''Mod out or not play'' controversy

[Abdülmecid I]

Steam fora have pretty much descended into chaos, following the latest ''business practice'' controversy involving Creative Assembly. Reddit isn't in a much better condition. Darren's video summarizes perfectly the entire affair, as well as the arguments, legitimate or not, of either side.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The issue began when several players complained about their roster being overcrowded with female generals. Allegedly, the initial reaction was orchestrated by trolls coming from a notorious far-right site (presumably Stormfront), but I still haven't seen any proof confirming this accusation. As an image implied, playing as the Lagids, there was the possibility of finding almost no male candidate for your armies.

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The debate quickly escalated, something not surprising considering the current sensitivity of these topics. Then an employee of the company locked the thread, closing her warning with the dismissive comment directed towards anybody frustrated with military women of "mod them out or just not play". Interestingly enough, the discussion took place more than one month ago, but it surfaced only recently, thanks to a video made by Arch Warhammer, which describes the same thing with Darren, but in a significantly more negative manner.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In my opinion, the percentage of women in Rome II is hardly important, even if we take only historical accuracy into account. We are talking about a game where you can shoot several unfortunate snakes with your catapults and where the Middle East is ruled by a bunch of imaginary factions whose leaders share Assyrian and Babylonian names. Moreover, as Darren demonstrates, excluding the kingdom of Kush (50% probability of an automatically generated woman), women appear rather rarely and the gamer is actually able, unless being extremely unlucky, to avoid deploying them at all. However, the AI has fewer reservations about historical accuracy and its choices can affect the immersion experienced in a campaign. that being said, After all, each is entitled to his own opinion, and if someone believes that women commanding soldiers is unacceptably ridiculous, then so be it. He certainly deserves more than a rude reply in the style of "Marie Antoinette's cake". It should be noted that female generals were added later in Rome II, following a freely downloadable and practically speaking obligatory patch. No option was given.

Basically, I suspect that a minor complaint was allowed to transform into a public relations nightmare, due to poor communication. Working conditions gradually deteriorate nowadays, but customers, despite being weaker than employers, have a right to be interacted with politely. I am not sure about the intentions of the first who mentioned that problem, but if their goals were indeed naughty, then Ella's remark must have been exceptionally welcome by them.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

@Abdul:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://dailystormer.name/total-war-...n-and-darkies/

I quote myself from the official forum:

I like the female FLC, that came with the DK DLC.

The facts:

From the female_character_culture_details_table:

chance to spawn (%) general

15 rom_Barbarian y y y
6 rom_Hellenistic n y y
6 rom_Roman n y y dk_female_family_duty

from the female_character_faction_details_table:

6 3c_palmyra y y y r2_sp_trait_all_negotiator
16 emp_egypt y y y r2_sp_trait_female_warrior
11 rom_ardiaei y y y
50 rom_kush y y y
11 rom_nabatea y y y
14 rom_ptolemaics y y y
11 rom_saba y y y

from the female_character_subculture_details_table:

13 y y y sc_rom_african_arabian
6 n y y sc_rom_carthaginian dk_female_family_duty
6 n y y sc_rom_eastern dk_female_family_duty
13 y y y sc_rom_egyptian
6 n y y sc_rom_greek dk_female_family_duty
12 y y y sc_rom_numidian
7 n y y sc_rom_parthian dk_female_family_duty
6 n y y sc_rom_pontic dk_female_family_duty

So the only ones with female generals are:

Barbarians ( 15 % Chance )
Ptolemaics (14 / 16 % Chance )
Ardiaei ( 11 % )
Kush (50 % )
Nabatea (11 %)
Saba (11%)
Desertnomads ( 13 % )
Numidians (12 %)

I do a quick research about female generals:

Cartimandua.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartimandua

Bouddica.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/histori...boudicca.shtml

Teuta.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teuta

Adea (Eurydice II)

Eurydice's birth name appears to have been Adea[1]; the sources are silent on when it was changed to Eurydice. She was brought up by her mother Cynane, and seems to have been trained by her mother in masculine and martial exercises.

