the unproductive thoughts of a guy you've never heard of

[dark-whisperer]

Clerics have mace in their hands not bible, and I'm not sure but they can wear full plate mail in D&D. Even Celestial is dual-wielder. Its good to have faith on battlefield but mace is much better Combination of posture and that outfit gives impression of vulnerability. As I wrote before she doesn't have to wear full plate but she has to have battle "attitude". This way that unit looks just weak.

[vicheron]

The whole idea of the gender quota is ridiculous. Centaurs becoming female is not the first gender change in the series.
-Trolls were male in Heroes 1, female in Heroes 2, and then went back to male in Heroes 3 and 4.
-Elf archers were male in Heroes 1, 2, and 3, became female in Heroes 4, and went back to being male in Heroes 5.
-Druids were female in Heroes 1 and 2, and then became male in Heroes 5.
-Genies were male in Heroes 1 and 2, then you get the unupgraded Heroes 3 and Heroes 4 genie being female, finally going back to male in Heroes 5.
-Ghosts/Wights/Wraiths are female in Heroes 1, 2, 3, and 4, but became male in Heroes 5.
-Zombies were male in Heroes 2 and 3, became female in Heroes 4, and went back to male in Heroes 5.
-Water elementals were "female" in Heroes 3 and then became genderless in Heroes 4 and 5.
-The Sorceress faction in Heroes 1 and 2 only had female heroes, once that faction became Rampart/Preserve/Sylvan, it had heroes of both genders.

Clerics have mace in their hands not bible, and I'm not sure but they can wear full plate mail in D&D. Even Celestial is dual-wielder. Its good to have faith on battlefield but mace is much better Combination of posture and that outfit gives impression of vulnerability. As I wrote before she doesn't have to wear full plate but she has to have battle "attitude" this way that unit looks just weak.

Monks/Zealots and Mages/Archmages only wore robes.

[dark-whisperer]

@vicheron
Do you see how many times you said they were female and went male in later installment. Somebody obviously doesn't like that ratio.

Monks/Zealots and Mages/Archmages only wore robes.

But those units looked like they can actually kill someone on battlefield. Mage looked like he can produce fireball or meteor shower. I understand that nun is support unit but they could put pink bunny instead of her.

[Metathron]

I understand that nun is support unit but they could put pink bunny instead of her.

And you would get close to the innocent looking bunny, going in for the kill, and then this fate would befall you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCI18qAoKq4
What good is armour against armour-piercing fangs (one of the bunny's attributes)?

[dark-whisperer]

Hahahahaha. Pure win! One of my favorite scenes ever

[dark-whisperer]

While we are on the subject of women/men rights and Monty Python:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c

[Elvin]

Life of Brian

[Zenofex]

And discrimination still exist, you've pretty much proved it with your assertion that Ubi tried to meet a "female quota" by making the centaur female. You're assuming that male has to be the norm, even in a fantasy world with a completely different culture than ours.

Great Jehovah, Allah, Ahura Mazda and Ian Kilmister, is it so damn difficult for you people to speak about these things without a wagon of prejudices? I am fully aware that for the majority of the human population the world is much better place when The Others are painted black and white but this is not the way to discuss whatever.
Let me explain it to you with simple words, although have already said this multiple times in my previous posts - apparently with not-so-simple words. Discrimination DOES exist today and only an idiot will deny that. Not only women, but also races, various social groups, etc. I am not talking about the discrimination in general but about the absurd statement that the women are discriminated when it comes to military service and particularly the fact that it remains a male profession, no matter that they are actually allowed to join the army if they want. If you can't tell the difference, then I can't help you.
And second - the female quota is stupid because many of the changes are unnecessary. Focus on the word "quota". How would you work on one faction when they tell you "OK, now we need 3 female creatures here". They don't tell you that they have to fit the respective army or even faction, they tell you that they have to be female. Just for the sake of being female. Are you with me? OK, now imagine an Amazon faction. Guess what - I have a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y n-o-t-h-i-n-g against such an idea. It might even be quite interesting, if implemented well. There you can have as many females as you want and I won't mind. Just like I don't mind the females which are not put in the existing factions because "OMG, we are still one female short here, what are we gonna do?!". The Sister's model is well-made... if she doesn't have to go out of the church. The Centaur was just fine as male and this change is totally unnecessary. What's so damn difficult to understand?

[LongDarkBlues]

Except, of course, that's it's sheer speculation that there was some sort of commandment from the Execs that there be more female units.

