Gender and Seduction

[onomastikon]

Right up front I'll say that the main gist of this post should be taken as at least slightly facetious, and I do not particularly care too much about the issue.

Nevertheless, let it be said that the "seduction" command being gender-specific seems really odd, and not merely in terms of a deeper (less bifurcated) understanding of gender identity. In fact, I'd like to leave that (to me: valid) argument completely out here.

It seems that a very significant portion of commanders in this game are not human, and in fact so far removed from anything vaguely ♥♥♥♥ sapiens sapiens to make the issue of their gender seem less relevant to seduction as that commander's shoe size or birthdate or favorite wine. Leaving aside for the moment the bizarre but perhaps nicely heuristic categories of "heterosexual" and "homosexual", it seems any interaction between, say, a demon, or a dryad, or an aboleth, or a dragon, or what have you would be primarily one based on charisma and not sexual activity (how do you even have sex with an aboleth if you are not one yourself). Whatever, what I mean is: Whatever it is that induces demons or dragons or trolls or humans to be seduced by entities not belonging to their own species must be something powerful enough to overlook the trivialities of gender, even assuming that half of these creatures could be said to have any (aboleth penis anyone?).

Thus, I suggest removing gender tags from the game altogether and letting seducers seduce whomever they can (perhaps, should this be necessary, increasing the cost of commanders with this ability, since they should now be more flexible, or slightly decreasing the chance of seduction success to balance) regardless of their "gender".

[Nrak555]

you know you can swap what they go for with the bear claw and cat charm. You can also boost the effectiveness of the seduction by matching them with the correct gender. you can also give them to comanders to ward off seduction to make them auto fail and fight.

Also while the op might not care for anyone else. The female tag is what determines male or female in this game. So anything without it is male.

Second note Aboleths are the spawns of polypol therefor do not mate. I want a genderless tag that makes them immune to seduction ;)

[Zymeth]

Imo it is better with gender tags - but it would be reasonable to give seducers "magic-being lover" and their sexuality described as abilities. Still - in its current state it feels ok for me, there are many other things that for the same effort from devs could improve dom5 more.
Btw. I suppose you ment "sexual orientation", not "gender identity" in your post (lines 4/5).

@Nrak555 - genderless tag for aboleths! (Would be less complicated than what I proposed)

[Zonk]

While I understand how Dominions' 'everyone is heterosexual' mechanic is very restrictive, I think your argument goes too far in the other direction, and you used mostly weird examples...

Originally posted by onomastikon:

It seems that a very significant portion of commanders in this game are not human, and in fact so far removed from anything vaguely ♥♥♥♥ sapiens sapiens to make the issue of their gender seem less relevant to seduction as that commander's shoe size or birthdate or favorite wine.

Aboleths - yes. Should simply make them seduction immune, perhaps?
Dragons - maybe, but note 'real' dragons are pretenders/morale 30, so seduction immune anyway. Ryujin aren't, but they also seem to be traditionally gendered (princes, princesses/dragon girl...)
Demon - also traditionally gendered; succubi & incubi, and non-western equivalents.
Incubi don't exist in Domininos - perhaps they should, give the succubus an alternate form?
Dryad - strongly gendered as female (both in the game and in real-world mythology), description even mentions 'male humans'.
EDIT: " Dryads are blessed with aphrodisiac beauty and male humans find it very difficult to strike them down even in the heat of battle. They can also use their wild beauty to lure men away into the deep woods of Pangaea." One could perhaps the change the lore, but right now it makes perfect sense the seduction works like it does. (perhaps, for consistency, the awe should also be male-only?)
Trolls - their mindset doesn't seem especially alien.

So I wouldn't say 'a very significant portion of commanders' are far removed from human mindsets.

Aboleths (and perhaps Illithids) are notable, but I think they are the exception rather than the rule. If you assume everyone is heterosexual (which again I admit seems very restrictive) then commander still caring for

[Nrak555]

Zonk Theoretically morale 30 is not immune since the check still happens with the exploding nature of drn while < 1% it should still possible. I have also heard tale of someone seducing a pretender

on a dryad I believe it would have to hit a six 4 times in a row which is a 0.077% of a chance. For all intents and purpose immune.

[Alias]

Originally posted by Zymeth:

Imo it is better with gender tags

Aren't there? For example, Enaries are males who live as females and are seduce-able by males.

[Zonk]

Originally posted by Nrak555:

Theoretically morale 30 is not immune since the check still happens with the exploding nature of drn while < 1% it should still possible.

I think morale 30 is actually hardcoded to be immunity to morale effects, though? Should be tested; I might be wrong.

I have also heard tale of someone seducing a pretender

I So have I, doesn't mean it's actually true. And if it is, that's a bug, pretenders should be immune to charm/enslave effects.

