[R&F] Inevitable thread on "Flirtatious" and "Curmudgeon" straights-only traits

I don't care about it being straight only; I think the entire idea was stupid. From a gameplay perspective, it adds nothing--it's yet another agenda that the player has no control over or ability to react to. From a flavor perspective, it just feels out of place. I don't like being flirted with in real life, and I don't like it any better when Seondeok starts flirting with me in-game just because I'm playing as Poundmaker.

 

Hey there, stranger. What are you doing tonight? Wanna come see my big, tall wonder?

 

The only problem I see here is that you cannot do anything on the game to satisfy this agenda since it is gender-based.

Hope Firaxis remove this agenda.

 

It's hard if not impossible to fulfill a faith-based agenda if you don't pick a religious civilization so it's the same thing based on the nature of your leader/civilization.

 

Making options more difficult to execute is not "the same thing" as removing options altogether.

 

I dislike random agendas, haven't played a game with them turned on in forever. Since unlike the historical agendas they don't have like a gameplay function in my view.
I have always dislike any leader that is depicted in a flirtatious manner. So Cleopatra, Catherine in V etc. Has nothing to do with statecraft or diplomacy.....

It's like they combined two of the things I hate into one thing I can really hate. At least it's pretty easy to turn off random agendas with a mod

 

Basically the same.

 

It’s a really surprising misstep in my eyes. Why even get close to something as hot as sexual orientation / gender bias?

It’s bound to be changed eventually.

 

It would be interesting if there were a Naïve trait, in which the leader will like everyone, from pacifists to warmongers, from males to females.

 

Only if there is a "paranoid" trait to go with it.

 

There is. Dislikes big militaries.

 

I wonder which leaders would more likely get the Naïve trait then, since such leaders want to be friends with everyone, regardless of their true intentions.

Mvemba would be a great candidate for that trait.

 

Oh Shaka, I could tell the moment I met you that you're one of the good ones you're so sweet and considerate and I know you'd never do anything to hurt me and I'm such a great judge of character everyone tells me that I mean my mom told me that just the other day and BOY would my mom just love you I can't wait to see the look on her face when she sees I'm dating a jock she always thought I was too good for them but you'll change her mind about that in a heartbeat and just wait till she makes you slippers and cookies for Christmas and oh my what are you doing with your spear well I guess it's never too early to check for prostate lumps and ow that kind of hurts but I'm sure I'm just tight from all those squats I did yesterday and are you sure you're doing that correctly because I think I see some blood or no that's just probably those cherries I ate earlier but that's a lot of cherries and I'm starting to feel faint and what's this speartip protruding from my chest oh wow you literally stole my heart that's amazing I'm so glad I met you!

Here, you can just have all my cities. You're the best.

 

Okay, uhh, "antisocial" then.

 

Wow, it's just like my Japanese anime! I can get my very own harem of civ leaders, and then the next game they'll be allergic to (wo)men so they'll hate me. Fantastic. When will they add tsundere and yandere traits?

 

Personally, I want tsukkomi and boke agendas. Then, just add Downtown as leaders for Japan.

 

Yanderes can be sent to joint war somewhere. I don't see the point to tsunderes since it isn't like they don't already randomly alternate between denouncing and praising you anyways.

 

I believe their thinking is that, because there is nothing you can do *to change that particular modifier*, it precisely DOES add something to the gameplay - you have to work around it, rather than with it. The only issue I have with it is that it seems to be fairly popular among the leaders, and some of the other agendas appear to have fallen to the wayside.

I frankly could care less about any video game representation of a leader's sexual orientation. It doesn't impact mine in any way. I guess some folks just need some sort of external validation? I can see that. But why look for it in a video game, of all places?

 

I still see this as an upside. Some people just won't like you. The game really isn't built as a "please everyone" challenge and gives other options for dealing with people who won't be pleased. This is realism, not bad gameplay.

 

But why is gender the basis for that when it could just as easily be randomized? The justification for this, like others have noted, is roughly equivalent to saying "I don't like you because of your race." It's not a good social mechanic if the heuristics behind it no longer make sense in modern culture. Maybe to certain, regressive patches of culture, but not to a culture that is increasingly more comfortable with gender and sexual fluidity and experimentation.

There's absolutely no reason these agendas--if the aim was to represent the insistence/stubbornness of some leaders--couldn't have been retooled. To, instead of begging a sexist non-rationalization like "I love/dislike your gender," merely beg a harmless non-rationalization like "I love/dislike you because your of what the facets of your character/culture add up to." Neither model actually explains *why* these leaders love/hate you; the explanation in both cases is "well, they're prejudiced, poor examples of human beings." But one of them doesn't attempt to pull the modern culture that contextualizes and consumes this game backwards a century or two to a time when "of course making sweeping judgments about people based on gender makes sense."

It doesn't. Civilization has evolved. We know better now. Firaxis knows better now. And merely calling it realistic doesn't change the fact that this is a massive franchise targeting teenagers and young adults who are now being fed these stupid, reductionist, dismissive depictions of an increasingly complicated facet of modern civilization.

Username checks out.