Can I play it in German?

[Monk]

...or to rephrase the question, can I buy the standard version available in local shops and just change the language to German instead of having to bring it home from Berlin.

My German skills need some brushing up and assuming I can switch a bit back and forth, this does seem like a relatively painless way to do it.

[snoopy369]

I believe that is possible. If you are buying it in Europe anywhere (DVD version), it is certainly possible. Not 100% sure if the CD versions came with all of the lang files built in.

[Martin Gühmann]

Well the DVD version asked me in which language I would like to install the game. Actual it was rather a question about in which language I would like to play the game. And the nice thing is that even after the installation you could still decide in which language you would like to continue the game. The options screen has a language choser. And at least all the strings should be available in all the languages. Here is an example from one of the XML files:

	
		TXT_KEY_INTERFACEMODE_REBASE_HELP
		Order the air unit to rebase to another city
		Réaffecter un unité aérienne à une autre ville.
		Befehlen Sie der Lufteinheit, in einer anderen Stadt zu landen.
		Ordina all'unità aerea di tornare alla base in un'altra città
		Ordena a la unidad aérea que cambie de base y se vaya a otra ciudad.
	

You note that all the different languages are in one file.

So basicly you can play the game in all these languages.

Edit: It is very anoying that I cannot disable HTML code in my posts, so that the code looks like in the actual HTML file and so that I don't need an extra editor to onvert all the special HTML stuff so that it shows up correctly.

-Martin

[GAZ082]

DVD: english, spanish, german, french, i belive even japanese is in.

[Fuzzyhead]

Be warned: The geman screen text is quite flawed with many grammatical, logical and spelling mistakes! I switched to english... way better! I mean, come on: Spell the man "Aristoteles" (correct for german) or "Aristotle" but don't mix them up all the time!

[Sabre2th]

I have the CD version and there is an option to choose a language in the options. I only tried it briefly, but all the text I saw was German.

As far as grammar and spelling, it's rare to see a translated game that doesn't have such issues. It is one big reason why many people use English to play, rather than their native language

[Fuzzyhead]

As far as grammar and spelling, it's rare to see a translated game that doesn't have such issues. It is one big reason why many people use English to play, rather than their native language

I wouldn't generalise this... There were many US/UK games I saw where the german translation was better than the original. I mostly play in english to practise language skills though. Besides, I have the american Civ3 version (the german release date was awfully late back then).

[Fuzzyhead]

P.S.: One thing I really like is the fact that the unit responses are in the corresponding language. The german ones are a bit harsh (stereotype) but I especially like the latin ones. I loved that stuff in Rome: Total War too!

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Sabre2th
As far as grammar and spelling, it's rare to see a translated game that doesn't have such issues. It is one big reason why many people use English to play, rather than their native language

Of course there are some things to consinder for a translated game, but it needs to figure out if something work is, to get someone who playtests the game in the target language. And obviously that hasn't been done, or otherwise I wouldn't find untranslated strings in the German version. It is called Gebäude and not Buildings for instance.

And if I remember CTP1 there weren't huge problems, unlike in Civ2. At least the XML files look so that they considered all the stuff in principle.

-Martin

[Sabre2th]

Originally posted by Fuzzyhead
I wouldn't generalise this... There were many US/UK games I saw where the german translation was better than the original. I mostly play in english to practise language skills though. Besides, I have the american Civ3 version (the german release date was awfully late back then).

No offense, but if you're playing to practice your english, how can you really claim that there are errors? English is a tricky language in terms of spelling and grammar. Obviously, a few mistakes will slip through, but nothing serious.

I can't really speak to that, Martin. As I said, I only tried it briefly to see if German was possible. Though I did notice that some of the text only changed after I performed an action that forced the program to update particular bits of text. (ie. the city's production label still said "Warrior" until I clicked on it. Then it switched to German.)

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Sabre2th
No offense, but if you're playing to practice your english, how can you really claim that there are errors? English is a tricky language in terms of spelling and grammar. Obviously, a few mistakes will slip through, but nothing serious.

He was talking about the German screen texts, not about the English ones. So indeed Fuzzyhead can claim as German that he finds the most errors. Well the obvous stuff are the missing umlauts and of course I tried to use my real name as leader name and what happend was that the umlaut in my name got replaced in this save dialog by something like a little box. So I corrected this manually, but when I wanted to load the game could find the savegames with the umlauts in.

Originally posted by Sabre2th
I can't really speak to that, Martin. As I said, I only tried it briefly to see if German was possible. Though I did notice that some of the text only changed after I performed an action that forced the program to update particular bits of text. (ie. the city's production label still said "Warrior" until I clicked on it. Then it switched to German.)

Yes I also saw this update problem, when I switched to English. But for a view turns I can accept it, but of course it looks more professional if you don't see something like this.

-Martin