Is Castle Ironfist supposed to have no men?

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I have been noticing something rather strange about Castle Ironfist in Might and Magic VI, it appears to be a town where there are no men! Indeed the randomly generated NPCs of the town appear to be entirely devoid of men. This does not appear to be the case anywhere else I've visited.

I was just wondering, is this intentional or is this a bug in the game?

[XEL II]

[ThunderTitan]

I was just wondering, is this intentional or is this a bug in the game?

No, that's just the game giving you a hint that it would like you to touch it in an inappropriate manner...

[Secret_Holder]

Ba-dum tish

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

This isn't a joke people. In Might and Magic VI there appear to be no men at all among the randomly generated NPCs on the streets of Castle Ironfist.

Is this intentional or is it due to a bug in the game? Have other people noted the same situation in their games before.

[XEL II]

Game mechanics.
/thread

[Macros the Black]

It's either because only a certain number of NPC/monsters types can be in any one map at a time and they were one short, or because the men were all drafted in the army that was defeated by the Devils.

Probably the first.

[legendoferthia]

In castle Ironfist, the first option wouldn't be valid. There are blood suckers, lizardmen, and the temple of baa fanatics. Despite that, npcs.

Also, he is right. There are no male npcs at Castle Ironfist. I just checked.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

It's either because only a certain number of NPC/monsters types can be in any one map at a time and they were one short, or because the men were all drafted in the army that was defeated by the Devils.

Probably the first.

Thanks for finally giving me a serious answer Macros.

What I was interested in is whether the male-less castle-ironfist thing was unique to my game, that is a bug or is supposed to be the case. I take it that it is universal, which means it is supposed to be the case (sort of). Has anyone else spotted male castle ironfist people in their games?

They could have always got rid of bloodsuckers or something redundant to make room, but the army explanation makes sense. It's interesting that they cared so much about their bloodsuckers.

It makes sense that since the random NPCs are basically unemployed people with nothing to do and so can just join your party; all the male one's would have been conscripted into the army. Together with the bandits and baa cultists recruiting their armies in the area the surplus male population would be in rather short supply.

But there are A LOT of different types of creatures in the Castle Ironfist map. Could be the latter explanation (the army) is an excuse for reaching the edge of game-mechanics, 'inspired' by it as it were. I somewhat wish it were referenced in the game though.

[tolich]

But there are A LOT of different types of creatures in the Castle Ironfist map.

In fact, only four, of three variation each.

Funny finding though.
New Sorpigal, Misty Islands, Silver Cove and Free Haven has both male and female NPCs, but there're only 2 kinds of monsters. In contrast, Frozen Highlands and Castle Ironfists feature only female NPCs, while Bootleg Bay, Mire of Damned and Blackshire has only male NPCs. However they have 3 monster types (Cannibal males and females are different types as well).

Perhaps, the real limit of monster types per location is 4, not 3, as I thought before.

[Dx Bunee]

Thats a cool fact, in all seriousness I never noticed that before.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Creatures in Castle Ironfist map.

1. Baa Follower
2. Baa Fanatic
3. Baa Mystic
4. Lizardman
5. Lizardman Archer
6. Lizardman Wizard
7. Bloodsucker
8. Brainsucker
9. Soulsucker
10. Female NPC

So 10 types of creatures. I doubt that variations as such are counted together, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to not have male and female NPCs on all maps.

[GreatEmerald]

At least in MM7 there are three types of peasants as well, with slightly varying HP level. Not sure if NPCs are spawned like that as well, though.

[Corlagon]

I doubt that variations as such are counted together

They are.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

I doubt that variations as such are counted together

They are.

But girl and boy NPCs are counted seperately?

[XEL II]

They are counted as citizen-type NPCs.

[Macros the Black]

Soo... What exactly IS the restriction on npc's then? I mean, if they can just put different kinds of sprites in one group and call it by one name, what's to stop you from calling every monster by the same name for engine purposes?

And if male and female NPC's share one group, then why did they do this? Did all the men in Ironfist get drafted, and all the females in Blackshire die to werewolves???

[tolich]

Creatures in Castle Ironfist map.
1. Baa Follower
2. Baa Fanatic
3. Baa Mystic
4. Lizardman
5. Lizardman Archer
6. Lizardman Wizard
7. Bloodsucker
8. Brainsucker
9. Soulsucker
10. Female NPC

10. Female NPC
11. Female NPC
12. Female NPC

:p
They are different a bit, ain't they?

But girl and boy NPCs are counted seperately?

the reason why they are separated is they are different. Monsters in a group differ visually only in coloring:

[MMXAlamar]

Awesome post! I like all the monster images

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

Soo... What exactly IS the restriction on npc's then? I mean, if they can just put different kinds of sprites in one group and call it by one name, what's to stop you from calling every monster by the same name for engine purposes?

And if male and female NPC's share one group, then why did they do this? Did all the men in Ironfist get drafted, and all the females in Blackshire die to werewolves???

I'm guessing that the creature groups are placed by the creator and then they are fleshed out according to how powerful the party is at the time the region was first entered according to some preset variable attatched to the group. So groups are supposed to have a certain strength relative to the player and the creatures are ranked as of a certain strength. The higher your level the greater the number of more powerful creatures are spawned.

The reason that you cannot have all monsters have the same name is that if this were the case you wouldn't be able to control what kind of monster spawned where.

Probably for disk-space/memory limitations (this is an old game) no more than 4 creature group types are allowed and male or female NPCs will take up 2 of them. Therefore in order to facilitate the spawning of three creature groups in an urban area; you need to mono-gender the NPCs.

We should probably take it that places which are subject to recent heavy conscription would reasonably have no men roaming around on the streets and places that are extremely dangerous or lawless would reasonably have no women roaming around either because they would be comparatively more vulnrable to being overpowered and eaten, kidnapped, mugged, raped etc.