Common Cities

[johnmcd]

Are any cities 'used' by more than two civs? The Turks and the Byzantines both use Istanbul/ Constantinople, maybe the Romans or Greeks get it in too? I'd guess Charlamagne shares some city names with the Germans and French - maybe the Celts pile in there too?

Anything used three times?

[Locutus]

No civs share the same city names because it would be very confusing if e.g. the Germans conquered any Holy Roman cities and ended up with two Berlins. But as you mention there are plenty of cases of the different names referring to the same cities, usually from different time periods*. I made the city lists in Warlords and BtS and had some discussions about them on CFC. A repost about duplicate names from while back:


Lots of cities overlap between different civs, the ones from the Celts and Ottomans most of all: about half their city lists overlap with others (more than half even for the Ottomans). On top of that I had to remove some cities from other civs (especially Rome) so I could give them to the Celts (e.g. Mediolanum, Cremona, Bagacum). They have the most overlap with the English and the French, but with others as well:

French:
Tolosa = Toulouse
Durocortorum = Reims
Lutetia = Paris
Burdigala = Bordeaux
Nemausus = Nimes
Samarobriva = Amiens

English:
Camulodunon = Colchester
Isca = Exeter
Ratae = Leicester
Durovernum = Canterbury
Luguvalio = Carlisle

Others:
Botorrita = Caesaraugusta (Romans) = Zaragoza (Spain)
Ubiorum = Agrippina (Romans) = Cologne (Germans)
Ancyra = Angora (Byzantines) = Ankara (Ottomans)
Eblana = Dyflin (Vikings) (= Dublin)
Sinigaglia = Senagallica (Romans)

Finally, Noviomagus is supposed to represent Chichester, England but is also the original Roman name of Nijmegen (Dutch).


The Ottomans predictably overlap mostly with the Byzantines but with some others as well:

Istanbul = Constantinople
Edirne = Adrianople
Ankara = Angora = Ancyra (Celts)
Konya = Iconium
Izmir = Smyrna (Greece)
Kayseri = Caesarea (Romans)
Malatya = Metilene
Antalya = Attalia
Denizli = Laodicea
Eskisehir = Dorylaeum
Bodrum = Halicarnassus (Greeks)
Eregli = Heraclea = Herakleia (Greeks)
Silifke = Seleucia
Sivas = Sebastea
Trabzon = Trebizond
Erzurum = Theodosiopolis
Urfa = Edessa = Urhai (Babylonians)
Izmit = Nicomedia


The Romans also have a fair number of cities that overlap:

Hispalis = Seville (Spanish)
Aurelianorum = Orleans (French)
Caesaraugusta = Botorrita (Celts) = Zaragoza (Spain)
Londinium = London (English)
Eburacum = Jorvik (Vikings) = York (English)
Gordion = Gordium (Persians)
Agrippina = Ubiorum (Celts) = Cologne (Germans)
Lugdunum = Lyons (French)
Treveri = Trier (HRE)
Senagallica = Sinigaglia (Celts)

Caesarea can refer to a lot of cities all over the Roman Empire, among which Iol (Carthaginians), Antioch (Byzantines) and Kayseri (Ottomans).


Others that overlap, from my city lists:

Vikings:
Rowane = Rouen (French)
Jorvik = Eburacum (Romans) = York (English)
Dyflin = Eblana (Celts) (= Dublin)
Holmgard = Novgorod (Russians)

Carthaginians:
Oea = Tripoli (Arabs)
Tingis = Tangier (Arabs)
Iol = Caesarea (Romans)
Gadir = Cadiz (Spanish)
Onoba = Huelva (Spanish)
Ibossim = Ibiza (Spanish)

Babylonians:
Erech = Uruk (Sumerians)
Sirpurla = Lagash (Sumerians)
Nippur = Nibru (Sumerians)
Sippar = Zimbir (Sumerians)
Ellasar = Larsa (Sumerians)
Kutha = Kutu (Sumerians)
Urhai = Urfa (Ottomans) = Edessa (Byzantines)
Shushan = Susa (Persians)


I'm sure that the lists not made by me have more overlap as well but I'm not gonna make a comprehensive list of that.



* = This is why there is incidentally no overlap between the HRE and Germany/France/Netherlands: we're talking about the same time periods so they'd have to use the exact same names. The HRE pretty much gets shafted here and has a lot of major (mostly German) cities missing -- instead I decided to stress their pan-European nature a bit with lots of cities from nations not otherwise in the game (though often under their German names so you might not readily recognize them all): Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, etc.

[Hauptman]

Possibly could have used the german names for those major cities for 1 of the 2, ie Munchen vs Munich etc. Or perhaps the regional names instead, Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklburg... for the HRE. But doesnt matter, ya still did a good job with the HRE names, lots I recognize.

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Hauptman
Possibly could have used the german names for those major cities for 1 of the 2, ie Munchen vs Munich etc.

That's (a) silly, (b) gets you in trouble with localisation (e.g. the German version of the game already uses the German names and I doubt the French, Spanish, Italian, etc allow for two names in many cases) and (c) assumes that there are multiple names available for all cities, which more often than not isn't the case.

Or perhaps the regional names instead, Brandenburg, Saxony, Mecklburg... for the HRE.

Nah, that's terrible. I worked really hard to get rid of region, mountain, river, tribe, etc names from other city lists (especially for the Zulu and India), I'm not about to re-introduce them for another civ. The cities in the game clearly represent cities and not regions or whatever. And it's not like the HRE has the problem that some primitive civs like the Zulu or the Native Americans have of not having (m)any cities to choose from. The real problem is having 2 Germanies in the game, that extends far beyond just the city names. And as you said, the existing list works well enough as it is.

But doesnt matter, ya still did a good job with the HRE names, lots I recognize.

Good to hear

[Supr49er]

Don't the Greeks and Egyptians both have Thebes?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Supr49er
Don't the Greeks and Egyptians both have Thebes?

Its not the same city. And I don't think the name is on both of the listis.

[Fleme]

Thebes and Antioch would've been my choices of cities that definitely belonged to 2 civilizations. I think they must've removed Thebes from the Egyptian list when they gave it to the Greeks but it's still confusing since it used to be the capital. I really need to check on Antioch.

Edit!

Seeing the post below makes me have renewed faith in my shoddy memory! I knew I couldn't have been that bad at noticing things!

[Locutus]

Just checked, Supr49er is right that both Egypt and Greece have a city called Thebes. That's an oversight on Firaxis' behalf then. If I'd remove it from anyone I'd remove it from the Greeks though, it's clearly more important to the Egyptians (as said, their capital after all). Incidentally it turns out that there are two Memphises as well (one on the American list).

And yes, in more than one case it really doesn't make much sense to remove major cities from a civ's list but that's the way the game has to work. In the past Firaxis didn't mind duplicates on the city lists (which is why there are still some left) but checked on-the-fly if a city name already existed elsewhere on the map and if so just skipped it (or disallowed a name change for humans). That meant basically that if the Egyptians and Greeks were in the same game the Egyptians got Thebes but not the Greeks, but if only the Greeks were in the game they would get Thebes. Seems like a perfect solution but unfortunately this lead to people 'cheating' by renaming their cities to see what was allowed and what not to figure out who their opponents where and how many cities they had founded. So now the game allows duplicates in-game but as a policy no duplicates in the city lists are allowed to avoid the two-Berlins situation (though it seems Firaxis was a little sloppy in enforcing that on their own lists).

Antioch is only on my Byzantine list, it was never on any other list (which might seem odd but if you realise how crappy the lists made by Firaxis are for the most part that shouldn't surprise you).