The role of males in the game

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 02:52:25

Right, so back on topic...

There are a couple of ideas that have been suggested before but I think it's worth recapping them here:
1) Birth chance calculation should take into account male proximity. In other words, the closer you are to a male, the higher change you have of having a baby. Still possible without males, but less likely. One problem would be with Eves. They would either have to be exempt from this weighting, at least for a time, but most likely for their whole lives, or there would have to be an Adam spawned near every Eve.
2) Birth should not be possible if a woman has breastfed within the last 30 seconds. This way you can focus all your energy on one child at a time.
3) Birth should have a cost, so that there is some benefit to being a male. This makes the most sense if combined with 2.

Last edited by Uncle Gus (2018-05-01 02:52:58)

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-01 02:57:51

Auner, curious if you know of any examples of societies that exclusively sent their young biological females off to war while their biological males stayed safely at home? I'm not talking about the occasional gender-bender, but as a matter of cultural policy (and this is STILL cultural policy in the US, where only young men face selective service registration.... women are finally supposedly allowed to serve in combat as of last year, but still not faced with being drafted, and the deaths in modern conflicts speak for themselves: https://usiraq.procon.org/view.resource … eID=000671 )

Curious if you know of any societies where biological females do not get on the lifeboats first? Or where the elderly are put on the lifeboats before children?

Looking around, what I've been able to find about female warriors is mostly the stuff of fantasy and legend. I did find this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onna-bugeisha

But it sounds like they were mostly defending the village while the males were off at war.

The disposability of biological males seems universal to me. If 900 women were shot by police a year vs 45 men, we'd have a bit of an uproar about it. But the gender disparity in police shootings (900 men vs 45 women) hasn't even been raised as a troubling issue:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics … ings-2017/

I'm sure the Washington Post didn't look in anyone's knickers when composing these statistics, though, so who knows?

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-01 03:04:52

Also, I found this:

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

But this culture sounds so alien in so many other ways that it's really hard to translate these concepts.

I'm approaching this from a western perspective, I suppose.

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-01 03:06:13

Gus, I do like the occasional drama and hilarity of twins, though.... the breastfeeding fertility block is 100% true to life, though...

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 03:25:16

Twins could still happen, I guess, if you allowed a very small window of time at a very small birth chance before the cooldown kicked in... But I feel like that's kind of not the main thread of this conversation

Auner · 2018-05-01 03:32:58

jasonrohrer wrote:

Auner, curious if you know of any examples of societies that exclusively sent their young biological females off to war while their biological males stayed safely at home? I'm not talking about the occasional gender-bender, but as a matter of cultural policy (and this is STILL cultural policy in the US, where only young men face selective service registration.... women are finally supposedly allowed to serve in combat as of last year, but still not faced with being drafted, and the deaths in modern conflicts speak for themselves:

You know it wasn't until 1948 did single women without children no longer had to serve in the US military, right? Sure- they weren't really in the trenches, but they weren't all at home.

If you read what I wrote, I actually went into the birth of masculinity dawning with the need for a warrior-- and so yes, since the dawn of masculinity- he has generally dominated the warrior role.

Sure women haven't dominated the war zones, but they went, often to work as nurses- and women were obligated to go until pretty recently. The idea that society can just throw a war on half their population is an idea that is rooted in modern day wonders. In no way is "women stay safe at home during war because they are the reproductive bottleneck" is true for the larger sum of our human history.

Last edited by Auner (2018-05-01 03:33:33)

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 03:45:24

Still missing the point.

Auner · 2018-05-01 03:53:17

Uncle Gus wrote:

Still missing the point.

He asked me if I knew any exclusively female military societies. As I explained above- I didn't suggest such things. Nor logic to lead to that. Hense the whole explaining the birth of masculinity via need for war etc.

My point which has been long forgotten is baby food. Back-up reserves over heal children, and this is a problem.

jasonrohrer · 2018-05-01 04:13:04

Reference for women being required to serve in the military pre-1948? I know they were allowed to serve in non-combat duties, and that many did serve... but I've never heard that they were required to serve.

My point has nothing to do with women "sitting at home" but rather that they generally receive more protection from death than men.

