Greatest National Leader elimination game (game thread)

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Didn’t notice there was another page. :smack:

No prob. Please vote again!

[Sternvogel]

Holdover:

Mikhail Gorbachev – 5 points

New guy:

Solon – 5 points

[Quartz]

3 - Masaryk
3 - Ben Gurion
4 - Bolivar

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Simon Bolivar, who ultimately failed, leaving a legacy of squabbling petty republics/dictatorships in South America - 5
Menes, about whom I know little but who appears largely mythical/fictitious - 5

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Masaryk - 4
Ben Gurion - 3
Alfred - 3

[Tom_Scud]

Ben Gurion 4
Menes 4
Justinian 2

Justinian’s (and Belisarius’s) reconquests pretty badly overextended the Empire. It wasn’t that long before they lost it all and more.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Sorry - got distracted and missed Wednesday’s deadline. I’ll simply extend it to noon EST today, which would’ve been the end of the next round anyway.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

The votes:

David Ben-Gurion 10
Tomas Masaryk 10
Simon Bolivar 9
Menes 9
Solon 9

Mikhail Gorbachev 5
Alfred 3
Justinian 2
Nebuchadnezzar II 2
Nehru 1

The top five are now gone. That leaves:

Alexander the Great - Macedonian conqueror, emperor
Alfred the Great - Scholar, warrior, statesman
Asoka - Early India leader
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - Modernized, ruled Turkey
Caesar Augustus - Founded Roman Empire
Otto von Bismarck - United German kingdoms
Gaius Julius Caesar - Roman dictator, general
Winston Churchill - British wartime inspiration
Cyrus the Great - Great, benevolent conqueror
Elizabeth I of England - Shrewd, determined queen
Frederick II - Ruled 1700s Prussia
Mikhail Gorbachev - Reformed Soviet Union
Hammurabi - First written laws
Isabella I of Castille - Unified, developed Spain
Justinian I - Unleashed Gen. Belisarius
Abraham Lincoln - Won Civil War
Louis XIV - France’s “Sun King”
Muhammad - United all Arabia
Nebuchadnezzar II - Babylon’s greatest ruler
Jawaharlal Nehru - Indian prime minister
Rameses II - Egypt’s greatest pharaoh
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 32nd American president
Peter the Great - Modernized, expanded Russia
Saladin - Muslim leader, warrior
Qin Shi Huang - Unified China emperor
Tamerlane the Great - Clever, liberal conqueror
Umar - Expanded Islamic empire
George Washington - First U.S. president

The current round of voting will end on Mon. June 14 at noon EST.

Same rules as the previous round: ten votes per player, no more than five against any single ruler, etc.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Justianian 3
Frederick II 3
Julius Caesar 4*

Wasn’t a national leader for very long, after all, even in a de facto sense.

[Sternvogel]

Hanging on:

Mikhail Gorbachev – 5

Making his entrance:

Justinian I – 5

[Elendil_s_Heir]

Louis XIV left a mess for his successor - 5
Muhammad probably doesn’t deserve all the credit he’s gotten - 5

BTW, for those who voted for David Ben-Gurion, may I ask why?

[Quartz]

3 - Asoka - who?
3 - Alexander - his empire disintegrated on his death.
2 - Gorbachev
2 - Nehru - mismanaged independence and partition, responsible for many deaths

[septimus]

Jawaharlal Nehru - 5
Nebuchadnezzar II - 2
Louis XIV - 2
Elizabeth I of England - 1

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Quartz

3 - Asoka - who?

Arguably the first truly benevolent dictator. Ruled the largest contiguous empire until the the Mongols came along, covering basically all of the inhabitable bits of the Indian subcontinent. Almost solely responsible for the modern spread of Buddhism. IMHO, there are only two Indians who belong on this list- Asoka and Akbar.

H.G. Wells’ Short History of the World, Chapter 29:

FOR some generations after the death of Gautama, these high and noble Buddhist teachings, this first plain teaching that the highest good for man is the subjugation of self, made comparatively little headway in the world. Then they conquered the imagination of one of the greatest monarchs the world has ever seen
We have already mentioned how Alexander the Great came down into India and fought with Porus upon the Indus. It is related by the Greek historians that a certain Chandragupta Maurya came into Alexander’s camp and tried to persuade him to go on to the Ganges and conquer all India. Alexander could not do this because of the refusal of his Macedonians to go further into what was for them an unknown world, and later on (321 B.C.) Chandragupta was able to secure the help of various hill tribes and realize his dream without Greek help. He built up an empire in North India and was presently (303 B.C.) able to attack Seleucus I in the Punjab and drive the last vestige of Greek power out of India. His son extended this new empire. His grandson, Asoka, the monarch of whom we now have to tell, found himself in 264 B.C. ruling from Afghanistan to Madras.
Asoka was at first disposed to follow the example of his father and grandfather and complete the conquest of the Indian peninsula. He invaded Kalinga (255 B.C.), a country on the east coast of Madras, he was successful in his military operations and—alone among conquerors—he was so disgusted by the cruelty and horror of war that he renounced it. He would have no more of it. He adopted the peaceful doctrines of Buddhism and declared that henceforth his conquests should be the conquests of religion. 3
His reign for eight-and-twenty years was one of the brightest interludes in the troubled history of mankind. He organized a great digging of wells in India and the planting of trees for shade. He founded hospitals and public gardens and gardens for the growing of medicinal herbs. He created a ministry for the care of the aborigines and subject races of India. He made provision for the education of women. He made vast benefactions to the Buddhist teaching orders, and tried to stimulate them to a better and more energetic criticism of their own accumulated literature. For corruptions and superstitious accretions had accumulated very speedily upon the pure and simple teaching of the great Indian master. Missionaries went from Asoka to Kashmir, to Persia, to Ceylon and Alexandria.
Such was Asoka, greatest of kings. He was far in advance of his age. He left no prince and no organization of men to carry on his work, and within a century of his death the great days of his reign had become a glorious memory in a shattered and decaying India. The priestly caste of the Brahmins, the highest and most privileged caste in the Indian social body, has always been opposed to the frank and open teaching of Buddha. Gradually they undermined the Buddhist influence in the land. The old monstrous gods, the innumerable cults of Hinduism, resumed their sway. Caste became more rigorous and complicated. For long centuries Buddhism and Brahminism flourished side by side, and then slowly Buddhism decayed and Brahminism in a multitude of forms replaced it. But beyond the confines of India and the realms of caste Buddhism spread—until it had won China and Siam and Burma and Japan, countries in which it is predominant to this day.

[Quartz]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Arguably the first truly benevolent dictator.

It was a semi-rhetorical question. Ironically, your response highlights why:

He left no prince and no organization of men to carry on his work, and within a century of his death the great days of his reign had become a glorious memory in a shattered and decaying India

[Tom_Scud]

Justinian 4
Tamerlane 4
Saladin 2

Tamerlane for excessive cruelty (as I recall he innovated on the old Mongol “pyramid of skulls” concept by not requiring that the skulls be fully severed from the bodies, or indeed dead, before being added to the pile). Saladin because the Ayyubid dynasty didn’t survive his grandchildren, as I recall.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

@Quartz

It was a semi-rhetorical question. Ironically, your response highlights why:

Well, there is that.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

The votes:

Justinian I - 12
Mikhail Gorbachev - 7
Louis XIV - 7
Jawaharlal Nehru - 7

Muhammad - 5
Julius Caesar, Tamerlane - 4 each
Alexander, Asoka, Frederick II - 3 each
Nebuchadnezzar II, Saladin - 2 each
Elizabeth I - 1

The top four are now gone. That leaves:

Alexander the Great - Macedonian conqueror, emperor
Alfred the Great - Scholar, warrior, statesman
Asoka - Early India leader
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - Modernized, ruled Turkey
Caesar Augustus - Founded Roman Empire
Otto von Bismarck - United German kingdoms
Gaius Julius Caesar - Roman dictator, general
Winston Churchill - British wartime inspiration
Cyrus the Great - Great, benevolent conqueror
Elizabeth I of England - Shrewd, determined queen
Frederick II - Ruled 1700s Prussia
Hammurabi - First written laws
Isabella I of Castille - Unified, developed Spain
Abraham Lincoln - Won Civil War
Muhammad - United all Arabia
Nebuchadnezzar II - Babylon’s greatest ruler
Rameses II - Egypt’s greatest pharaoh
Franklin Delano Roosevelt - 32nd American president
Peter the Great - Modernized, expanded Russia
Saladin - Muslim leader, warrior
Qin Shi Huang - Unified China emperor
Tamerlane the Great - Clever, liberal conqueror
Umar - Expanded Islamic empire
George Washington - First U.S. president

The current round of voting will end on Weds. June 16 at noon EST.

Same rules as the previous round: ten votes per player, no more than five against any single leader, etc.

[Tom_Scud]

Woo. I still have 4 nominees in the game.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Washington - 5. I mean, he was a great man, but he wasn’t really great shakes as a President. He set a good precedent vis-a-vis term limits and set a bad precedent vis-a-vis isolationism, and that was about it.

Alfred the Great - 5. Ruled less than half of modern England, and had little impact on the history of the world outside his bucolic isle, unlike many later English monarchs.