...

But the death of Antipater in 319 BC, the more feeble character of Polyperchon, who succeeded him as regent, and the failure of his enterprises in Greece, and above all, the favourable disposition he evinced towards Olympias, determined her again to take an active part: she concluded an alliance with Cassander, and, as he was wholly occupied with the affairs of Greece, she herself assembled an army and took the field in person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurydice_II_of_Macedon

Audata

Audata not only maintained an Illyrian identity in a Macedonian context but also passed that identity to her daughter and granddaughter.[4] Illyrian women led armies in battle, a skill that Audata taught her only child, her daughter Cynane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audata

The Ptolemaic Queens led also very often armies, example Cleo and her sisters.

So in my opinion its absolutely ok to implement female generals to factions, which have historic examples of them.

So this whole rant is unsubstantiated.

[i2Bros]

Boudicca is a name. Zenobia is a name. I can't say the same for Romans and Greeks, they had absolutely no female general at all.

[Skotos of Sinope]

Yeah, that seemed to me an attempt to extend legitimate criticism of another historical game's recent controversial choices regarding female representation to a game that is actually being faithful to history in this regard. I agree with Darren here wholeheartedly. It's interesting to see Darren take this position, as he hasn't been in the habit of defending CA lately. I think he's right both in stating that this is not in anyway analogous to what's going on with Battlefield, while at the same time pointing out that CA devs telling fans "Don't like it? Don't play it" is a guaranteed way to lose customers.

[i2Bros]

I think that Battlefield should have not implemented women tho, unless you play as a Russian sniper.

OFF-TOPIC, I have published this mod on Steam https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...searchtext=hbo, and I want to open a thread on this forums but I am a total newbie so I tried but it disappeared. Which is the correct section to post it in?

[Evan MF]

Other historical inaccuracies don't justify more historical inaccuracies, particularly when you have a sizeable part of the fanbase who expect the franchise to tilt towards more historical accuracy where feasible. I for one did not buy 'beasts of war' DLC because of how ridiculous it was - I didn't want it polluting my experience. Women have ridiculous representation in Rome 2 for a time-period where the domains of war and politics were exclusively male, save a few fortuitous exceptions. Those percentages are way too high.

It is significant to point out that sex stands out more than other things because we have evolved to notice it more than other dimensions of perception. In the same way that people see faces in random objects because their pattern recognition is wired for it, the presence of a female clearly trips certain wires in the male brain and diverts focus and attention. It is this distraction, even momentary, that can be jarring and immersion-breaking, particularly when people have been conditioned (correctly in the case of historical education) to not expect it. I would argue this is why pieces of entertainment that increase the presence of females come under such scrutiny. It is not so much a question of men not wanting women to 'feel inspired' by 'strong female characters' in entertainment, but that much of the female-creep pollutes and distracts males from the original context of what they wanted and expected. People tend to want to get lost in video games and not have to re-evaluate a game's internal-coherence when jarring changes are introduced. Notice that games that have female leads from the beginning of their franchise (e.g. Tomb Raider) have never been criticised on such grounds and are much beloved my their male gamer fanbases - this is because expectations were set from the beginning and the context remained coherent and consistent.

The commotion here is partly about the historical accuracy but is also part of the community testing CA to see what their general position on this issue is. It is totally understandable when you look at how drastically many other games and movies have experienced female-creep, the most recent major example being Battlefield V, which for anyone who played the original WW2 Battlefield game, looks like the deliberate fantasization of the WW2 setting for the sake of a political agenda in comparison. People want to know whether CA is going to succumb to this trend or not, because there are political forces all over entertainment pushing female presence into previously male-oriented stories and settings. They are willing to exercise their concerns or disquiet by doing whatever consumers are within their power to do (and that's not much) - message bombarding, down-voting and boycotting a product. So far CA have not dealt with it very well, almost mimicking a DICE-like response. To me this strikes as potential early signs of CA's culture succumbing, but it could well be the PR woman's own perspective and just be a red-herring. It is CA's problem and they are obliged to address it unless they want to risk more fan alienation on yet another aspect of their games.

