Legalize Gay Modding!

[legalboxerbriefs]

While I don't care for this in the base game, since its not historical. It should be opened up code wise for modders to go nuts with, I imagine that a number of fantasy settings would rather like this.

The objection about it being "ahistorical" is nonsense. How do you feel about being able to convert the Byzantine Empire to Judaism? The option to randomize every character's/county's religion? The ability to create an entirely new/custom religion? Re-forming the Roman empire? How did you feel about the Aztec invasion and the horse pope in CK2? There are all kinds of ahistorical things in the game. It's odd that people get so up in arms about gay marriage being "ahistorical" when they're totally fine with everything else.

 

[Ixalmaris]

If you don't think that sounds fun as hell then I don't know what to tell you. Even if it doesn't seem fun to you, it would be fun for a lot of other people.

No, I don't think that "get a breeding wive" is fun or that "press a button, get an heir" enriches the game.

 

[legalboxerbriefs]

No, I don't think that "get a breeding wive" is fun or that "press a button, get an heir" enriches the game.

Okay that sounds like a you problem then. It's readily apparent that many, many other people are interested in it. How you play the character is up to you anyway. You could just get a wife regardless of your character's homosexuality--also having the option to marry a same-sex character changes literally nothing for you.

 

[Ixalmaris]

Okay that sounds like a you problem then. It's readily apparent that many, many other people are interested in it. How you play the character is up to you anyway. You could just get a wife regardless of your character's homosexuality--also having the option to marry a same-sex character changes literally nothing for you.

Again, either gay marriage in the base game is a trap options for voluntary game over, can only be handled by tricks and planning which the AI certainly won't be able to do leading to mass suicide of AI characters or would require you to neuter a big part of the game with easy adoptions.

So it would affect me, especially the last options. Keep it to mods for those who want it but I would like the dynasty to matter in CK.

 

[legalboxerbriefs]

Again, either gay marriage in the base game is a trap options for voluntary game over, can only be handled by tricks and planning which the AI certainly won't be able to do leading to mass suicide of AI characters or would require you to neuter a big part of the game with easy adoptions.

So it would affect me, especially the last options. Keep it to mods for those who want it but I would like the dynasty to matter in CK.

What happens when you roll a gay character right now? You probably just get married to a woman anyway and have some kids. What happens when your character doesn't have kids? It almost always goes to the next in line in your dynasty, not "game over". It's very hard to get "game over" in this game. Allowing people the option to choose to marry a same-sex character when they roll a gay character has no impact on you. Sounds like you're one of those people who "doesn't mind gay people" but hate when they "shove it in your face" aka act like they have they same rights as straight people.

 

[vyshan]

The objection about it being "ahistorical" is nonsense. How do you feel about being able to convert the Byzantine Empire to Judaism? The option to randomize every character's/county's religion? The ability to create an entirely new/custom religion? Re-forming the Roman empire? How did you feel about the Aztec invasion and the horse pope in CK2? There are all kinds of ahistorical things in the game. It's odd that people get so up in arms about gay marriage being "ahistorical" when they're totally fine with everything else.

ahistorical nature is a spectrum. On one hand you have something like creating a new heresy and on the other hand you have Horse Pope. Gay Marriages fall more towards the creating a new heresy side.I prefer much more historical plausible games of CK, its why I prefer mods that go towards that style of play. Its what I tend to enjoy, things being closer aligned to history and the forces that were there. You have your playstyle and I have mine, and mods let us embrace both.

None of that though has any bearing on other mods that want to do this. I 100% am behind the mods allowing it for their own enjoyment. Modders should be allowed to have it.

 

[SwsCheese01]

Honestly if this is opened up and a mod makes it so gay concubinage is allowed you can make a much more historically accurate version of Hellenism than what's currently in the game. There should be an option to simulate Alexander the Greats love life dang it!

 

[gamemaster]

The objection about it being "ahistorical" is nonsense. How do you feel about being able to convert the Byzantine Empire to Judaism? The option to randomize every character's/county's religion? The ability to create an entirely new/custom religion? Re-forming the Roman empire? How did you feel about the Aztec invasion and the horse pope in CK2? There are all kinds of ahistorical things in the game. It's odd that people get so up in arms about gay marriage being "ahistorical" when they're totally fine with everything else.

Or hell, what about the ability to make a world run by women?

But apparently having gay marriage is too historically inaccurate in a game where you make your own history.

 

[dcethe]

seems like my comment was removed, let me rephrase what I mean

Im all in for modding it in, i'm just against bringing outside social media or gamer journalist to flood articles about CK3 being toxic masculinity or any of that other nonsense.

Overall I agree that you should be able to play the game however you want.

 

[Sybreal]

Historical accuracy is not a valid reason. CK2 had so many wonky things in the base game. Pressing the "Play" button automatically deviates from history. How is reforming the Norse faith to a bunch of naked orgy-having cannibals historically accurate? That's completely possible and in the base game.

