Civ-Worthy Leaders

[jkp1187]

But recognizability is a BIG deal. It's okay to have "obscure" leaders for civs that don't have leaders that are readily recognizable to the game's mostly western audience, but for America?

People will automatically assume either Washington or Lincoln will be in, and if Polk made it in and not either of the other two... the head-shaking would begin in earnest.

Hey, it's your list, you put on it who you like. I'm just saying: you asked for candidates that met at least two of three criteria, and I think we all agree that Polk does: an actual historical leader, and one of the most accomplished. (At least, if you think adding the entire southwest from Texas to San Diego was an accomplishment )

In fact, I think other than the three who already made it into Beyond the Sword - Washington, Lincoln, FD Roosevelt -- I would be hard pressed to mention an American President who was significantly more 'accomplished' than Polk for the timeframe we're limited to. Maybe Jefferson. Maybe Jackson. Maybe T. Roosevelt. But it's hard to argue against the man who won so much of the nation's present territory by force of arms.

Quite a few other western countries have leaders on the list that certainly would be obscure to a majority of Americans -- such as Otto the Great, Alfred the Great, Yaroslav the Wise, or even El Cid.

That said, as Unorthodox suggested, given his personality and behavior in office, Jackson could also be a more popularly-known 'aggressive' president (although, to be fair to old Hickory, he didn't actually wage a war against any external foe while he was president.)

[Rusty Edge]

Edited your list according to who I'd heard of outside of civ., and added some personal recommendations.

*America: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson. If not Polk, how about Grant as an Aggressive President? Or isn't he well known beyond North America.
*Arabia: Saladin
*Aztecs: Motecuhzoma I, Motecuhzoma II
*Babylon: Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar, Beltashazzar
*Byzantium: Justinian, Basil II,
*Carthage: Hannibal, Dido
*Celts: Read about them and forgot them.Couldn't name a one before civ.
*China: Qin Shi Huang, Wu Zetian,
*Egypt: Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Ramses II, Nephertiti.
*England: Alfred the Great, , Elizabeth I, Victoria, Winston Churchill
*Ethiopia: Haile Selassie
*France: Louis XIV,etc. Napoleon Bonaparte
*Germany: Otto the Great, Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick the Great of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck
*Greece: Pericles, Alexander the Great
*Incas: Pachacuti
*India: Mohandas Gandhi
*Japan: Oda Nobunaga, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Meiji
*Khmer:
*Korea:
*Mali/Songhai:
*Maya:
*Mongolia: Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan
*Native Americans: Hiawatha, Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, I'm guessing Crazy Horse and Geronimo are some of the best known.
*Netherlands: William of Orange
*Persia: Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Xerxes the Great,
*Portugal: Henry The Navigator
*Rome: Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Constantine the Great, Cincinatus, Trajan
*Russia: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great
*Siam:
*Spain: El Cid, Isabella, Philip II
*Sumer: Gilgamesh,
*Turkey: Mehmed II, Suleiman the Magnificent
*Vikings: Harald Fairhair, Cnut the Great, Eric the Red, Leif The Lucky
*Zulus: Shaka Zulu

[Zkribbler]

If not Polk, how about Grant as an Aggressive President? Or isn't he well known beyond North America.

Grant was a great general but a lousy President. He trusted his friends, appointed them to high office, and they stole the country blind

[Rusty Edge]

Grant was a great general but a lousy President. He trusted his friends, appointed them to high office, and they stole the country blind

I agree he was a lousy president. I don't advocate him . I think Washington and Lincoln are excellent choices. I advocate Teddy Roosevelt. I figure there are people who see Americans as aggressive. I was trying to think of an aggressive president who fit the criteria if Polk was unacceptable. I figure a lot of southerners and Native Americans consider him aggressive.

Boudica and Napoleon lead their people to disaster, but they're in the game.
Cleopatra was in CivRev, not because she was a great leader, but because she was a famous one.

[Willem]

Joseph Brant(Thayendanegea) a key native leader in that fought on the British side in the American Revolution, in upper NY State, and later a key political figure in Canada after that.

It would be kind of cool to have my home town in some game. The Brantford area was where the Six Nations settled after being evicted from the US. They were given 1 mile of land on each side of the Grand River by the British for their help during the War of Independence. There's a statue of Joseph Brant on horseback in a park at the centre of town.

[CanuckSoldier]

It would be kind of cool to have my home town in some game. The Brantford area was where the Six Nations settled after being evicted from the US. They were given 1 mile of land on each side of the Grand River by the British for their help during the War of Independence. There's a statue of Joseph Brant on horseback in a park at the centre of town.

Yes I agree but unfortunately he doesn't have the US pop culture recognition that the other native leaders do, though you can argue his deeds were just as significant.

CS