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

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Here's some more XML. I don't see anyone else with the SameSexPercentage tag.

Code:
       <Row>
           <ModifierId>AGENDA_CURMUDGEON_POSITIVE</ModifierId>
           <ModifierType>MODIFIER_PLAYER_DIPLOMACY_SIMPLE_MODIFIER</ModifierType>
           <SubjectRequirementSetId>PLAYER_IS_SAME_SEX</SubjectRequirementSetId>
       </Row>
       <Row>
           <ModifierId>AGENDA_CURMUDGEON_NEGATIVE</ModifierId>
           <ModifierType>MODIFIER_PLAYER_DIPLOMACY_SIMPLE_MODIFIER</ModifierType>
           <SubjectRequirementSetId>PLAYER_IS_OPPOSITE_SEX</SubjectRequirementSetId>
       </Row>
       <Row>
           <ModifierId>AGENDA_FLIRTATIOUS_POSITIVE</ModifierId>
           <ModifierType>MODIFIER_PLAYER_DIPLOMACY_SIMPLE_MODIFIER</ModifierType>
           <SubjectRequirementSetId>PLAYER_IS_OPPOSITE_SEX</SubjectRequirementSetId>
       </Row>
       <Row>
           <ModifierId>AGENDA_FLIRTATIOUS_NEGATIVE</ModifierId>
           <ModifierType>MODIFIER_PLAYER_DIPLOMACY_SIMPLE_MODIFIER</ModifierType>
           <SubjectRequirementSetId>PLAYER_IS_SAME_SEX</SubjectRequirementSetId>
       </Row>
 
Robert the Bruce dislikes you because you don't appreciate the genius behind
his 4509 posts destroying the idea of 1upt and you could have been here much
earlier if you had used his UI and not wasted so many clicks it's people like
you who are destroying the games industry and what a "Canada" is I'm wily
enough not to ask. Now be away with ye!
 
Disagree, the agendas are junk. Whether my avatar in game is male shouldn't be the driving point on whether they're trying to send 15 tanks my way. What should matter is what I'm doing in the game and how close I am to winning it.

Creating game objectives and then instructing player replacements to ignore those objectives and play a different game is anti-gameplay design. This problem is not unique to these two new agendas, but adding garbage doesn't reduce garbage. You just get more garbage.

Disagree. Having constraints imposed on you and being forced to work within them makes the game interesting. Agendas are a way to ensure that you do things to according to them constraints presented to you.
 
I'm as progressive as anyone, but I don't think just because a leader would prefer a leader of the same gender or someone of the opposite gender would make them straight. I don't really see how you can jump to that conclusion.

If anything, the problem is that assuming there are only two genders. There were historical rumors that Queen Elizabeth was transgender. If she was in the game, how would they treat that?

Transgender is not a gender. You can transition from one gender to another but you either male or female, not anything else. Non-binary gender is not rooted in biology.
 
I'm not going to give my opinion about that feature itself, as for me the whole agenda system needs to be reworked (ie "a nation has no friends, only interests"), but in that special topic, and after reading some complaints, note that this is from the game's code:

Code:
<Where LeaderType="LEADER_ALEXANDER"/>
<Set>
<SameSexPercentage>50</SameSexPercentage>
</Set>

Have done some very quick testing - I don't think this does anything. I set this to 100 (and 0, just to check it wasn't reverse coded), and set the Flirtatious trait to 100% for Alexander. He still was Flirtatious to Catherine de Medici on both ocassions. I might need to test it with a male character to see whether it ADDS interest towards same-sex characters though, rather than swapping the gender interest.]
Edit: Nope, it doesn't look like this works. It was probably intended as a mechanic and later scrapped...
 
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So it seems the majority of the issue is around the word flirtatious rather than a mechanic that makes leaders more or less predisposed to the opposite sex, is that right?

If so, I disagree with the conflation of flirtation with sexuality. You can flirt with people regardless of your orientation, regardless of their orientation, and without sexual intent.

Flirting is a form of flattery, and a form of manipulation. Flirtation is not the same thing as lust and desire for another, which is what I think a lot of people are assuming in this thread.

For context, a gay man can go on a date with a straight woman, and seductively eat breadsticks at her without ANY impact or reflection on their identity, standing or anything other than their personal interrelationship. The one doin the flirting holds power, and can this manipulate the other to Be more disposed to them without a sexual agenda.

If Alexander starts creeping on cleopatra, he can be appealing to her sexuality as a manipulatable characteristic, without wishing to exploit it.
 
So it seems the majority of the issue is around the word flirtatious rather than a mechanic that makes leaders more or less predisposed to the opposite sex, is that right?

If so, I disagree with the conflation of flirtation with sexuality. You can flirt with people regardless of your orientation, regardless of their orientation, and without sexual intent.

Flirting is a form of flattery, and a form of manipulation. Flirtation is not the same thing as lust and desire for another, which is what I think a lot of people are assuming in this thread.

