Female Relatives Are Worth Less Than Half As Much As Males

[drake014]

In the game, women relatives that are married off leave the family. Women also die in childbirth--for some strange reason the only non-battle related medical condition in the game that kills people outside of old age (I guess testicular cancer has been cured in this universe). First, let me say that my intention for this discussion is first and foremost, what is good for gameplay. I hear a great deal of people arguing over what is "historically" accurate and it gives me a headache because (1) I was a history major and they're often wrong and (2) this entire game is historically inaccurate from top to bottom and games usually are. Usually claiming to not like something because it's historically inaccurate is just people trying to disguise their personal preferences as objective logic.

This is bad for gameplay because the most logical course of action for the player, and really every family if they were playing intelligently, would be not to marry off your female relatives. I love that in the game women can be critical roles for your kingdom and party in the form of generals, governors, scouts, medics, siege engineers, etc. However, this also means that the relationship gain from marrying them to another family is not even close to worth losing a valuable character. On the converse side, male family members are super valuable because when they get married, you get another valuable character in the form of their wife! You also get all of the children they produce! This makes male family members uber more valuable and also means that the best course of action for your female family members is to make sure they never marry.

A much better mechanic would be to either (1) make the relationship gain from marriage extremely valuable (for instance, perhaps make it so that families won't marry off their women to you unless you return the favor) or (2) make it so that in a marriage, who leaves their family is not determined by sex (i.e. maybe you can bargain for who is joining whose family or maybe the more valuable character gets to stay in their family). That way, men and women have a chance of leaving their old family and joining the new one. Personally, I'd prefer the latter case because I think it's much easier to implement and is better for game balance purposes.

 

[Antaeus]

There are plenty of issues regarding female characters in game. Their armour doesn't even fit properly (shoulder armour floats above the character)

 

[McDadden]

So for anyone whose done a female playthrough? What happens if while playing a female, you get married. Do you leave the clan you created with all its members and companions and join the new one?

 

[Blood Gryphon]

So for anyone whose done a female playthrough? What happens if while playing a female, you get married. Do you leave the clan you created with all its members and companions and join the new one?

No, the husband joins your clan.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It's pretty disappointing. It's a great benefit now starting a female because a husband has more governor goodies then a lady, though there's few ladies with good stats. I didn't even murder Kinteg this last game, his perks are so good. Anyway it would so helpful to poach more husbands with sister and later female children

 

[Apocal]

So for anyone whose done a female playthrough? What happens if while playing a female, you get married. Do you leave the clan you created with all its members and companions and join the new one?

Female clan leaders bring the husband to their clan.

 

[StevieLee7132]

I like the game as is. Women died in childbirth fairly often back then, testicular cancer has always had an extremely low rate of incidence. The primary cause of death back then for young men was death in battle. Women took the names of their husbands and joined his clan/culture/family. Women should not even be leading armies in the game, but the devs heard the wailing of the masses and capitulated on this issue. Aside from the historical accuracy, it is a GREAT mechanic. It means you need boys to expand the clan and ensure continuation of the clan, but girls are also useful to can relations with other clans, or be used as governors or to lead war parties.

 

[Antaeus]

Primary cause of death for men "back then" was infection caused by a splinter in their palm from a broken soup spoon.

 

[drake014]

I like the game as is. Women died in childbirth fairly often back then, testicular cancer has always had an extremely low rate of incidence. The primary cause of death back then for young men was death in battle. Women took the names of their husbands and joined his clan/culture/family. Women should not even be leading armies in the game, but the devs heard the wailing of the masses and capitulated on this issue. Aside from the historical accuracy, it is a GREAT mechanic. It means you need boys to expand the clan and ensure continuation of the clan, but girls are also useful to can relations with other clans, or be used as governors or to lead war parties.

Re-read the original post. Not only do you use a variation of the "historical accuracy" argument I blew to pieces, you completely don't address the main point, which is that there's no good benefit for marrying off female family members that compares with losing a valuable character. Hence, any player playing optimally will just accrue female family members without marrying them off. That's not good game mechanics. Get past your "wailing" over video games including females in roles you don't think they belong and actually join in the point of the discussion.

Primary cause of death for men "back then" was infection caused by a splinter in their palm from a broken soup spoon.

This. I mentioned testicular cancer to be funny and I think Antaeus also gets the joke. Basically, there were tons and tons of illnesses and medical conditions that struck both men and women and especially children. Most didn't make it to their 30s (or 20s for that matter). Ignoring all of these conditions but keeping death from childbirth is bizarre and, more importantly, isn't good game mechanics.

