female units

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OmnisScio
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female units

Post by OmnisScio »

Greetings

I'm just wondering if at any point, anyone has ever made female versions of any of the currently male only units (units like the knights and generals and such). If so, would it be possible to provide a link to that work?

Thank you.
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doofus-01
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Re: female units

Post by doofus-01 »

It's come up before, there's this guy: http://forum.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=34873
One of the mainline knight portraits was seen a feminine, but I can't find the thread right now.
Honestly, for a lot of the sprites, it would be really hard to tell gender. A woman wearing a general's costume would look pretty much the same as a man, unless she put a bow on her head like, Ms.Pacman:
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The portraits would be more obvious, but those are also harder to draw and get accepted, so maybe you should be more specific in what spurred this question.
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OmnisScio
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Re: female units

Post by OmnisScio »

I recently realised this fact (that it would be hard to distinguish genders with all the armour) and modified them myself (mainly changing the sounds. I have been using images found online for the portraits, though because I didn't make them, I cannot share). But there are units like the elf fighter line who don't wear helmets.

It was just curiosity more than anything though.

Thanks for the reply.
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Dixie
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Re: female units

Post by Dixie »

I think it's also part flavor. There's a whole background universe for each race. I guess in human society, being a soldier enlisted in the army is a male thing, hence no femal spearwomen, cavaliers, knights or whatever. But it is quite the opposite for other races, saurians, for instance (although there is pretty much no visual difference for these guys).
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johndh
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Re: female units

Post by johndh »

I'm inclined to say that a woman in heavy armor would be visually identical to a man in the same armor. Battlefield armor (as opposed to ceremonial) is not meant to hug a warrior's figure. Mail is baggy enough and worn over enough padding to eliminate any difference in curves, and plate is convex enough that any but the most buxom of ladies would wear the same style as a man with no additional discomfort. If you want female armored units, changes in sounds and (in some cases) portraits would be all of the differentiation warranted.

I hope I don't have to address this, but to preempt it just in case: boob-shaped plate would be terribly impractical as it would just direct incoming blows toward the sternum. There's a reason a breastplate is shaped the way it is -- to deflect impacts away from the core where the vital organs are.
Dixie wrote:I think it's also part flavor. There's a whole background universe for each race. I guess in human society, being a soldier enlisted in the army is a male thing, hence no femal spearwomen, cavaliers, knights or whatever.
Right. There's a lot of research that suggests women warriors were more common historically than we've been led to believe, but they're still outliers in many ways. No matter how socially progressive and egalitarian a society might be, a method of fighting that requires hitting people really hard is going to naturally be conducive to a predominantly male fighting force.
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Picka79
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Re: female units

Post by Picka79 »

About the appearance of armors, I think that armors for woman and for man are alike, but possess differences too : the size of shoulders, or the pectoral muscles. When we see the frame of the general, we see a male silhouette. In my opinion, to wear an armor of this shape would be, for a woman, really uncomfortable. ^_^
The difference on portrait is even stronger.
johndh wrote:Right. There's a lot of research that suggests women warriors were more common historically than we've been led to believe, but they're still outliers in many ways. No matter how socially progressive and egalitarian a society might be, a method of fighting that requires hitting people really hard is going to naturally be conducive to a predominantly male fighting force.
In real life, i agree! But here, female haven't reduced strength. There is no reason they can't be warriors.
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max_torch
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Re: female units

Post by max_torch »

If there's going to be female generals and soldiers, I wonder if there's anything in the wesnoth lore that shows why wesnoth culture is so egalitarian, or why there are many women warriors and tacticians....
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Re: female units

Post by revansurik »

max_torch wrote:If there's going to be female generals and soldiers, I wonder if there's anything in the wesnoth lore that shows why wesnoth culture is so egalitarian, or why there are many women warriors and tacticians....
Well, it's not like Wesnothian women are not allowed positions of power; in HttT the generals all loyally serve a queen, whose daughter also happens to a general; in Liberty we have Relana, who is the leader of a village; in TRoW we have Jessene, who, in spite of not being the main leader of the Wesfolk-Green Islander army, isn't in a submissive position towards Haldric either; and in DiD we meet Malin's sister as a leader of Parthyn. And all these women, in addition to being leaders, are capable fighters. Also, considering that there are dangerous female fighters amongst outlaws, I don't think Wesnothians would underestimate their women's prowess.
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johndh
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Re: female units

