ROME II Free- LC & Daughters of Mars DLC- OUT NOW

[Monglor]

It's worth bearing in mind folks that the Total War series is about alternate history, not actual history. Is it hypothetically possible that a king or emperor or tribal chief might decide to train women to fight? Yes. So it is appropriate for it to be there. To be honest I've always felt that the games lacked imagination in that regard anyway. Once you are established in a campaign of a Total War game you're usually well outside the historical situation of the time, and it's perfectly reasonable to have ahistorical units included in order to accommodate that.

For example suppose you're playing a game and the Iceni and the Egyptians become the world powers and have a big old battle over Italy. Do you think that the soldiers and equipment involved in that war would have born a close resemblance to the weaponry those forces actually used during that period in reality? Almost certainly not.

That doesn't mean that the game has to go fully overboard and include things like Chinese mercenaries with rockets and time travelling men from the moon, but a little common sense goes a long way.

[Sir_Pee_Alot]

ehh its new 3d models and it allows me to be more creative with my unit pack.

You can create your own 3D Models, if you got the skills you can create all you want no need to wait for CA to make a unit DLC that adds a few new models to the game. But you properly cant then i say learn its not that hard and safe you money and CA can make some real changes to the game. Because all those unit DLCs dont really add to to game if you ask me.

I Hope CA now finally make the last two DLCs worth my money with some real game changing elements. Or i dont really see any hope for RTW II.

[Humble Warrior]

1. Name the pitched battle, or attack on the Romans where Lusitani women fight alongside the men. I'll be waiting. Again, we have examples of women in attacked cities taking up arms to defend themselves as a last resort. It would be stranger if that didn't occur when an enemy army sacked an entire city.
2. Gladiators didn't fight on the battlefield. I don't care if there was the occasional oddity of a female gladiator.

Gladiators existed as entertainment for the Romans. They were there to kill and be killed. Whether they threw particular women into that role on occasion has nothing to do with what should be depicted on the battlefield.

And whether Boudica existed or not, people don't even get the account we do have right. She wasn't out there swinging a sword and leading the troops from the front at the Battle of Watling Street. She gave a speech. The planning and fighting? Done by men. She was, AT BEST, a political leader.

Absolutely correct. Wisely done it could be good, but this is just total fantasy without common sense at all. Galdiator women? yes they fought in the arena, usually against EACH OTHER. They shouldn't even have near equal stats to male galdiators. And then out fighting too? Romans would NEVER have females out on the battlefield. Never. that's just the way it was. Deal with it. Oh and they were never as common as male gladiators since some found it distasteful. It was more a gimmick, `Are you bored, senators? Well fear not! New entertainment today- Female Gladiators!!`

Even civilian women would've despised women fighters in most parts of the world.

There are far too many female fighters that it's turning the game into a ridiculous sham, impossible to suspend disbelief.

I play other games when I want fantasy, like Oblivion where there are plenty of nimble thin girls wielding huge maces totally ridiculously- But I expect that where lizard men and cats talk and magic exists.

A fighting woman was a rare thing that few people would have seen in the entirity of their lives in the Classical days. That's why Bouddica was such a surprise and Amazons are a fairy tale, good to tell the lads at night fires. Complete nonsense.

It's not sexism, it's just the Truth.

[ABH2]

Is it hypothetically possible that a king or emperor or tribal chief might decide to train women to fight?

The number of things hypothetically possible are endless. Had these cultures actually used women in planned combat roles on a regular basis, you may have a point. None of them, besides MAYBE the Scythian tribes did.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

You can create your own 3D Models, if you got the skills you can create all you want no need to wait for CA to make a unit DLC that adds a few new models to the game. But you properly cant then i say learn its not that hard and safe you money and CA can make some real changes to the game. Because all those unit DLCs dont really add to to game if you ask me.

I Hope CA now finally make the last two DLCs worth my money with some real game changing elements. Or i dont really see any hope for RTW II.

Which I don't have, I have only made 3 "good" 3d model in my life, nor do I have the complete knowledge of porting 3d into the engine, nor do I want to steal anyone else work.
So For me this DLC was a great deal.