BlueRock · 2018-05-01 04:46:34

jasonrohrer wrote:

Reference for women being required to serve in the military pre-1948? I know they were allowed to serve in non-combat duties, and that many did serve... but I've never heard that they were required to serve.
My point has nothing to do with women "sitting at home" but rather that they generally receive more protection from death than men.

It's not much, and not really going to give you much insight on the overall effect across genders, but Chen I Sao is an excellent example of a militaristic force headed by a female. She was able to wrestle the Qing Dynasty (China) into submission, primarily because they neglected Naval Investment for quite a while, on top of taking an isolated administrative approach. This doesn't really change the 'norm' of history however. Women historically are not seen on the battlefield, be it wiped from the record, placed in a footnote, or simply not happening at all. If you want to see something that appropriately shows some of the gender struggles, pre-Genghis Khan Mongolia saw the kidnapping of women across the Steppe, including Genghis's own wife, Börte, which led later to him enacting anti-kidnapping laws over regions he conquered. I would mention Joan of Arc, but again, she is an exception, and not the norm. I also see you talked about the Onna Bugeisha, which mainly served as retainers, most commonly identified with the Naginata, specifically to counter the reach advantage males had on average, and to align with the style of the most practical weapon at the time, the Spear/Yari.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan

Edit: Also, Mary Seacole was a sort of, frontlines Medic, though again, this is quite the special circumstance. She also played a part in stamping out Cholera, yay!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Seacole

Last edited by BlueRock (2018-05-01 04:50:03)

Potjeh · 2018-05-01 04:47:44

An attack helicopter sounds like it'd be a useful gender in the game :]

But yeah, reproductive viability aside (and it's a very important thing for societies with <200 members), women are still out of place on a battlefield, especially before guns. An exceptionally strong woman is the equivalent of a scrawny man. So men can carry more spears, thrust harder with them and throw them further. Sure, tenacity can make up for that sometimes, but generally men are better in this field too because of their higher testosterone. So a warrior woman is a very rare exception, and sending average women to battle instead of men guarantees failure.

As for usefulness of men being so low due to abandonment contraception meta, I think it's best to heavily discourage abandonment. Babies shouldn't be a dime a dozen and you shouldn't be virtually guaranteed to get a daughter when you need one. Making babies more precious would simply be a matter of making them more rare. So just increase the birth cooldown, and instead of grief preventing you from eating it should prevent you from having more babies.

Alleria · 2018-05-01 05:28:53

FeignedSanity wrote:

Honestly there's no need for more than two females, and have the rest be males. Two women to stay home and tend the farm/tend to and educate the future generation (population control); and males to take care of everything else. Honestly it's really frustrating to be in a city with 4 or more women and be up to your eyeballs in screaming kids, which then turn to dead bodies you have to move, which turns into a depressing mass graveyard. Like I said, I think the problem is more of based in shortsightedness than anything else. You only need 2 (MAAAAYBE 3) females, anything more than that is overkill.

Given 1/3-1/2 of your babies are going to die, I doubt any civ you have near absolute control over would last for more than 5 generations. Extra females are an essential insurance policy.

Last edited by Alleria (2018-05-01 05:29:45)

FeignedSanity · 2018-05-01 06:33:27

Alleria wrote:

FeignedSanity wrote:
Honestly there's no need for more than two females, and have the rest be males. Two women to stay home and tend the farm/tend to and educate the future generation (population control); and males to take care of everything else. Honestly it's really frustrating to be in a city with 4 or more women and be up to your eyeballs in screaming kids, which then turn to dead bodies you have to move, which turns into a depressing mass graveyard. Like I said, I think the problem is more of based in shortsightedness than anything else. You only need 2 (MAAAAYBE 3) females, anything more than that is overkill.
Given 1/3-1/2 of your babies are going to die, I doubt any civ you have near absolute control over would last for more than 5 generations. Extra females are an essential insurance policy.