Edit: To elaborate further on why this aspect is bad game mechanics, I spent time and effort to get married, more time and effort to level up my wife to be a useful character, and then she dies having our first child. There is no way to control this or lower the chances of her dying, except by avoiding having kids, which is a terrible way to mitigate it. If she died in combat, I could at least take actions to lower those chances (i.e. keep her the hell out of combat). Something as bad as the death of a character you spent a great deal of time on should be something you can control or influence. Happening completely at random is a terrible mechanic.

There are plenty of issues regarding female characters in game. Their armour doesn't even fit properly (shoulder armour floats above the character)

Agreed, but the reason why I posted this particular issue is that it's not something that I'm confident the devs will fix unless people bring it to their attention. Armor poorly fitting is going to get fixed almost certainly.

 

[Oakenlix]

Didn't read the thread, but it seems kinda sexist.

 

[a_ver_est]

bufff, the player's clan is overpowered enough. If we were also able to keep females and her husbands in the clan it will be so much... My second generation will be about 15 members or such without any marriage right now and growing, meanwhile NPC clans has 6 members more or less.

Duno, I understood your concerns but there should be a mechanic which force the player kick some family members from the clan.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

for some strange reason the only non-battle related medical condition in the game that kills people outside of old age

Exactly, when I first heard about this mechanic i thought it was a joke. It feels like a very sloppy attempt to limit the number of children you can have and make succession more risky, or even to balance out the number of male deaths from guys who suicide themselves into sieges. Either way it's idiotic.

 

[drake014]

bufff, the player's clan is overpowered enough. If we were also able to keep females and her husbands in the clan it will be so much... My second generation will be about 15 members or such without any marriage right now and growing, meanwhile NPC clans has 6 members more or less.

Duno, I understood your concerns but there should be a mechanic which force the player kick some family members from the clan.

Good point. If clans get too many members and they're a powerful clan with a lot of territories, they should split into multiple clans. If it's a clan with few territories, then lower ranked members should just sorta wonder off looking for better opportunities. Both of these scenarios aren't just what happened historically, but they would also make a good game mechanic if handled well.

 

[Apocal]

Agreed, but the reason why I posted this particular issue is that it's not something that I'm confident the devs will fix unless people bring it to their attention. Armor poorly fitting is going to get fixed almost certainly.

I will say that my sister's marriage had some use in the early game because I could marry her off to the wealthiest clan in exchange for a lot of starting capital. I think it was around 140K denars. But that's an incredibly niche use and probably pointless once you get past about 1087 or so with your feet firmly under you in terms of finances.

Good point. If clans get too many members and they're a powerful clan with a lot of territories, they should split into multiple clans. If it's a clan with few territories, then lower ranked members should just sorta wonder off looking for better opportunities. Both of these scenarios aren't just what happened historically, but they would also make a good game mechanic if handled well.

Yeah, it would be nice if family members could dynamically join and return from minor factions, trips abroad, etc.

 

[drake014]

I will say that my sister's marriage had some use in the early game because I could marry her off to the wealthiest clan in exchange for a lot of starting capital. I think it was around 140K denars. But that's an incredibly niche use and probably pointless once you get past about 1087 or so with your feet firmly under you in terms of finances.


Yeah, it would be nice if family members could dynamically join and return from minor factions, trips abroad, etc.

Wow, I hadn't even thought of that. That would be just such a cool little mechanic. Some cousin or grandson running off, only to find them later leading a minor faction army as mercenaries.

Exactly, when I first heard about this mechanic i thought it was a joke. It feels like a very sloppy attempt to limit the number of children you can have and make succession more risky, or even to balance out the number of male deaths from guys who suicide themselves into sieges. Either way it's idiotic.

I honestly don't know what it's supposed to be addressing with respect to game mechanics, so your guesses sound as good as any. If woman can be in battle, just let them risk dying in battle like everyone else. If they can die from childbirth, allow both sexes to die from illnesses but allow that to be mitigated by having a good medic or some other way that we can affect the chances. Potentially critical characters dying at random without any way to control it isn't fun and making the mechanic only affect women just results in players making odd choices that negatively affect gameplay like not marrying off women relatives. Honestly, I'm still not even 100% onboard with deaths in battle. I understand they're still working on the mechanic, so I'll wait to see the end result before judging, but making it so that I hang around at the outskirts of battle with my character and other critical characters because I don't want them to risk dying detracts from the fun. The concept of dying in battle seems cool, but the way it's actually implemented isn't fun yet.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Honestly, I'm still not even 100% onboard with deaths in battle. I understand they're still working on the mechanic, so I'll wait to see the end result before judging, but making it so that I hang around at the outskirts of battle with my character and other critical characters because I don't want them to risk dying detracts from the fun. The concept of dying in battle seems cool, but the way it's actually implemented isn't fun yet.