I can show you 1 good guide and you can try it out, and see how hard it is :3

[Huberto]

It's worth bearing in mind folks that the Total War series is about alternate history, not actual history. Is it hypothetically possible that a king or emperor or tribal chief might decide to train women to fight?

A lot of things are hypothetically possible in history. But not all hypotheticals are created equal. Some are interesting, immersive and thought provoking and some are just plain dumb.

[rafmc1989]

Now this is just insulting

Aren't you satisfied by this DLC? It's powered by Brazzers!

[Symphony]

If seeing 4/army limit units being sometimes used by 2 AI factions (as a player, you have zero need to recruit them) really does that much damage to your immersion....did you really have that much immersion before this freeLC?

[ABH2]

To add to this 'hypothetical' scenario where women could have been trained to fight in most of these cultures, the reason it's implausible is because the manner in which they fought as well as anything cultural that would have made it extremely difficult if not impossible for any leader to arm large amounts of women.

Why is it possible that Scythian tribes may have had some women fighting? Because their style of warfare wasn't based on infantry and melee fighting. It was done at a distance, based on maneuverability and the bow. Even then, I'm still very skeptical on the numbers they would have employed or if females would have regularly took part in even small scale raiding let alone actual campaigns in these cultures.

The idea that you can just train women to use a sword, spear, and carry a shield the same as men is simply false. This isn't some sexist rant. It's biological fact. Strength and speed plays a large role in combat. This goes without saying. Even today, the elite female athletes in the world are closer to top high school athletes than the top males in terms of ability, and it's not hard to point out actual stats to prove that (if you are into sports at all, you would have probably noticed this). Take a look at the top female sprinters that we know at the Olympic level, and compare their times to those of the top high school male athletes in the same events. High school athletes often times don't just come close, but out perform them. The top female tennis players? They struggle to compete against even lower ranked males. One prominent female tennis player has stated that her male coach can beat her even as he's aged. When he was a professional, he was barely ranked among the men. I don't know how much of this discussion the mods are going to allow and I may already be walking some line in even pointing out these hard facts.

Biology is biology. No ancient culture would have armed hundreds of women with spears and tried to organize them into formations with spears and swords in a pitched battle. It would have been slaughter. This is why they didn't fight.

I say this as someone who has no problem opening up combat roles in the modern military world to women who are capable of meeting the physical requirements necessary to do the job. There aren't many of those, though, and no amount of wishing it were so changes that reality. This isn't a nature vs. nurture debate. There are real biological differences in strength, speed, and stamina between the sexes.

So, this hypothetical? I mean, sure, as a hypothetical it would have technically been possible in some very odd circumstance, but it would have made no sense to do it. Your average female 'warrior' trained to fight would have struggled to deal with untrained levies on the battlefield.

[jackwei]

Romans or Greeks would never let their women fight on the battlefield because if they did then it would cause a series decline in their population leading to lower birth rates and possibly extinction with fewer generations of children being born, also if men could have children fair enough but they can't so what sense would it be sending all your women to die as your tribe or Kingdom would be on verge of ceasing to exist.

I am sure a tiny minority of women would fight from tribes but no way could a woman gladiator could match a man gladiator as they were worth two Roman soldiers.

There are some people in CA who has always wanted it and they got their wish as in this age it is about political correctness forget history, its accuracy which is irrelevant now that is why man has become so weak now.

[Dan113112]

All the greek illustrations showed them with both breasts intact... it's not exactly realistic either way, though, because it was essentially nothing other than ancient porn. The supposed locations of the amazons tribe was always beyond the reach of the greek known world, in some mythical far off land they knew little about... the probability of a female-only tribe is ridiculous at best.

Reminds me of something lindybiege said.

Indeed there were women gladiators and some evidence of women fights in rare cases of certain cultures... Heck, I was even doing a sig pic for next week with boudica. I just don't like history messed up- I want to see how it WAS not some 21st century-feminist idealism of how it wasn't. That's why i play Total War.

Agreed. Although I can see that others, especially female gamers, might like this DLC.