Any civ I have near absolute control over would last indefinitely, as with almost everyone else's that understands the game and it's mechanics. But the ones that I have founded and adhered to my policy wind up find enough, although I'm not the kind of person to "check-in" with my dynasty or try to suicide to rejoin it so who knows how far they survive, if they even continue to adhere to my policy at all. And I'm with you that extra females are an essential insurance policy. That's why I say two or three. But maybe I'm naive thinking that I don't need 7 females because the other six are going to die. However, if I had to choose between keeping two or three seemingly competent females and having a marginal amount of faith that they wont die picking carrots, or having 3 screaming kids running around at any given moment and spending a good portion of my time shuttling dead children to the mass grave; I'll gladly take the prior

Glassius · 2018-05-01 07:45:35

Auner wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
But a society that sends their women to war loses every chance at a future.
Jason. No. What? *sigh* OK!! This is part 2 for why i explained above- you don't want to mix genitalia with societal roles

Genitalia are not only visual markers and sex toys. They produce hormones, thus resulting in differencies amoung sexes. Males are on average faster, bigger, stronger and more violent than woman. Just take a look at hyeanes societes: females have more testosterone, are stronger, more aggresive than male. They rule. This is the same true for human societes where violence plays a strong role in social hierarchy. In human societies woman can be equal in rights only, when males are holding back their violence.

While this is true an individual woman can be stronger and faster than individual man, this is the average rule and always-present-rule for elites. Bellow curves for number of individuals according to physical performance
bell curve females and males
This applies to sport. This is why women do not compete with man. This is why individual woman can be a great driver outperforming a very good driver
Sabine is better driver than Jeremy
Sabine and Jeremy
, but they are not present amoung Formula 1 drivers. This is so true, that even sex change operation is giving a great difference. Mack Beggs was originally a woman, but hormones made his body a man. Because of Texas law he cannot compete on equal rules with man, this is why he is griefing woman in wresting, dominating them.

It is strange Jason worries so much about individual differencies rather than average. There are adults slower than 1-year kid. Jason did not count it. Fat people are able to survive longer on starvation than thin. Jason did not count it. The game is just a simplification and adding difference between males and females seems to be fair.

Auner wrote:

my major argument here is the gender shouldn't determine your role in society. I think Jason is hinting at that males should possibly get special warrior privileges/women getting anti-warrior -- and no one would have fun with that if you're super mad at someone in game and are some how rendered un-able to get revenge based on gender.
What he'd really want to do is give incentives to stay home by the fire- and they could still get some work done by the fire while they feed babies--- and apart of that is pure "but there's not enough space or storage options"

This is a little feminazi point of view. Giving sex difference does not mean he forces us to play certain role. I think there will be no storm lightning to female for leaving ~~kitchen~~ fire. If sex difference is small, you can still play all roles in game.

Point 2 of tweaking from my suggestion about more ways to harm others ingame covers sex differencies.

If you still want to give males advantage over woman without combat: make them running 3% faster. That would be enough to make males valuable in community

Last edited by Glassius (2018-05-01 11:10:31)

happynova · 2018-05-01 09:52:18

Geez, can open, worms all over the floor...

Gender roles in real life are incredibly complex, and the subject of massive debate and a source of understandable sensitivity for a lot of people. But we're talking about a very simplified representation of reality here, and a simplified version of sex differences -- like, y'know, boiling it all down to who has babies vs who doesn't, with some simple and obvious consequences to that -- is reasonable enough. I certainly don't have problem with the game as it stands, on this point.

Something that I think is worth taking into consideration, though, Jason, when contemplating making changes: anything that goes too far in the direction of encouraging women to just sit around the fire tending babies and being protected while anything more interesting and adventurous feels like it's only suitable for the menfolk, or that actively punishes female characters for not wanting or being able to care for babies seems likely to get kind of off-putting for some perhaps quite significant percentage of female players. Yes, we may be just as likely to be male as female in the game, so it might seem like it's fair, but a lot of women are sick enough of dealing with this sort of thing in real life. Playing the Sexism Simulator, even if it you can justify it as historically accurate in a toy universe sort of way, just seems really uncomfortable and un-fun to me. I think you want to be careful to avoid that, while you're contemplating how to make males less devalued, or decrease infant mortality, or whatever the goal might be here.

Also, for what it's worth, I really liked the baby food suggestion someone had earlier in this thread. It might not solve any major problems, but it would be nice.

(Note: edited to fix a typo.)

