PROJECT: The Translation Center

[Tamerlin]

French string files

Wrong post...

[Tamerlin]

French string files

I have tried to put the various strings into the appropriate French files.

I would prefer "someone who knows" to check if the new strings are not at the wrong place inside each file.

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
I thought you had all the french files Martin...

Could you tell me what files are missing?

All the files that aren't unmodified, yet. To be precide all the files that you find in your french\gamedata\ that came with the origininal game without the files I have, the ones you can find in the next playtest release (or last playtest release) or in the latest all pack.

-Martin

[Tamerlin]

CtP2 French Files

Here are all the files one can find in the French playtest CtP2 folder. The files are updated with the files I have posted yesterday and that still need to be checked by "someone who knows".

[Tamerlin]

CtP2 Complete French Folder content

Here are all the files in the French folder, note that they include the corrections posted today in the Playtest II thread and that I have included the updater2.txt that is not part of the original configuration but that I use in all my CtP2 games.

Remove the Updater2_str.txt file from the folder and the line import "Updater2_str.txt" line from the Strings.txt file if you want the content of the French folder as if you had only installed the latest playtest patch and the corrections I have posted today in the Playtest II thread.

[Locutus]

Translation needed for all non-English languages of the city names of the new civs. Almost all of these can probably remain unchanged, but still...

The civs concerned are the last 18 civs of the file:

Carthaginians
Babylonians
Byzantines
Austrians
Swedish
Celts
Italians
Bantu
Slavs
Minoans
Harappans (Indus Valley)
Hittites
Shang ('proto-Chinese')
Etruscans
Aborigine (Australia)
Argentinians
Khmer
Malians (West Africa)

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
Bantu

I hope you checked that civ I mean Afonso I was the First king of Portugal and not of the Bantu-Nation, and afterwards I have seen the city name Kuba in the city list, I removed this civ entirly. As I got enough these inaccuracies in that civ. Kuba is an island in the Caribbean Sea whether you write it with "C" like in English or with "K" like in German.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
I hope you checked that civ I mean Afonso I was the First king of Portugal and not of the Bantu-Nation, and afterwards I have seen the city name Kuba in the city list, I removed this civ entirly. As I got enough these inaccuracies in that civ. Kuba is an island in the Caribbean Sea whether you write it with "C" like in English or with "K" like in German.

History Lesson #1: Never mistake your own ignorance for someone else's error.
History Lesson #2: History is full of remarkable coincidences (though often the question is, is it really a coincidence?)

Manikongo Afonso I, King of Congo

The Kingdom of Kuba, Congo

[Martin Gühmann]

Well the little problem is how many people will do these mistakes, well I can accept Kuba as city as is, but Afonso I can be mistaken, well the alfonso.tga shows in fact a black man, but still this portugese name violates the atmosphere. It doesn't really fit to an African civilisation. And you cannot expect that everyone reads that piece of information you provided here.

At least ingame the guy should have his name including his title: Manikongo Afonso I
Or as alternative his name before he converted to Catholicism: Nzinga Mbemba
Or his father: Nzingu Kuwu

Well the problem here is that a European name doesn't belong to Africa, and another point is that Civilisation is about recreating history and not about replaying history. What would be if Africa was never colonised. What would be if the Bantu were much more powerful when they made contact with the Portuguese. And so on.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Well, that's always a problem with these civ attributes.

I mean, countryside Thai will probably never have heard of Bangkok (they know that city by the Thai name of Krung Thep). Had the Thai conquered the world, we certainly wouldn't know their capital by its Chinese name... And how many ancient Egyptians do you think knew their own capital as Thebes or their leader as Ramses? Virtually all 'Egyptian' names in the game are actually Greek (the same goes for a lot of Persian names). Just like many Carthaginian names are Roman or Greek, Mayan/Incan/Aztec names are Spanish, Native American names are English or French, etc. In the later two cases we often down even know the indigenous names.

And there are a lot more of such problems when creating civs and city lists. I mean, should the capital of Ethiopia be the modern Addis Ababa or the classical Aksum? Out of 5000 years of Chinese history Beijing was only the capital for a few hundred years, yet on most city lists Beijing is the first city. When making the English city list, which cities are most important, the big industrial cities of today that were small villages two centuries ago (Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, etc) or cities which are not very well known outside England today but have a long history going back to Roman times (Lincoln, Canterbury, Salisbury, etc)? Should a Dutch city list include only Dutch names or also Belgian ones? And what to do with Dutch colonies like New York, Cape Town and Jakarta?

