Improving gameplay for female player characters

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm aware that this is a risky discussion, and I hope I won't be mistaken for a homophobe or something.

No worries there. It's not like the lesbian business that happens there is in ANY way intentional.
Just a side-effect from the game originally being very male-centred...

And if gender and preference are separate; then being gay has no business being linked to being female.

The whole system for governors' relatives is a mess! It seems to have been written by a committee, everyone had their own way of doing it, and they were all implemented together. The governor's dialog is run by function 'GenerateMR' in "MAXIMUS_Functions.c", which does not in fact generate the MR - that is done in function 'SetupMR' in "Dialog_func.c"; the actual text is in "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\common.ini", translated from keywords such as "MR_1". The lines for chatting up or proposing marriage to the relative are in "PROGRAM\DIALOGS\Conversation.c", while what you actually see on screen is in "RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\interface_strings.txt". The rest of what you can say to the relative, as well as dialog for the duel before marriage, are in "PROGRAM\DIALOGS\ENGLISH\Gov MR_dialog.h". So I've got as far as the governor presenting his relative and you introducing yourself. Next phase: new lines for flirting and proposing marriage.

Haven't a clue how that happened.
That was from before I was ever even here.

There were a lot of modders at the time. I think they were working quite actively together.

@Pieter Boelen: can you remember if "Animation View" needs to be installed or if "aniview.exe" can just be run straight from wherever it's located? The file repository is still empty, I don't have the original zip, and if there's an installer then I can't find it. But if it can just be downloaded, unzipped into a folder and run, then I can zip up my "Animation View" folder and put it on the FTP site. It will help a lot in choosing suitable suitors for female characters.

All tools for the game are stand-alone; so that should work.

@Keith was kind enough to upload all files from the "cloud" here for now:
cloud.rar
Should include all the tools.

We'll still need to figure out how to really sort things out on the forum end though...

 

[Homo eructus]

Someone mentioned in the discord that nobility titles should have female versions, so female player characters are not called baron but baroness, etc.

 

[Grey Roger]

That could be tricky as titles and ranks are both assigned as attributes to the nation in "PROGRAM\NATIONS\nations_init.c", e.g. for Spain:

Spoiler

    rNation.Ranks.Quantity = 12;
    rNation.Ranks.1 = "Aspirante";
    rNation.Ranks.2 = "Alférez de Fragate";
    rNation.Ranks.3 = "Alférez de Navío";
    rNation.Ranks.4 = "Teniente de Navío";
    rNation.Ranks.5 = "Capitán de Corbeta";
    rNation.Ranks.6 = "Capitán de Fragata";
    rNation.Ranks.7 = "Capitán de Navío";
    rNation.Ranks.8 = "Contra Almirante";
    rNation.Ranks.9 = "Vice Almirante";
    rNation.Ranks.10 = "Almirante";
    rNation.Ranks.11 = "Capitán General";
    rNation.Ranks.12 = "Almirante General";
    rNation.Titles.Quantity = 12;
    rNation.Titles.1 = "Aspirante";
    rNation.Titles.2 = "Alférez de Fragate";
    rNation.Titles.3 = "Alférez de Navío";
    rNation.Titles.4 = "Teniente de Navío";
    rNation.Titles.5 = "Capitán de Corbeta";
    rNation.Titles.6 = "Capitán de Fragata";
    rNation.Titles.7 = "Hidalgo";
    rNation.Titles.8 = "Caballero";
    rNation.Titles.9 = "Barón";
    rNation.Titles.10 = "Vizconde";
    rNation.Titles.11 = "Conde";
    rNation.Titles.12 = "Marqués";

Adding new titles for women would mean adding more 'rNation.Titles' attributes and then finding out where these attributes are accessed. It also means finding out what all the female titles are for all nations, not just Britain. If the person on Discord wants this to happen, whoever it is can take the first step by providing all those female titles. If that happens, I'll see if I can figure out how to use them.

 

[Homo eructus]

The military ranks can stay invariable in all languages I think (even clearly gendered ranks like the English midshipman, I wouldn't expect the Navy to change them for a woman), so it would be only the proper nobility titles (7 to 12) that need a female version, shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a list later in the day.

