Make Egalitarianism the default and charge for Sexism!

Brad already said it should be a 0 point option, so I imagine it will be changed.

 Another nice change would be allowing women to wear certain armor/gear that men can.

It would be even nicer if everyone could wear all the gear.  I pretty much have decided to just play male Sovs of the race of "Men" since they are the ones that can use most anything.  Been bitching about it for months, but no one gives a poop.

I think the reason some gear isn't allowed on some races is that the models are bigger. So when you equip the gear, it clips through and looks weird. They'd have to create new models for the Fallen race, and anything it looks weird on.

All equipment should be usable, equitable, and universally interchangeable re: all sentients.  gender should be irrelevant.

Eye- candy should be in the clothing section, not the weapons armor section.

 Yeah, i've seen some of thsoe post. ( I spent alot of time reading alot on the forums for the last long while...)

 To protest I tried running around naked for the 1st 100 turns with my evil quendar chaos worshiping female empire Sov... not a good idea she got munched on; hard. Seriously messed up she cant be as well armored as nearly every other sacrificial trash hero I've dominated.

True, I agree with you. Now with 1.1 finally out, I think they should start working on it. I could understand why it wasn't done up until this point, there were many other issues and things to get worked out which I think were more important. Now they should put a couple people on adding more content like this, and quests, items, etc.

Egalitarism should not be the norm. It may be natural for some people now but go tell the first humans about egalitarism (if you could tell them, that is).

If Egalitarism was to be kept as Talent for the faction, it should cost points. Period. Why? Well, because it should do something more than "Oh, cool! I can have dudettes in my army!" (which by itself is a ridiculous excuse but that's another story).

Egalitarians societies should get diplomacy penalties with non egalitarian societies (which by itself goes against what a Talent is right now in the game because Talents don't give penalties, so this part could be optional but "unrealistic" for those who complain whenever something isn't "realistic" enough). The good sides are the "dudettes" in the army (still cosmetic details, so no effects on population growth or special abilities/penalties for them) and increased production in the city (and/or similar bonus that reflects the non segregation of tasks based on biological differences).

Would be best if we could have an alternate option (and free) that goes with "Patriarchal, Matriarchal, Egalitarian" and have some differences based on that (who goes with who in a diplo wedding and stuff). I'm, sadly, not holding my breath for this to happen though.

If Stardock would just listen to Wintersong and Lord Xia, we'd have a great game.

I agree that as is Egalitarianism should be free. It doesn't do anything but visual changes.  However when it comes to making it default....

Even in modern times no country on this planet is Egalitarian in the sense used here. See many armed forces that are 50% female? I think not. Even taking a different and less strict definition of Egalitarianism, 95% of countries on Earth don't have significant amounts of females in militaries let alone combat roles. Besides contrary to some peoples fairy tale version of the world Egalitarianism has many economic and social consequences. Not saying it's bad just that it would change society significantly.

While in the Military it would be very hard for women to have children, much more so then for men. This could potentially be overcome by large government programs but they in themselves would cause a lot of changes.  What would be impossible to overcome is the fact that people in the military tend to die. Also the limit to population growth is the amount of available women. Men are pretty much inconsequential, women do all the hard work. This is because men can get multiple women pregnant, but women can only have 1 kid(not counting twins) per year. That means that while Egalitarianism causes max army size to increases substantially it would also cause your population growth rate to drop.

The bonus Egalitarian could allow for more citizens to work. For example if we cut the current number of citizens down to 75% (so every 4 person was useless) Egalitarian could allow for 100% population utilization. I realize that there are more than 25% women in societies but some of them would either be already working, house keeping etc (think middle ages folks). If the population utilization went for 50-100%, the bonus would be too great.

I do like the idea of the Matriarchal, Patriarchal societies. This could really play into an improved dynasty system where if you were Matriarchal, the 1st daughter is your heir instead of 1st son. This could also open up more diplomacy relations (+/- 1 for same/opposing society.

Yes, i demand the ultimate staple of all fantasy games/books/movies, the platemail bikini! It just feels so weird, having women soldiers in full armor that actually looks effective.

Yeah, as it stands I 'edit in' Egalitarianism for free.  It just doesn't sit right with me.

If there was a game effect (say women warriors have -1 Str but +2 Cha), then maybe.  The idea of the 'integrated workforce' is also a good one, with say a 5% bonus to Tech, Arcane, and Production (bigger knowledge pool/workforce).

What would be cool is if we had to choose from various Society choices in race creation.  We sort of have this now, but taking the Spartan point of view, for example is a pretty radical choice.  So rather than saying "this racial trait costs 3 points ( we should keep the ones we already have though)", we choose society as well as race, be it Totalitarianism, Democracy (Greek style), Republicanism (Roman), Feudalism, or whatever.  Each choice would have specific effects on Diplomacy and such.

Also, having some governmental choices in the tech tree somewhere (a la GalCiv II, but with more options) would be nice, i.e. Advanced Democracy for example.

See, the next expansion just builds itself guys! Well, except for the guys having to implement the ideas via programming part...

Applying any sort of specific penalties or bonuses to all societies of a particular gender bias is not something that the game has the latitude to do. It makes a social and historic statement that by its very nature is unfounded. I could almost see a simple 'integrated workforce' thing but what about caste-based societies, which just happen to have castes also divided along gender lines? I'm talking about a situation in which not every gender is considered 'suited' for every task, but every individual's talents are fully utilized. Modern western views on equality would tell us that any sort of separation in roles is morally and socially mistaken, but we simply don't have the data to make the statement that they are any less functional.

Viva la revolution!

Kinda but not really.

