Accusing Sradock of being antfeminist is the must ridiculous thing I have ever heard. There a lot of talented women working there, just to name one Carielf, bring a political garbage to this forum is the must ridiculous thing I have ever read, what next? there is not black people as leaders, or not hispanics people as leaders or no chinese people as leader? what next? Stop the stupid approach, this is a game, it is not real life, grow up and stop accusing Stardock of discriminating women because there is not a picture of you as a leader of one of the races.!!! Look around you in our own planet, there are not more women leaders because of the hardships and problems that this huge responsibility brings upon their shoulders, sometimes decisions of killing people are involved, God gave women the awesome job of making new lives to come to this planet, we men don't have that opportunity, women have better maternal and human instincts than men, would you like as a woman take the decision of dropping an atomic bomb over a planet to destroy all life forms when you yourself can give life. Don't think so!!!

Actually, it isn't any more expensive to model a female. It costs just as much to model a female as a male. However, I suspect that the initial art budget is allocated already, and that means there isn't the resources to get some new, previously unplanned art at this time.

Aloriel, you seem to be extreme on this. I agree it would be better to have some human females available for choice and prominently featured in the game. Also, the game should know the difference between male and female gender for your leader (and wherever else might be appropriate). But not having that in this build is not a show stopper.

Again, other then the Altarians and Humans, I don't think sex matters for the GC2 races. They are all alien, and therefore, we don't know anything about their biology. Presuming they are all mammalian using our earthly male/female system is simply being way to humancentric.

At this point, it is a cosmetic issue, in that it does not affect the actual gameplay. It will make the game more pleasant to look at for some players or stop some minority of players from being distracted by the lack of equal representation/choices. That is definately a cosmetic issue from the point of developing a product. It doesn't need to be addressed in this build, but it should be addressed, like all the other cosmetic issues (ie, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes) as soon as SD can reasonably do so. I wouldn't expect it to have to wait until an expansion, unless it's the "for free" expansion that is planned right after the retail release.

Ashbery76, this isn't about masulinizing or feminizing the game. It's just about the cosmetics--- You know, the Art, UI, movies, in game still scenes, and all those other things that don't affect the actual game play, but do impact your gaming experience. Whenever you show humans, you need to show a variety of types. Otherwise, players get distracted, and begin to wonder if you are just cloning the same person, over and over and over again. Which is entirely possible, in a high tech setting like GC.

Yes, mayito8888, I really enjoyed the Alternate Governors mod to GC1. I used to switch between several different alternate governors (all female).

Wow... I go away for a week or two, and look what gets thrown into the mix.

Yes, it is true that the majority of games today seem to be catering to the archetypal 14-30 year old heterosexual male. Yes, the depiction of females in most games is either woefully absent, or flagrantly insulting. (The same can be said for male characters as well, but I don't want to digress even more. Suffice to say there are many shades between the archetypal models we're normally presented.) And yes, the industry as a whole is long overdue for a radical overhaul when it comes to accurate depiction of the sexes.

But let's edge dangerously close to realism here for a moment. I've read through the *majority* of the argument here, and I have to agree with Star Pilot -- this gender issue is a purely cosmetic one. Then again, so is having a named leader in the first place, or any sole identiy in a game of this scope.

The thing that I've always loved about 4x games like GC and MOO is that they represent the polar opposite of character intensive games (think your engrossing RPGs.) Individual identitiy is completely extraneous when your objective in the game is to guide the development of an entire species. Therefore, I really couldn't care what honorific an AI chooses to use so long as it makes the fundamental distinction of species, or race. In fact, I would be willing to concede that a true-life alien civ wouldn't particularly care about a human's gender -- it would be too preoccupied staring in disgust and fascination at our lack of a third, fourth, and fifth eye and the strange unsightly tuft of fur on the tops of our heads.

