Harlan's Actual famous leaders

[Depp]

Why not use mussolini and hitler?

The fact that Mao was responisble for alot more deaths than hitler(and stalin also more that hitler) should mean that he shoudn´t be there too!

And for politics, don´t you think that genghis khan matched hitler in visciousness?

Hitler is the most known german leader and therefore he should be the german leader. If someone want´s to change it´s easy, but I think most people rather clash steel with hitler that bismark, although bismark was a great leader.

Mussolini was a poor leader, but is still the internationally most famous italian leader...

[madcow23]

Well, it's a bit different - try and take into account the sensibilities of the different people who might play Call To Power. Hitler and Mussolini may be the "best known" leaders of their respective countries, but the German and Italian peoples, especially the younger generations, have taken great strides to distance themselves from the events of fifty years ago and it seems slightly tasteless to use these images in the name of entertainment. Maybe in a hundred year's time it will seem less pertinent (hence Napoleon, with whom I'd imagine few people have a problem). Genghis Khan and ancient leaders also are not an issue.

Mao, being responsible for untold millions of deaths, is a very sore point indeed. I'd imagine that it's only the lack of Chinese players of CTP which mean that this hasn't been mentioned before!

It's all a matter of historical perspective really. IMHO, if a leader can be considered in any way "current" or "recent" (ie news rather than history) then they shouldn't be used. The after-effects of Hitler, Mussolini et al are still being felt.

[Grand Master Fe Long]

Isn't CTP a computer game! Which is about Empires of different civ, some at war with each other - therefor wouldn't it make sense to have some warmongering *******s as leaders. Is there any point of ONLY having a peace loving pacifist a leaders of ALL the civs. Besides when has CTP ever been about real life politics and real life political correctness.

[madcow23]

Grand Master, I think you've answered the question yourself there. CTP isn't about politics, it's about history, and the closer the leaders get to the present day the more political the game becomes.

Pacifists would be dull and unrealistic, but why run the risk of upsetting people (and Civ seems to be played by many, many nationalities) when it's really not that big an issue?

Keep Civ historical (at least 100 years) - I feel it's more in keeping with the spirit of the game anyway.

[Atahualpa]

I also wouldnt suggest Hitler or Mussolini as leader, because they did nothing great for their country, instead they ruined it, known or not, I wouldnt like to see Hitler as leader of the germans. Because then, some people might not treat Germany as Germany, but as an enemy to defeat at all cost! And thats not in the purpose of the game.

ATa

[Alanus]

Harlan's Actual famous leaders

I looked in detail to the actual famous leaders provided into Harlan's Graphics mod. Though it is, overall, great and far superior to the original game, I have one objection regarding the choice of Mussolini as the Italian leader. He is a very disputable character (not to say more), and it really could be felt offending by a number of people (same as if choosing Hitler).

So, I suggest to select Garibaldi as the Italian leader. I found a nice picture, and if Harlan and MarkG agree, we could use it instead in the Apolyton Pack.

You could object that some of the other actual leaders chosen are also disputable (including Napoléon, I'm not a chauvinist), but WWII is really to close not to be cautious with certain related topics.

What do you think ?

Alanus

[Alanus]

Depp made a good point regarding Mao and Stalin (I didn't mention them, but I thought about them). And I guess that a lot of other historical characters chosen by Harlan are not recommendable ones. However, as pointed out by madcow23, it is a matter of (good) taste and since the game is distibuted in localized German and Italian versions, I don't think that the locals would appreciate to have Hitler or Mussolini as default leader when they want to play their nation.

Napoléon also sent a lot of people to death, but still he is not considered as a monster like Hitler. For Italians, I guess that Garibaldi is a recommendable character : he was the one that unified Italy at the end of the 19th century.

But for those who like nasty characters, as someone wrote here, it is easy to change leaders. But the default ones should be more "neutral".

[Slax]

Would you want to make an alliance with some of these leaders? Would you want to BE them in multiplayer? Even though "its just a game" I know it might affect my decisions. I think some of these leaders should only be applied to scenerios.

