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Thread: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

  1. #1

    Default Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    The title is the long and short of it. Basically I want a completely unbiased answer as to whether or not the low level army composition of this game is realistic. It strikes me as being quite the opposite as a fervent student of history for the whole of my life, but i want to believe that CA hasn't incorporated them simply to cater to the PC crowd....I want to believe that my favorite series still has a modicum of interest in the preservation of history, even when touching upon a relatively uncertain era. I want to believe that the proportions aren't blatant extrapolation on their part. Thanks and keep things civil.

  2. #2

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Depends on what your definition of "levy" is. When the entire tribe moved thousands of miles/kms during the migration period, the whole nation is just one big army.

  3. #3
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    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    The title is the long and short of it. Basically I want a completely unbiased answer as to whether or not the low level army composition of this game is realistic. It strikes me as being quite the opposite as a fervent student of history for the whole of my life, but i want to believe that CA hasn't incorporated them simply to cater to the PC crowd....I want to believe that my favorite series still has a modicum of interest in the preservation of history, even when touching upon a relatively uncertain era. I want to believe that the proportions aren't blatant extrapolation on their part. Thanks and keep things civil.
    It`s complete nonsense and CA know it. There is absolutely no way there were such huge numbers of women in units in those times. It makes nosense. I can elucidate exactly why, but I`ll stop here, for now. But CA are catering to the almost non-existent female player base, probably to feel `non-sexist`, much like movies that pop in female fighters where they never were to pander to females or titilation for the boys. Most women don`t care about military history and the reality; they only care that they are `in`. Many games Dev are cowards when it comes to standing their ground to feminist and SJW types and for them it`s a sort of `mating` strategy.

    Yea, I know deep and over some people`s heads.

  4. #4

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    The direct participation of women combatants in ancient armies is usually mentioned in the same breath with the old, young, sick and injured. While there are certainly times when they fought, and even did so in relatively large numbers, it was almost always an act of desperation. Its typically not something they strived for, and more typical of last stands then front line combat.

    The exception to this is in certain tribal groups, mostly in Germany, the British Isles and the steppe, where women did directly participate in front line combat along with the men. They were still the exception rather then the norm however, remarkable not for there being very many of them, but for being more then what you find in "civilized" armies, which is to say, more then none at all. Even 1 in 10 fighters being female is a real stretch even in the above mentioned societies; certainly nowhere near the numbers you see in the game.
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  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Caligula's_Horse View Post
    The direct participation of women combatants in ancient armies is usually mentioned in the same breath with the old, young, sick and injured. While there are certainly times when they fought, and even did so in relatively large numbers, it was almost always an act of desperation. Its typically not something they strived for, and more typical of last stands then front line combat.

    The exception to this is in certain tribal groups, mostly in Germany, the British Isles and the steppe, where women did directly participate in front line combat along with the men. They were still the exception rather then the norm however, remarkable not for there being very many of them, but for being more then what you find in "civilized" armies, which is to say, more then none at all. Even 1 in 10 fighters being female is a real stretch even in the above mentioned societies; certainly nowhere near the numbers you see in the game.
    A very disheartening affirmation of my suspicions. I grew up playing total war games, they actually acted as a spring board for my love of history. Currently 2 years into what will ultimately become a doctorate in anthropology. Never have i heard of there being women on the front lines in such numbers and yet here they are still in a game that claims to be grounded in history. Very very tragic as i for so long thought CA were one of the few companies with some investment in authenticity.

    Quote Originally Posted by Humble Warrior View Post
    It`s complete nonsense and CA know it. There is absolutely no way there were such huge numbers of women in units in those times. It makes nosense. I can elucidate exactly why, but I`ll stop here, for now. But CA are catering to the almost non-existent female player base, probably to feel `non-sexist`, much like movies that pop in female fighters where they never were to pander to females or titilation for the boys. Most women don`t care about military history and the reality; they only care that they are `in`. Many games Dev are cowards when it comes to standing their ground to feminist and SJW types and for them it`s a sort of `mating` strategy.

    Yea, I know deep and over some people`s heads.
    On a side note; has ca been pressured by these demographics? I can't say i keep up with the machinations and whatnot of tumblr and i can't imagine they'd be interested in a strategy franchise, am i correct?
    Last edited by Radzeer; June 10, 2015 at 07:50 PM.