[vicheron]

And discrimination still exist, you've pretty much proved it with your assertion that Ubi tried to meet a "female quota" by making the centaur female. You're assuming that male has to be the norm, even in a fantasy world with a completely different culture than ours.

Great Jehovah, Allah, Ahura Mazda and Ian Kilmister, is it so damn difficult for you people to speak about these things without a wagon of prejudices? I am fully aware that for the majority of the human population the world is much better place when The Others are painted black and white but this is not the way to discuss whatever.
Let me explain it to you with simple words, although have already said this multiple times in my previous posts - apparently with not-so-simple words. Discrimination DOES exist today and only an idiot will deny that. Not only women, but also races, various social groups, etc. I am not talking about the discrimination in general but about the absurd statement that the women are discriminated when it comes to military service and particularly the fact that it remains a male profession, no matter that they are actually allowed to join the army if they want. If you can't tell the difference, then I can't help you.
And second - the female quota is stupid because many of the changes are unnecessary. Focus on the word "quota". How would you work on one faction when they tell you "OK, now we need 3 female creatures here". They don't tell you that they have to fit the respective army or even faction, they tell you that they have to be female. Just for the sake of being female. Are you with me? OK, now imagine an Amazon faction. Guess what - I have a-b-s-o-l-u-t-e-l-y n-o-t-h-i-n-g against such an idea. It might even be quite interesting, if implemented well. There you can have as many females as you want and I won't mind. Just like I don't mind the females which are not put in the existing factions because "OMG, we are still one female short here, what are we gonna do?!". The Sister's model is well-made... if she doesn't have to go out of the church. The Centaur was just fine as male and this change is totally unnecessary. What's so damn difficult to understand?

But you fail to see how discrimination against women from childhood to adulthood leads to differences between men and women joining the military. There's also the fact that sexual harassment and abuse of women in the military is extremely prevalent.

As for the female quota, that's just based on your own prejudice. How do you explain all the other times when creatures have changed genders? How do you explain non-living creatures made to look like men or women? Sure the Glory looks like a naked woman but Golems look like well built men and Titans in Heroes 5 look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a loin cloth. Did you complain about the developers going, "oh no, there are too many monsters in this faction, we need to add some good looking men."

[Variol]

Am I the one who could care less about the gender of the unit? Gender just does not = fun for me. I have no problem with any of the female units in H5, but how well the unit performed in battle was what mattered to me.

[Zenofex]

But you fail to see how discrimination against women from childhood to adulthood leads to differences between men and women joining the military. There's also the fact that sexual harassment and abuse of women in the military is extremely prevalent.

As for the female quota, that's just based on your own prejudice. How do you explain all the other times when creatures have changed genders? How do you explain non-living creatures made to look like men or women? Sure the Glory looks like a naked woman but Golems look like well built men and Titans in Heroes 5 look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a loin cloth. Did you complain about the developers going, "oh no, there are too many monsters in this faction, we need to add some good looking men."

You are going to great lengths to prove something and can hardly see where you are crossing the border of the common sense. And if I repeat it one more time, it will really be moronic, so let this be the last repetition - you can say that the women are discriminated regarding the army if: 1) they are not allowed to join it; 2) they are allowed to join it but suffer unexplained restrictions related solely to their gender as such and not to some scientifically valid deficiency that they have because of it and that makes them considerably inferior to men in combat; 3) and the women openly consider this treatment unfair and protest against it. Without 3) there is no discrimination and no matter how much you want to explain this with social brainwashing, you will have to go tell this to the oppressed women who don't want to join the army because they are raised with different values - whether they are good or bad in your opinion doesn't matter at all as you are not the affected side and thus you are not in the right to judge for it (this is, of course, if you are not a typical western crusader who thinks that it's his duty to tell the entire world what's right and what's wrong). If someone brings me solid evidences that the women feel oppressed because there are much more men in the army, I will retract my statements. Until then your pseudo-liberal opinions are nothing but unfounded rhetoric.
About the female quota - if there was any way to get the honest opinion of the relevant decision-makers on the matter, I would do it, believe me. And I'd post it here. But it doesn't really require godlike intelligence to figure out that since the number of the female creatures in the known line-ups more than doubles between two parts of the series, then this is fully intentional. Call me biased if this helps you sleep better but at least ask for the opinions of several other people who are not engaged in this dispute and do tell me how many of them think that the increased quantity of the female creatures is fortuitous.
As for the changed genders and such - I have no idea what you are trying to say with this. I think I made it pretty clear that if it is made well, it is acceptable. Say - the female Elf unit in Heroes IV is perfectly acceptable replacement for the male Elf from Heroes III as far as I'm concerned. In the case of the Centaur it just screams that this is something imposed by someone from Above without any necessity.