I suppose that the point I'm trying to make here is that what is truly important in a game like GC is the full representation of an entire culture, or an entire lifeform. If I play as a Drengin, I want to FEEL like a Drengin, and it's the AI's job to make it happen through its treatment of me. If I'm a Thalan with access to a *limited* collective consciousness, I want to see that represented in morale and production bonuses (these are only speculative examples, as I am not participating in the beta and have extremely limited knowledge of extant game mechanics.) But one thing I would not like to see is the Torians giving a flying scarnblorth about whether or not I'm male or female. (And yes, Star Pilot, I agree that it's human arrogance to assume that all other advanced lifeforms would rely on something as idiosyncratic and unreliable as sexual reproduction -- although it might mellow them out )

As far as modelling genders goes, I have to admit that I'm at a total loss as to why or how producing female models is more difficult/expensive than male ones. That just doesn't ring true. I *do* understand, however, how having two variants of each (or most) races could send manpower hours and production costs way past the comfort level. So perhaps releasing additional artwork options at a later date is not such a bad thing after all (and certainly not an insult.) Plus, does anyone *really* think that the portraits on the selection/diplomacy screens are representative of the actual *leader?* Heck I just think of those as the bootlicks I send to talk to people and species that are FAR beneath me. (Also, there's always the uncomfortable issue of a leader *dying* and being succeeded, and that's an issue I wouldn't mind seeing extrapolated.)

So go ahead. Call yourself whatever you will, and revel in the honorifics thrown at you by the ignorant scum of the galaxy. If they use the wrong gender of honorific, perhaps they have a language that doesn't make the distinction. Or perhaps they have no concept of gender. Or perhaps they're just too puke-stupid to know better, and deserve to be wiped off the galactic map before their idiocy spreads any further!

Ahem. Well, those're my thoughts, anyway. Thanks for your patience.

Hmm... so the problem now becomes the possible connotation of gender in dialogue. Though there have been many historic instances of noblewomen being reffered to as "Lord," it has evolved into a typically male appellation. So perhaps the only equitable solution would be to dispense with certain honorifics altogether. "Your excellency," "Most exalted one," and even the good-old utilitarian "You snivelling maggot" would make excellent substitutions in script. And I can't think of an instance where the indicative possessive pronouns "his" or "her" (and the like) would be used in a game like this -- if the AI were to refer to another civ during conversation, it would make more sense for it to say "their," or "they." The solution is pluralization (at least in English -- many other languages still use gender-specific plural pronouns, remember.)

If the inclusion of a comprehensive gender identifier code would be too difficult at this stage, "neutering" the scripting would be a simple alternative (find and replace, anyone?) And, I might add, it would be very appropriate for a game of this scope, where the ally/enemy is not a "he" or a "she" or even an "it," but a "they."

This may be off the subject, but as far as in-game gender recognition and significance goes, I have *super* high hopes for ES 4: Oblivion!!

You know, the easy answer is to leave the humans all male in illustrations, and make the Altarians all female in illustrations, then have the Altarian texts always say "She" and the Human texts always say "He", and be done with it. All others would just say "they" or "it" as their reproductive habits are so different from Human/Altarian that they simply can never puzzle out if an individual human/Altarian is Sex One, Two, Three, Six, Eleven, or Twelve. (That's something I liked about Acsendancy... all of its alien species reproduced in different ways. One of the races had 16 sexual roles... try to go figure out the pronouns for talking to them!)

Does that sound reasonable for future GC works?

It's bad enough having that silly female GNN thing, let alone a Drengin with long hair and lipstick.

quote]a Drengin with long hair and lipstick
Now that is a amusing thought!

While we're at it, why not unisex races? Or tri-sex races?

It's a good suggestion, but please don't start adding insects, (more) robots and other random aliens with boobs. Most mammals don't even have enlarged breasts unless they are nursing. Humans are just weird like that.

Diplomat Aloriel, point taken. All I can say is that a few stickies should be added to the pile at SD to get some new art into the game at the next reasonable measure. Which SD is most likely to do, in my rabid fanzer opinon. Try not to hold it against them that its been left for so long. I'm sure that they had bigger issues to deal with. Such as getting the Metaverse feature into this build so that it can be reviewed by the ESRB. That does seem to have upset the apple cart of their schedule a bit and forced some features to be moved about.

There should be a male option for the robot.I find it very offensive only having a female robot GGN presenter in the game.

haha! I think Ashberry is just trying to stir up some trouble in here.

I feel bad for Aloriel's disappointment with the lack of females in the game. It would have been nice to see some gender variation in the Human and Altarians at least. As for the rest of the alien races, I can't really tell if any of them are either male or female (or neither). I like the squid heads the best. Fried Calamari for everyone!