• Sotuanduso@lemm.ee
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    14 hours ago

    I’ve never heard of this until now, so take it with several grains of salt.

    I’d imagine the complaints stem from the fact that she was never in charge of the country.
    But then they should have complained when Ben Franklin was announced.
    Or maybe they did complain when Ben Franklin was announced, but you can’t really go “look at these bigots hating on Benjamin Franklin,” so that wasn’t shared around as much.
    Of course even if that were the case, there would be people who draw the line at Tubman and not Franklin anyways, which could be a case of actual bigotry.
    Or maybe a significant subset of the audience wasn’t taught in school that Tubman was that influential, and sees this as blowing a historical figure out of proportion.

    • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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      10 hours ago

      They also have Confucius in this one, who also only became popular after his death. When he was alive, he was just a middling beuracrat with a following of maybe a couple dozen people.

      Don’t think he got many complaints…

    • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      Ben Franklin could almost be considered something like a shadow leader, with very little direct power but a significant amount of political influence. I haven’t played newer Civ, if a Ben Franklin play purely buffs soft power, trade/research agreements, etc, I could see this working. He was still an actual statesman though, so even still he’s on paper a better choice. But he’s not a great choice if the build isn’t based on soft political influence. But Tubman just wasn’t that kind of leader, what she did was amazing, but it wasn’t really leadership of a civilization.

      • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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        9 hours ago

        She may not be a state leader, but she is a spiritual leader and civ has had a lot of those. Some people lead with a military or beuracracy, but others lead by embodying a spirit, becoming a symbol of it and inspiring others to do the same. This spirit could be patriotic, religious, ethical or liberatory, either way a person’s passion and commitment to, and articulation of that spirit can draw others in and spread its influence just as much if not more than a state institution.

        In the same vein tubman is a leader so is confucius who is also in the new civ. During his lifetime he was just an advisor to a petty king who rarely listened to with a small following. But after his death he became a symbol of ethics whose spirit looms large over much of east Asia. His influence is far greater than the Zhou or any of the other kings of the spring and autumn, yet he ranked far below them during his time.