Fine. The Thalan ambassador is female. 

Wow, killed that discussion.

My main gripe is that I was assured that being a female leader would be possible. Now, I come to find out it won't be possible. Very disappointing. I find it odd that I was assured back during beta 2, when all the art we presently have for leaders was already in. Yet now in beta 4, we have a reversal of that statement. It seems to me to have been suggested with pleanty of advance notice. And clearly, they've been setting up a system to recognize gender in game (e.g. bug reports where the game says "[leader_gender]" or the like). So I don't really understand why there is a sudden reversal.

I have to say that if I had been assured (by a dev) that something I requested, back in beta 2, would be in the game, then I would expect come beta 4 for people to still be assuring me of that. Although if it's something that's no longer possible before launch then I think a) An apology should be made to the requester (Diplomat Aloriel) and efforts should be made to add it to the first expansion pack. Especially as the game mechanics seem to support the ability to differentiate between "gender".

To be honest I can't see the difference between this and say having the fleet battle cinematics, or having a home system with named planets, it was purly a cosmetic request (made well before some of the requests on here).

Also this doesn't seem to be a request for the art work to be added (as we have seen we can add our own pictures to the custom races section), but that if the leader of that custom race is designated as a certian gender then they should be referred to as such.

the possibility of a race with 3 genders

Like in Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves'.

Hysterical! And I hope all the feminists are happy that the Thalans are female. Oh man! this is comedy.

This would be interesting. What would be cool is have the females/males dress differently according to their alignment

thats funny. octavia butler

LOL, good topic. I agree that the game could use an alternate female portrait for the Altarians and Humans.

I don't remember being female or male being a cosmetic concept in real life Why is it cosmetic in game?

Reminds me of a quote by an author named Robin Hobb (female) - "It's all just plumbing"

One of the minor races that I've encountered is female (or incredibly androgynous, if not) - the Caranoids (or however you spell it). While it WOULD be nice to see females represented in the game, I don't think that it's necessary at all. Their lack of presence doesn't break the game. The planetary populations don't just grow on their own, you know, and even one of the quarterly reports make fun of the rate at which the population grows (calling it physically impossible, and then promptly ignoring that it is so).

As a woman, you are already a female leader. If people using a pronoun like 'he' offends you, then by all means, please focus your attention elsewhere. If I recall correctly (while admitting my own geekdom), all of the 3rd Edition D&D books use female identifiers in all examples, and nobody said a dang word about it. Political correctness is such a blight in terms of how much time and energy we spend on it. Ugh.

Point being is that GalCiv2 and other non-biased games are great regardless of gender representation. I doubt it was a conscious effort to eliminate female representation from their artwork. It's just one of those things that wasn't required. Remember that models and animations have to make it in there as well, so it's also a matter of budget. And we're only assuming that all alien races are male. In terms of a human looking at an alien, they might never know its gender without ever dissecting it and seeing how it ticks. Does it mean that we should confound our own speech simply to adjust for the possibility? If we truly want to be diplomatic, we need to invent a new pronoun and be done with the whole mess. And no, I wouldn't care if all the 'he's in the game were replaced with 'she'. Go on and make a patch - the game won't break because of it.

That being said, I'm sure people would assume I'm sexist (I find there's a big difference between feminism and radical thought - and believe it or not, I -do- care about gender misrepresentation and tend towards feminist ideals, but I also fully believe in independent thought over bitching to make sure everyone respects your platform), but I would LOVE to see an entirely new race appear - completely Matriarchal in nature. It would be incredible to see how female mentality and ideals would work in a male-centric warzone. For example, males are naturally destructive - we enjoy chaos - and females are naturally nurturing (and far more sly than us men). I would love to see how this kind of dynamic would work when women are applying their natural dispositions to war and conflict. How radically different would their ship designs be? What would they find more important to develop on their planets? How would a civilization based on nurturing life rather than destroying it deal with those that threaten their existence? Or better yet, what kind of technologies would this society bring to the galaxy? Surely there'd be some incredibly unique developments in a matriarchal society. Perhaps another tech tree?