[Neidhaart]

To me gender of a unit is unimportant as long as the unit itself is well thought out.

[Zenofex]

To me gender of a unit is unimportant as long as the unit itself is well thought out.

That's pretty much what I'm trying to say myself.

[Infiltrator]

To me gender of a unit is unimportant as long as the unit itself is well thought out.

I tend to agree, although that's a very subjective matter. Teenagers would argue how every TITS IN YA FACE dark elf is well thought out of.

In addition to your statement I'd put another one of my own - don't exaggerate. If one faction has dark elves, please don't make them the whore house faction.

[vicheron]

But you fail to see how discrimination against women from childhood to adulthood leads to differences between men and women joining the military. There's also the fact that sexual harassment and abuse of women in the military is extremely prevalent.

As for the female quota, that's just based on your own prejudice. How do you explain all the other times when creatures have changed genders? How do you explain non-living creatures made to look like men or women? Sure the Glory looks like a naked woman but Golems look like well built men and Titans in Heroes 5 look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a loin cloth. Did you complain about the developers going, "oh no, there are too many monsters in this faction, we need to add some good looking men."

You are going to great lengths to prove something and can hardly see where you are crossing the border of the common sense. And if I repeat it one more time, it will really be moronic, so let this be the last repetition - you can say that the women are discriminated regarding the army if: 1) they are not allowed to join it; 2) they are allowed to join it but suffer unexplained restrictions related solely to their gender as such and not to some scientifically valid deficiency that they have because of it and that makes them considerably inferior to men in combat; 3) and the women openly consider this treatment unfair and protest against it. Without 3) there is no discrimination and no matter how much you want to explain this with social brainwashing, you will have to go tell this to the oppressed women who don't want to join the army because they are raised with different values - whether they are good or bad in your opinion doesn't matter at all as you are not the affected side and thus you are not in the right to judge for it (this is, of course, if you are not a typical western crusader who thinks that it's his duty to tell the entire world what's right and what's wrong). If someone brings me solid evidences that the women feel oppressed because there are much more men in the army, I will retract my statements. Until then your pseudo-liberal opinions are nothing but unfounded rhetoric.
About the female quota - if there was any way to get the honest opinion of the relevant decision-makers on the matter, I would do it, believe me. And I'd post it here. But it doesn't really require godlike intelligence to figure out that since the number of the female creatures in the known line-ups more than doubles between two parts of the series, then this is fully intentional. Call me biased if this helps you sleep better but at least ask for the opinions of several other people who are not engaged in this dispute and do tell me how many of them think that the increased quantity of the female creatures is fortuitous.
As for the changed genders and such - I have no idea what you are trying to say with this. I think I made it pretty clear that if it is made well, it is acceptable. Say - the female Elf unit in Heroes IV is perfectly acceptable replacement for the male Elf from Heroes III as far as I'm concerned. In the case of the Centaur it just screams that this is something imposed by someone from Above without any necessity.

2 and 3 are true. Women are kept away from combat for reasons that are not scientifically valid. Women are treated unfairly in that they are subject to more sexual harassment and abuse.

Your assertion about there being a quota is baseless. You're talking about an increase from 6 female creatures to 10. Would you consider the increase from 6 female creatures in Heroes 3 to 9 in Heroes 4 and then back down to 6 in Heroes 5 a result of this "quota" too? Both times, it was a 50% change. What about the increase from 3 in Heroes 1 to 9 in Heroes 2?

[mr.hackcrag]

In addition to your statement I'd put another one of my own - don't exaggerate. If one faction has dark elves, please don't make them the whore house faction.

Another prominent example of sexism and patricarchy. Even when the goal was to create a faction where females were the leaders of society, the developers (who no doubt were distinctly male) thought the only suitable representation of a such a society was made up of whores and strippers who spent their free time whipping minotaurs.

[Zenofex]

2 and 3 are true. Women are kept away from combat for reasons that are not scientifically valid. Women are treated unfairly in that they are subject to more sexual harassment and abuse.

Your assertion about there being a quota is baseless. You're talking about an increase from 6 female creatures to 10. Would you consider the increase from 6 female creatures in Heroes 3 to 9 in Heroes 4 and then back down to 6 in Heroes 5 a result of this "quota" too? Both times, it was a 50% change. What about the increase from 3 in Heroes 1 to 9 in Heroes 2?

