I like those suggestions, but I don't think they're female friendly.

That said, i would love some Balsa- types in the game.

Character customization is addictive in fighting games- and made me stay with SCIV a lot longer then a game of that quality would have (SCIV is not good for those who take their fighters seriously)

Yes, whenever women appear in fantasy games and they are dressed absurdly, it destroys my ability to get into the game.  The only time I want to see a beautiful woman dressed in something rediculous is if she's a sovereign's daughter trying to seduce a rival's son.  Massive breasts are a massive handicap in a battle--- armor that exposes their chest and thighs is even worse!

Indeed I *do* have a pretty good idea of how bad it would chafe, although breeziness, pinching and hair pulling is a bigger issue, not to mention waffle-looking bruises when something hits you. I'm probably one of the few people in this topic who has ever worn chain mail, and almost certainly the only one to have made thier own. (and no, I've never worn a chain bikini - I lack the parts necessary to make one look good).

A better question is, how the hell would you keep the bottom on? The top is strictly engineering, to make everything fit comfortably (the joys of being the guy doing the final fitting!). The bottom is hindered by chain's complete lack of elasticity, so you need something else to keep it from falling off - and that something else occasionally fails, with (literally) embarassing results.

One of our newer developers, Raa00, is also female.  She's an excellent programmer, and even after only 2 years of college was better than a lot of the graduates I've interviewed for entry level positions. She's going to be graduating in December and then she'll be full time here.

And we just hired a female artist.

It's rather cool not being the only female on the team anymore.

I find the OP's suggestion insinuative, derogatory, discriminating, and sexist.

I think that being able to chose a female leader is a must have. As for the other custom options, I don't think they really matter. It is not female sexism, but not making it possible would be male sexism xD

My mother plays games like Civ4 (fan of MoM and civs series from the start!) and my sister loves the HoM&M and AoW series (and she does love playing female heroes, of course, why would she play a male??). 

Greetings, I am new here.

Anyways, I will directly jump to the point I want to make. There is nothing wrong about female characters or units but what I do not like is what we find in most games: Female Characters seem to be an exact copy of male characters which is surely not the case in reality. This makes it really hard to delve into the setting created by the game.

Female Characters should, at least on average, have significantly lower physical stats. There is a reason that men and women do not compete together in swimming, running, boxing etc.  And with significally I do not mean -1 on a 20 scale.

On a plus side female characters should have some diplomacy bonuses due to emotional intelligence. A female leader could also be more usefull to gain information/seduce/hire henchmen/...  Then, a female leader/units may give a morale boost to the party they are in etc.

To sum this up I do not want to see female characters that are just ripoffs of men. They should have their unique strenghts and weaknesses to make the entire setting feel like a real world we are entangled in.

Ikros suggestion has merit I think, and, in a fantasy setting I could imagine women being magically stronger than men so even if men still have the physical advantage(thats also no guarantee in a magical universe).  Also in MoM several of the main avatars were female.  As for avatars in modern history you could pick Queen Elizabeth ala Shakespeare's time, Joan of Arc or the acting German Chancellor..But this looks like a chance for some really excellent mods to come from this game so whether you like women in positions of channerlers or not there should be a mod for you..

@ Magicke

"thats also no guarantee in a magical universe"

There is also no guarantee in a magical universe that a rabbit cannot beat a dragon or a pigeon is not a lot stronger magically than your women leader.

It seems hard to grasp but some sense of reality is always the basis of a fantasy world. In a magical world an ordinary farm could as well produce lightning cannos whereas the wizards tower produces wheat?

Do you think women are inferior beings in the real world? No? Do they make up for their physical disadvantage with vicious spellcasting advantages? NO? Just give female leaders the very same advantages they exhibit in the real world. Magic is something "new" and should not be used to balance gender inequalities imo.

Ah, the old gender-modifiers debate. I once knew a mostly-old-book DM who was a classic straight nerd boy, i.e. his ideas about women were only loosely connected to real women, and even less connected to how folks who are used to mixed-sex company get along. Using his version of the kind of modifiers you suggest, I managed to roll up a female character with an 18(00) dexterity and an 18(00) charisma. Naturally, I had to play her as a tarty thief, but as one of the token (and then-closeted) queer boys in the club, I took immense pleasure in making the tarty stuff clearly secondary to her ability to pull a needle from her hairdo and pierce someone's eye with it from across a crowded room.

