Does firaxis know what they're doing?

[Coracle]

"ZULU DAWN"

Originally posted by Fighter
If you want to learn about the Zulu's, rent the movie, Zulu. Good movie, lots of gun shots, lots of screaming and fighting.

You dont learn too much, although the movie is cool.

You will learn a lot more if you rent the prequel - "Zulu Dawn" depicting the Battle of Isandhlwana.

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0080180

[johncmcleod]

Agreed! The education system is terrible where I come from (Idaho) we're like 49th in the US in education. I am going into ninth grade and you know what, all of these leaders haven't even been mentioned in school:

Shaka (and all the Zulus)
Xerxes (and we've mentioned Persians like twice)
Catherine the Great
Tokugawa
Bismarck (maybe mentioned once or twice)
Napoleon has been mentioned several times, but we haven't studied anything about him
Mao
Hammarubai

If it wasn't for my love of history I would know absolutely nothing about these leaders. And I think the Zulu aren't to bad of a choice. They needed an African civ, though the Bantus probably would've been the best choice, the Zulu were warlike and they fought with the British several times, which most of the great African tribes didn't, for they died out before the African colonization period.

[Ribannah]

That last one is a silly remark after admitting that you get bad education, don't you think?

[TacticalGrace]

I think that these should be leaders because they amrked the birth / rebirth of their country making them imperial contenders:

Germany: Bismark
England: Elizabeth I (or perhaps Edward Longshanks)
France: Charlemaine
Russia: Peter the Great
America: Washington
Babylon: Hammurabi

These leaders because they built an empire:
Rome: Julius Caeser
Greece: Alexander

For China the leader shouldn't be Mao because there was nothign great about him at all. The problem is that there is no single well known chinese leader. The greatest period of chinese history was during the Han dynasty. But who has heard of Gao Zu, the first Han dynasty?

[King of Rasslin]

Our education rules! I think it's amazing that our country has so much history that we can take 4 or 5 years of classes and still not learn it all!

Compare us to the Zulu or the Mongols. How can you say we are uncivilized? You know, I have taken more American history than world history, and I still have years of American history left to cover. We finished our world history in a single semester. It's actually sad to see how great we are compared to the world.

[flame bait mode off]

[Fighter]

While my brain is busy hemoraging, Im going to assume that was sarcasm......

Were somewhat more enlightened, we teach a mix of Canuck history and World History. Granted I could have tought my socials 11 class.

[Ribannah]

KoR, at your speed, history goes faster than you can learn it.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by GePap
Mao is by no means the 'worst' choice for a chinese leader: It's him who has a giant poster over Tianamen Square, and that is not meant as a quibble or joke.

Mao got a lot of people killed, but he also created modern china, not destroyed it- those people that say he desroyed it have little clue about what china was and how it fared from the fall of the manchu's (and more like it from the middle of the 19th century) to 1949. Its not a pretty picture. At least Mao can claim to be the first to have no new foreign powers come in.

Was Mao responsible for millions of deaths? Yes, as were many previous chinese emperors, and countless leades through the world- newsflash people, giving a damn about millions dying is a rather new concept in governance, not an acient one.

There may be many Chinese leaders (not very well known outside of china) that ruled long properous times, and maybe they are better sysmbols of china than Mao, but to label Mao the worst ruler ever is no less than idiotic. I can think of mnay worst ones, including just simply the guy before him, Chiang kai Shek, or the Empress Dowger, or the Last Manchu Emperor, and so forth and so on. Mao was not a Good man but good men and good leaders are two different things. Did he change China, and was he fundamental in the creation of modern china? Yes, and simply for that, he has every right to be in the running, no matter how many detractors he ahs in Apolyton.

Nice points there, but I have to disagree nontheless.

Good men and good leaders are indeed different things - but was Mao a good leader? Did he lead his country in the right direction? True, he created modern China, but what kind of modern China did he create? None of the power and wealth that China has today can be attributed to him. He didn't create Modern China - he destroyed China, and modern China rose from the ashheaps after he was gone.

When he died in 1976, he left behind a smoldering heap of a state, isolationist and poor and conservative and overpopulated, with a rotting military, nonexistant economy and brainwashed population. All of the progress, all of the wealth, and all of the power that China has today were created without him.

True, Mao did one single thing - he created a unified state, upon which other things can be done. But compare that one single thing to all of the stupidities, errors, and just plain evil things that happened under him. I wouldn't call him a "great leader" at all.

Note: Qin was the name of the state that unified China, not the person. The person was "Qin Shi Huang", first emperor of China.

[TacticalGrace]

but it was the Han dynasty that lead China into its golden age

[ranskaldan]

I'd consider China to have had 3 golden ages: the Han, the Tang, and the Song.
There were also stretches of golden-ness in the Ming and Qing Dynasties but by then China was falling behind.

[Whoseyourbishop]

There are just a few things that I need to say to KoR . You had better be kidding about what you said about the American School System and America's history. You live a sad, pathetic life if you truly believe what you wrote.

[Hagbart]

Originally posted by Whoseyourbishop
There are just a few things that I need to say to KoR . You had better be kidding about what you said about the American School System and America's history. You live a sad, pathetic life if you truly believe what you wrote.

Look at KoR's last post, he's probably joking.

[Hagbart]

They did not choose Hitler, because he was a bad leader. Probably the worst Germany have ever had. Because of Hitler alot of people were killed and German cities (culture) bombed. If anyone votes for Hitler, it's just because they are Americans (and others) who wants to play WW2 and do not have knowledge of history.

I have heard so much about ww2 that I'm getting tired of it!

Any German leader is better than Hitler.

[Fighter]

History judges people based on what the biggest thing the person did was, then assumes that all things were done like that.

Hitlers biggest thing was WW2 and the holocaust, so everyone assumes that what happened before WW2 under Hitler was equaly as bad.

Hitler was a strong powerful ruler, under Hitler, Germany underwent an almost golden age state in the 30s. Germany soared out of Depression, something no one else could do. Hitler brought in much needed reforms, including health care.

Granted he did do many terrible things, the elimination of the Jewish people and other minorities for example, and Im sure others can(and will) chime in with more.

The point is, he went a few steps too far. Had he stopped before Poland, we likely would put him up their instead of Bismarck because his reign would have been long and prosperous and the rest of the world would be a very different place, consider what came out of WW2, a strong US, the UN, the cold war, many new technologies, the bomb (Japan would have gotten slapped around by US and Brit and French etc. making for no need for the bomb). Ok so some things would be good, others bad.

anyway, my babbling is going to cease now.

[Hagbart]

Originally posted by Fighter
anyway, my babbling is going to cease now.

THANK YOU!