Post by johndh »

max_torch wrote:If there's going to be female generals and soldiers, I wonder if there's anything in the wesnoth lore that shows why wesnoth culture is so egalitarian, or why there are many women warriors and tacticians....
I'm going to put the following in spoilers due to potentially-inflammatory content about real-world religions. You have been warned.
Spoiler:
Education and literacy might be more accessible to the common folk in Wesnoth than they were in Medieval Europe. Educated people tend to buck traditions when they know better. Women in Wesnoth have some prominent role models, like Jessene, who presumably haven't been entirely shoved aside in favor of the men they worked with. However, it's still men who are the stars of (I think) every mainline campaign, with women in supporting roles every time, so I'm not sure that would adequately explain it. Maybe women are more able to assert themselves with magic and have earned more prominence and authority that way. There are a lot of possible reasons, and being less sexist than Medieval Europe is clearing a pretty low bar. :lol:

Edit: Sorry this has gotten so far off-topic. Since we're discussing lore more than art with these past few posts, is anybody up for continuing this over in the Writer's Forum?
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Re: female units

Post by Battleclad »

To be honest feminising some of the armoured looks isn't all that hard, the changes won't be too obvious in the armour but if you switch to say a lighter version of the same weapon for a female version then you can add some flavour to it.
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ancestral
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Re: female units

Post by ancestral »

Battleclad wrote:To be honest feminising some of the armoured looks isn't all that hard, the changes won't be too obvious in the armour but if you switch to say a lighter version of the same weapon for a female version then you can add some flavour to it.
Women historically did not have female-specific armor. (I remember hearing somewhere that armor accentuating the breasts made no sense and actually left the wearer more vulnerable — it’s just absolutely impractical.)

You may wish to browse this thread, which talks more about women, armor and the style Wesnoth has chosen to adopt: http://r.wesnoth.org/t33910

(BTW, hello, and welcome to the forums, Battleclad!)

(Edit: fixed the link.)
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Battleclad
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Re: female units

Post by Battleclad »

ancestral wrote:
Battleclad wrote:To be honest feminising some of the armoured looks isn't all that hard, the changes won't be too obvious in the armour but if you switch to say a lighter version of the same weapon for a female version then you can add some flavour to it.
Women historically did not have female-specific armor. (I remember hearing somewhere that armor accentuating the breasts made no sense and actually left the wearer more vulnerable — it’s just absolutely impractical.)

You may wish to browse this thread, which talks more about women, armor and the style Wesnoth has chosen to adopt: http://r.wesnith.org/t33910

(BTW, hello, and welcome to the forums, Battleclad!)
Hence the only adjustment I made to the armour itself was feminising the waist, the weapon switch was the primary method of highlighting the difference. As for breast armour it actually doesn't make the wearer more vulnerable if you use a one piece bust plate instead of a cupped breastplate, though the difference is minimal and mostly serves to protect a woman from being singled out by men so the former would be used more commonly with the latter typically used by ranged units, cavalry and for ceremonial duty due to the added comfort of a bust fitted breastplate on a woman. That said historically there generally wasn't many female moulded breastplates, primarily due to women not serving in frontline rolls and to avoid being singled out for capture for post-combat purposes.

(Technically it's welcome back, as my original account appears to have been eaten at some point although I can't for the life of me remember what it was registered as. Also your link doesn't work for me....)
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Jetrel
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Re: female units

Post by Jetrel »

Quibbles about setting notwithstanding, we're not feminizing any additional loyalist units simply due to the maintenance burden on the art. Period.

With regard to the setting, wesnoth's loyalists are and always will be an expy for real-world medieval/feudal societies (with all their flaws included), in which, whilst women very well may have had widespread involvement in combat, they were never "formal/regular soldiers". This is why e.g. we have some outlaw/partisans which are female, but why the core "soldier" lines like the spearman/horseman/archer aren't. This is true of the loyalists, it need not be true of other, uncreated factions who have a significantly different culture.
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firefox
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Re: female units

Post by firefox »

in Lord of the Rings one of the female characters dresses up as a soilder to follow the others into the battle. nobody noticed that she was a woman until she revealed her secret. it is not confirmed that this could not happen in wesnoth as well. ;)
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