The total war game is the subject of a steamed review on women

In the last 24 hours Strategy Game Total War: Rome II has collected more than 350 new negative reviews, which triggered the bomb alert system based on Steam graphics. The reason? A controversy surrounding women's women seems to be largely artificial.

It began last month with a handful of posts on the Steam forum and critics in which players claimed that recent updates had increased the frequency with which women were represented as candidates for their armies. We even went so far as to insist that "more than 50%" of their generals were women and offered a screenshot as proof. In response to such feelings and a discussion that degenerated Rome IISteam's forums, community content editor Ella McConnell said that the likelihood of seeing a general woman comes down to a draw, and that if these people did not do it, they could use mods can just play other thing.

"Total war the games are historically authentic, not historically accurate, "she wrote in August. "If having female units bothers you, you can change them or just not play. People who say that they will not buy the game because there are too many women, it suits us – if that is their reason, we would prefer that they do not do not do it anyway. of Total war The games are not 100% historically accurate, and she's not trying to push a diary, but rather to make understand how Creative Assembly feels for its own game series. "I'm not in HR, nor is my job promoting a 'personal agenda'," she wrote earlier this month. "I convey the views of the company, which is at the origin of the statement regarding the historical authenticity in relation to the historical accuracy (and the inclusion of women ). " forum on a platform that has been largely moderated for most of its existence.

During the weekend, the discussion was initiated by people like YouTuber Arch Warhammer – who made a video titled "Creative Assembly Does not Want You Playing Their Games" – and others outside the box. Total War: Rome II community like the Gamergate-friendly blog Angry player and, possibly, neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer. The crux of the first two arguments was similar: Creative Assembly corrected its game to the point of what they perceived as a historically inaccurate forgetting, then a community leader the gall tell them to play something else if they did not like it. (The third, predictable site just said a lot of Nazi things.)

Since then, negative critics of Steam have poured in like so many little toy soldiers. "Ruined a totally perfect game by integrating modern politics into a B.C. game of era", reads the one that was voted 196 times. "I agree with the women but I do not agree with the political changes in a historical past [sic] based game (not even a new one at that). Quit politics in real life, not my games. The general disdain that they have for their base speaks volumes.

"0/10, I will not check my privilege anymore," reads another.

The twist here is that many fears of these people seem to be unfounded.

Other rave and rave about "CULTURAL MARXISM" and call for boycotts. In other words, it's a great time. Elsewhere, on Rome IIThe Steam forums, people are calling for McConnell's dismissal, even though she said she was just transmitting a message from above. This is reminiscent of how a vocal contingent of Guild Wars 2The community went after the narrative designers Jessica Price and Peter Fries, or the stackers who recently saw systems designer Daniel Klein and communications partner Mattias Lehman leave Riot following the controversy surrounding a PAX panel focused on women and non-binary. Although the circumstances are different, the general idea is the same: the game developers have not fed a handful of players exactly as they intended, and now that their precious skin is cracked, they want blood. And of course, at the heart of it all is a person in a position of influence – in this case a woman – who is talking about women. Naturally, people gather around Rome II use the same kind of tactics and rhetorical techniques that worked for other groups of rabid culture warriors because, well, they worked. People have been fired.

The twist here is that many fears of these people seem to be unfounded. In response to this hubbub, some players decided to Rome IIDatabase. YouTuber RepublicOfPlay has released a video of his findings, noting that only some cultures, including Romans, can not even have women, and that 65% of people are likely to become men and only 35% women. . This means that the birth rates in the game are historically inaccurate for men. RepublicOfPlay pulled a few numbers and came to the conclusion that your chances of getting a general woman are about one in ten in most cultures – with the exception of the Kush faction, which increases the likelihood that women reflect the story. Be that as it may, generalist women find themselves in a pool of selection mainly populated by men.

Video: RepublicOfPlay

"If you had to set a percent or 0.1 percent to be more historically accurate, thousands of players would never have seen it in their campaigns, even on multiple campaigns," RepublicOfPlay said. "The re-spawn rates just have to be higher than the reality, just for that to happen for the gameplay."

He noted that you could you only end up with women in your selection group, as in the screenshot above, but it is "extremely unlikely".

At the time of publication, Creative Assembly had not yet responded to a request for comment on the situation and had not spoken publicly about it on social media. For the moment, some Rome II the players continue to rage.

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