I understand the "you'll game over yourself" point, but that one is a bit weak. Players get taught early on that your dynasty is your life. You need an heir. There are warnings when you don't have one already. Adding it to the base game would most likely have it gated behind a rule just like having 75% of the world be gay or bi or asexual (because that's totally historically accurate too /s). And when you toggle that rule, there would probably be a warning that says something like "Yo, you do you boo but you'll game over yourself if you're not careful". Then again when you're arranging marriage, another "Be happy boo, but be warned: you need a dynastic heir or you'll lose the game yo".

That's all it really needs. But again. We're deviating a bit. While adding it to the base game does merit more discussion, it seems to invite a bit more of a heated argument than is preferable at this stage. We should focus more on having it added in mods, and how mods and modders can use the tools to implement said changes.

 

[nouser]

the doctrine of same-sex relations need to be divided in 4. as there is a lot of difference between a religion tolerating homosexuality and accepting it. religions that fully accepted did exist but were rare (hellenism , for example, did have same sex marriage ) , religions that completely accept should have marriages and specific events .

 

[Fabuloscriptor]

Im all in for modding it in, i'm just against bringing outside social media or gamer journalist to flood articles about CK3 being toxic masculinity or any of that other nonsense.

The advantage of bringing outside influence to bear is that if Paradox decided to hard code the limitation despite the existence of the soft code limitation in the player-facing files because they were bending to pressure, they can cite it as an example of pressure in the opposite direction and say their hands are tied. It doesn't avert the possibility of censorship in certain countries that may or may not have the largest land area, but it does insulate them somewhat as a publisher of other games from criticism that they as a company are hostile to the regime.

This is assuming good faith on the part of Paradox. The other advantage of outside influence is that they may not have acted in good faith, or this could just be a mistake, a miscommunication between developers, a legacy of earlier hardcode systems that were replaced with softcode implementation, or whatever. We don't know anything until someone responds. The journalists you're thinking of, believe it or not, have a lot of good will for the series and have celebrated the strides Paradox has made in, for example, making bisexuals not just lustful homosexuals and giving more attention to the parts of the world outside Europe that the game represents. I doubt they would push a 'burn it all to the ground' article to print over something that hasn't been officially responded to. It would be more like they'd reach out for a comment and either say 'This was weird but they've said they're fixing it' or 'This is weird and they've declined to comment.' Yes, the developers are busy, but their PR people aren't working on the patch coding, and again, this would be as simple as commenting out a little code.

There's every possibility that this thread will get buried without us ever knowing. I don't want to rake Paradox over the coals. I just want an explanation.

 

[angrypeaches]

Hard support for this endeavor!

I bought the game for its queerness, and was so sad to learn the base-game queer parameters resulted in queer subjugation (i.e., being stuck between forcing gay/lesbian/ace heirs into straight marriages). What's the point in adding queer romance if it ultimately results in them being closeted?

If you're going to add "history-breaking" elements to the default rules, then I don't see why this is particularly controversial.

I'm left to assume the devs are homophobic, to be quite honest.

 

[angrypeaches]

I don't believe Paradox s being malicious or anti-lgbt by this and it's likely an overseight. I'd say give them time, it's a brand new game and it will probably change sooner or late.

Give them some time and have a little patience though, who knows what bugs and other stuff they have to work on fixing at the moment. I wouldn't assume it's exactly a high priority at the moment if there are a lot of things they are tweaking and fixing etc.

I'm sorry but how is this an oversight?

Adding more lgbt+ characters into the base game just results in forcing lgbt+ into straight marriages. How did that not come up in playtesting at least? That seems like an issue that should've been obvious from the very start.

The fact straight marriage is hard-coded into the game leads me to believe they only realised this issue late-dev and couldn't be bothered to fix it at best, or at worst they went forward knowing they were going to hard-code straight marriage in from the start despite lgbt+ relationship toggles.

And I hate to break it to you, but both of those situations and all of them in between are anti-lgbt and inherently homophobic.

 

[Fabuloscriptor]

I'm sorry but how is this an oversight?

It's worth noting that the fact that there is a softcode implementation of the limitation of marriages to opposite-sex characters - there's a line in common/scripted_triggers/00_marriage_triggers.txt that says "sex_opposite_of = $CHARACTER$", which you can comment out or delete - in addition to a hardcode implementation of the same limitation implies that either
a) it was originally intended that modders could remove this limitation and for some reason they decided to hardcode it out and forgot to remove the softcode implementation or
b) it was originally intended for same-sex marriage to be hardcoded out and instead they decided to softcode it so modders could change it but forgot to remove the hardcode.

There really isn't a way this can be an oversight. A mistake - a result of a miscommunication, the legacy issue (b) above, crossed wires, whatever - sure, but thought went into this.