There is no objectively correct answer to any of those questions. Different people will have different expectations depending on their knowledge of Ethiopian, Chinese, English or Dutch history respectively. For me, putting Manchester and Liverpool near the top of an English city list would be a major 'turn-off', yet virtually all English city lists I've ever seen do just this. Same with Beijing as Chinese capital. Afonso as Bantu leader is just one choice in a long list of such issues: do you go with historical accuracy or people's expectations? And when you go for historic accuracy, how do you deal with the way civs influenced each other (which is extremely common thoughout history and also a two-way ticket)?

That the very reason I've been working on my own civ mod: I want to make city lists entirely based on historical accuracy rather than people's expectations, and I want to be as historically accurate as I can be. That means a LOT of research, which explains why I'm still only about 2/3rd done after 5 years.

Where the name Afonso I and the Bantu civ in general is concerned, I didn't create that civ and I didn't bother to change anything about it, as it has been part of the MedMod and other mods for 4 or 5 years now and noone complained before. But if you ask for my opinion, the Bantu civ itself is a bit questionable: Bantu is a language group, not a civ. But there are other much more questionable civs in the game already, so if I were to reform the list I wouldn't start there. As far as the name Afonso goes, it's quite common for Africans to adopt non-native names, it's an intrical part of their culture. Their leaders often do it for political/diplomatical reasons: they often took names of important neighbours or allies, even if those neighbours were of a different language (or even language group). Most of the time we westerners wouldn't notice as we wouldn't know the difference between Mandika and Soninke if it slapped us in the face. To an Mande-African, it doesn't really matter if take a European, Arab or Khoisan-African name, it's all equally exotic to them. (You can also see this habit back in some of the unusual names of African Americans, they often borrow names from other cultures or even invent entirely new names.) So even if the Bantu had invaded Europe rather than the other way around, it's still entirely plausible their leaders would've picked European names for themselves.

So Afonso really isn't such a bad name for an African leader. If you want to add more flavour, I think adding the title would be a good idea. That works for most civs actually, not just Africans: I mean, given the choice between "Sire, we have received a message from Ferdinand" and "Sire, we have received a message from Ferdinand V of Castilla, King of Spain", I'll take the latter...

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Locutus
But if you ask for my opinion, the Bantu civ itself is a bit questionable: Bantu is a language group, not a civ. But there are other much more questionable civs in the game already, so if I were to reform the list I wouldn't start there.

Well that was my reason to include another civ instead of the Bantus, the city list contains countries rather cities, and as said the leader name doesn't fit according to my expectations. Also the Slaves are questionable, again a laguage subgroup. And the third civ I removed are the Italians they are in heritage of the Romans. What would the world speak if the Imperium Romanum still exists, probably something else then the ancient Latin. Probably something with reduced inflection system as we can see it in the modern Roman languages. However Mossulini himself saw his country in tradition of the Roman Empire as well. Well so much about the historic accuracy of the civ names you find in ApolytonPack.

Originally posted by Locutus
As far as the name Afonso goes, it's quite common for Africans to adopt non-native names, it's an intrical part of their culture. Their leaders often do it for political/diplomatical reasons: they often took names of important neighbours or allies, even if those neighbours were of a different language (or even language group). Most of the time we westerners wouldn't notice as we wouldn't know the difference between Mandika and Soninke if it slapped us in the face. To an Mande-African, it doesn't really matter if take a European, Arab or Khoisan-African name, it's all equally exotic to them. (You can also see this habit back in some of the unusual names of African Americans, they often borrow names from other cultures or even invent entirely new names.) So even if the Bantu had invaded Europe rather than the other way around, it's still entirely plausible their leaders would've picked European names for themselves.

Obviously it is a different culture. Well you can also change your name here in Germany, but I doubt it is done very often. A name here is a part of the identity, something that belongs to your person.

Originally posted by Locutus
So Afonso really isn't such a bad name for an African leader. If you want to add more flavour, I think adding the title would be a good idea. That works for most civs actually, not just Africans: I mean, given the choice between "Sire, we have received a message from Ferdinand" and "Sire, we have received a message from Ferdinand V of Castilla, King of Spain", I'll take the latter...

That is a good idea, but I wonder if we should seperate name and title, because it is also government specific.

-Martin

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Martin Gühmann
Well that was my reason to include another civ instead of the Bantus, the city list contains countries rather cities, and as said the leader name doesn't fit according to my expectations. Also the Slaves are questionable, again a laguage subgroup. And the third civ I removed are the Italians they are in heritage of the Romans. What would the world speak if the Imperium Romanum still exists, probably something else then the ancient Latin. Probably something with reduced inflection system as we can see it in the modern Roman languages. However Mossulini himself saw his country in tradition of the Roman Empire as well. Well so much about the historic accuracy of the civ names you find in ApolytonPack.

