All these female gallic and nuragic generals in ROTR historical or social justice warrior pandering by CA?

[EireEmerald]

One of the main reasons I like these games is that they feel rooted in historical authenticity. In Rise of the Republic nearly every Gallic General is a woman, and Nuragic. If someone can dispell by cynicism here with historical proof that thte majority of gallic generals in northern italy were warrior women, I will be willing to accept this, but i can't help but feel this is social justice warrior nonsense.

I have had stuff removed before for potentially offending CA, I am not aiming at offence.

[Welsh Dragon]

One of the main reasons I like these games is that they feel rooted in historical authenticity. In Rise of the Republic nearly every Gallic General is a woman, and Nuragic. If someone can dispell by cynicism here with historical proof that thte majority of gallic generals in northern italy were warrior women, I will be willing to accept this, but i can't help but feel this is social justice warrior nonsense.

I have had stuff removed before for potentially offending CA, I am not aiming at offence.

Sounds to me like you're encountering one extreme of the Random Number Generator system.

As a comparison, in my RotR campaigns thus far I've encountered almost no female generals for anyone.

The way the game is set up, the spawn rate for female characters is significantly less than male, the birth rates are skewed in male favour, and even if you factor in marriages creating additional female characters, it should equally be creating additional male ones as it works both ways. So while it's possible to get an extreme result like you're describing, on average across all players the rates will work out less (about 10-15% of character candidates being female.)

Also if you use mods there's the possibility of a mod interaction maybe, as I'm running vanilla.

As for the inclusion of female leaders for some factions, I don't think there's an SJW agenda here. Rather, it's one of a long list of requested features that have been added in the past year, and I think it's been done in a way that balances history, gameplay and player choice. If you're finding that there are too many (or few) for your preferences, there's a few mods that adjust the rates, such as the Patriarchy mod. Hope that helps.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Skotos of Sinope]

As far as I can recall, I've only encountered two female commanders in Rise of the Republic and one was only after Brennus was killed. (I think it might have been his wife who then took over as faction leader, which has precedent in Celtic society.) Contrast that with trying to play the Iceni over a year ago, where the tribe of famed Boudicca only had men available as commanders or faction leaders. For all those worried about historical accuracy, i find the latter example far more egregious than the former.

[Noble Lancer]

The issue is with all female characters having the ability to lead armies - regardless of the spawn rates for male/female general, as long as the characters are married, the number of female and male family members are the same. The correct way to solve the problem would be to give family duties trait (can't lead armies) to 70% of female characters. As things stand, if you overuse assassination, etc the AI will resort to using the female generals they already have rather than recruit new ones, which leads to over representation of females in the game.

[Skotos of Sinope]

The issue is with all female characters having the ability to lead armies - regardless of the spawn rates for male/female general, as long as the characters are married, the number of female and male family members are the same. The correct way to solve the problem would be to give family duties trait (can't lead armies) to 70% of female characters. As things stand, if you overuse assassination, etc the AI will resort to using the female generals they already have rather than recruit new ones, which leads to over representation of females in the game.

In which faction do all female characters have the ability to lead armies? That's shocking to me and does not make sense. I haven't encountered this, although I have not yet played the Gallic factions in Rise of the Republic.

[Welsh Dragon]

The issue is with all female characters having the ability to lead armies - regardless of the spawn rates for male/female general, as long as the characters are married, the number of female and male family members are the same. The correct way to solve the problem would be to give family duties trait (can't lead armies) to 70% of female characters. As things stand, if you overuse assassination, etc the AI will resort to using the female generals they already have rather than recruit new ones, which leads to over representation of females in the game.

That's an interesting idea, and one that I haven't seen suggested before. So, under this system, what percentage of male characters would have the family duty trait? As not all men are suited to command, anymore than all women are. Also how did you come by the 70% figure?

Also I read elsewhere that the AI doesn't have access to the Intrigue system, so do they actually get the marriage action? Just wondering, as if the AI doesn't then the spawn rates would be the only way for AI to create new female characters, and that would mean the rates are as described.

(I'm no modder, so no idea how I'd go into the files to check this.)

In which faction do all female characters have the ability to lead armies? That's shocking to me and does not make sense. I haven't encountered this, although I have not yet played the Gallic factions in Rise of the Republic.

Whether or not a faction can have female generals is a binary choice.

Factions with "Family Duty" all cannot (Rome, Carthage, Greeks, Easterners.)

Factions without the "Family Duty" trait all can (Barbarians, Egypt, Nomads.)

The game doesn't have a facility for "specific characters, male or female, who cannot be generals when others of the same criteria can" or at least it doesn't in vanilla anyway.

