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

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Pretty sure a king of one country has never slept with the king of another to secure a political alliance. But this has repeatedly been the case with the likes of heterosexuals like Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, and even Cyrus, who tried to woo Tomyris to secure control of the Massagetae.

Homosexuality may have been a common thing in the past, but it seldom if ever affected politics, and was more of a private thing. Frederick the Great, for example, was allegedly gay, but he still married a woman for political reasons. Others, like Elizabeth, shot down every man who came her way (curmudgeon).

No reason to make homosexuality an agenda when it had no place in politics historically-- and Civ is a game about politics, not personal relationships.
 
And also, in the historic context, do we have examples of any openly gay leader? I don't doubt for a moment there have been many, but I would find it very artifical and forced in a leader vs leader historic interaction setting.

Alexander was almost certainly gay, or at least bisexual. While there is no direct evidence of his relationship with Hephaistion, it is very much implied by the sources. Aristoteles called them "two souls, one body" and there are several mentions of him rejecting sexual relations with his various wifes and concubines.
 
I agree that the curmudgeon agenda could (should?) be considered to reflect the leader's disrespect of the target's gender as a leader.
 
Call me backwards thinking, but I don't mind the inclusion of these new traits and I feel zero need for there to be gay agendas. As some others have mentioned there is some quite conservative markets that play Civ as well (Including Russia and China, Korea, and Japan). There will always be exceptions but I would imagine the vast majority of the players from those countries wouldn't really appreciate it as much. It would also almost assuredly land the game a ban in China and Russia (Where the government tries to avoid all references and support of homosexuality). It would be especially irksome when tossed about casually and say a conservative Russian player finds the Russian leader is gay? As funny and trollish as that would be. It could rub far more people that wrong way than you might imagine.

There has been quite a large historical precedent for hatred (And fondness) for leaders by their gender. But while there is examples of gay rulers. I think I saw above that none of the current rulers have ever been confirmed to be gay and I don't think it is as common as the internet would like to hope it was. Either way. I doubt we will ever get it because it would immediately shut off the market to two large countries (Much like adding Tibet). If people want to mod it in feel free. But I am not going to trash Firaxis for NOT including a homosexuality feature and I still don't think they should in any official manner.

We could have done without the feature for flirty/other-gender-disliking. But I can see how it makes the game more interesting when there is such a large amount of female rulers in comparison to men. (As opposed to actual historical ratios)
 
lol at people complaining about how people treating you differently/unfairly because of your gender is both a)unfair, and b)non-historical. It _is_ unfair but it is also very true to life, and no matter who you are some of the interpersonal politics you encounter through life will be altered based on things outside of your control. I actually really like it as a mechanic; some people just don't gel for any number of reasons and you can't be best friends with everyone no matter how hard you try. This has the capability to create some interesting conflicts that can't be metagamed away.

The problem isn't the agenda. There are always people who prefer dealing with a certain gender.

The issue is the name

OTOH I agree with this largely due to enforced heteronormativity. Just make it something non-sexual/romantic. "Dislikes women/men" or "misogynist/misandrist" or something would be just fine.
 
I don't really like the traits because there is no way you can play around them. I don't care about the real-life politics.

I have to agree with this. It's frustrating to have an agenda that you just can't -do- anything about.

We should at least pretend that this game is still about strategy. You can't really strategize around the leader's gender unless you want to reroll or something.
 
You can't play around someone disliking you for your gender. I found it funny until a thought about how many stupid modifiers there are in game I can't do anything about. Makes it frustrating to play sometimes.


Honestly unless this was part of some kind of marriage alliance system they are throwing in (think CK2 but much more basic) there is no point to this. It’s a gimmick at best.
 
I am really getting sick of people inserting their politics into civ. If you have a problem with this gameplay-wise then fine, but lets not go down the rabbit hole of asking Firaxis to change things to fit our political beliefs because chances are we all have different beliefs and its impossible to please us all at once.
 
Above all political agendas in the real world is MONEY and allways will be MONEY. A Gay Saladin,Gengis Khan,Peter the Great or some other leaders could even bring to a country wide ban of the game. Even in some EU states the game could get a ban let alone Asia,Africa. Also,muslims would reaaaaly deeply ofended by this to have their religion Islam in the game to be wielded by a Gay Saladin.Above every political agenda will always be money and workplaces and this game took some milions of dollars to develop,provides workplaces for many people,pays taxes so that no one wants to risk that because of the representation of gay people.
 
so, I was playing as Korea, and Genghis had the flirtatious agenda. the dialogue creeps me out, he says that he's my "biggest fan".
 
You can't play around someone disliking you for your gender.

I believe the entire point of these two agendas is that they don't want you to play around them, at least in the sense that you can satisfy them. I could be wrong, but I think the intended function of these traits is to let you know this leader is going to dislike you the entirety of the game no matter what you do to add an element of tension to diplomatic relationships. If you're playing Curtin and you know that Teddy is going to hold that fact against you, then you know to keep you guard up. The inverse is equally true. If Victoria likes that you're John Curtis then you know you've got a bit more leeway to act like a jerk to the rest of the world without pushing her away.
 