 

[Grey Roger]

That wasn't the problem I had in mind. It's the mechanism for picking the rank or title which worried me, whether it would work if there were 12 ranks and 18 titles. However, I think I've found it, and have a method which doesnt't involve more title attributes to each nation, just more entries in "common.ini". In "CharacterUtilite.c", function 'GetRankNameDirect':

    if (ProfessionalNavyNationChar(char) == iNation)    // GR: Look at whether this char, not player char, is in the navy
    {
        if(CheckAttribute(Nations[iNation],"Ranks."+rn))    return Nations[iNation].Ranks.(rn);        // NK: Navy Ranks
    }
    else
    {
        if(CheckAttribute(Nations[iNation],"Titles."+rn))    return Nations[iNation].Titles.(rn);    // PB: Privateer Titles
    }

Perhaps try changing the bit for privateer titles:

    if (ProfessionalNavyNationChar(char) == iNation)        // GR: Look at whether this char, not player char, is in the navy
    {
        if(CheckAttribute(Nations[iNation],"Ranks."+rn))    return Nations[iNation].Ranks.(rn);        // NK: Navy Ranks
    }
    else
    {
        if(CheckAttribute(Nations[iNation],"Titles."+rn))    // PB: Privateer Titles
        {
            if(GetAttribute(char, "sex") == "woman" && rank > 6)    return Nations[iNation].Titles.(rn) + "_f";    // GR: women may have different titles
            else                            return Nations[iNation].Titles.(rn);
        }
    }

That means nothing needs to be added to "nations_init.c". In "common.ini", "Baron_f" would translate to "Baroness". And "Chevalier_f" would translate to "Chevalier" - I had to look into this to some extent when I was adding noble prefixes to other nations, similar to British "Sir", and found that French uses "Chevalier" for both male and female. The rest of the female titles are an exercise for your Discord friend.

 

[Homo eructus]

I think chevalier is more of a modern thing for modern orders like the Legion d'Honneur. I've seen both chevalière and chevaleresse used for female knights in French aswell. I guess they were a rare occurrence historically and the term was never standardized. But the official title for a woman of knightly rank, whether knighted herself or married to a knight, would probably be Dame, (Dame or Lady in English, Dama in Spanish and Portuguese, ??? in Dutch). I guess it depends on whether we want to underline the more military aspects of knighthood (Chevalier, Chevalière or Chevaleresse) or the social status (Dame). I think at this pont, past the military ranks, the social status should take precedence, but on the other hand the player character playing as a woman is an enpowered fighter, so maybe they'd appreciate more the more active implications of Chevalier over the ladylike Dame.

shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a list later in the day.

Not so easy after all

 

[Grey Roger]

According to this:
Women Knights
...

Medieval French had two words, chevaleresse and chevalière, which were used in two ways: one was for the wife of a knight, and this usage goes back to the 14th c. The other was as female knight, or so it seems. Here is a quote from Menestrier, a 17th c. writer on chivalry: "It was not always necessary to be the wife of a knight in order to take this title. Sometimes, when some male fiefs were conceded by special privilege to women, they took the rank of chevaleresse, as one sees plainly in Hemricourt where women who were not wives of knights are called chevaleresses."

Meanwhile, here's what I've done so far. "CharacterUtilite.c" is modified to add "_f" to female titles as I suggested above, thus avoiding the need to add extra attributes in "nations_init.c". However, not related to female titles, it does have one change - the Swedish rank 11 "Amiral" is identical to the French rank 10. To allow distinction - especially in Russian, where they'll need to be converted to Cyrillic alphabet and may be pronounced differently - the Swedish one is now "Amiral_S". It's changed back to "Amiral" in English "common.ini", which now has all the Swedish ranks and titles (it didn't have them before), and also has all the "_f" entries for female titles even though almost all are still the same as male titles.

Pirates also have titles! They're more like reputations, ranging from level 1 "Unknown Freebooter" up to level 12 "Scourge of the Seven Seas", and are handled the same way as anyone else's titles. And that means levels 7-12 need "_f" versions. Whether we'll have female versions of "Famous Pirate", "Dread Pirate" etc. remains to be seen...