[Welsh Dragon]

For anyone wondering, the far-right site is The Daily Stormer, as I saw the post on Steam where it was linked, in an article titled (spoiler texted due to offensive terminology.)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Total War: Rome II Getting Patched to Replace White Soldiers with Women And Darkies

It's pretty easy to find if you're so inclined, though I won't provide a link for obvious reasons.

Also if you want to see the context for CA Ella's comment that is being referred to so much, you'll find the thread here:

The thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/21495...3068433895118/

CA Ella's post:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/21495...20717351059516

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[eXistenZ]

I dont mind female generals at all. They are just stupidly overrepresented, just another sign that CA just frolicks about and likes the verb "playtest" removed from the dictionary. But they are like bottom of the list of things of what is wrong with the current state of the game.

But that community manager should be fired. She forgot basicly her job description. As a community manager yu speak to everyone, including some trolly kids. And you never say "dont play it". Especially because it is a change your forced through the players throat. I can not refund the game five years after date.

By reacting like that, you devaluate the opinions of 99% of the other members of the community and just reinforce the notion you dont listen to them and are only there for their money. Also, you painfully remembered people how many mods were broken because of the updates

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

For anyone wondering, the far-right site is The Daily Stormer, as I saw the post on Steam where it was linked, in an article titled (spoiler texted due to offensive terminology.)



It's pretty easy to find if you're so inclined, though I won't provide a link for obvious reasons.

Also if you want to see the context for CA Ella's comment that is being referred to so much, you'll find the thread here:

The thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/21495...3068433895118/

CA Ella's post:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/21495...20717351059516

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

If you look at the date of Ella's post (13. Aug. um 11:48 Uhr ), its obviously ripped out of context and this whole ranting is a stage-managed "affair".

And i have no understanding for it as Ella is insulted as "prostitute" and other things and her accounts are posted for cybermobbing attacks.

I dissociate with such kind of people.

[Boicote]

In what concerns to this controversy, this is what I see:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And this is what some people see:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

P.S. As you can see, it's very easy to manipulate screenshots. The picture in the OP proves nothing.

[gillburg]

Yea i would say they need to tone down how often women pop up, but other than that as long as it respects the historical context it's fine.

Lets not make this political, Far-Right is a small number of players and will have no real presence so lets not blown it out of proportions, it's the same as the Far-Left who are just as bad but in their own special way.

[Skotos of Sinope]

I would still reiterate that this is an entirely different situation than Battlefield V. Having a woman with a steampunk arm and punk rock makeup fighting in WWII (Who judging by her accent is neither a Soviet sniper or member of the French Resistance.)? Well, that's a difference in kind. Having a slightly higher percentage of female commanders in armies that historically did have female commanders? That's a difference of degree. I think there's an interesting debate to be had as to what the proper percentage should be. For those objecting too having too many women in power in the game, were you just as upset when there were none, when the historical record shows there were some in these cultures? I would argue that a slight overrepresentation is still more accurate than no representation. Anyway, this is a discussion that can be had without injecting politics. With Battlefield V on the other hand, it seems to be to have been poisoned by politics from the start. After that both sides will simply retreat to their respective tribes. When there are reviews on steam that outright are lying, saying that all Roman generals are female...someone's clearly trying to stir the pot. Someone is trying to make this another front in the culture wars. No thank you.