You can put an awful lot of civs under fire if you want: why are the Scottish, Irish, Welsh AND Celts all represented? That's a bit overkill (IMO at least 2 too many). Or how about Phoenicians and Carthaginians? Also, besides cigars and missile crises, what contributions to world history did Cuba ever make? And I don't even want to mention Nicaragua (but I'm doing it anyway ). The Native American civ is extremely lame, with as city names the names of tribes (each (once) often consisting of millions of individuals, spread over areas larger than most European civs ever covered). The Zulu don't exhibit a single trait of what we usually describe as 'a civilization', yet they're in the game (while other nearby but far more suitable people like the Swahili city states or the Great Zimbabwe are ignored). Also, Zulu is a subgroup of the Bantu. Should we really see the Byzantines as seperate from the Romans? Can you really summarize 5,000 years of history of an area the size of the present-day EU in a single Indian civilization? Etc, etc...

I'm not saying each of these is a mistake or we should correct any or all of them, but why pick on the Bantu or Italians when there are plenty of other dubious choices? I say let's save ourselves the trouble of thoroughly revising the list of civs (after 5 years of blood, sweat and tears and still not being done, I can *strongly* recommend that we don't ) and just use the existing list complemented by whatever civs we happen to already have developed over the years. Historically all 18 new civs are at least as sound as the existing ones (whatever that may or may not be worth), so we're certainly not making things worse by doing so.

Maybe when my own civ list is done (in another 3 years or so ), you'll all be so much in awe with it you'll want to use that instead

Obviously it is a different culture. Well you can also change your name here in Germany, but I doubt it is done very often. A name here is a part of the identity, something that belongs to your person.

That's a very European point of view

That is a good idea, but I wonder if we should seperate name and title, because it is also government specific.

Hmmm, Prime-Minister C. Julius Ceasar? Chief Winston Churchill? President Jeanne d'Arc? I guess that would be kinda fun...

[Ekmek]

I still think it would be nice to customize your civ when you start a new game, but thats been discussed before...

[Tamerlin]

French civ_str.txt

Here is the new French civ_str.txt strings needed for the latest playtest build.

You should already know but I have changed "Arthur" to "Brennus" and "Morgana" to "Boadicée"... I could have left "Morgane" but Arthur I can't... don't ask me why, I can't.

I have only changed the name of the Civ, the country and its inhabitants as I actually think that the original city names are generally better for the atmosphere of the game.

[Martin Gühmann]

Re: French civ_str.txt

Originally posted by Tamerlin
You should already know but I have changed "Arthur" to "Brennus" and "Morgana" to "Boadicée"... I could have left "Morgane" but Arthur I can't... don't ask me why, I can't.

So Tamerlin, why?

Originally posted by Tamerlin
I have only changed the name of the Civ, the country and its inhabitants as I actually think that the original city names are generally better for the atmosphere of the game.

And so I did, actual for the most names you don't find translations so why bother. By the way I changed for the German version the countrie's name of the Shangs to Shanga, as we already have a China in the game. No idea what could be more appropiate, so for now it is so.

By the way Tamerlin you forgot to provide an updated str_loc.txt for good French, well I could also do it like I did it with the Italian version of that file:

MALIAN_ARTICLE 	"{missing MALIAN_ARTICLE  string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_ARTICLE_PREPOSITION 	"{missing MALIAN_ARTICLE_PREPOSITION string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_SINGULAR_PREPOSITION	"{missing MALIAN_SINGULAR_PREPOSITION string in str_loc.txt}"		
MALIAN_COUNTRY_NAME_ARTICLE 	"{missing MALIAN_COUNTRY_NAME_ARTICLE string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_COUNTRY_NAME_ARTICLED_PREPOSITION 	"{missing MALIAN_COUNTRY_NAME_ARTICLED_PREPOSITION string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_SINGULAR_FEMALE 	"{missing MALIAN_SINGULAR_FEMALE string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_PLURAL_FEMALE 	"{missing MALIAN_PLURAL_FEMALE string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_PLURAL_ARTICLE 	"{missing MALIAN_PLURAL_ARTICLE string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_PLURAL_PREPOSITION	"{missing MALIAN_PLURAL_PREPOSITION string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_COUNTRY_NAME_FROM	"{missing MALIAN_COUNTRY_NAME_FROM string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_PLURAL_DAT "{missing MALIAN_PLURAL_DAT string in str_loc.txt}"
MALIAN_PLURAL_ARTICLE_CAP	"{missing MALIAN_PLURAL_ARTICLE_CAP string in str_loc.txt}"

Well this is brutal but it will remind every Italian to fix it, when he plays the game.

-Martin