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Alinestra Covelia
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I sense the dodgy presence of Bing - a presence I've not felt since...
Feb 2000
time: 00:14
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Like it used to say in my profile, I'm a pedant at heart. So I thought I'd give my (very minor) two cents to the Civ3 project:
Firaxis obviously pride themselves on authenticity and realism, as SMAC's amazingly detailed Planet description proves. I wondered why they were using old spellings of Chinese place names, which confuse a modern PinYin reader such as myself. I suspected that they might not know the official names of the places. Hence, here follows a somewhat pedantic but nonetheless highly accurate list of Chinese place names.
If anybody else hails from another country represented in Civ3 and knows of more accurate spellings of their native cities, then please feel free to post them here. Pedantry loves company.
Official names (old fashioned names)
Beijing (Peking), Guangzhou (Canton), Nanjing (Nanking), Qingdao (Tsingtao), Xinjiang (Xinjian), Hangzhou (Hangchow), Tianjin (Tientsin), Datong (Tatung), Shandong (Shantung), Jinan (Qinan), Baoding (Paoting).
Those are the names in-game. Following is a list of the modern day largest cities in China, which might deserve an honorary mention (and pull the game out of an 18th Century state of current affairs). I arbitrarily include comparative statistics with American cities to give a sense of proportion.
3million+: Beijing, Luda, Shenyang, Tianjin, Nanjing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Wuhan (home of Chairman Yang), Guangzhou.
(9 such cities in China, 6 such cities in USA - New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles)
1million-3million: Qiqihar, Harbin, Jilin, Changchun, Fushun, Benxi, Anshan, Dandong, Tangshan, Datong, Huhehaote, Baotou, Shijiazhuang, Taiyuan, Handan, Jinan, Qingdao, Zaozhuang, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Baoji, Lanzhou, Xining, Huainan, Hefei, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Huangshi, Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Nanchang, Changsha, Kaolun (Kowloon), Xiang Gang (Hong Kong), Guiyang, Kunming, Chengdu.
(38 such cities in China, 9 such cities in USA - Seattle, San Francisco, San Deigo, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Boston)
If Firaxis can find the time to briefly skim through the lists and pick city names from those, they will lend a greater air of credence and recognizability to the game. This goes especially for the (probably very substantial) segment of Chinese or Chinese-American players like myself.
Anybody else want to suggest official Civ city names?
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FunkyGhost
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To ADG:
not that it really matters ... but to be accurate: The island is called Bornholm and not Bonholm.
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Dida
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it should include some older city as well, Chang'an is now called Xi'an, but I prefer the older name, it was so famous.
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me_irate
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Civ starts in the beginning of history. Personally i like the old names better but thats just me. They seem to be more in place than Bejjing and other more common names. I dont know about most but Peking is a much better name IMO. To me the old city names make it feal more......i dont know how to put it......ancient. And the new names out of place.
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Dida
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having city name written out in chinese is impossible, non-chinese player would not be able to tell which city it is.
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TVA22
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I think Alinestra Covelia has a valid point, and this post is not being taken very seriously. Firaxis should be consistent with their civs, and should be true to the historical names, in my opinion.
UberX: you said: "perhaps you would like them writren in Chinese itself, and dependening on region, mandrian or cantonese.
i dont play as china, so i really could care less. "
I don't know who you usually play as, but if I choose to play as the chinese all the time, and never play as your fav. civ, and I pay the same purchase price, aren't I entitled to the same quality in my civ, from the getgo, without having to alter files myself? (I can't help but wonder if this post would have been taken more seriously if the civ in question had been the Romans or something like that...)
The chinese characters idea is cheezy, I agree, but having the cities named in their native languages with a translation option or something would actually be a nice touch, and a painless one for the design team.
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JellyDonut
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Köln, Deutschland
Jul 2001
time: 06:14
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quote:
Originally posted by UberKruX
perhaps you would like them writren in Chinese itself, and dependening on region, mandrian or cantonese. |
All Chinese dialects are written the same, just pronounced differently.
It isn't hard to change the city names yourself in Civ2. I corrected the German (Köln not Cologne, München not Munich, etc), French (Orléans not Orleans), Spanish (Sevilla not Seville), Russian (Moskva not Moscow, etc) and Greek (AthÃnai not Athens etc) city names.
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Alinestra Covelia
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I sense the dodgy presence of Bing - a presence I've not felt since...