I hoped this was a joke, but unfortunately it isn't.

I won't even rage now. I am just laughing hard at the sheer hilarity and incompetence of CA to make this game more playable. Most sensible points about how these kind of unit packs are farcial have been made already. Glad I uninstalled Rome II already.

By the way, if CA was going to make a fantasy game in the first place with 21st century feminist view of proffessional female soldiers (which didn't exist until 1915, and only came into full view with WW2), especially the ridiculous Gladiatrices or whatever they are, they should've stated that during September 3 in the first place that they are making a fantasy game. There was zero need to decieve the customers.

You could just play realism mods. There are some good ones out there. I wouldn't care about the female units if they were optional or had a very low unit cap. Remember that different people work on units and AI. AI is where they need to keep working for sure. I doubt this DLC took many resources to make.

Most of what you say is true. Now while the story of Boudica is fascinating and I enjoy reading how it came about, she was not some kind of brilliant general and least of all a feminist icon.

It's quite simple, the Romans treated her and her family shamefully and she got mad about it and energised the rest of the demoralised men to do something about it. That's what made her different. Most women would've just given up and taken it as another piece of crap in life, but she didn't... perhaps other circumstances helped too, but we are not privy to those details.

Anyway, her fervour obviously got all the men together (there was obviously no man of leadership quality at that point) and they attacked. Most probably by fluke they overwhelmed the first romans who never expected such an attack and there the whole thing rolled on, gaining more momentum. I'll bet it was much like Joan of Arc for the men, new, amazing and surely she was blessed by the gods.

Let's not forget that she showed absolutely no mercy to the civilians men, women and children of towns sacked. If you think she'd make it easier on you cos you're female, forget it (google why but not if you're sqeamish).

Finally, when it came to real battle strategy and tactics it was more of a simple straight attack and with Suetonius, now ready to fight, well, it was all over. Truth is, no one should lose a battle when they have nigh 60000 men versus around 6000.

That said, if Boudicca had been schooled in military tactics and strategy early on, the outcome might've been very different.

Here's the thing - Boudica, who everyone always mentions, really wasn't the military leader. There were occasional females in leadership roles over men in the ancient world. It wasn't common at all, but it did occur. Boudica didn't actually plan campaigns or battles. She relied on a male general to do that for her. She was a rallying point against the Romans, and not much else.

There are legitimate examples elsewhere few people mention. At the same time, if they wanted women represented in the game:
1. Family tree, which has been mentioned extensively. Women are completely absent from the game and it is an issue that people have complained about. Instead of fixing that, we get this...
2. The occasional female general or queen for certain cultures. It should be rare, but it wouldn't have been as ridiculous as the fantasy units in the DLC.
3. Made it possible to mix the occasional female in with the male units for some of the nomadic tribe cultures where it was historically plausible that they did fight.
4. Perhaps some garrison units for certain cultures, as again, we do know of instances of females defending themselves and their homes. The barbarian factions, and even the Spartan women could have been shown.

Instead we get female gladiators, Lusitani sword women, and units of spear wielding German girls. None of this is plausible.

Why do I get the feeling that Boudica was just some tribal noblewoman who had herself and her daughters raped and went on a psychotic killing spree? Hardly a role model.

They haven't bothered for months now. This farce shouldn't really come as a surprise for any. But as one said I hope CA runs this franchise into the ground and sells it (cheaply) to someone with actual passion for strategy games and ambitions for TW.

I hope Total War gets better but why do people hold it up as some golden strategy game? It was never big on historical accuracy, authenticity, or strategy. Just look at the AI in vanilla Total War games. Although, the few times I played Shogun 2 I was surprised at how well the AI worked compared to other vanilla Total War AIs.

[alQamar]

there are more to it, a lot more face's in different skin color, if you care to look through the Variant editor.
But yeah so far it is only the gladiator unit, which uses most of it.
And that unit, has 3 different caps, 6 different faces, with 3 different hands, 5 different armor, 2 different pants and 5 different daggers.
But Again it a whole new body type so we can't expect much, but I have tried to give them a bit of new armor on, some of it clips like there are no tomorrow, and some piece needs some of the bodytypes to be deleted.
Oh here is a fun one!
5 different faces, 3 different beards, 2 different caps (there are a separated with out hats, which is 3 different hairstyle), 4 different armor, 4 different pants, and 5 different daggers.
this is the Ste_Archers

Thanks for revealing what's in the DB files Varr, but I do not see the most of them in the picture. Do you think they will unlock it over time?