For context, a gay man can go on a date with a straight woman, and seductively eat breadsticks at her without ANY impact or reflection on their identity, standing or anything other than their personal interrelationship. The one doin the flirting holds power, and can this manipulate the other to Be more disposed to them without a sexual agenda.

If Alexander starts creeping on cleopatra, he can be appealing to her sexuality as a manipulatable characteristic, without wishing to exploit it.

Yeah... Most of the actual kudos in the game are obviously romantic and/or sexual in nature. And, if the flirtations weren't meant that way, then why restrict them to always being toward the opposite gender? Further, why a penalty for being the same gender?

The name isn't the only problem. The two agendas need to be entirely removed from the game.
 
Disagree. Having constraints imposed on you and being forced to work within them makes the game interesting. Agendas are a way to ensure that you do things to according to them constraints presented to you.

You're refuting your own point. I'm not sure how to answer against self-arguments.
 
Agenda requires you to "do sth." if you want to amuse a certain leader. If someone denounces you for not being advanced in science, you can build campuses and once you gain a lot of science he/she will admire you.

But for these 2 agendas you have nothing to do. There's no way to change your sex in the game, making it simply a modifier that makes somebody you can never make friend with. Horrible.
 
Why is that horrible? What's wrong with unavoidable tension between neighboring Civs?

When a scenario calls for these nations to either team up or not fight, you have a chance for a civ to intentionally throw the game for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the state of the board otherwise.

This issue is shared by other agendas and is poor design in general, but it's particularly bad in this case since there's no counterplay to it aside from just conquering the AI with the game throwing agenda to be done with it or ignoring them...both options regardless of agenda.
 
Why is that horrible? What's wrong with unavoidable tension between neighboring Civs?

Because there's already a ton of things in the game for that.

And my neighbor is usually dead anyways. So....
 
Agenda requires you to "do sth." if you want to amuse a certain leader. If someone denounces you for not being advanced in science, you can build campuses and once you gain a lot of science he/she will admire you.

But for these 2 agendas you have nothing to do. There's no way to change your sex in the game, making it simply a modifier that makes somebody you can never make friend with. Horrible.

How negative can the penalty be for this? If it's a minor thing, I don't care, but if it can lead to war by itself, that's an issue.
 
Wouldn't it then be a better idea to steer clear of the entire issue? Heretofore there were no official orientations for the leaders and it offended no one.
Would have been better, yes.
Would also have been boring. History shows many world leaders were diverse and the issue here is that it implies all world leaders were straight or "too busy" to even have a sexual orientation which is taking a huge brush and sweeping any sexuality except hetero and asexual under the rug.

Frankly Firaxis shouldn't have bothered and I hope they remove both these traits for the simple reason that you can't play around them and we already have enough reasons for the AI to hate us anyway but also because it is like dipping a toe in the shallow end of the "pool" in order to 'not get too wet' when the "pool" is a giant whirlpool! If you don't want to get too wet then maybe turn the rudder around and get out of town because you are about to get sucked in!

Finally there is the other issue with flirtatious and that is, well, it implies that leader A with the trait would like everyone of the opposite sex. The problem here is that sooner or later it will be on some leader that someone will play (against) and they will get all in a fluff because "it says here that our former, long dead, glorious leader was a nymphomaniac!" and we are all gamers here. Jack Thompson might have long since retired/been disbarred but being a 'gamer' still has a social stigma to it and we all know lazy news-stations can't help but beat an old, dead horse if they think it will get views.

The traits adds nothing to the game from a game play point of view and just seem to have either been added as a tongue in cheek joke or to gather attention in the hopes that any publicity is good publicity and if we assume the former, it wasn't very funny as we live in a world where not being heterosexual can still get you killed and if it was the latter then they should have really gone all into the muck and added the other 'sexuals'.
 
When a scenario calls for these nations to either team up or not fight, you have a chance for a civ to intentionally throw the game for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the state of the board otherwise.

This issue is shared by other agendas and is poor design in general, but it's particularly bad in this case since there's no counterplay to it aside from just conquering the AI with the game throwing agenda to be done with it or ignoring them...both options regardless of agenda.
I think it really depends on the numbers. I have no problem with getting a slight negative because I'm a different gender, provided I can please the leader in other ways. Keeps things interesting.
 
I think it really depends on the numbers. I have no problem with getting a slight negative because I'm a different gender, provided I can please the leader in other ways. Keeps things interesting.

You can throw a little RNG to make who favors who in neutral situations less predictable. When it comes to victory condition scenarios the game board should dominate those things though. So yes, depends on numbers!
 
For context, a gay man can go on a date with a straight woman, and seductively eat breadsticks at her

I'm sorry but I felt this bit needed repeating just for the hilarity of the mental image...seductive breadstick eating is the key to any woman's heart. :goodjob:
 
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