Yeah, lower rank male soldiers are harassed, including (homo)sexually and abused by their superiors and "seniors" as well, what's new? You think that this kind of treatment is reserved solely for women?
As for why the women are kept away from combat - I already said that this could be considered discrimination although hell knows what means to discriminate you by forbidding you to be shot or blown to pieces. In any case, I consider this a valid point as long as it can be proven that the combat performance of women is as a whole acceptable and if not equal, then at least close to that of the men. At this point the information on the matter is insufficient as unfortunately most of the women prefer to stay away from the army and the infamous Israelites aren't enough.
About the quota - it would be baseless if it was not well-grounded. I already told you to check for the neutral opinions of people who are not engaged in the dispute if you want and I'm pretty sure that there will be many such "baseless" conclusions.
The second part is purely incorrect observation. Here's a comparison:

Haven in Heroes V: 1 female creature, whose features could even be considered somewhat sexless (because it was badly drawn, mostly).
Haven in Heroes VI: 3 distinctively female creatures, one of them obviously too frail for combat.

Stronghold in Heroes V: 1 female creature.
Stronghold in Heroes VI: 2 female creatures, the previous female is now male (unnecessary) and one of the previous males in now female (even more unnecessary).

Necropolis in Heroes V: not a single distinctively female creature, except maybe the Banshee from TotE (and you have to tell to yourself that it's female, otherwise you may fail to notice it).
Necropolis in Heroes VI: 3 female creatures. All of them are more or less fitting though and even though it is obvious that the quota is applied here, I don't mind because there are no stupid decisions. Except maybe that the Ghost in not named Banshee.

Inferno in Heroes V: 1 female creature.
Inferno in Heroes VI: 2 female creatures, both well-applied.

There will be at least 2 females in the last faction which makes them no less than 12 and the women-dominated Dungeon is not even present in the list of the factions for the initial release! If this doesn't ring a bell, I'm not gonna do your mental work for you. It is obvious that you want the CEO of Ubisoft to come and tell you "Yes, we wanted it to be this way" because otherwise you will stick to death to your ridiculous theory that this is unintentional. Ain't gonna happen. Start using your brain instead.

[vicheron]

So basically, you have no problems with a female quota, since you're perfectly fine with each faction have a quota of only one female creature. You have a problem with the fact that Ubi has decided to raise the quota from one female creature per faction to two or three female creatures per faction.

Also, you do know that there is a difference between abuse and sexual abuse don't you? Women are far more likely to be sexually harassed and assaulted than men. And why did you even bring up homosexuals? Comparing one oppressed group with another doesn't help your case. That's like saying just because both Jews and black people are oppressed then the oppression of Jews don't count.

[ThunderTitan]

The first part - about the women not allowed to go to the front line - IS discrimination and please do point me where I say that something like that is not a discrimination. But let's bring the logic into the discussion again - what does this have to do with the fact that - even though they are not restricted - women prefer not to join the army? The pseudo-argument that they are brainwashed by the society stereotypes won't really help in a court case about discrimination.

Oh look, you just made everything very simple for me...

If we're talking about women joining the army in any capacity then it's not even a question of them not doing it, as they have historically been quite willing to join a number of army nurse corps and all sort of other such army related stuff.

So there where plenty of women joining the army in non-combat roles, making your argument about them not wanting to, based on current women you know, even more irrelevant.

But that's quite inconsequential to your original argument about women not belonging in an army...

Yeah, lower rank male soldiers are harassed, including (homo)sexually and abused by their superiors and "seniors" as well, what's new? You think that this kind of treatment is reserved solely for women?

Except that rank doesn't matter when we're talking about rape of women in the army... and hazing=!rape.

Except that she was heavily armoured and much more heavily guarded. And could hardly be distinguished in the mess of the battle from any other random armoured soldier around her. Now imagine her unarmed, wearing only a screaming yellow robe - that's what an English Longbowman would call a dream target.

And as i said before, there are plenty of male units, like any robe wearing wizard, that would be just as unprotected, so being female matters little in that context.

Stronghold in Heroes VI: 2 female creatures, the previous female is now male (unnecessary) and one of the previous males in now female (even more unnecessary).

You don't actually see it, do you...

Some of the female creatures in the Heroes VI armies look pretty adequate, thank you. Fate Spinner, Lamas(s)u, Harpy, to some extent even the Centaur (even though there is absolutely no reason why this creature which is just fine as male is turned into female - except that, you know, they decided that each faction should have at least X females). They are however armed and generally look ready for battle. See where I'm going?

Yes, you're changing your position from "too many women" to "that nun doesn't belong on a BF" (male monk from H3 where fine i guess coz not seeing their face = armed)... so i guess i won...