[AngryPolack]

History to me is sacred, and I appreciate anything that portrays the people who went through it as accurately as possible. That is why I respect the modders of this community so much who strive to make TW more historically accurate (or it it authentic?). I don’t care if CA bumped the chance of getting a female general up 1%, it’s too much and indicative of a bad direction for TW. The problem all boils down to this being a non negotiable patch as opposed to DLC, and Ella’s “don’t play” response. I’d would really like to see CA extend an olive branch here, and not dismiss the concerns long time supporters like me have as I was really on board to support Rome 2’s continued development.

[D@gget]

I suspect people here don't know that you are 100% in control of who gets to be a General or not in the game.

It's like they are taking the rumours spread from that far-right site 2 days ago and taking it at face value without actually playing the game, especially since female characters were implemented half a year ago and the reaction within the actually active playerbase was nowhere as outrageous.

[Boicote]

I'm afraid that Rome 2 is about to fall because of these barbarian invaders in the Steam forum. I'm very happy with the most recent updates, including female generals ( It's so nice to see characters like Cleopatra and Zenobia in the game). I evem bought all the most recent DLC's to support more patches. But now I'm afraid this controversy will end futher support to the game
I guess it's up to us, true Rome 2 fans, to avoid this to happen by expressing our support to the game.

[KamenLily]

I'm afraid that Rome 2 is about to fall because of these barbarian invaders in the Steam forum. I'm very happy with the most recent updates, including female generals ( It's so nice to see characters like Cleopatra and Zenobia in the game). I evem bought all the most recent DLC's to support more patches. But now I'm afraid this controversy will end futher support to the game
I guess it's up to us, true Rome 2 fans, to avoid this to happen by expressing our support to the game.

Yeah, it really feels like a barbarian invasion. Guess that the Rome 2 Steam forums have just entered into Attila mode.
It's pretty sad to see the chaos that the place had become.

But I think that the fans of the game are the ones which matter. So, I think that everything will be fine at the end.
Really hope that they will keep making some content for Rome 2. I haven't gotten my Alexander campaign yet!

[Daruwind]

CA posted statement about current situation. Basically what we are saying whole time... And third twitter comment is complaining about Spartan woman generals especially as text is explicitly saying Greek states = 0% chance (*retarded illiterate barbars*)

But honestly they could said word or two that mods next time will try to keep more professional tone..

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[herne_the _hunter]

I'm afraid that Rome 2 is about to fall because of these barbarian invaders in the Steam forum. I'm very happy with the most recent updates, including female generals ( It's so nice to see characters like Cleopatra and Zenobia in the game). I evem bought all the most recent DLC's to support more patches. But now I'm afraid this controversy will end futher support to the game
I guess it's up to us, true Rome 2 fans, to avoid this to happen by expressing our support to the game.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Clint_Eastwood]

Ok so how do we reduce the amount of "Chick Generals" that are appearing in the game please?? Sick of seeing these minxes appearing at an alarming rate!! I want "Historical Accuracy" in my games, thanks to anyone who can help out!

[Daruwind]

Ok so how do we reduce the amount of "Chick Generals" that are appearing in the game please?? Sick of seeing these minxes appearing at an alarming rate!! I want "Historical Accuracy" in my games, thanks to anyone who can help out!

Well there is already mod in workshop:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfil...?id=1473350596

Or just mod the particular tables yourself...you can easily see which one in Darren´s video..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIB5ByyXvHU

Best PR is to divert attention elsewhere Everything is pointing out to the next WH2 DLC...I was expecting first info in next few weeks, so either the plans got speed up or it is really nice try to divert attention in more positive direction which is the best way how to put these lies behind community... :-)

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15667702

New reddit post about something new...to me it looks like a pirate map? Exploration? Pirates, Treasures in Lustria? Naval Combat? ...well simply Dogs of War/Southern Realms probably :-)
The style is not matching 3K nor R2 nor ToB and CA would not probably announce next big title as Empire 2/Victoria with 3K still far away...And as a Campaign pack for Wh2 is only project we are expecting in short time, everything is pointing there...
https://www.reddit.com/r/totalwar/co...nt_draws_near/

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: