What exactly does sexism do?

[Ringwraith #5]

Yeah, fairly simple question. What does it do? So far I've only noticed one thing it affects, namely whether or not kings give you fiefs when you first join up - with sexism on, they will give a fief to a man but not to a woman. So what else does this setting affect? And what exactly is the difference between the "default" and "high" settings of sexism?

 

[Duh]

I have seen it in dialogs.py, so its definetely influencing the way things are worded and i am rather sure that it also changes what consequences are avaiable (f.e. does a lord duel with a female player).

 

[Suspicous Pilgrim]

I'm guessing the standard way of saying "women" becomes "sandwich-maker".

 

[MiniMacker]

Which is strange. Even though King Harlus said he wouldn't give me a fief if I joined Swadia. But after the conversation about me swearing the oath, it said I received one. I'm using 4.1 with sexism on Default, by the way.

 

[zParsifal]

I'll give an approximate explanation, although you can find a complete answer by searching the source code for the variable $g_disable_condescending_comments, which is what gets changed when you alter the prejudice options.  (There is also Native code that uses this variable.)

The reason the menu option is called "prejudice" instead of "sexism" is that I initially intended for it to also affect other forms of bias (such as the prejudice against common-born PCs and companions from elements in the nobility), but supporting that is pretty low on the list of possible tweaks.

I have seen it in dialogs.py, so its definetely influencing the way things are worded and i am rather sure that it also changes what consequences are avaiable (f.e. does a lord duel with a female player).

Yes, things like: Will a king invite the player to join the kingdom without the player asking?  Will a king offer the player a fief?  Will lords make comments about how women shouldn't be leading soldiers? etc.

Also, in Native, Martial and Upstanding lords will always reject a female player character's courtship, because a warlord doesn't match their ideal of femininity.  Altering the prejudice setting removes that.

(As a side note, I altered the game to allow factions to be patriarchal/matriarchal/gender-equal on a kingdom-by-kingdom basis.  Since Diplomacy doesn't alter the setting there isn't any difference here for the standard NPC kingdoms, but if the player forms a new kingdom it is considered egalitarian.  Based on some of Matheld's dialogue I had initially considered marking Nordic culture as gender-equal culture, but decided to leave that to individual players to keep or change.)

And what exactly is the difference between the "default" and "high" settings of sexism?

Even on Default, I toned down the "Martial/Upstanding lords refuse the player's advances" thing so the absolute prohibition doesn't apply to all of them.  On High, the behavior is the same as Native.

Aside from that, setting the prejudice level to "high" means that subaltern-gender lords (both the player character and NPCs) will be treated by some characters as if their renown were less than it actually is.  It also might influence some dialogue options.

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation. So it's mostly just flavor text, then? That's cool, I can live with that.
Also, you may want to change the names of the options, I sort of automatically assumed "default" meant the same as Native and "high" even higher. According to what you said, the "high" level is actually the default one and the "default" one is toned down.

 

[zParsifal]

Double-checking, it turns out that the courtship change applies across the board.  Trying to court Martial/Upstanding lords has increased requirements for success rather than failing automatically.

I strongly feel this is better design.  If a player didn't want it to be theoretically possible to marry one of those lords, they wouldn't be trying in the first place.  It is not an unreasonable thing to attempt (especially considering that it applies to both Alayen and Firentis), and the availability of the option does not affect the game of someone who decides not to use it.

Also, you may want to change the names of the options, I sort of automatically assumed "default" meant the same as Native and "high" even higher. According to what you said, the "high" level is actually the default one and the "default" one is toned down.

Default is the same as Native.  High is mostly the same as Native, plus a Renown penalty.  (Leaving aside changes that apply regardless of what the option is set to.)

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Huh. Alright, then.