Sid and Mao - what's up with that?

[eNo]

Many, especially in China, think Mao was a good leader and hero.

The same can't really be said for Hitler.

Btw was Dr. Sun Yat Sen ever a head of state/government? I thought he was just the loudest, most successful advocate against the emperor.

[zoom200]

FYI, 30 million dead in the civil war was mainly due to the Nationalist ( KuoMingTang --- the govt in taiwan now )( also US backed ) neglect of the peasant population and infact their own soldiers. Due to the incompetence of the KMT, millions of chinese died of hunger ,and their own soldiers defected over to the Commies.

When Mao took over leadership in 1949, he lead to the industrialization of China ( despite the Soviets pretending to help then screwed China over when their relationship soured by withdrawing all Soviet engineers, scientist , etc and taking with them the blueprints of many projects ) China was left with half built bridges, factories ,etc which they had to tear down and start over. Without Mao, China would have been able to recover from such a shock . It took a charismatic leader to continue on , despite having to start from scratch again. ( they made incredible advances...and even built the A-bomb ).

However, when Mao got older, he became a little senile and decided to launch the cultural revolution.

So...
Mao won popular support and kicked the KMT's asses out of china, thus bringing china out of its worst ever time ... good!

Mao industrialized China...Good!

Mao was an idealist...not a psycho path.

W/o Mao, Deng Xiao ping would have never been able to "open-up" china to capitalism so successfully.

[Asesino_Virtual]

If u think that Mao was a bastard who doesnt deserve the privilege of being in such exquisit game, get rid of Stalin too, i didnt see someone complaining about Stalin.
Turu ru tuuuuuuu turu ru tuuuuuuuuu turu tu-tuuuuuuuuu (Russian song in CIVI, do ya remember? ohhh, good times)

[zoom200]

Off Topic: will there be preset rivalries btwn civ
like Russian vs American

Germans vs French

Chinese Vs Japanese??

[Asesino_Virtual]

No. The history of ur civilization is written by your self. If u are the Americans, depending ur course of action, u could be actually an ally of the Russians. And between the other civs, could be rivality, i dont doubt that, but not "historical" antagonism.

[Executor]

Re: Sid and Mao - what's up with that?

Originally posted by tatterdemalion
Mao was a tyranical mass murderer, plain and simple.

And that's why we love him!

Anyone know what happened to that concentration camp idea? I wanted to roleplay Stalin.

[Blaupanzer]

Mao was not the leader of China during her most influential period. Kublai Khan was. (I know he's the grandson of the Mongol leader, so what?) KrazyHorse, the cultural revolution under Mao resulted in millions of deaths during a planned refresher revolution designed for Mao and carried out under his orders. Similarly Russia's greatest period is under Peter the Great, not Stalin. Napoleon is the first leader most of us think of for France, and he was a Corsican, started out speaking Italian.

With that vented, I have a question. In Civs I and II, all civs had two leaders, one female, the other male. Will this be true of Civ III? In the earlier Civs, the only thing that changed when you changed leaders was the name itself. Will this be true of Civ III? Does anyone know?

[Jason Beaudoin]

You're right about Napoleon. I think Firaxis put Joan of Arc in there because they wanted to include female leaders, and Joan of Arc is an excellent choice.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by eNo
Many, especially in China, think Mao was a good leader and hero.

The same can't really be said for Hitler.

What if the Nazis had won the war, or even better, had there been no war, or just a German-Soviet war? History condemns Hitler because he lost. That has always been the case and always will be. History is written by the victors. Before you start calling me extreme right wing, I am not. I'm just saying Hitler would be perceived differently had he not lost the war.

Had Stalin started a war as Hitler did (and he probably would have), he would be the bad boy of history. And for Mao, he is acceptable because China has not been a friendly nation and it's far away.

[Lorizael]

Earthling, your statement is not entirely true. Stalin is looked down upon and his atrocities do not go unnoticed. He was almost as bad as Hitler. And Hitler is also condemmed because he murdered 6 million jews.

I agree that if Hitler had won the war (not attacked the Soviets) things would be different. But what do you mean by won the war. For him to win World War II would have been to conquer the world. I'm not sure he could have done that. Also, six million missing people cannot be kept silent. It would be known what he did. I'm sure in the end Hitler would have even publisized the fact because he would have been "proud" of his accomplishment. Mao was also an extremely bad person.

But none of that matters.

I think that some of you are thinking to much into Sid's decision to include Mao. The leader is simply a nice little graphical head to represent a country. They mean nothing more than that. And as always with Civ 3, if you don't like it, either don't buy it, or... change it.

But Sid does have Freedom of Speech. Even if he is a commmunist, it doesn't matter. What matters most is that the game is enjoyable. If you can't enjoy it because you are either too paranoid or don't think Mao is appropriate, that's your problem. Not the game designers.

In the end, no matter how far people's obsessions may go, its is...

Just a game.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Asesino_Virtual
If u think that Mao was a bastard who doesnt deserve the privilege of being in such exquisit game, get rid of Stalin too, i didnt see someone complaining about Stalin.
Turu ru tuuuuuuu turu ru tuuuuuuuuu turu tu-tuuuuuuuuu (Russian song in CIVI, do ya remember? ohhh, good times)

Stalin isn't in the game, was only in Civ I. Lenin was the Russian leader in Civ II.

The song is "The Song of the Volga Boatman," Russia's most famous folk melody.

Cheers.

[axi]

About 1/3 of the US student movement in 1968 was of maoist tendency. And the cultural revolution has inspired quite alot of people, since, in theory, it is one of the most revolutionary and progressive things the world has ever seen. Exactly because it was so idealistic, it failed superbly. If it in some miraculous way had not failed, the world would be a very different place now.

Imagine... the end of the discrimination between manual and mental labor...

Perhaps Sid was in the Movement too... But isn't he too young for that?

[TVA22]

Okay

First of all, Napoleon would not have been the best choice for France, Louis XIV would have been. Under Louis XIV, France was at the pinnacle of her power, and After Louis XIV (and yes, indeed, perhaps partially because of him) France began her eventual decline.

China did not achieve it's most influential period under K. Khan, nor was it Mao, the pinnacle of Chinese civilization is generally recognized as the high Ming Dynasty. Once the Europeans arrived, and began carving China up into spheres of influence, China's decline had begun. China was exploited, and humiliated as a nation for a century and a half, culminating with the Japanese aggression in Chinese land, and the Chinese civil war. Mao Zedong was not an evil man who purposefully meant to kill millions of his own people (by starvation, yes, not "premeditated murder"). That role can be reserved for Hitler, who hated people of Jewish ancestry, Pol Pot (anybody ever heard of him? Probably not, but he was an atrocious leader of Cambodia) and Stalin, who did kill his people because of his own fear that there were traitors in his midst.

No one think I'm an anti-American or anything, because I'm not, just an objective historian--but if you want to talk about premeditated murder look at the atomic bombings, and no one make the argument that it was to "shorten the war," thats just what history teachers tell you. Also look at the war for Philippine independence, following the Spanish American War. History teachers don't tell you about that one.

Its easy to place the blame on someone like Mao, who sought to empower China to be free from foreign control (a theme common in Chinese history), when you see none of the horrible things the pinnacle of freedom and tolerance (America) has done for what they really are. You all blame Mao for being a horrible mass-killer, but you won't stop to look at what he was trying to do from a historical, Chinese point of view, instead, you call him an evil communist, subhuman even, because he personifies a different economic theory from capitalism, and he's associated with the death of 30 million Chinese citizens (yes, a disaster, not murder) ---Because that's what you learned in 7th grade history class.