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Pnakotus
Join Date 03/2006
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Race Titles, Names and Tenses

April 28, 2006 8:05:27 PM from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
I just finished playing a game with a civ styled on the Daleks from Doctor Who, and it's made me wish for more than four lines to describe the ruler and the empire.

For instance, it's a Dalek, many Daleks, the Daleks, the Dalek Emperor or Emperor. Not 'Emperor Dalek Emperor', not 'Emperor Emperor' - a result of having the name be the same as the automatically assigned title. In custom, you simply pick a name for your race (one line), a name for the ruler (one line) and a name for your homeworld. The developers obviously expected everyone to have race names like 'Terran Empire' and 'Dominion' etc, where all the conversation grammar makes sense. My race name being 'Daleks' leaves me with all kinds of teeth-grating grammer when addressed by other races.

The ruler is similar - you pick a name. Apparently it's supposed to be a name like 'Bob', because the game appends 'Emperor' to you no matter what your name is. This could lead to 'Emperor King Loius XVI' and such. All races start with 'empires', but they probably don't use the same title.

Now, Alpha Centauri had a detailed naming section. I'm not saying we should all be like AC, but when it has options for entering both plural and singular names, custom titles and such, I think it's worth looking at. Like AC, having a button on the 'custom race naming screen' that opened a window with broader options would work fine. For reference, AC had a formal name for your civ (ie 'Spartan Federation'), a noun (ie 'Spartans'), an adjective (ie 'Spartan'), a title (ie 'Colonel'), a personal name and gender. It even had a line called 'description' , that was used when people wanted to compliment you (ie 'the Spartan Federation is made up of many Spartans with a very Spartan vigilance, Colonel').

The 'title' option is particularly GC2-y because everyone in GC2 is in a party. I think rather than boring old 'Emperor' a custom title would allow tech dudes to call themselves 'Lord High Engineer' or Federalists to call themselves 'Chairman' etc. Have others had similar grammar-challenged experiences? Does anyone else miss a name entry system that allows you to accurately describe the terms used to describe your empire? Does anyone know how much work it would be changing the conversation texts to include these variables?
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
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Reply #1 April 28, 2006 8:27:25 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
magic bump
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CHenderson
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Reply #2 April 28, 2006 8:56:33 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Also being an Alpha Centauri fan, I like the idea, though it may be to much work on the devs, cause I have no idea how they coded the diplomancy text. It probably would require a patch, and not a just user mod.
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Pnakotus
Pnakotus
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Reply #3 April 28, 2006 9:16:59 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Yeah, that's my feeling. However, since the dip text simply uses tags, it'd be a case of introducing the most (grammatically) accurate one, rather than a rework of the system. Of course, I'd like a 'change title' popup when you change governments, and that would probably be more effort.
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Damiun
Join Date 02/2006
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Reply #4 April 28, 2006 9:25:12 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Lol yeah it took me a while to figure out why my empire "The North Federation" was always being refered to as "the The North Federation"....made me giggle a little actually
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Reply #5 April 28, 2006 9:26:17 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I was quite a ways into my game when someone addressed my ruler as 'Emperor Emperor Dalek', and I was pretty shocked.
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Lord Jorge
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #6 April 29, 2006 12:24:14 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Lol my civ is called
Jorge Empire

and the Emperor is called Lord Jorge so everything goes well

I'm a bit of a megalomaniac
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Reply #7 April 29, 2006 12:51:03 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Wouldn't that result in your ruler being called 'Emperor Lord Jorge'?
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Lord Jorge
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Reply #8 April 29, 2006 12:59:28 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Well yes, but Emperor and Lord are diferent titles
and a name can have 2 titles at a time

So there's no prob
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BlueBooby
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Reply #9 April 29, 2006 2:00:58 AM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
You can open your custom raceconfig file in "My Documents". Opening it with notepad, you'll be able to theoretically change every thing but that Emperor Emperor deal.

You can change their Race Name, Display Name, Alignment, Short Empire Name, etc.
But as far as I know, they didn't work for me in the beta. I'll try it out in my next game, but as far as I know, cutomizing a solar system will take more tweaking than just one file.

And I think the RaceLeader Name is meant to actually be a person's name and not a generic one, so the Emperor + would fit in, though it would be nice to let us replace the filler in the raceconfig with something like Kaiser or Primeminister...
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SpathiDiscriminator
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Reply #10 April 29, 2006 5:56:19 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Yeah, that's my feeling. However, since the dip text simply uses tags, it'd be a case of introducing the most (grammatically) accurate one, rather than a rework of the system.


I'll admit this is a bit of hit-and-run comment, but given the text in the rest of the game, surely you can't expect a grammar issue to rank very high on the priority list...
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Reply #11 April 29, 2006 9:59:41 PM
from GalCiv II ForumsGalCiv II Forums
Heh. Pwned.

Alibi, it's interesting that so many grammar versions are available in the raceconfigs. Why aren't these options usable from the race config screen in-game? At least it should remain simple to add extra naming options... but it's odd that the game has hidden options.
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