Last edited by happynova (2018-05-01 09:54:09)

Avalikia · 2018-05-01 10:29:47

I think that from 10,000 feet away, the difference and advantage that a male has is obvious: He's a bit stronger.

But why that idea keeps on being equated with him being better at combat is a bit beyond me - especially in a game where you can't do any combat at all unless you're armed. Whether and by how much physical strength even matters in armed combat really depends on the weapon. I suspect that there will be guns in the game at some point, and those obviously don't rely on physical strength.

No, what I think the concept of 'men are stronger' should be translated into is that they should be just a bit faster at tasks that would require a lot of raw, physical strength. For example, carrying around a large rock - I don't think it's unreasonable to make men have an easier time of doing such things than women. Women should still be able to do them, of course, and in fact if this idea is implemented I think that the difference should be only very slight. But I don't think that it would take more than a few relatively subtle changes to make having men around seem very useful, especially if that's a mechanic going forward. (I'm sure there's a lot of very heavy things to lift when it comes to industrial era tech...)

Uncle Gus · 2018-05-01 11:11:45

Oh god, this is exactly the opposite of what I hoped this thread would achieve. I'm guessing pretty much all of this rhetoric goes squarely inside the bucket of "shit I'd rather avoid dealing with by keeping the spawning mechanic simple".

YAHG · 2018-05-01 11:17:35

Lol well from 10,000 feet away Men are stronger, faster, more resilient, more logical,
more skilled in trades, more productive, the only sex to pay more in taxes than they
take in benefits, the only sex that on the whole votes for smaller government, the only
sex to ever fight and win their rights. Almost ALL inventors, the lead in almost
EVERY SINGLE field.

Nah only difference is the babies bro.. what you sexist don't wanna piss off the womenz.. holmes..

Anshin · 2018-05-01 12:48:56

Genetics. Males are the focus of improvement, be it nature (he was born physically/mentally better than his peers) or nurture (he worked harder to be more successful than his peers). Women stay safer at home (by the fire tending babies and carrots) - but more realistically she would choose the best male to pass stats on to her children.

If the game had inheritance you would see much more realistic emergence from the game. Stats you could see when mouse-hovering over another player like speed, strength (+/- number of item carry), metabolism (+/- hunger rate) and an economic advantage, say a baby is born with a copy of whatever clothes his father was wearing. Guaranteed having successful males around would suddenly matter when considering which baby to keep.

I also like the idea of the 45 second pregnancy view so that Eve and unborn baby can both decide if this is a match they want.
Press A for abort.

Eves should spawn as children so they have a chance to find a home and set up camp before becoming fertile.
and/or
Eves should be born with a fig leaf chastity belt that decays after a few minutes, but gives them a chance to set up camp before babies appear. Fig trees should supply leaves you can pick and replace as contraceptives later. Maybe make fig fruits increase fertility for those who want that option too.

Nubbcakes · 2018-05-01 13:03:10

YAHG wrote:

Lol well from 10,000 feet away Men are stronger, faster, more resilient, more logical,
more skilled in trades, more productive, the only sex to pay more in taxes than they
take in benefits, the only sex that on the whole votes for smaller government, the only
sex to ever fight and win their rights. Almost ALL inventors, the lead in almost
EVERY SINGLE field.
Nah only difference is the babies bro.. what you sexist don't wanna piss off the womenz.. holmes..

anyways.... ...
the idea that males are "worthless" in this game is entirely based on the fact that women are needed to carry on the population, i mean obviously, but people also fail to understand that what makes males valuable is in fact that they aren't popping out children every few minutes.
the male characters are able to focus on more advanced tasks and projects, as well as venture further away from the camp freely, people should be seeing this assignment as an opportunity to improve the settlement even more, advance the tech tree and work on the town's infrastructure. hell, if you're a new player it's a chance for you to learn more as well. that alone should provide enough incentive to keep boys, as well as play them.
people are only keeping girls and are dying to famine from overpopulation-- i don't see this as a flaw with the game mechanics, it's just this mindset the playerbase has adopted and doesn't really make sense to me.