I don't think it'll ever be fun unless they fundamentally change the focus of the game. The way I see it there are two competing "sub-games" mount and blade is comprised of:

- Dynasty warriors (single character focus, ride around killing large numbers of grunts on horseback or on foot)
- Crusader Kings (multiple character focus, emphasis on statebuilding and political intrigue)

Warband did neither of these particularly well, it was a clumsy mixture which often made for awkward gameplay, for example buying armour which sometimes cost more than buying an entire army equipped with the same gear. Or completely obliterating enemy armies while also struggling to make your king happy. They are two different games with radically opposed pacing and gameplay focus. What mostly saved it for warband was, ironically, how poorly connected everything was, and you could for the most part just play it like dynasty warriors, hacking your way through armies without really ever taking this part seriously.

The problem with lords and other characters dying is that it flips the balance of warband (where the the crusader kings intrigue part merely contextualised the dynasty warriors battle part) and makes you worry about campaign stuff too much when you should just be mindlessly hacking away like the combat systems "want" you to. It would actually be way less annoying in my opinion if the game was entirely focussed on the politics and permadeath and just had the combat as basically a glorified minigame to contextualise it (like KC or the Witcher), rather than these two fully fledged game loops fighting for your attention.

 

[Marbles20]

Its true that vanilla warband was a bit thin with each of its systems, but the inclusion of all of them is what made it stand out versus another hack and slash clone or strategy auto-calculator. The death in battle thing is getting nerfed from a hard 10% down to like 0.2% if I recall, so it won't be as big a factor as it is now.

I think we'll see women play a bigger role once more diplomacy is implemented.

I don't mind seeing them in battle since there were occasions they did fight, but there are just a ton of them now since all the men die off initially from battles. So I run into armies with 4-5 female leaders and maybe 1-2 males.

I also hope they start putting helmets on them when they are in armies. Makes it feel like a Hollywood movie when they are charging around with their hair blowing in the wind while everyone else is fully geared.

 

[drake014]

I don't think it'll ever be fun unless they fundamentally change the focus of the game. The way I see it there are two competing "sub-games" mount and blade is comprised of:

- Dynasty warriors (single character focus, ride around killing large numbers of grunts on horseback or on foot)
- Crusader Kings (multiple character focus, emphasis on statebuilding and political intrigue)

Warband did neither of these particularly well, it was a clumsy mixture which often made for awkward gameplay, for example buying armour which sometimes cost more than buying an entire army equipped with the same gear. Or completely obliterating enemy armies while also struggling to make your king happy. They are two different games with radically opposed pacing and gameplay focus. What mostly saved it for warband was, ironically, how poorly connected everything was, and you could for the most part just play it like dynasty warriors, hacking your way through armies without really ever taking this part seriously.

The problem with lords and other characters dying is that it flips the balance of warband (where the the crusader kings intrigue part merely contextualised the dynasty warriors battle part) and makes you worry about campaign stuff too much when you should just be mindlessly hacking away like the combat systems "want" you to. It would actually be way less annoying in my opinion if the game was entirely focussed on the politics and permadeath and just had the combat as basically a glorified minigame to contextualise it (like KC or the Witcher), rather than these two fully fledged game loops fighting for your attention.

I have to agree with Marbles20. They will absolutely have to balance the 2 subgames because that's what makes Mount & Blade a unique game. Where there is a will, there is a way.

 

[stevehoos]

Its true that vanilla warband was a bit thin with each of its systems, but the inclusion of all of them is what made it stand out versus another hack and slash clone or strategy auto-calculator. The death in battle thing is getting nerfed from a hard 10% down to like 0.2% if I recall, so it won't be as big a factor as it is now.

I think we'll see women play a bigger role once more diplomacy is implemented.

I don't mind seeing them in battle since there were occasions they did fight, but there are just a ton of them now since all the men die off initially from battles. So I run into armies with 4-5 female leaders and maybe 1-2 males.

I also hope they start putting helmets on them when they are in armies. Makes it feel like a Hollywood movie when they are charging around with their hair blowing in the wind while everyone else is fully geared.

Wait for it... wait:

You can't tell their gender with head gear, which defies the whole point of "women" in battle.

 

[drake014]

Wait for it... wait:

You can't tell their gender with head gear, which defies the whole point of "women" in battle.

I truly hope that's not the reason. There shouldn't need to be anymore of a point to having women in battle than having men in battle.