First of all, I want to express that I am really in love with this game. It certainly retains the 'just one more turn' feel of the computer game. I love every detail and every little element of this wonderful design. Congratulations and many thanks to Kevin Wilson!

However, there is one thing that doesn't seem right. Mao Tse Tung as the leader of the Chinese. Why they took this communist murderer who is responsible for deaths of countless citizens for the leader? There are many people in Chinese history that trully developed China, Shi Huang Di, Kong Fu Tzi to name a few. The other nations in the game have leaders who have done something good, or at least were neutral. If Mao is the leader of the Chines than, to be consequent, why not make Hitler the leader of Germans or Stalin the leader of Russians? Does it bother anyone else?

It bothers me as well... I think one of the reasons for this is that Mao is one of the few chinese figures who are known by the masses in the western world. If the average person knew about either of the leaders you mentioned, then they probably would've picked one of those instead.

You could ask the same question of the computer game, Mao has been a leader of the Chinese in the computer games for years. And that's probably where they got it from.

Me I wonder why and upstart tin pot nation like America is in it when the shining example of Civilization Britain has been left out. I mostly joke.

Many of the leaders among the Civilization games just don't make sense sometimes. Eleanor Roosevelt is one of them. Yes, I understand she pretty much was the President during FDRs last days, but in terms of how long any of these other leaders served, that's a drop in the bucket.

I guess it just depends on what standards they use to decide the leaders. Sometimes, it might be "most popular" from an American standpoint, since it is an American game or it could be leaders that put the country on the map or made it what it is today. It doesn't mean they were good people by any means. But they can move countries along to their greater selves. I would never argue that Stalin or Lenin were good people or even did good things for their countries at times, but I will argue that they did move along Russia and their identity as a country. Just an idea to take in. I personally don't know much about Mao, so I can't tell you why he might have been the choice.

Ignore: Just discovered we now had an edit button.

At least we know it's Mao Zedong. The Romans just have the highly ambiguous 'Caesar' at the bottom of their card. No indication if it's Julius Caesar, or Augustus, or any number of Emperors which followed who adopted the title

It's just the way of Civ games. It's not necessarily a 'good' leader, but a well-known one. In Civ IV the Russians could have Stalin, for example.

Actually, I was playing Civ Revolutions last night and all the leaders in the board game are in that with similar art. As Revolutions has been stated as being one of the influences on the game this gives us some good ideas of potential leaders in future expansions.

Mao in revolutions is portrayed in a very... cuddly way. It's a bit incongruous.