Please make it a little less ... sexist

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

4 hours ago, Micfild said:

Hi everyone! This seems to be an old post but i got intrigued by the concept of two-gender gatherers. I haven't found the 2-gender citizen mod that people kept talking about so i went and built a little conceptual mod just to see how laborious it would be. 

I attached the results. I only did it for the Spartans though (since its conceptual).

As a whole, the game already has everything it need to implement this (no new art or animation required, well, maybe for the unit portrait icon).

As for the question of visibility (distinguishing soldiers from gatherers), it's already very hard to do it by sight alone, and much easier to just area select and work with the unit icons. Also, alt+area select already selects only soldiers (and i believe there is also one for only gatherers, but i can't remember right now).

Have fun everyone!

Male_gatherer_concept.zip 20 kB · 0 downloads

 

1 minute ago, maroder said:

Here is it

https://github.com/JustusAvramenko/0-A.D.-Alpha-24---Two-Gendered-Citizens

Clicky -> 

https://github.com/JustusAvramenko/0-A.D.-Alpha-24---Two-Gendered-Citizens

[Micfild]

@maroder @wowgetoffyourcellphone

Thank for the link. 

[Yekaterina]

This has gone a bit too far. 

1. 'Female citizens' in 0ad are UnitAI + template.xml + actor.xml. They have nothing to do with real women whatsoever. So there is no sexism involved since we are dealing with purely AIs.

2. If you make 'male gatherers' , then someone could ask for 'female soldiers'. But if you implement that, you see women killed on the battlefield, then they will protest because women's rights have been violated... So these people will never be satisfied...

3. Women rush can be an effective strategy to delay your opponent. 

 

I don't see why the creator of the thread just sprays in  a random criticism and never returned to check out the the mod. They have not returned since November 2020...

No other female players have had this complaint, nor are the interested in installing extra mods to make the AIs more politically correct... This led me to suspect that whether this Crea is trolling...

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

2. If you make 'male gatherers' , then someone could ask for 'female soldiers'. But if you implement that, you see women killed on the battlefield, then they will protest because women's rights have been violated... So these people will never be satisfied...

Well, male gatherers make more sense, historically, than female soldiers.

 

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

3. Women rush can be an effective strategy to delay your opponent. 

True, but then that would then be turned into the Citizen Rush.

 

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

I don't see why the creator of the thread just sprays in  a random criticism and never returned to check out the the mod. They have not returned since November 2020...

 

Agreed there.

 

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

No other female players have had this complaint, nor are the interested in installing extra mods to make the AIs more politically correct... This led me to suspect that whether this Crea is trolling...

I would just merge the two-gender citizen mod into the base game, so you don't have to install a mod.

 

 

[maroder]

5 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

'Female citizens' in 0ad are UnitAI + template.xml + actor.xml. They have nothing to do with real women whatsoever. So there is no sexism involved since we are dealing with purely AIs.

I disagree. They depict women, which is why there is a transfer of the meaning and depiction between the ai and the real world. We give things meaning through the words we attach to them and through the way we depict them.

[maroder]

5 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

No other female players have had this complaint, nor are the interested in installing extra mods to make the AIs more politically correct... This led me to suspect that whether this Crea is trolling...

This can have multiple reasons. Firstly computer games and especially strategy games as RTS have a player demographic that is to a huge majority male. So there could be just less female player voicing their opinion.

Also, I guess that the female players that may exist are less likely to participate in a forum discussion, due to the let's call it "confrontative" environment that is here sometimes. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia as comparison.

And lastly you are correct, not all women playing the game take issue with the depiction of female citizens (see this recent positive article: https://interactivepasts.com/blog-posts/0-a-d-part-ii-bring-in-the-queens/ )

[Yekaterina]

Tbh female players are more concerned about lobby harassment than 1 gender citizen...

[maroder]

3 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

lobby harassment

Yes that is a problem and should also be handled.