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    The direct participation of women combatants in ancient armies is usually mentioned in the same breath with the old, young, sick and injured. While there are certainly times when they fought, and even did so in relatively large numbers, it was almost always an act of desperation. Its typically not something they strived for, and more typical of last stands then front line combat.
    This. CA is trying to copy the series Vikings, which is also inaccurate as Viking women did not fight like that either.

    The Sarmatians/Alans were known for women serving not only as commanders but also in direct combat, but even then not in the numbers CA represents.

  7. #7

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    A very disheartening affirmation of my suspicions. I grew up playing total war games, they actually acted as a spring board for my love of history. Currently 2 years into what will ultimately become a doctorate in anthropology. Never have i heard of there being women on the front lines in such numbers and yet here they are still in a game that claims to be grounded in history. Very very tragic as i for so long thought CA were one of the few companies with some investment in authenticity.
    Fielding an army full of levies where 25% are women is no less accurate than an ERE player fielding a full stack of Tagmata cavalry ("in such numbers") against the Huns.

    The way it's been treated isn't totally without base. Women only show up in barbarian armies, and do not appear in Roman and Sasssanid. Personally, I think the women unit models should only appear if the faction is in horde mode or for local garrison forces, and should be reduced from 25% to 5%. But then again there are lots of things wrong with this game.

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    A full stack of Tagmata cavalry shouldn't exist for another 4 centuries

    Women only show up in barbarian armies
    Only Sarmatian and Alanic culture forces had them, and at a rate of maybe a handful of women in an entire army. Mostly noblewomen, but also we have archaeological finds of women who served in hand-to-hand or ranged combat from the Sarmatian period steppes. The example I can most readily think of is a Female Cataphract buried with a 12-foot lance and metal armor in the Crimea, amongst the usual grave finds and a couple broken bows.

  9. #9

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    Did a bit more research into the matter and ill im scrounging up is a few dubious blog posts about female celtic and norse warriors. Tacitus makes no mention of them in Germania and actually states quite the contrary, that women were very much second class citizens who were shaved and ousted if caught cheating or the like. Norse shield maidens are similarly questionable, only really being substantiated by that recent burial excavation and a whole lot of conjecture on some scholars parts. Celts were more inclusive, evidently some women did take up the sword but i havent found much on it. Honestly, i'll fully admit that their more civilized counter parts were more exclusionary, but it seems like barbarians were still fairly patriarchal and save for some notable exceptions the military role would be fulfilled by men just the same as the lions share of societies, no doubt women have made their way into the throngs but this seems to be the exception...not the rule. Along with city defenses and guerilla warfare i dont think their influence can be underestimated but Atilla....it seems to take these facts or places in which there are a lack of facts and it runs with it. Granted, there are other inaccuracies. But the unit composition is the most glaring to me. I hope this doesn't become commonplace.

    The major issue here is the lack of credible sources. COULD they have existed in such numbers? I suppose i couldn't completely discount it! But in the absence of evidence i think its dishonest to take these liberties, a single burial excavation and rabid feminism be damned....though i hope the latter is not whats influencing CA. Id rather them be revisionists for other reasons. Less irrevocable that way.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aeratus View Post
    Fielding an army full of levies where 25% are women is no less accurate than an ERE player fielding a full stack of Tagmata cavalry ("in such numbers") against the Huns.

    The way it's been treated isn't totally without base. Women only show up in barbarian armies, and do not appear in Roman and Sasssanid. Personally, I think the women unit models should only appear if the faction is in horde mode or for local garrison forces, and should be reduced from 25% to 5%. But then again there are lots of things wrong with this game.
    I agree. 5% would have been plausible, the numbers are immersion breaking for me. I like to think that CA has not foregone historical accuracy just yet. Perhaps just went overboard.

    Also- to anyone who bought into the silly 50/50 nordic army composition nonsense please read the original article instead of buying into the nonsensical blog posts that followed his findings. It in no way implies that they were actual combatants and its obvious that both CA and many others simply skimmed and picked out what they pleased.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...1.00323.x/full
    Last edited by Radzeer; June 10, 2015 at 07:49 PM. Reason: merged

  10. #10

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    Basically I want a completely unbiased answer as to whether or not the low level army composition of this game is realistic.
    Not possible, given the scale of Total War games' broad base of factions. If I say no, women don't participate in military activities, cite Romans, then there's the problem of Britons and Parthians. I would have to take them into account as well. In which case you're kind of like asking, for once and for all, whether black people really are criminals. The reality is that the question itself is problematic.