Feb 2000
time: 00:14
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Thanks for the support and further posts. Yes, I just revisited this thread to further rectify the two Chinese leaders' names:
As has been pointed out, Mao Zedong is the official way of referring to Mao Tse Tung.
"Wu Zhao" in Civ2 draws a blank with me. The only version I have heard is Wu Zhe Tian, but both spellings are perfectly valid PinYin and could well be variant names of the same female leader.
As far as validity goes, I argue that the Chinese themselves use PinYin, so we may as well use their method for increased authenticity. I acknowledge that Giles-Wade (sp?) system has been in use for a long time, but then again you should remember that much of the place names were drawn from Cantonese dialect, which is not the Chinese official dialect.
Many more people speak Mandarin than Cantonese. Most Guangzhou people understand Mandarin and Cantonese, but the same cannot be said for Beijing people, who have always known Mandarin but not Cantonese.
"Peking" is a case in point. The only dialect that pronounces the capital city by that name is the Cantonese, and even that is stretching the pronunciation a bit. (They pronounce it more like "Bucking" than "Peeking".) Whereas "Beijing" sounds exactly like how it ought to be pronounced: Bay-Jing. How you could get "Peeking" from that is beyond my limited imagination.
This may seem finicky to you, but I think it would be a matter of decorum and accuracy. For example, it would be a bit much to spell western city names in arbitrary and unofficial ways like "Lund'n", "Paree", and "Edinbra". To say nothing of "Love-bra" (Loughborough in UK).
In any case, a lot of people are familiar with these new names - probably 80% of the population of China. Changing systems from Wade-Giles to PinYin would make it much more accessible for people generally.
Again - hefty apologies for being a pedant. It's part of the genes 
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Provost Harrison
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The farce is strong with this one.
Feb 2000
time: 05:14
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I have also thought something needs doing with the names of the English cities. There are the major, large cities: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, Nottingham, Leicester, Hull, Bradford, Southampton, Coventry, Brighton, Stoke-on-Trent.
We also have historically important although not-so-large centres such as York, Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, Salisbury, Winchester.
Other cities that are worthy of inclusion are Sunderland, Carlisle, Preston, Blackpool, Shrewsbury, Gloucester, Luton, Taunton, Plymouth, Exeter, Bournemouth, Reading, Northampton, Norwich, Derby, Wolverhampton, Crewe or Durham.
Some silly places were included on Civ2. I have always thought Dover was ridiculous (high in both civ and civ2) considering it is a poxy little ferry port with famous 'cliffs'. Same with Richmond. I mean come on, this is a small town in the middle of North Yorkshire. Several major cities have been omitted from the Civ2 list, included is my home city (Hull) or other historically important places such as Lincoln or Winchester.
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Alinestra Covelia
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I sense the dodgy presence of Bing - a presence I've not felt since...
Feb 2000
time: 00:14
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quote:
But, as mentioned above, this is something that the individual has FULL CONTROL to change  themselves. This is not something that FIRAXIS should be dealing with. They need to concentrate on improving the AI  !!!! |
Well, I could understand this point of view if I were suggesting something very hard to implement, such as a Mandarin character script or maybe Russian Cyrillic script.
But as it is, all they need to do is change some spellings. This would make the game that bit more accurate, and it could be done in about 2 minutes of their time.
As it is, every time I or my friends install the game, I go into the txt file and change it to make it officially correct. I don't mind doing this, but I just thought Firaxis could spare the two minutes once so I don't have to do it every time.
Sorry if that sounds picky to you. But then again, I think your cities have every right to be properly spelled too. Maybe you don't agree - that's fine.
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Mahdimael
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Sandy Eigo, CA, USA
May 2001
time: 05:14
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Or just copy the file to a disk or via the network if you have one. I've reinstalled civ2 twice when I reinstalled windows on my computer. I usually just change the name to whatever I want when I found the city. It takes 2 seconds and works just fine.
quote:
Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Well, I could understand this point of view if I were suggesting something very hard to implement, such as a Mandarin character script or maybe Russian Cyrillic script.
But as it is, all they need to do is change some spellings. This would make the game that bit more accurate, and it could be done in about 2 minutes of their time.
As it is, every time I or my friends install the game, I go into the txt file and change it to make it officially correct. I don't mind doing this, but I just thought Firaxis could spare the two minutes once so I don't have to do it every time.
Sorry if that sounds picky to you. But then again, I think your cities have every right to be properly spelled too. Maybe you don't agree - that's fine. |
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21-07-2001 04:01
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