_______

But to finish my point: I still think that having two gendered citizens in the main game would be a good choice. The way I see it the problem is not the depiction of women, but that they are the only (except priests) units who lack any real attack attack and defense capabilities, which is why they seem super weak in comparison. Maybe we can write an email to the author of the article linked above and ask about an opinion on this.

I have tried the mod and the recognition between soilders an citizens is still good.

Multiple people from the team have expressed that they would be ok with having two gendered citizens (at least for some civs), so I don't see a problem including it.

[LetswaveaBook]

On 30/11/2020 at 1:14 PM, Nescio said:

In Age of Empires II, there were no differences between male and female villagers either.

Oh, this is a serious misconception. When a male villager and a female fight in AoE2, the male has the advantage.

 

[Jofursloft]

8 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

2. If you make 'male gatherers' , then someone could ask for 'female soldiers'. But if you implement that, you see women killed on the battlefield, then they will protest because women's rights have been violated... So these people will never be satisfied...

I partially agree. Male gatherers make absolute sense. Female soldiers don't really make sense because women have factually not enough strenght to maneuver a pike or throw a heavy javelin in a long distance. This doesn't mean that nowadays there cannot be women who are stronger than the average of men, but we also have to consider the culture of that time (women basically as not for few cases didn't receive a proper phisical training) and the nutrition of the time. Only if we talk about archers/crossbowers/slingers I agree there could be also female soldiers. It's obvious there will always be people who complain about something, but I think that 0ad should be a bit more realistic in this sense. 

The main thing I find to be a problem is that in a lot of games when I pass minute 13 I begin to kill all my women who are working on the woodline and replace that with men (and that yes, I find it to be a bit too much). 

[Yekaterina]

9 minutes ago, Jofursloft said:

The main thing I find to be a problem is that in a lot of games when I pass minute 13 I begin to kill all my women who are working on the woodline and replace that with men (and that yes, I find it to be a bit too much). 

I do that as well, I think it is a good strategy. 

I guess killing male units also isn't politically correct, nor does it make the game less 'sexist'. So, to be absolutely politically correct, the units can't depict men or women, let's make them pure robots that look like Among Us characters or Pony Ascendant. 

(was sarcastic, please don't do that)

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Yekaterina

[Jofursloft]

2 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I guess killing male units also isn't politically correct, nor does it make the game less 'sexist'. So, to be absolutely politically correct, the units can't depict men or women, let's make them pure robots that look like Among Us characters or Pony Ascendant. 

Absolutely agree, also because we don't actually know if all  the men that we see in the game are actually men or they fell themselves to be women. What I'm saying is that we should just make this a bit more inclusive (that in this case means also more realistic), just because having only women and not men farming fields doesn't make sense (as much as having only men at fighting makes sense).  

[Yekaterina]

1 minute ago, Jofursloft said:

just because having only women and not men farming fields doesn't make sense (as much as having only men at fighting makes sense).  

I make spearmen farm with women just in case there is a melee cav rush. 

[Silier]

5 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Pony Ascendant. 

I think most of the units in ponies ascendant are females if not all.

[maroder]

@Yekaterina

What exactly is it you dislike about the idea to have male and female gatherer/ citizens or however we call them?

Because if it's only the recognition, I don't really understand your concerns. As I said, I tried the wow's mod and the citizens are (for me) clearly distinguishable from soldiers. Also as wow said: this is the concept that is used in AoE2 and it seems they didn't have problems with recognition.

[Jofursloft]

11 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

I make spearmen farm with women just in case there is a melee cav rush. 

"Just in case", which means that is something you would avoid because men have a terrible gather rate.

A not-trained man who works in the fields 12 hours per day and has a poor diet is far from being as strong as a man who is trained for a fight.

[LienRag]

I believe (not an expert, but I read some vulgarization) that in most societies of this time, all male citizens (i.e., not slave) were supposed to be able to fight in a war if need be ?

