No, obviously there has to be a cut-off point somewhere, and there are clearly artistic and aesthetic considerations that come into play. In the (probably) most popular historical RTS franchise in the world, there are “villagers” of both sexes. It’s called Age of Empires — maybe you’ve heard of it.  I don’t know how each civilization historically referred to its non-soldier people. But the term is entirely consistent within the game’s universe. In fact, soldiers aren’t simply called “soldiers” — they’ve been called “Citizen-soldiers” for a long time. So on one side we had “Citizen-soldiers,” and on the other side we had “women.” Does that sound more consistent to you? If you want to put it in those terms, of course not. Maybe that was the case. And maybe now someone is fixing it. But you seem to have a problem with that. What’s ridiculous is pretending those are valid arguments when they’re clearly exaggerations that no reasonable person would take seriously. So if you use ridiculous arguements, thats on you. Citizen-soldiers don’t gather food as quickly as civilians. If a player chooses to use them on farms, that’s a gameplay decision. They’re accepting the trade-off in exchange for having their farms/CC/base better defended. The addition of a male model for what are now civilians responds to the reasons already stated. I’m not sure where you got that definition from, but it’s far from correct. There are artistic and aesthetic decisions that add nothing directly to gameplay, yet they are there precisely because this is a game — and they add aesthetic value. There’s even a mod that replaces trees with pink cubes and metal deposits with yellow rectangles. I invite you to start using it, since apparently having attractive 3D models has no value to the gameplay experience.  Yeah, maybe you are right on this. Maybe there are people who have been working on the Art Team on this game for more than fifteen years or so, making it look better every single day. Improving every single model, adding different variants for the same unit. So yeah

Such a strong argument. You should be a game developer, I'm sure many would love to play your games. Who cares how people call them in the lobby, there's so many players who don't care about the lobby. Or who don't even know that the game has a lobby, for that matter.  Now, this is written in bad faith. It was called "woman", because that's what it looked like. You could argue that original developers should have gone with the standard gendered villager unit, but people wanted to try something different. AoE is a great franchise, but it doesn't need yet another clone. Almost no one used men to gather crops in the fields. Only the AI and some dedicated Sparta player with a lot of Helots. I really struggle with understanding your opposition to this change. 

Congratulations to the team on this milestone release! I have been playing a few games and already noticed some big changes.  Especially in the AI, it has gotten much better. It can be a challenge even on Medium difficulty. Gendered Civilians is such a major change. I remember suggesting this change some time back, and I'm glad it was included in the game. It helps some players who like to distinguish between economic and military unit roles. It is also logical to have civilians (or pure economic units) of both genders in the game. GUI scale sharpness is also a great fix. As for the Germans, I had a such a surprise when I sent my clubmen to chop wood I don't think I'll like playing with them, but they're nice. Someone mentioned better performance. Maybe in multiplayer, I didn't feel the increase in performance in my SP matches. Here's to many more great releases! 

When the argument of “historical realism” comes into play, then all other realistic options should also be considered. In some games, there’s a rest mode, day–night cycles and children born from parents etc. You think these realism obligations are ridiculous, yes, because they are.  Why was the unit called “women” in the first place? I think we should reflect on that. Was it originally chosen with a sexist idea in mind?    “Civilians” is definitely an artificial term and if you observe the games in the lobby you’ll see that everyone calls them “women” anyway.    The thing is this: we were already seeing men working in the fields. The ability to use men for farming or gathering fruit has always been in the game. This is a game and any changes made should add something to the gameplay. This change doesn’t contribute anything to the game, looks like it only serves to satisfy the people who suggested it.

In case some peeps are blind that includes me, when selecting in area filled with soldier and civilians, there is a button to select civilians only and then there is soldiers only, may it help you a bit.