Seduction and the 'Female' tag

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

...Can these please be updated to be less sexist? I'm sure there's no intent of malice, but these things are honestly just an unpleasant irritation.

The 'female' tag only interacts with seduction and adds a victim shriek on death. The victim shriek at best is extremely grating and out of place in battlefields where most combatants just give a cheeky little grunt upon dying, the seduction mechanic makes an unintentional statement about hetero normative sexuality. There's no reason it should only work between different genders.

I'm sure nobody really gives a crap about these things and they're overall pretty small when it comes to the big picture, but it is super tiresome to have to preface my recommendations of Dominions to gals or gay people that the game is great BUT there's the typical-level sexism and homophobia in it because video games (which is becoming an increasingly thin preface as most games now are more mindful of this kind of thing).

[Mormacil]

Gay people exist in Dominions, the Sacred Band is immune to female but not male seduction IIRC. They're of course never in the place to be seduced unless you gift of reason them into a commander so it's beyond niche.

Female tag does also interact with events. So it's not just seduction. Personally I think an overhaul of the gender mechanic could really benefit the game but it's not as dire as you make it out to be.

[Draken]

There are also the Bear Claw and the Cat Charm that "make you more manly"/"make you more feminine" and allows males to seduce males and females to seduce females.

You can also set up events that target male or females specifically. Spark of Divinity uses that for example.

[Ibis]

That's only true for the cat charm. Bear claw doesn't work as intended. I think it's related to not being able to add the male tag

[Mormacil]

Personally I'd love it if seduction and sex are broken apart. You can do male, female, neither for sex. That fits essentially 99% of the beings in the game. A horror is sexless and a humanoid is almost always male or female.

Then you make seduction based on attraction, attracted to men, attracted to women, attracted top both and an option of none. That again should cover 99% of the beings in the game. So we can have out gay hoplite sacred band, our virgin huntress and raunchy fantasy bards.

[Draken]

Originally posted by Ibis:

That's only true for the cat charm. Bear claw doesn't work as intended. I think it's related to not being able to add the male tag

Ah, interesting. I did not know that. Thanks for the info.

[Sombre]

I agree it is a bit of a shame that the game is so heteronormative. I would prefer decoupling of male/female and seduction for various reasons.

[Mltqhzkzrz]

Seduction units usually represent a particular profession or position in a faction in-game. Many (all?) of such factions feature unusual, premodern and what one might consider "problematic" values and beliefs, according to their lore and theme.

Given that context most factions probably would not field homosexual seducers. Such individuals would be naturally ill-suited to such duties because their potential targets would be limited by some 97% or so. It would be more pragmatic for a lesbian dryad to stay at home researching. At least, against most nations.

It could be that some nations with a more greco-roman philosophy to sex would be valid targets for such commanders. A Troubadour could probably snag a mystic or two...? Some units like Monks might be mostly celibate...?

Well, I wouldn't advise Illwinter to waste their time deliberating over the sexual philosophies and attitudes of every unit in the game to get something like that right. I think the system they have now is simple, functional and reasonably tasteful.

If they really want to support the lgbt I suggest they put out a hotfix patch at the start of next pride month to buff heart companions. totally not a biased arco player or anything

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

Originally posted by Draken:

There are also the Bear Claw and the Cat Charm that "make you more manly"/"make you more feminine" and allows males to seduce males and females to seduce females.

You can also set up events that target male or females specifically. Spark of Divinity uses that for example.

...the cat charm and bear claw only really make the situation worse, as the implication is that being gay is unnatural and/or about being more feminine/masculine.

And there is no 'male' tag in the game logic at all, so no, you cannot set events that target males specifically (...which is just another one of those things, really. 'Male as default' literally being coded into the logic. But whatever, I won't even bother going there because most players don't mod the game and so it isn't noticeable).

[Selgeron]

There should be a Male tag a Female tag and an Other tag, instead of just defaulting everyone to male and then adding a female tag for non males.

It would also help with modding, and targets for seducers.

The whole 'everyone is male unless stated otherwise' thing and all the female virgin sacrifice DOES make the whole game a little bit cringe to talk about in mixed company.

After every game I have to double check that my neckbeard hasn't grown in.

[Draken]

Originally posted by President Jyrgunkarrd:

Originally posted by Draken:

There are also the Bear Claw and the Cat Charm that "make you more manly"/"make you more feminine" and allows males to seduce males and females to seduce females.

You can also set up events that target male or females specifically. Spark of Divinity uses that for example.

...the cat charm and bear claw only really make the situation worse, as the implication is that being gay is unnatural and/or about being more feminine/masculine.

And there is no 'male' tag in the game logic at all, so no, you cannot set events that target males specifically (...which is just another one of those things, really. 'Male as default' literally being coded into the logic. But whatever, I won't even bother going there because most players don't mod the game and so it isn't noticeable).

I mean, if you really want to, you can get unfortunate implications from just about anything.

The amulets never gave me any of that implications. They are just a quick mechanical way to flip the seduction targets without too much work.

I agree with Mitchekers. The current system works without spending too much work on things that don't actually add too much to the game.

Sure, you could add a male/female/other sex system to the game, then add a sexual attraction tag for male/female/none as well. For what? There are 19 units with seduction in the whole game. 5 of which are duplicates.

Same with the bloodslaves. Sure, you could add male ones, but how much value would that actually add to the game? Never mind female virgins generally being a symbol of purity while male ones are usually only used in subversions.

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

I'm not asking for any of that. Just that the 'female' tag not add an obnoxious scream sfx to women & that the seduction mechanic not be tied to opposing genders.

And seduction is not a minor mechanic, because one of the 9 units with the ability is the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MA Pangaea Dryad, which you will see a LOT of if you play literally any amount of MA multiplayer.

[wilston]

Originally posted by President Jyrgunkarrd:

...the cat charm and bear claw only really make the situation worse, as the implication is that being gay is unnatural and/or about being more feminine/masculine.

That's quite a reach. The items in question just give the seducer enough 'desirable traits' from the opposite gender to finagle a presumably heterosexual commander over to your side. This isn't some broad commentary on what fundamentally defines gayness, it's a gimmick.

I doubt the 'gays and gals' you're marketing the game to would even notice or care if you didn't make a point of highlighting your particular scruples. Let's be honest, they're probably not going to play anyway since most people take one look at this game, snort and move on without giving it a go.

[Chilli-Göttinger]

Why not seperate blood slave usage into:
"stereotype (speak: fantasy) female virgins used for rituals by guys in hoods or horny satyrs", "we dont care about gender, as long as they are bags full of blood we can carve open on our aztec pyramids or feed them to our otherworldly masters"
and
"we sacrifice in battle captured warriors (and not shackled girls) because we are dominions 6´s iteration of mictlan"?

[Draken]

Originally posted by Chilligöttinger:

Why not seperate blood slave usage into:
"stereotype (speak: fantasy) female virgins used for rituals by guys in hoods or horny satyrs", "we dont care about gender, as long as they are bags full of blood we can carve open on our aztec pyramids or feed them to our otherworldly masters"
and
"we sacrifice in battle captured warriors (and not shackled girls) because we are dominions 6´s iteration of mictlan"?

Because you apparently need virgins with a pure bloodline for blood slaves? Some random enemy warrior isn't going to cut it. This is the whole base for how you need a blood mage to succeed in finding blood slaves. Else you could just send a random commander with some troops and round up hundred of slaves in a turn to sacrifice.

[Chilli-Göttinger]

Thats the Point. Add some "sacrifice troops" Option, so said Sun Priest sends his assigned Slave Troops (which you catch after battles or by collecting them by priests as usual) on to the pyramide for the increase of some provincial blood counter which does something maybe for other spells or sacrifice preaching or crossbreeding.

Also i completely forgot crossbreeding, which appearantly arent made out of said blood slaves at all, besides maybe their blood as "fuel" in the process.

the mechanic as it is, is intuitive, but its a bit overly specific with "magical girls with magical blood" in a game which is explicitly sucessfull in his generic depictions. other kinds of (historically more prevalent) blood slaves are just underrepresented.

Originally posted by Mormacil:

Germanic warriors were meant to abstain from sex. They had the believe abstinence would improve muscle development.

probably because of aggressions building up and therefore being more "productive" in warfare, thats probably what fueled some nations conquests too, religion is useful for such social engineering. but thats also too specific an example.