If there are societies where there were non-slave citizens without any fighting skill, definitely yes the game should represent that fact for their in-game civilization (and it may be an interesting differentiation point to have woodless citizens that do not suck at mining), but apart from that there's no point in creating yet another anachronism.

Also, if it's possible to represent slavery in a strategically interesting and not totally icky way, that could indeed solve part of the problem as women would basically disappear from the workforce and as such from the game (save from female priests, traders and champions).
But I'm not convinced by the ideas presented so far (and haven't tested Delenda Est)...

Another option would be making women's tasks (like weaving and spinning) more prominent in the game (but of course only if there's a strategic impact, not for gaining woke points).
I don't have many ideas on how to do that in a meaningful and interesting manner, though.

[LienRag]

Oh, also having some heroes/heroins giving a fighting boost to women could be nice and there are certainly historical precedents.

It could be either as an aura or as a general bonus as long as the hero/in is alive.

 

[Yekaterina]

3 hours ago, maroder said:

What exactly is it you dislike about the idea to have male and female gatherer/ citizens or however we call them?

Please don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the mod or Wow. I am just used to sending women to farming and wood then men to wood and mining. It has been like that for as long as I can remember (at least 3 alphas) and there is no point in making changes to the base game. I can make the two gender citizen mod a part of autociv or BoonGUI or something that is lobby compatible as well (for people who are interested), but implementing it into the base game makes sorting out models in the public folder slightly harder. It would be quite surprising for an old player when they upgrade to A27 and see the women icon in the CC gone. We can have a poll to decide whether to implement 2 gender citizens or not. 

Furthermore, since most soldier units are male, having half of the gatherers being male means even less females being produced and represented in your population composition. Not sure if that is a step towards or away from gender equality. 

To summarise, put your ideas into a lobby-compatible mod but please don't make changes to vanilla 0AD. 

[maroder]

39 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

there is no point in making changes to the base game

Yeah, this is how I feel sometimes when I see nice ideas for the game shatter at the rigid mind of people.

[maroder]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

We can have a poll to decide whether to implement 2 gender citizens or not. 

Sure why not.

I am still wondering why there is such a pushback when this doesn't change anything about the gameplay. 

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

It would be quite surprising for an old player when they upgrade to A27 and see the women icon in the CC gone

Not more surprising than any other change.

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Furthermore, since most soldier units are male, having half of the gatherers being male means even less females being produced and represented in your population composition. Not sure if that is a step towards or away from gender equality. 

This is a point for discussion.

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

To summarise, put your ideas into a lobby-compatible mod but please don't make changes to vanilla 0AD. 

Watch out, this argument may come back to you in the future lol

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, maroder said:

Yeah, this is how I feel sometimes when I see nice ideas for the game shatter at the rigid mind of people.

Sorry  man, but that is what I initially thought. Again, a poll would be informative. 

[Jofursloft]

2 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Furthermore, since most soldier units are male, having half of the gatherers being male means even less females being produced and represented in your population composition. Not sure if that is a step towards or away from gender equality. 

That's why I say we should also add female traders, female crossbowers and archers, female healers (and male healers for ibers). If this is realistic, why not implementing it? 

I mean, this is not a necessity, it's just something is nice to do because it's realistic (as much as any change who is done in making the graphics of the game better) 

[LienRag]

1 hour ago, Jofursloft said:

That's why I say we should also add (...) female archers, (...). If this is realistic, why not implementing it?

Anything that has actual historical accuracy should be added, yes.

About archers, from what I read there is a serious misconception on what musculature is necessary to use a military bow of the period ; Katniss Evergreen would never be able to wield one with the muscle mass that she shows in the movie.

So barred historical precedents of female archers, no, popular culture should not be the basis for including them in the game.

[Stan`]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

Sorry  man, but that is what I initially thought. Again, a poll would be informative. 

Sadly a poll on the forums would probably be really biaised.