'Civilization VI' news: Latest expansion introduces sexist civilization leaders

Promotional image for Cleopatra of "Civilization VI""Civilization VI" official website

The developers of "Civilization VI" are removing some of the sexist features they implemented in the game that came with its latest expansion, Rise and Fall. Responding to complaints from some gamers about the supposed gender-biased feature, Firaxis is expected to roll out soon a new update seeking to alter the sexist qualities of the game's civilization leaders.

It can be recalled that the latest expansion released for "Civilization VI" introduced a slew of new features in-game, among them the Hidden Agendas mechanic under which are two agendas, Flirtatious and Curmudgeon. In Flirtatious, a leader can favor other leaders of the opposite sex, but hate those of the same sex as him/her. In Curmudgeon, it's the other way around — the leader can like those of the same gender as he/she.

While some fans have praised the new features for furthering historical accuracy particularly for civilization leaders like Cleopatra and the like — as in reality, it was a really sexist world during the old civilizations — others have criticized Firaxis. This is because the Flirtatious agenda automatically made every leader straight in terms of sexual orientation, which is not very a faithful representation of leaders such as Alexander the Great who had been historically proven to have had same-sex relationships.

Apart from that, the feature also poses a problem to the gameplay, in which no matter how much the players try to win the favor of artificial intelligence (AI) leaders in-game, the result would almost always be determined by the Agendas' mechanic. This is troublesome for players who are unlucky enough to have picked a leader whose gender is hated by others. Otherwise, the same feature could also make the game too easy depending on which of the two problematic Agendas the AI leader has.

Firaxis has since then claimed that they are aware of the discussion among the community and are now working on a solution to improve the gameplay for "Civilization VI." However, it is not yet certain when this fix will be implemented since the developer has refused to publicly comment on the issue.