[Humble Warrior]

Romans or Greeks would never let their women fight on the battlefield because if they did then it would cause a series decline in their population leading to lower birth rates and possibly extinction with fewer generations of children being born, also if men could have children fair enough but they can't so what sense would it be sending all your women to die as your tribe or Kingdom would be on verge of ceasing to exist.

I am sure a tiny minority of women would fight from tribes but no way could a woman gladiator could match a man gladiator as they were worth two Roman soldiers.

There are some people in CA who has always wanted it and they got their wish as in this age it is about political correctness forget history, its accuracy which is irrelevant now that is why man has become so weak now.

Yes, there are some in CA who are controlled by some 'whiteknight' desire as if they think they're making some great stride for the Human race or something...
One of the simplist and most obviious reasons. Even today, it's not the smartest of ideas to have women fighters on the battlefield. You don't put out the people who create your future population out to die in their thousands in war. Would any smart tribe HONESTLY have most of their women fight wars and lie on the battlefield in their thousands(and no they don't have magical no-death forcefields, they die like any one else).

Only a nation that has a huge surplus of women and isn't interested in its future existence would want that. The only reason we can do it today is because we do have a huge surplus of people to waste.

Let's not forget, there has not been one war or battle in HISTORY where women have died in their thousands like men on the Somme or in 18th century warfare or in Classical times or whenever. It has never happened in the past, and, hopefully it won't have to happen in the future. It's dumb to encourage such foolishness in games.

I just don't think people think about what they want until it happens.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Thanks for revealing what's in the DB files Varr, but I do not see the most of them in the picture. Do you think they will unlock it over time?

No they are just suppose to show, and I can use the asset myself, I think they made a mistake by giving them all a hat on, and not let the hair flow.
But I have to point out that the steppes factions do really have a limited look, until you give them some armor.

[Causeless]

Anyone who purchased it, which unit won between Gladiator and Gladiatres ?

I tested it, and it seems pretty much even. The gladiatrices will die a lot quicker, but they'll fight a lot longer... Gladiators fought until they have 40-ish men left and the gladiatrices fought until they had about 20-ish left.

When I tested it, the gladiators won but both units were wavering. I feel like depending on what abilities were used, the fight could go either way.

[pirro]

I tested it, and it seems pretty much even. The gladiatrices will die a lot quicker, but they'll fight a lot longer... Gladiators fought until they have 40-ish men left and the gladiatrices fought until they had about 20-ish left.

When I tested it, the gladiators won but both units were wavering. I feel like depending on what abilities were used, the fight could go either way.

That's far from realistic, but oh well

[perifanosEllinas]

The free additional units to the Suebi are welcomed.

For the DLC with female units I can only say one thing: "I came,I saw,I facepalmed hard.".

[SunWulf]

It's worth bearing in mind folks that the Total War series is about alternate history, not actual history. Is it hypothetically possible that a king or emperor or tribal chief might decide to train women to fight? Yes. So it is appropriate for it to be there. To be honest I've always felt that the games lacked imagination in that regard anyway. Once you are established in a campaign of a Total War game you're usually well outside the historical situation of the time, and it's perfectly reasonable to have ahistorical units included in order to accommodate that.

Amen...

[LexLuthor]

You guys are all heckling this, but aren't the female units optional? (Don't like it, don't buy it)

I know you're all bummed about this DLC release, but I think I saw someone mention that this is something CA probably produced in a day or two, and is hardly their main stride of development. I couldn't agree more with that opinion and I think in the next month or two we will start seeing announcements for more patches and, if you want it, DLC.

- Lex

[Abendstern]

Ok. Time to uninstall this pile of junk from my hard drive once and for good. Just when I was about to give it another chance. THIS.