    Woman in armies? No. Women fighting re with weapons against other people? Sure, you don't need an army to take part/ fight off raiding parties. In fact, the majority of military conflict and violence didn't occur through battles; humans aren't so civilized that the only time they will spill each other's blood is assembling in a specific place for the occasion, I can just send a few guys over to your village and slit a few throats, or rustle up some of your livestock, killing anyone standing in our way, or send a scouting party to find your own army and engage your own scouts. Battles tend to be climactic affairs and therefore more documented than the "humdrum" violent life of people outside of such battles. Women are naturally not going to be found in battles or armies, but that does NOT mean they never participated in some sort of violence like combat.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    It strikes me as being quite the opposite as a fervent student of history for the whole of my life, but i want to believe that CA hasn't incorporated them simply to cater to the PC crowd
    CA incorporates things because it will interest people into buying their games. There's a reason why RTW was released after Gladiator and featured gladiator units, and MTW2: Kingdoms ripping off elements from Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven. Naturally, you got Shogun2 and Fall of the Samurai much like the old Jidai movies parroting similar anachronisms like sword-only samurai units, or Tom Cruise's traditional vs. modern Meiji era armies. And of course Rome2 being basically a rip of HBO's Rome. This isn't surprising given CA needs people to buy their games to survive, so they need to have their products relatable to the expected experience- re samurai games need lots of sword and screaming men in armour, rather than prolific use of firearms as the Sengoku period actually had. But that includes technical problems like AI as well.

    End of the day though, Total War is just making armies and building up provinces to go take other provinces and destroy other armies. Everything else will have a lot of make-believe, and you can easily find cliches by watching contemporary movies. This isn't necessarily bad if CA weren't basically trend-chasers; historical accuracy and relevance is simply not their primary interest, it's the stuff that will make most people will want to buy. Total War also isn't the world's biggest historical game simulator (sic) either, so it's not like they can afford to just make a very historically accurate game with few bugs (heh) and shrug if it makes very little sales.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    I want to believe that my favorite series still has a modicum of interest in the preservation of history, even when touching upon a relatively uncertain era. I want to believe that the proportions aren't blatant extrapolation on their part.
    Like I said, extrapolation inasmuch as it wows the audience for them to buy and make positive reviews on Steam and Metacritic. First impressions was really their first priority when they marketed the hell out of Rome2. Because once you get past that, you get a very typical Total War game that hasn't really changed. Sure you play Romans and you got tactical map, but through it all you're playing one faction against many others.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    Did a bit more research into the matter and ill im scrounging up is a few dubious blog posts about female celtic and norse warriors. Tacitus makes no mention of them in Germania and actually states quite the contrary, that women were very much second class citizens who were shaved and ousted if caught cheating or the like. Norse shield maidens are similarly questionable, only really being substantiated by that recent burial excavation and a whole lot of conjecture on some scholars parts. Celts were more inclusive, evidently some women did take up the sword but i havent found much on it. Honestly, i'll fully admit that their more civilized counter parts were more exclusionary, but it seems like barbarians were still fairly patriarchal and save for some notable exceptions the military role would be fulfilled by men just the same as the lions share of societies, no doubt women have made their way into the throngs but this seems to be the exception...not the rule. Along with city defenses and guerilla warfare i dont think their influence can be underestimated but Atilla....it seems to take these facts or places in which there are a lack of facts and it runs with it. Granted, there are other inaccuracies. But the unit composition is the most glaring to me. I hope this doesn't become commonplace.
    The truth is that they're all made up and the argument is that they could have existed and given that sort of names. To be fair, we simply don't know very much about this subject so CA can either not cover this subject at all (which makes for a bland game) or they can make up some fancy stuff (which attracts but is not based on historical research). And it is not like all history is equal too; some peoples have more documentation on women fighting while others don't, so CA can either make it unbalanced where only some factions get them, which can get awkward, or they can make up a unit to sell for DLC (which they did, called Daughters of Mars; every playable faction got a female unit). They also did this with animals (figures, eh?).