Last edited by Nubbcakes (2018-05-01 13:13:08)

YAHG · 2018-05-01 13:16:41

Nubbcakes wrote:

YAHG wrote:
Lol well from 10,000 feet away Men are stronger, faster, more resilient, more logical,
more skilled in trades, more productive, the only sex to pay more in taxes than they
take in benefits, the only sex that on the whole votes for smaller government, the only
sex to ever fight and win their rights. Almost ALL inventors, the lead in almost
EVERY SINGLE field.
Nah only difference is the babies bro.. what you sexist don't wanna piss off the womenz.. holmes..
https://i.imgflip.com/5kvuv.jpg
anyways.... ...
the idea that males are "worthless" in this game is entirely based on the fact that women are needed to carry on the population, i mean obviously, but people also fail to understand that what makes males valuable is in fact that they aren't popping out children every few minutes.
the male characters are able to focus on more advanced tasks and projects, as well as venture further away from the camp freely, people should be seeing this assignment as an opportunity to improve the settlement even more, advance the tech tree and work on the town's infrastructure. hell, if you're a new player it's a chance for you to learn more as well. that alone should provide enough incentive to keep boys, as well as play them.
people are only keeping girls and are dying to famine from overpopulation-- i don't see this as a flaw with the game mechanics, it's just this mindset the playerbase has adopted and doesn't really make sense to me.

I keep all my babies, unless they run away, I ain't gonna make ya live. Part of the challenge.

Lum · 2018-05-01 13:52:53

Let's not diverge into sexist speech if possible. We're here to find advantage for both males and females. It's about finding a balance.

AliCatGamer · 2018-05-01 14:36:41

I had a small inkling that the gander wars was going to crop up at some point.

Any way, the issues with the game, I feel, is that males are not needed to reproduce.
Thus they can be seen as useless in the game and creates this "females only" mind set. Males are good for working on the village when there is only ONE female giving birth constantly, trying to raise all the babies by her self. But once there is enough females then that "females only" mind set may start to creep in.

In real life, when it come to having children males are important to produce them, (and yes if you want you can say only their sperm is needed then fine, but they are still needed) that's simple biology.

In this game immaculate conception kinda makes males redundant. If two females act as nurse mothers and the rest work on the village then it can prosper. Especially if the population is kept in check.

Now if males do become necessary for child birth then incest becomes an issue when all there is, is people from the same family line.

So i get that it can be a bit tricky.

There was a suggestion some time ago, (not sure who said it) that if there is a male in the village that birth rates rise and so in turn, less males mean slower births. ( This may have been said on discord) Which my help balance things.

Perhaps males can have a baby bottle as well like this anchent greek one that was found in a mass grave, (very fitting to all this) posted by the National Geographic.
w,200

In the game males could wear one made of a water pouch, a clay nozzle and rope like a backpack and every time they pick up a baby that baby get's fed. We could use the sheep for milk and have to use the milk bag on a feed sheep to get the milk. It last a minimum of feeds necessary to get a baby to child hood perhaps.

Males just need some reason to keep them. I mean if you have the nudity mod on (I do for Youtube), they could just be seen as a barren female running around with short hair.

I like playing as both genders, I don't like being killed cos I was born a boy or left out and not spoken to when I get older.
It can get lonely being male in this game.

Last edited by AliCatGamer (2018-05-01 14:43:02)

sammoh · 2018-05-01 14:59:58

I hope this ends the argument amicably and we can all agree to go home to our husbands.

kubassa · 2018-05-01 15:00:10

powa wrote:

Well that's a good point, that we shouldn't be spending too much time at the farm.

That was not my point at all.

The biggest problem I have seen in the game regarding starving settlements is that most people expect someone else to tend the farm. The person off hunting rabbits that runs past the farm when it is "picking time", "planting time", and or "watering" time, just sponging food kills everyone all the time. Same goes for all the people who want to do their own thing and just eat food. Seen it many times rows and rows of carrots seed because 1-2 people cant pick them fast enough.

The point was that just because you feel you are the "forge" or the "rabbit" person doesn't mean you can't help when it's needed on the farm. This is what causes the starvation a lot of the time. People expecting others to do the farming because they don't want to.

Last edited by kubassa (2018-05-01 15:03:45)

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