I think Harlan removed my beloved Canadians anyways (perhaps to save everyone from seeing a picture of Pierre Trudeau!). I think I'll get a nice shot of Wilfred Laurier and use him.

Just my 2 cents (1 cent US funds)....

[John LeMaitre]

My only problem with Harlan's leaders is that he uses mythological personages when an historical one is not known, or not "important" enough. Moses, Manco Capec, and Hunahpu are all examples of this. The most important thing to remember is that if you don't like the leader he chose, choose your own. Shoot, I remade all of the pics myself. (Not that yours weren't excellent, Harlan!)

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[Harlan]

Hi,
Sorry for the slow reply on this, but I'm on the road now and only occasionally able to check the web. Here was my thinking about "evil leaders". Personally, I was more interested in finding the most famous person. Time magazine's famous "Man of the Year" award for instance has chosen such people as Hitler in past years, because they were important, not because they were making any moral judgments about the person.

But all that aside, the main reason I chose the people I did was because those were the ones I could find good pictures for! With the resources I had at hand, I was more likely to be hit by a meteor than find a quality picture of Garabaldi. Keep in mind that for my standards, it needs to be in color, look fairly realistic (as opposed to an artistic painting or statue), be roughly the right size, have the head facing the correct angle, and be a computer graphic I can edit. If you can find such a picture for Garabaldi that meets my standards and you're willing to crop it and place it over the standard background image and so on, I will be more than happy to include it in future versions. It could be the alternate Italian leader, just like how Germany has both Hitler and Bismarck. It could even become the default and make Mussolini the alternate if more people want it that way.

If people want to add any other leader pics as alternates or new defaults, I say more power to you. The only thing I ask is that the appearance of it pass my okay first, so that there be a certain standard of quality and a consistency of look. I myself though am not likely to make any more leader pics, as I feel satisfied enough with what I've done already.

Certain countries weren't included because of a lack of even one good picture for a leader. For instance I looked high and low for a picture of Trudeau so I could include Canada, scouring internet search engines and such, and couldn't find even one that fit my requirements (I think I found one good one, but the head was facing to the side instead of to the front). At that time I posted messages for other people here to send me graphics, but the response was pretty low (though I did get the Bismarck and one or two others that way). I also would be happy to see replacements for the Mayans, Incans and Jews and others as well, but in those cases I consider myself damn lucky to find any pictures at all. If someone has some good books and a color scanner, maybe they can help out. And John, if you remade all the pictures already, what are you hiding them for? Why not show what you've got.

[Harlan]

As an aside, I was just looking at the ratings of files in the downloads section, and saw my WW2 Units pack had received a rating of 5.5 so far. Talk about brutal! If a collection of 64 new unit graphics can't even eek out a rating of 6, I say there must be something wrong with the ratings system. It certainly makes me much less likely to make more things for CTP in the future.

[Depp]

Alot of nice points here, but it all comes down if one shall think foremost of individual countries or not. Multiple leaders from nations would be nice, but for most people italians and romans are one and the same really so that would solve that.

Well, it´s really whatever with me, but i rather play against hitler that fredrick, whom im know nothing about. But that´s just me...

[MarkG]

that's because it only had 2 votes and one of the two was mean... now it has 3...

still, you should also see that it's a 1.5mb file and it has 750 downloads in 11 days...
and you graphics mod has more than 2700 downloads.
people do apreciate your work Harlan!

in fact, your 6 files in the database have a total of over 4500 downloads!

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Markos, Apolyton Civilization Site

[MarkG]

which, btw, is the 8% of the total downloads of the ctp database

[Alanus]

Harlan,

I'll send you the picture of Garibaldi that I've found on the internet. I cropped it and used your blank background, so it's ready to use in CTP (tested, works fine). Note that it didn't take me that long to find one here(just used Yahoo with only Garibaldi as key word).

I'm a little bit confused with your e-mail address, since there are at least 3 different ones (the one in your current profile and two other ones in the read-me of your picture packs) : which do I use to send you that material ?

I appreciate your graphic job. The WWII units are great.

Alanus