Seriously, though, I doubt that the level of detail you mention will make it into the game. This is supposed to be a TBS-RPG fusion, with singleplayer TBS coming first. The devs will have to ration out 'complexity burdens' among all the aspects of the game, so I'm not holding my breath for anything like a real RPG stats system even for just sovereigns and champions.

That's entirely a matter of the back story for the game, and from the scraps we have so far, magic is anything but "new."

I got one thing to say:

I warrior ladies...

@ GW Swicord

With new I was saying that magic is a new feature compared to the real world which should not per se used to balance gender inequalities.

The heroes/leaders in AOW and MOM had stats. I don't see why it should be difficult to reduce STR and HP of women in exchange of charisma and some nifty extra skills like seduce, morale boost or whatnot.

If you are realistic you could even give most males a -% to hit women since most man have psychological problems to do so.

@ MagicwillNZ

Don't take it personal but my take on this is that many men are submissive to women. They would love to be dominated and overpowered in bed. Now since most men cannot live out that dream the subconciousness reflects this idea onto other parts of life, like computer games.

So much sexism in this thread instead of anthopologic data...

I demand that women don't get along with other women because all of them are "unfriendly" to each other, as we all know. And me must get distracted when women are present, to the point of reaching fighting if the competition for the same woman goes too far. In fact, women leader should have penalties leading men, not just because of the tendency of men to think only baout sex, but because as we all know men are totally unable to understand women.

Really...

You forget that us gay guys get a base 50% chance to understand straight women, with bonuses if we took some chick lit courses in college. That's why so many straight men are starting to appreciate having a fruit for a friend...

Huh... wha...?

I uh... uh... oh...

Erm...

You might be overthinking this a little, TBSGAMER, just as you are overthinking statistical differences between men and women in games. Why unnecessarily alienate half of the fanbase?

I like Joan of Arc characters and Boudiccea characters. Female leaders have been a staple fiction and historical legend. Why should someone be penalized for choosing to be one?

If you guys are not ok with my suggestions regarding potential advantages of women bring better one's. At least they are not as far off as the assumption of equal physical abilities.

@MagicwillNZ

First, Joan d'Arc was not known because of her extraordinary physical strenght, was she? Second, I don't have anything against femalde leaders. What I don't get is why it is important to give them the same physical capabilities. And I have yet to hear a single valid counter argument. Men and women are divided in athletics,swimming, combat sports, ... for a reason.

If you alienate half of the fanbase by modeling something in a realistic way that is very sad. But I guess men are way more concerned with this than women. It is usually men who want to play a strong female warrior. Most women prefer to play a beautiful princess.

 I can just repeat that you could as well make "peasents armed with buckets of water" the most powerfull unit of the game if you do not want to care about reality at all.

@Wintersong

You complain but don't add anything to the discussion. Bring your data please.

@ GW Swicord.

I bet the whole forum was waiting for the information that you are gay...

Nope. Been out of the closet so long I don't even remember what building it was in, and been posting around here for almost four years.

Hahaha Sure. After yours.

Men are stronger because their bodies have lots of generations of tradition. Hunting the beginning of time while women were at safer task gathering fruits/vegetables. Men developing a more direct attitude and language while women go the opposite way and are more social. Women being attracted to strong males because of "strong man = better protector and 'genes' for reproduction". blah blah blah...

For the sake of realism, women should have the period. It's only fair. And if it's a male dirven society, only the most extraordinary of the women (and most probably only in the weirdest of the situations) should have a position of power. And being the childbearers, you might train them so they can defend their homes but never send them to war (even as leaders). Etc.

For the game, men a bonus to martial combat, women a bonus to magic. Social skills can be developed equally by males and females provided that the education and social development is the adecuate (and although it can be influenced by genetics, not so much as the muscles of a man or the inmune system of a woman). And trained soldiers getting a penalty to hit women... silly. Or very badly trained. Specially considering that many of them wouldn't have problems raping those same women.

And most women I know would prefer not to play than to be forced to play a "beautiful princess". Wonders of socialization.

Honestly, I don't know what your deal is. If I was a woman or anyone who wanted to play a strong female character in a fantasy game, who are you to stop me? Why do you insist on ignoring all of the historical and fantastical female military units that exist? Go wiki "women in warfare" if you want to.  I can hardly recount in brief the history of women in war.

If you want a valid counterargument, then why don't you make an actual argument instead of saying things like: "Most women prefer to play a beautiful princess," which, by the way, makes as much sense as saying men prefer to play hulking sweaty barbarians. All of your arguments are built off of ecological fallacies at best. There is simply no good argument to hobnail female characters in a fantasy strategy game.