The plot thickens when you look at the chances to roll this particular aspect. The Percentage Chance column is new I believe, it used to be a "preferred agenda" meant the AI always picked it, which is why Tedy used to always be an Environmentalist.

I assume a higher Percentage Chance means a higher chance of rolling this agenda. While the exact mechanics aren't known, I also assume based on the nature of the table that a roll is made against this table first, if the agenda isn't selected from the table a random roll from all available agendas is made.

Hilariously(?) Alexander has a specifically higher than normal chance to roll "Flirtatious." LOL. So his sexuality is explicitly codified, at least to a degree higher than normal chance.

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These two agendas should be removed from the game. The names alone are ridiculous. There are plenty of flirtatious homosexuals and plenty of curmudgeonly heterosexuals.
 
someone really dropped the ball when they added these agendas in and i'm glad i haven't encountered them yet

my guess is they were attempting to add even more dynamism to the already erratic and largely random diplomacy but forgot the part where the player is supposed to at least be allowed to strategize around them

it is heteronormative, but not in a way that really bothers me. the gameplay aspect of it is what rubs me the wrong way, personally
I believe the entire point of these two agendas is that they don't want you to play around them, at least in the sense that you can satisfy them. I could be wrong, but I think the intended function of these traits is to let you know this leader is going to dislike you the entirety of the game no matter what you do to add an element of tension to diplomatic relationships. If you're playing Curtin and you know that Teddy is going to hold that fact against you, then you know to keep you guard up. The inverse is equally true. If Victoria likes that you're John Curtis then you know you've got a bit more leeway to act like a jerk to the rest of the world without pushing her away.
i would argue that this function just removes strategy from the game and only serves to annoy the player with periodic angry leader animations and denunciations
 
I always thought of the leaders in Civ as more or less abstractions so having them care at all or even acknowledge other Civ leader genders just feels weird and out of place to me.
 
I do actually have to agree that this is a stupid addition. And it's fundamental wrongness is not tied to any particular civil rights issue, but because:
  • It is arbitrarily affecting gameplay based on things which are completely unrelated to the board state.
  • It is doing it based on an arbitrary "gender" trait of civs which have no gender and could easily have had a leader of a different gender.
  • It is ultimately a very shallow mechanic. Why is it limited by being tied to gender when it could be much more exciting and varied if these relationships were random? Why are the only two relationships amorous and disdainful? Why couldn't we have fraternal? Paranoid? Hatred? This is a stupid mechanic on both axis and like several other things in the game just feels painfully underdeveloped.
On top of that, because this mechanic is so poorly designed and irrelevant, it can't help but be interpreted as politically regressive in a game that is quite literally about politics.

What the hell did they think they were accomplishing with this? The leaders can't even get married or do anything interesting with it. It's terrible, Firaxis. Between this and the Chemamull and Georgia, you guys are really slacking on the mechanics end of development.

Also, straighties, stop complaining. This isn't the 1970s and you know you want Gilgamesh to send Lautaro chocolate and secret love letters like the rest of us. You know he'd treat the little guy right.

EDIT: I had another thought about where this poor decision may have been inspired. I am pretty sure that R&F is a blatant grab at increasing the female playerbase. The trailer is basically a manifesto saying "hey girls, it's your turn now." Chandragupta, Lautaro, and Shaka are all very clearly designed with the female gaze in mind. And so I think they probably thought that teenage girls would also like a game with a romance mechanic in it. The problem is that teenage girls love romance between any gender, so this decision will ultimately not be as successful as one where Chandragupta and Shaka can wink and pump guns at each other while keeping things on the DL because they're only experimenting while they wait for the perfect Mary Sue.
 
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The plot thickens when you look at the chances to roll this particular aspect. The Percentage Chance column is new I believe, it used to be a "preferred agenda" meant the AI always picked it, which is why Tedy used to always be an Environmentalist.

I assume a higher Percentage Chance means a higher chance of rolling this agenda. While the exact mechanics aren't known, I also assume based on the nature of the table that a roll is made against this table first, if the agenda isn't selected from the table a random roll from all available agendas is made.

Hilariously(?) Alexander has a specifically higher than normal chance to roll "Flirtatious." LOL. So his sexuality is explicitly codified, at least to a degree higher than normal chance.

View attachment 487586

Just curious, are those raw percentages out of 100%? If so, in a game with 7-9 AI leaders where most of them have a 10-15% chance of being Flirtatious, it seems like a bit more than a third of the time you'll have at least one or more leaders with the agenda, not counting Cleo's 30% chance or the Curmudgeon agenda.

____

I'm personally fine with agendas you can't play around as long as they're rare and don't come up often. I like the idea that every once in a while you'll run into a leader that you literally can't reason with, but it's a damper on diplomacy as a whole when that kind of leader becomes the norm rather than the occasional exception.
 
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