In short, my problem with games is that there really never is any female representation, no matter how you slice it. Simply adding a picture and saying "okay, you're female" doesn't cut it. In general, most females in games work exactly like males in terms of their actions - probably because they're mostly designed by men who've likely had a lot of trouble dealing with women in their youth. The point is that most female representation in games is focused on showing that women are "just as good as men" in whatever they're doing (or completely insulting and degrading, but that's another discussion). That, to me, is garbage. Any 'feminist' who accepts that notion is just kidding themselves - not because women aren't as good as men, but because women are NOT men. We may be of the same species, but our thought processes and natural inclinations are radically different. Even if a man is effeminate or a woman is masculine, there's still a pretty big rift between the genders and that's NOT a bad thing. Can women fight and go to war? Of course they can (and will if pushed). The question is would they approach it the same way as men would? If not, where would the differences lie? Are we all just humans who love to destroy and annihilate or are we two seperate genders in the same species? How different would values and ideology in a matriarchal society be? In my own lifetime experiences (I'm nearing 30 ), when dealing with men, we're pretty obvious and base. When a woman comes after you, well, you never see it coming, do you? haha It's that kind of thing that I'd love to see represented in games - not just a portriat and pronoun swap.

Quick and dirty - GalCiv2 is pretty genderless, if you ask me. I hope I haven't offended anyone in this post. If I have, apologies to you as that's not the intent of this post at all. Just think about it - are women the same as men? Absolutely not. Can they do anything men can do? Sure. Would they do it differently? That's the key.

Hmm. A few extra thoughts I'd like to add...

For one, I agree with the thought that you simply can't put the very alien-looking aliens into the equation. So when it comes to the Major Races that pretty much leaves us with the Altarians and the Terrans.

The GalCiv games already have an established backstory which, for whatever reason, already has established male characters for those two races. IMHO it's like, for instance, complaining about the fact that in Planescape: Torment you can't play as a female Nameless One.

OK, so what about the sandbox mode, then? As has also been mentioned, the game is pretty genderless. Any changes related to gender *would* be completely cosmetic. Would it be nice? Sure. But I've been playing games with male main characters my whole life... if I didn't have a good Suspend Disbelief circuit I wouldn't *be* a gamer... or a science-fiction fan, for that matter.

As for ethnicity, which I think I saw mentioned in another thread, again it pretty much boils down to the Altarians and the Terrans. And we can't say poo diddley about the Altarians. Considering what we know of the origins of their species, I think it *is* entirely possible that they all have blond hair, light skin, and hazel/brown eyes.

I'm not trying to belittle some of the comments I've seen, but really, in this particular case I don't see it worth making a huge fuss over. The few instances in the game where there is logical opportunity for gender differences there *is* "femaleness" mentioned... there are female names in the "Comments From the People on the Street" sections of the Planet Details, there is a matriarcal minor race... etc. etc. And if you still want more, the game is entirely moddable.

Peace & Luv, Liz

How do you know the alien race ambassadors aren't female? Are you an expert on xeno-gender studies?

Seriously...anti-feminist? Geez. I do agree that maybe having a male and female choice for Terrans and Altarians would be nice, I don't honestly think that they're commiting some horrible and greivous deed here. Extra portraits for custom and pre-made civs would be nice, but, please, don't try and stir up a firestorm about it. Not everything is a conspiracy against someone else.

If you have female AI, you can have the AI do something irrational every 4 turns.. HEHEHE.. oops, sorry.. must've bypassed my good tastes chip.

R

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I can see it now.
You send the Thalan Matriarch a gift and she asks you what you are trying to hide.
Once every 4 turns, all your allies declare war on you, then make it up to you the next turn.
AI's will no longer necessarily appreciate a gift of BC's or tech but remembering what they wore when you first met will net you serious brownie points.
The "we know what you are trying to do" relationship modifier might have a positive meaning if you gift aphrodisiac trade goods.
Researching the "Near Omnisience" tech just lets you understand a tenth of what they're thinking.

I will stop now before I get torn to shreds, tarred and feathered and run off the forums by the gentler half of our species!