@MagicwillNZ

Could you please stick to what I said instead of making up things?

"Why do you insist on ignoring all of the historical and fantastical female military units that exist?"

They are the vast minority though. You could as well argue that if some women beat me up on the streets that women can compete with men in combat in general. That's silly.

"If you want a valid counterargument, then why don't you make an actual argument.."

My actual argument is that men are stronger in real life and thus should be in the game unless there is a very good reason to part with realism here. You can disagree with it, but that is an actual argument, isn't it?

"There is simply no good argument to hobnail female characters in a fantasy strategy game."

Repeating myself is fun. I don't see how giving men and women different stats has anything to do with hobnailing. You are just throwing around with words without any real argument behind it. Why do I have to repeat myself? A fantasy game does not mean "we" want to see:

"rabbits stronger than dragon"

"peasents throwing buckets of water 1000 yards eliminating an entire squad of archers"

"general people being able to fly over swamps and drowning in ordinary roads"

"Farms sending chainlightning at attackers. Librarys producing wheat. etc. etc. etc.

Do you see the difference between the examples above and introducing magic or a manticore?

Most fantasy settings take the real world as a basis and then go on from there. That means a manticore should beat a sheep even though there are no manticores in the real world. Sorry I can't explain it any better. I just HOPE you see what I mean here. In the same spirit women have physical disadvantages in the real world which should set the default for the fantasy world. You can depart from that default rule if you have a good reason, which I don't see!

@Wintersong

" Men are stronger because their bodies have lots of generations of tradition. Hunting the beginning of time while women were at safer task gathering fruits/vegetables. Men developing a more direct attitude and language while women go the opposite way and are more social. Women being attracted to strong males because of "strong man = better protector and 'genes' for reproduction". blah blah blah..."

I think everyone here knows that.

"For the game, men a bonus to martial combat, women a bonus to magic. Social skills can be developed equally by males and females provided that the education and social development is the adecuate (and although it can be influenced by genetics, not so much as the muscles of a man or the inmune system of a woman). And trained soldiers getting a penalty to hit women... silly. Or very badly trained. Specially considering that many of them wouldn't have problems raping those same women."

How do you connect the immune system of a women to magic? Forget about the penalties to hit women. That was merely an idea. *shrug*

"And most women I know would prefer not to play than to be forced to play a "beautiful princess". Wonders of socialization."

Most women I know are not interested to play a muscle hulking "warrior queen" either. The princess was an extreme example. Most women would prefer to play an agile nimble and good looking rogue an agile ranger or something along those lines.

@GW Swicord

Congratulations...

TBSGAMER..... there is a very good reason to mess with fantasy females' physical abilities (HOLY CRAP that came out worng!): it ames the game more fun. I for one find the idea of handicapping female units' strength stats (especially for the Fallen, who aren't even human) to be annoying and a little strange.

How are those evenly vaguely fair comparisons? Making women equal to men is not the same as making rabbits stronger than dragons! Manticores and sheep aren't the same as men and women!

Gah!!

You are making an ecological fallacy. Here, look it up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_fallacy

If you want to be "realistic", then adjust the statistical chance for a female warrior to pop up be less... that's acceptable, I believe. That simultaneously is going to make it less likely for a female warrior to be the most powerful. But I wouldn't do this... because I DON'T CARE.

What you don't seem to get is that people don't give a shit about this... we want our female warriors, and we don't want arbitrary restrictions placed on them.

Think of it this way: imagine your a woman, you've had a tough day at work and you've got self-respect, so you load up Elemental for some stress relief and the first thing that happens when you roll your character is that you've got a penalty to strength and a bonus to seduction... I'll tell you, I'd blow a gasket.

There is argument behind this because people have tried doing what you are proposing before. In general, it was found to be unnecessarily restrictive and arbitrary and I'd agree. Giving women different stats for being women is hobnailing. If people want female characters weak and charismatic, they can give them low strength and high charisma.

Damn right congratulations. Don't use ellipses. It's a beautiful thing.

An arbitrary constriction on what a female unit can do compared to a male unit (or the other way around) should be avoided at all costs I think. If I want to play with female warriors and male mages, it should be possible. If I want to play with a female channeler, it should be possible... If I want to keep daughters around and send the sons out to get married for a diplomatic relation with a neighbour, it should be possible...

As it happens, all of the people in my realm are able to telepathicly manipulate water. These peasants obviously used their latent abilities to keep that water in suspension around the victims heads, drowning them.