    Quote Originally Posted by Sethology View Post
    The major issue here is the lack of credible sources. COULD they have existed in such numbers? I suppose i couldn't completely discount it! But in the absence of evidence i think its dishonest to take these liberties, a single burial excavation and rabid feminism be damned....though i hope the latter is not whats influencing CA. Id rather them be revisionists for other reasons. Less irrevocable that way.
    Unfortunately CA isn't in the business for historical plausibility. That only comes AFTER they make sure they can get a product that will sell. Until then it needs to be a product that will get people's attention, and unfortunately the most common impression people get are along the lines of "Wow trailer looks awesome six stars out of five!"

    But it should be noted that the way Total War games are designed as a game needs to be taken in a different light: the nature of how Total War plays out demands that the player is able to make choices that would be impossible in real life, like making an army entirely of knights while only controlling like three provinces. They used to have interesting mechanics to simulate this though, in the case o Medieval II, buildings had a spawn rate and maximum cap of certain units; naturally, knights have a lower spawn rate and cap so unless you waited a 100 turns before attacking anyone (or modifying the game), it is simply impossible to train up an entire army of knights, even if you had infinite money- the game's mechanics simulated the relative rarity of these semi-professional soldiers. Naturally players will be enticed to train cheaper but weaker levy units, which are far more numerous and diverse. But this doesn't happen in Rome2 or Attila, it is possible, if you discount money and time to train, to get a full stack of Tagmata cavalry within a small number of turns, completely unrealistic and not even really plausible.

    Also- to anyone who bought into the silly 50/50 nordic army composition nonsense please read the original article instead of buying into the nonsensical blog posts that followed his findings. It in no way implies that they were actual combatants and its obvious that both CA and many others simply skimmed and picked out what they pleased.

    For women and fighting, it is simply not gong to be a universal principal that ignores circumstances where division of labour necessitates certain people do certain work. Women may not fight in battles, but that hardly sounds anti-feminist when the fact is that neither should the old, sick or children do so, because not everyone can just pick up a sword and leave the fields untended, meals uncooked or craftwork not being made. If you have a society where someone needs to go hunting for food and someone else needs to take care of the children and making food, 10/10 times barring things like sickness or famine will the man do the former and women do the latter. Fighting people tend to require the sort of skills that men happen to be most disposed of, whereas tracking, finding and overpowering and killing another human isn't exactly the sort of skillset you can acquire by cooking food or making clothes and so forth. There's nothing sexist about this: any man that spends his life doing domestic work is naturally less skilled in killing other people compared to another man that spent his life hunting, maintaining weapons and learning to work as a team in situations that may result in death. Humans are also organized in ways that make exceptions rare and not embraced; pre-modern people were hardly into equality. If my father and his father and his father did all the hunting and fighting, with so much tradition and mythology behind it all, there's no reason to think a woman doing that instead is a good idea, especially since it's been culturally ingrained that "manly" work involves doing X where woman's work is Y. I see no reason why certain peoples, such as the Germans, were so different that they never minded women fighting and being warriors.

    The debate about existence of shieldmaidens also tends to be towards things like "there, you see women did fight in battle, therefore they must be very common as well!" yeah, a few references here and there doesn't imply common practice. Unless we find hard evidence that effectively SAY that combat for women was not only commonplace but expected as a social institution, one can only assume that these were in fact exceptional cases. Unless you really believe that throughout all of human history everyone just conveniently (or maliciously) forgot about all those women warriors and instead listed male names. Using simple reasoning, the relatively few list of female names associated with war (Mulan, Boudicca, Japanese samurai wives) compared with the much larger list of male names represents the reality of how humans organized themselves. Hell, even among men there is certain order of precedence; also, the first suffragists were white women and didn't think of black women's rights to vote.

