not!

Originally posted by conquistadore
chocoball, i agree that Mao is a horrible chioce. Aside from founding the PRC, he did nothing. Deng, at least, could be credited for bringing the cultural revolution and modernising China...

Mao did plenty of stuff for China aside from founding the PRC, almost all of it very, very bad. If you mean "cultural revolution" as in THE Cultural Revolution, that was purely Mao, and purely disastrous.

I think either Deng or Sun Yat-sen would've made absolutely superb leaders of China in Civ3, both of them being infinitely better than Mao the killing machine. In response to somebody earlier in this forum, Chiang Kai-Shek would've been totally awesome for a leader of the Chinese. And it would've been a bold political statement for Firaxis, too. Still, if anybody else thinks Mao is a terrible, terrible choice for China, perhaps we should do something about it?

[chocoballs]

thanks for the response

Yeah, i thought Mao was a odd choice too.

Sun Yat Sen would have made a cool leader. founder of modern china. But he over threw the imperialism that china is most recognized for.

I still prefer qin shihuang though.

Han Wudi! good call!

I don't know about Chiang kai-shek though. more skeletons than clinton. but then again, we probably know more than we wanted to about clinton.

I totally agree about the Zulu. that's why I made the quip about demographic inclusion. What about the Bantu? Is it not accurate that most modern day Africans are Bantu descendants?
please correct me if I'm wrong.

[J10]

For the Chinese leader, I would vote for Wang Di, THE king who started it all. Wang Di basically just mean "King". He's a king named king because he's the first king (well more like a leader) of the Chinese people, that's why he wasn't named "King - name -" but just King.

Anyway it's the our first "official leader"; And I wouldn't blame any non-Chinese for not knowing it, so I'm not upset or surprised at all that he wasn't our leader in Civ3. I like Qin Shi Huang too, the first person who officially (once again) united China for the first time.

Personally, Mao doesn't bother me too much, not to say that I like him for what he did, I mean com'on he totally sucked (understatement) at ruling a country; But without him no one would show any respect to China and the Chinese people today. It's true.

J10.

[Alinestra Covelia]

From my (admittedly limited) grasp of Chinese history, the choice of Mao as leader has a few things going for it. Firstly, he was the leader to take China on the long road to modernization, after the inadequate rulership of the final dynasty. Of course, Mao was not the one to oversee the real economic transformation that China enjoyed (which was largely begun by Deng Xiaoping and has been carried through to its later stages by the current president Jiang Zemin), but he was nonetheless the one who began the program of dragging China from being a backwards country to something resembling a modernized one.

Secondly, and this I think is probably the most convincing argument for the purposes of this debate, he was a very motivating revolutionary. His policies, once in power, led to many very difficult times for the Chinese nation, but the country overcame these in his later years and through the work of his successors. Mao the Revolutionary was his best role, not Mao the Domestic Leader, and I believe that without his initial move to mobilize the poor of China, China's history would be very different. Today, China's power is in its vast economic potential, but this is dependent on its present internal stability and the relationship of equals that it maintains with neighboring nations and the US. How much of this would still be the case if Mao (or some other leader) had not reunified the nation?

I don't intend to become an apologist for Mao, and I don't have any intention of defending the disastrous plans that he initiated, but I also believe that he wasn't entirely bereft of his good points. Whilst he's not the unilaterally best of China's rulers, he does deserve to be considered as one of the most influential. Add to that the fact that everybody in the West has at least heard of him, and you have probably the best candidate for inclusion in a game.

Qin Shi Huang Di is a very good choice as far as historical accuracy goes, but the big problem is that you'd get English speakers mispronouncing his name and thinking it's "Queen She" instead

[MustPost]

Anyway it's the our first "official leader"; And I wouldn't blame any non-Chinese for not knowing it, so I'm not upset or surprised at all that he wasn't our leader in Civ3. I like Qin Shi Huang too, the first person who officially (once again) united China for the first time.

Wasn't Qin(or Chin) Shi Hungdi pretty much the Mao of Ancient China. Shi Hungdi had books burned and itellectuals percecuted. Yes, He started the Great Wall, but were the labor tactics used to build it better then the stuff Mao did.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by cavebear
Chocoballs - Two quick thoughts about Mao as the Chinese Leader. First, might he developers have been specifically trying to avoid offending either of the two main Chinese groups by chosing someone of neither group? Second, they were probably trying to chose a Leader (in all the civs) known to most of the people who would be playing the game.

At least they didn't make the Chinese Leader Fu Manchu or Ming the Merciless.

Isn't Ming the Merciless a modererator here?

I believe Fu Manchu was a member of the CHIN-Chin Dynasty...

Yours In Civin

Troll

[Grandpa Troll]

One point to ponder, shouldn't the Chinese Civ have a small wonder, say the Chinese Food Buffet, for like twenty turns they fight like heck or even build railroads like mad before heading over to the Pagoda for a long rest?

Yours in Civin

Troll