From a economic and historic point of view there are certain traits in societies that have obvious consequences. Not saying that some are better then others but that they all have pros and cons. For instance the growth of gender equality in countries all around the world has been closely studied and the results are pretty well documented. Just look at any western country. Equalizing gender roles basically means almost doubling your workforce. In the short term this will drive down wages but in the long run increase GDP and living standards. It also leads to a decrease in population growth because you no longer have %50 of your people dedicated to raising children.  Women have to now balance work and home, some choose not to have kids because it would negatively affect their professional lives. Thus it would be pretty safe to add say a %50 bonus to specialists(available workforce) and a 25% reduction in population growth to Egalitarian societies.

On another related note the Death Worship trait really bugs me. Sure "culling the weak" could make your people stronger but it would also reduce population growth because you keep killing your own people.

This is a world rebuilding after an epic shattering. A world in which _everyone_ is in mortal danger from giant spiders and rats and people who can fart out fireballs for real. Anyone who can hold a spear is going to be given a spear. Any country that chooses not to arm women out of some sense of obligation to being douchebags is going to do with a military capable force that's roughly half as large as the available pool of a group that is willing to put their women on the line. 

More importantly than WIZARD HAT RATIONALE, this is a flavor option. It should either A) cost nothing or provide a benefit. 

Equality. It makes sense.

edit: I'm trying to stay away from real world argumentation, because then I'd start getting irritated. But, pop growth reduction is actually beneficial in most societies so long as they're making the replacement rate -- which they don't need to do so long as they encourage immigration *COUGH* I'm looking at you Germany, stop with the haterade *COUGH*. Lower pop growth means fewer dependents per wage earner, meaning more resources available per dependent. Countries that have an incredibly high number of workers per dependent are experiencing something called a demographic dividend -- which provides a huge medium term boost to the economy. Perfect examples are the US with the Baby Boomers, China/India right now, Africa in the near future.

However, every demographic dividend comes with a demographic, well, I won't use the term I prefer here because it's not PC, but the closest equivalent would probably be bumpaddling. See, a demographic dividend also means a huge number of people in the same age category. And when that category marks the check box labeled Retirement, it imposes huuuuuuuge costs on their society. See Japan nowish, US and Europe in the upcoming years, China in the medium term. China is currently dealing with what's known as the 4:2:1 generation -- in other words, four grandparents, two parents, one kid. Once those parents and grandparents can no longer work, that kid is the only one supporting them unless the state gets involved in a far bigger way than it currently is in China. And since practically every family is in that situation, well, the only real option is massive immigration to keep the bills paid and the factories open. And where will that come from? Well, nowhere actually. Based on current trends in fertility, most of the world will be pop stable circa 2050. Things will be getting very interesting for China about then.

In most cases, population stability is immensely beneficial. It forces technological innovation -- because the only way to improve labor productivity is to improve techniques -- and keeps a lid on the cost of care for dependents. Plus, it means less rape of the environment! A win win!

Equality of sexual opportunity was huge. The post-WW2 boom in the US was literally built on the backs of women (and the devastation of practically every other industrialized nation on the planet, but we'll skip that). When you toss women out of the labor pool you're tossing out half the talent of society. That means less labor market competition, yes, but it also means less able people can take positions higher up the totem pole than they'd be able to in a truly competitive and open labor market. 

In simple terms, given two equivalent economies where, ceteris paribus, one has no females in the labor market, the society with women as active participants in the labor market will economically dominate. Again in simple terms, given two economies where, ceteris paribus, one has a fluctuating dependency ratio and one of which has a stable drat, the stable drat economy will dominate. 

So make the Egalitarian society 50% better in all ways and you'll be closer to the mark on what difference having females as labor market participants makes. 

And then you have to wonder why in the many threads about this topic (which do exist), developers have prefered to stay away from giving bonuses or penalties because of sex...

I'm guessing that you probably weren't a history major in college.

Yeah, instead I got a real degree. How's that waiting tables thing working out for you history majors?

Hahahahahaha! 

But, any way.  The only thing of importance in this argument, is that egalitarian adds no bonuses and as such should not cost points.  Period.  Options are always good, but no reason for it to cost points.

As Wintersong said it's really depends on the society. It's a matter of long term vs short term goals and whatever stupid prejudices said society has. Ignoring prejudices if you allow allow/force women into the army then ya you will be better able to defend yourselves, but at the same time you are exposing them to harm and thus the resultant drop in birth rate could potentially make you weaker in the long run. Also there is a large difference between teaching people to defend themselves and making them part of a professional army. By your logic you would draft absolutely everyone into the army because it would be safer in the short term! Who would grow the food, or do the blacksmithing? There is no right or obvious answer.

Easy now. I wasn't a history major, FYI.

I was simply making the point that the vast majority of societies through history have fielded all-male armies. There was probably a reason for that. Then again, you might know something that they didn't- really not for me to say.

Your suggestion is one viable strategy. A longer term strategy would be not to force/encourage women to join the military, for the purpose of having an increased population growth rate. With your greater population, you end up having a good number of soldiers anyway, who being primarily or all men, are more naturally/genetically predisposed to tasks that benefit from strength (such as fighting), and you have a stronger army as a result, with a good capacity for replenishment as more women are left alive to give birth to soldiers. This gives you longer staying power.

Equality between men and women is limited to their capacity for intelligence, and the fact that they are both human. To call men and women equal in general doesn't make any sense at all. If you were a manager of a company, or a team of any kind really, you would tend to assign roles that play to the strengths of the people that work for you in order to increase efficiency and gain the most advantage. This does not preclude other training and multi-departmentalising, though it does mean things like not assigning the short guy a job where he has to reach for things in high places, for example.