    Anyways to summarize, no it's not realistic, and CA never intended it to be; given how the game is designed, realism is very difficult to attain.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    The major issue here is the lack of credible sources. COULD they have existed in such numbers? I suppose i couldn't completely discount it! But in the absence of evidence i think its dishonest to take these liberties, a single burial excavation and rabid feminism be damned....though i hope the latter is not whats influencing CA. Id rather them be revisionists for other reasons. Less irrevocable that way.
    I think in the end, a major question is what you interpret the levy units in this game to represent. This is always an issue, because total war armies are simply not realistic in the first place, like the overabundance of onagers for example. Do the levies represent military units? Or do they represent people that just happen to be caught in war? This issue could be open to interpretation, because during this period, the line between what was an army and not an army wasn't so clear. Some of the low level barbarian units in this game are really poor in combat ability. In my personal interpretation, 5% for horde/garrison armies would seem reasonable to me.

    In a standard Barbarian horde, the entire size of the horde would probably be on the order of 80k (the estimate given for the Goths at Adrianople). The horde marched as one unit, so the entire horde was one army. However, within the 80k men, only 15k of them were preferred combatants. These combatants would all be considered to be "levies" if you define this term loosely. However, these levy units were highly skilled warriors, because they were mostly defectors from Roman service. So what about the rest of the 65k men that were non-preferred combatants? Do they have the potential to take up arms (even if they rarely did so in practice). I think the answer is probably yes, to some extent. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been possible for these horde armies to be so durable, so as to be able to march through the length of Italy down and back up and into Spain. If only 15k of the 80k population could be expected to fight, hordes would've been wiped out by the Romans at ease.

    As mentioned in the above post, women in armies is a question of specialization. From a broad picture, sedentary societies like the Romans were the most specialized, whereas the barbarians furthest from civilized territory were the least specialized. Only in some less specialized societies do you have women be present in armies. A horde would likely be the least specialized of any society, since the whole population is moving, and even the non-combatants are right in the middle of battle (in the wagon lager).

  12. #12

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Woo, you fellas are thorough with your responses. And i agree with every post on this forum more or less. I by no means meant for my disdain to be in one fell swoop the end of my enjoyment of Total war games. Merely wanted to sate my curiosity, not because its the only historical inaccuracy ever contrived by CA but because it was frankly the most glaring. And yeah, all of the great chroniclers of the era, or more so antiquity, probably wouldn't have taken notice of a few women amongst the barbarian throngs when combating them or observing them or what have you. Really whats more sickening then anything else are the liberties some of these columnists take...they take a snippet from some pictish mythology treatise or what have you and make it out as though it was some ubiquitous custom. Seems like some serious grasping, but i suppose that's why they aren't publishing any sort of scholarly material on the matter.

  13. #13

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Well for a people to make it into a history game they have to be pretty significant and successful historically even if they are very minor compared to other peoples in the games. But if young women are falling in battle constantly then the population will tank, and likely fail quickly. It would be extremely rare for those peoples to make it into history much less succeed to the level of making it into a game.

  14. #14
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    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    It should be noted that at this time the issue was not Women falling in battle, but becoming nuns and not having children. The Romans actually had to pass laws against it under the Emperor Majorian.

  15. #15

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    The greeks probably saw SOME women as horse archers in sarmatian units and they were so impressed they created the myth of the amazons, the nation of the women only warriors. So this makes you understand how few they were -generally- and how strange was perceived the appearence of a woman -and I mean, a Woman!! (From greek perspective, where women where mainly locked at home with no civil rights)- in the battlefield.
    https://www.youtube.com/user/andrew881thebest youtube channel dedicated to rome 2 machinimas and movie battle

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeOCm5MJJ14 battle in Germany from "Gladiator" movie remade

  16. #16

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    (From greek perspective, where women where mainly locked at home with no civil rights)-
    This is extremely important to remember. Most of our historical writing comes from the greeks and the romans, and they were influenced by the biases of their time. It's also influenced by the fact that, we as english speakers, have acces mainly to greek and roman sources due to those languages having survived thanks to the church. It's hard to do historic research when half your sources are written in Persian, for example.

  17. #17
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    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    There is a huge gap in Classical History research because Classical Historians aren't trained to read the Persian and Armenian and Central Asian sources, many of whom have relevant things to say about the topics in Rome and Greece etc. that they're researching.

  18. #18

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    No, it's not realistic. Women did not fight on the scale it is in ATTILA, though in the case they did it wasn't that much. If it were a migrating horde the women would be in camps and so away from the battle.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Percentage of women in levies realistic?

    Huh, didnt even know there were women in levy units lol.

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