All the Best,

Welsh Dragon.

[Benjin]

That's an interesting idea, and one that I haven't seen suggested before. So, under this system, what percentage of male characters would have the family duty trait? As not all men are suited to command, anymore than all women are. Also how did you come by the 70% figure?

Also I read elsewhere that the AI doesn't have access to the Intrigue system, so do they actually get the marriage action? Just wondering, as if the AI doesn't then the spawn rates would be the only way for AI to create new female characters, and that would mean the rates are as described.

(I'm no modder, so no idea how I'd go into the files to check this.)

I think this might be true since I haven't encountered any late-game married AI commanders before.

However, there are a lot of male characters - across all campaigns - who are initially married at the start, so the factions who do start with female characters and allow them to be commanders will very likely get their wives / widows to fight if there are no other free commander candidates at that time.

[Noble Lancer]

That's actually imprecise calculation on my part - I was thinking along the line of if ~30% of female characters can lead armies then ~15% of total generals will be female - that's the original ratio that CA intended for barbarian factions if I'm not wrong. Regardless of whether AI have access to intrigues, as things stand, for a human player the number of female vs male generals will be the same if all characters marry anyway. Tbh just clicking the recruiting armies button and seeing 10+ female characters waiting for me already breaks immersion quite a fair bit...

[KamenLily]

That's actually imprecise calculation on my part - I was thinking along the line of if ~30% of female characters can lead armies then ~15% of total generals will be female - that's the original ratio that CA intended for barbarian factions if I'm not wrong. Regardless of whether AI have access to intrigues, as things stand, for a human player the number of female vs male generals will be the same if all characters marry anyway. Tbh just clicking the recruiting armies button and seeing 10+ female characters waiting for me already breaks immersion quite a fair bit...

What's the issue. Just not pick anyone. Or assassinate all of them.

For myself, I had to mod the rates, because I hardly was seeing females. And getting my generals killed again and again and again and still not getting any female to choose from the recruitment pool was becoming boring... and let's say that I wasn't the favorite person in the world for the other political parties. (With just cause, must I say!)

I don't really care why they did, but I'm quite happy with the chance of having female generals at last.

[Abdülmecid I]

One of the main reasons I like these games is that they feel rooted in historical authenticity. In Rise of the Republic nearly every Gallic General is a woman, and Nuragic. If someone can dispell by cynicism here with historical proof that thte majority of gallic generals in northern italy were warrior women, I will be willing to accept this, but i can't help but feel this is social justice warrior nonsense.

There is no doubt that the percentage of female generals in Rome II, albeit small, are still exaggerated and thus historically inaccurate. Women mainly participated in military engagements, under very special circumstances, and usually with the role of widows of deceased kings or temporary regents of royal toddlers. I wouldn't be surprised if our available primary sources underline their role, in order to add some drama to their narrative and give a misleadingly exotic image of foreign civilizations. That being said, this informative and objective video of an ex-CA employer explains why the criticism is a bit too harsh and manipulated by extremists:

To be honest, Rome II is a game, where your catapults can throw pots full of scorpions to enemies dressed as crocodiles, not to mention the eastern part of the map, where both history and geography are mercilessly molested (e.g. the imaginary faction of Media bizarrely situated in... Mesopotamia!). Anyway, I am certain that their inclusion, similar to the female warriors DLC pack is irrelevant to modern politics. Private companies aim at profit not at the promotion of ideology. The crux of the matter is that many players are very fond of women participating in military activities (presumably they find them sexy), while the importance of female consumers in the video-gaming industry has increased dramatically. Therefore, it's reasonable for SEGA and Creative Assembly to insist on investing upon a dynamic and potentially rather lucrative market. As CA Ella bluntly suggested, the only possible solution for anyone wishing to make female generals disappear is "modding them out".

[Skotos of Sinope]

Women mainly participated in military engagements, under very special circumstances, and usually with the role of widows of deceased kings or temporary regents of royal toddlers.

Exactly. This seems like an easy fix for CA. Just limit female commanders to these cases. To me the question of historical accuracy isn't so much 'rate' as 'role'. If CA was able to make it a personal trait, not a faction one, and one given only to widows of faction leaders and mothers of heirs that have not reached maturity, [EDIT: At least for barbarian cultures. I'm unfamiliar of the circumstances where a woman in a faction like Kush could command in battle.] then I don't see a problem if the rate is thirty percent or .03%. Differences of degree are, to me, less important than differences of kind. Oh and yeah, that was a great vid by Darren. The conversation was definitely distorted because of extremists who wanted to make this a front line in the culture wars. Legend of Total War, another youtuber who had been harshly critical of CA in the past, also generally agreed with those points.

[EllEzDee]

"One of the main reasons I like these games is that they feel rooted in historical authenticity"

Hahahahahahaha. I'm sorry, i can't help but laugh.

What is it with people moaning about SJWs the past few years? CA found a way to add a silly new gimmick and may have over-done it. That's what they've always done with their games. You could have just asked whether it was realistic or not without the angsty GRRR SOCIAL JUSTICE WHY DONT WOMEN TALK TO ME?

[Benjin]

There were always people asking where the hell Cleopatra / Teuta were after release when the trailers + concept art implied that they were going to be in the game. There were also some people who wanted generic female leaders as well for Barbarians - modders have tried and failed to properly implement them in the past before they were officially implemented back in March (e.g. "[Request] Female generals for Celts and Brits.", "Mod request: female generals/factionleaders", "Female Generals Compilation mod not working, deleted.").

So, they were "one of a long list of requested features" - just not one of the most requested (e.g. family tree / better AI / map editing tools). CA only made them fill an FLC as a gimmick since they already got their framework working after Queen Zenobia was added in Empire Divided and were maybe planned to eventually be a part of the new family tree mechanics.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

There were always people asking where the hell Cleopatra / Teuta were after release when the trailers + concept art implied that they were going to be in the game. There were also some people who wanted generic female leaders as well for Barbarians - modders have tried and failed to properly implement them in the past before they were officially implemented back in March (e.g. "[Request] Female generals for Celts and Brits.", "Mod request: female generals/factionleaders", "Female Generals Compilation mod not working, deleted.").

So, they were "one of a long list of requested features" - just not one of the most requested (e.g. family tree / better AI / map editing tools). CA only made them fill an FLC as a gimmick since they already got their framework working after Queen Zenobia was added in Empire Divided and were maybe planned to eventually be a part of the new family tree mechanics.

I agree completely.

[Alwyn]

Exactly. This seems like an easy fix for CA. Just limit female commanders to these cases. To me the question of historical accuracy isn't so much 'rate' as 'role'. If CA was able to make it a personal trait, not a faction one, and one given only to widows of faction leaders and mothers of heirs that have not reached maturity, [EDIT: At least for barbarian cultures. I'm unfamiliar of the circumstances where a woman in a faction like Kush could command in battle.] then I don't see a problem if the rate is thirty percent or .03%. Differences of degree are, to me, less important than differences of kind. Oh and yeah, that was a great vid by Darren. The conversation was definitely distorted because of extremists who wanted to make this a front line in the culture wars. Legend of Total War, another youtuber who had been harshly critical of CA in the past, also generally agreed with those points.

It's good to see a reasoned discussion of this issue. As I see it, this would be a good starting point for the development of a realism mod - to limit female generals only to faction leaders, if it was possible (I don't know whether this is possible). This wouldn't go as far as restricting female generals to widows or regents, but if it could be done for both the player and AI factions - it would mean that a faction could only have one warrior queen at a time. That which would prevent the situation which EireEmerald reported from happening. It would also remove the situation which some players object to, of seeing multiple female candidates when they appointed generals. It would be more closely consistent with history, since almost all female commanders I can find references to were warrior queens (faction leaders, not generals serving a ruler).

Of course, this may not be possible. Even if it is possible, some players may prefer this to be done by CA rather than modders. However, as I see it, it's normal for Total War games to allow players and AI factions to do unhistorical things - and normal to need a realism mod, if you want to prevent that. For example, the game doesn't prevent a Celtic or Germanic faction from using artillery to help them defeat a Roman army (the opening of the film Gladiator in reverse). The game doesn't prevent Carthage from recruiting many Sacred Band units, even though historically they were one unit and that unit vanished from the historical record before the Grand Campaign begins.

There were always people asking where the hell Cleopatra / Teuta were after release when the trailers + concept art implied that they were going to be in the game. There were also some people who wanted generic female leaders as well for Barbarians - modders have tried and failed to properly implement them in the past before they were officially implemented back in March (e.g. "[Request] Female generals for Celts and Brits.", "Mod request: female generals/factionleaders", "Female Generals Compilation mod not working, deleted.").

So, they were "one of a long list of requested features" - just not one of the most requested (e.g. family tree / better AI / map editing tools). CA only made them fill an FLC as a gimmick since they already got their framework working after Queen Zenobia was added in Empire Divided and were maybe planned to eventually be a part of the new family tree mechanics.

Good point, I didn't know about the unsuccessful attempts by modders to introduce this.