[twan]

I think it's not a question of sexuality supposed to happen but of mythology / fairy tales / historic inspiration, non heterosexual seduction is a bit rare in lore, even if sexuality may take the form of rain of gold or whatever.

That said there are a few cases where same gender seduction would be appropriate (say some Greek/Roman inspired nations could be given male seducing males - philosophers should be given that seduction ability ideally, as an hommage to Socrate and Carneade) and a few creatures for which genderless tag would be more appropriate (but certainly not dragons who take gendered human forms). Other than that it would just make the game less original (+ gender-based seduction with items able to change gender is a more interesting restriction as it allows a specific counter, instead of counter being less specific morale or mr items).

[Zymeth]

Originally posted by Alias:

Originally posted by Zymeth:

Imo it is better with gender tags

Aren't there? For example, Enaries are males who live as females and are seduce-able by males.

Aren't there what ? There is a female tag which can be given to a unit with mods, and females in game have it. It can not be seen as an ability though.

[ÆtherNomad]

@twan - I suppose you actually mean Alcibiades rather than Carneades? As far as I know, Carneades wasn't particularly famous for his relationships with men (and, in case you indeed confused him with someone else, he wasn't a contemporary of Socrates either).

Let it however be known that the concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality are completely unfit to describe the social situation of Ancient Greece. In fact, Socrates and other erastes would more accurately be described as bisexual, in general. Similarly, Sappho was clearly bisexual herself. Of course, it doesn't mean that homosexuality didn't exist at the time; I have no idea about that. But it does mean that no one thought of sexuality that way, even though the sexual mentality of the time wasn't at all the same as in judeo-christian societies either.

@Zonk - I think you're missing the point in your first post. You're just talking about singular examples, but the fact entirely remains that Dominions is full of utterly inhuman entities that have no reason whatsoever to be considered as closer to the male sex or gender than the female sex or gender. Many of them should actually be completely sexless and asexual.

[twan]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

@twan - I suppose you actually mean Alcibiades rather than Carneades? As far as I know, Carneades wasn't particularly famous for his relationships with men.

IIrc Carneades was accused by Caton of corrupting Roman youth (and banished for that), which I (perhaps wrongly) interpreted as seducing some of his patrician disciples it's why I thought about him.
Anyway, philosophers may seduce with ideas with no sexual implication, but this seduction would still be gendered, as rather targetting men in patriarchal societies where the most educated / dominant class is comprised of males.

[oldrocker99]

This is a good discussion, and the first of the posts like this when some Gamergate twerp didn't complain about SJWs frequently, always because a game, like Tyranny, has strong female characters. The horror, the horror.

I had first heard that acronym as Single Jewish Women. Nope, it stands for Social Justice Warriors, and there's nothing worse that social justice. Right?

Jesus wept. As I said, Dominions players are grownups, and don't get in a snit over 'justice.'

I'm proud of this community.

[1337Dude]

Given the heterosexuality has been the standard, even in concepts of Gods, Demons, Dragons (yes, Dragons in fantasy are often guys or girls) - etc. It's safe to say there's no particular good reason to completely overhaul the system based on exceptions which probably wouldn't add up to even 1% of unit data.

The most of a case you could make is that it makes the most sense to re-label these "special cases" when they come along (remove their tags, switch tags, or give them both tags). Tweak the current model, perhaps. I rarely even notice this aspect of the game so I don't see too much reason to focus too much on it but I wouldn't complain if they took a quick look at it.

IMO it's completely bizarre idea to take an issue with a model that say - makes sense 99% of the time, and then suggest a model that makes sense 1% of the time. One day kids will learn that change just for the sake of change isn't progress.

Or, "don't fix what isn't broken". It's not perfect or ideal but I really think it's a waste of time.

EDIT: I suppose it would be more accurate to say "gender norms" have been the standard. Their sexuality is a different case altogether, and wouldn't suffer from a tweak.

[✏pencils✏]

My friend reading the d&d 3rd ed. manual decades ago: "According to this book, a Dragon can mate with Anything."

[oldrocker99]

Besides, there are female units in Dominions, the Wailing Ladies, to name one.

[Zonk]

Originally posted by ÆtherNomad:

@Zonk - I think you're missing the point in your first post. You're just talking about singular examples, but the fact entirely remains that Dominions is full of utterly inhuman entities that have no reason whatsoever to be considered as closer to the male sex or gender than the female sex or gender. Many of them should actually be completely sexless and asexual.

While I support a seduction immune/neutral/no gender tag, my point was that 'utterly inhuman' entities that are also vulnerable to seduction seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.

EDIT: Especially if you only count units that are normally only available as troops, and require GoR/Divine Name to be turned into commanders that could, potentially, receive seduction attempts.