I don't think the devs are personally homophobic as a group for various reasons. Deciding to honestly represent the reality for queer (noble) people in the Mediaeval world - to choose between marginalisation and self-denial - isn't an inherently homophobic decision, though given the various other redemptive fantasies we've now been afforded, the omission of that particular one is peculiar. I suspect that this was an unfortunate but minor screw-up that will be corrected when brought to their attention, although the longer the radio silence lasts the more it looks like they don't care or aren't listening, or there's something bigger going on (e.g. compliance issues).

 

[Pietrus]

Definitely agree with adding it, but there are a few people here implying malicious intent or at the very least trying to understand why the devs would do such a thing. While I am just a content guy, it reeks of the same sort of toxicity that we in the modding community deal with a lot. It should be changed, but don't go pointing fingers.

 

[Pietrus]

The advantage of bringing outside influence to bear is that if Paradox decided to hard code the limitation despite the existence of the soft code limitation in the player-facing files because they were bending to pressure, they can cite it as an example of pressure in the opposite direction and say their hands are tied. It doesn't avert the possibility of censorship in certain countries that may or may not have the largest land area, but it does insulate them somewhat as a publisher of other games from criticism that they as a company are hostile to the regime.

This is assuming good faith on the part of Paradox. The other advantage of outside influence is that they may not have acted in good faith, or this could just be a mistake, a miscommunication between developers, a legacy of earlier hardcode systems that were replaced with softcode implementation, or whatever. We don't know anything until someone responds. The journalists you're thinking of, believe it or not, have a lot of good will for the series and have celebrated the strides Paradox has made in, for example, making bisexuals not just lustful homosexuals and giving more attention to the parts of the world outside Europe that the game represents. I doubt they would push a 'burn it all to the ground' article to print over something that hasn't been officially responded to. It would be more like they'd reach out for a comment and either say 'This was weird but they've said they're fixing it' or 'This is weird and they've declined to comment.' Yes, the developers are busy, but their PR people aren't working on the patch coding, and again, this would be as simple as commenting out a little code.

There's every possibility that this thread will get buried without us ever knowing. I don't want to rake Paradox over the coals. I just want an explanation.

As in the case of HOI4, they've released different versions of games based on local laws before. Whether or not from a business perspective the risk of being whacked by those local laws justifies whatever financial costs there may be of making different versions, I obviously can't say, but it isn't an all or nothing situation. They could add the option for more enlightened localities only.

 

[Fabuloscriptor]

Definitely agree with adding it, but there are a few people here implying malicious intent or at the very least trying to understand why the devs would do such a thing. While I am just a content guy, it reeks of the same sort of toxicity that we in the modding community deal with a lot. It should be changed, but don't go pointing fingers.

I'm trying to avoid pointing fingers because we don't have information yet, though I understand the frustration that'd lead people to do so. As for speculating about the circumstances, that's really all we can do for the time being. There isn't much left to talk about from a modding point of view - we know the hardcode is there; we know it doesn't apply to concubinage; we know how to remove the softcode (I and others have folders waiting on our computers with the files that'd implement same-sex marriage if the hardcode were removed). We even know there are sort-of-workarounds using third-party hex-editing software thanks to the work in the first few pages. The technical problems are solved. Speculating about why the last obstacle remains is - aside from refuting the arguments for not removing it from commenters - keeping the thread alive, which presently looks like our best strategy for removing it.

They could add the option for more enlightened localities only.

Exactly, and I dearly hope that they'll be enthusiastic about the prospect of doing so, if that's what the issue is. I'd just like to be ready if they're not.

 

[Furion Matsuya]

And I hate to break it to you, but both of those situations and all of them in between are anti-lgbt and inherently homophobic.

I don't see how it's a video game, not a law stopping you getting married or something like discrimination like say a sign outside a house saying "no gays". Mistakes and oversights happen, if it was deliberate then I guess it is homophobic but if it was an accident or oversight it's not and that kind of crap happens all the time with games judging by the amount of bug fixes various titles need these days.

Not an argument I'm going argue further though due to lack of time, interest of ability so if you think it's homophobic nothing I can do about that I guess.

 

[Zhatelier]

I'd like to remind people that the development time is always limited. It is very likely that for release same-sex marriage was much lower on the priority than, say, bugs causing CTD's. If you're adamant that this should have been in the base game, then would you rather have a game with this but the game potentially not working at all, or what we currently have. And I know that the dev team is divided into smaller teams but the point still stands, time is limited. Assuming malice is no doubt incorrect and frankly adds nothing to this conversation. I'm fairly certain that the dev team, or some members of it anyway, are already aware of this thread and the likely reason for radio silence is simply that they're busy working on the next bugfix patch. Give them time. Trying to strongarm PDX into making this asap by having media highlight it and/or smear them for not doing it from the start leaves no-one happy (I've experienced that personally in the past), so again, patience.

There have already been possible solutions outlined earlier in this thread but at this point, 90+% of the messages run in circles stating the same things that have already been said or debunked several times. Frankly, at this point a message from the devs stating "We're aware of this and this is what we plan to do about it once we get to it: [...]" and then locking this thread would probably be the best course of action.