I just finished an English UHV with latest version of the mod. Colonizing the whole world was much fun. The only annoying thing was that I built dozens of Cambridges and had to rename them. Some names are really missing. Here are some suggestions on improving the names for English colonies:

1) East coast of North America....I really wanted to start with Jamestown but had to reload several times to find it. It turns out it has only one tile and you have to build over a forest. I really think the first English colony in America should have a greater chance of appearing.

2) Guiana has no English names it seems. Georgetown is the capital now, and I think the first British settlement was Willoughby. There's enough space there for two cities so both names could be used.

3) I managed to found Cambridge on the great eastern South African spot where Sofala is usually founded (by Portugese, I think). What's wrong with Durban?

4) The uranium resource in southern Africa represents Namibia. Windhoek is the capital of Namibia so I think that should be the city name if built there. I'm not aware that any colonies existed in the area.

5) A city on Java should be Bantam or Batavia. Bantam was the first, but it was on the western tip of the island which is taken up by a mountain in the game. Batavia is closer to the locations can found a city on.

6) India has no English names. I don't really know if English founded anything larger than a fort in Inida, but Goa and Pondicherry names came to my mind. None of those is English, but since one is on the western and one on the eastern coast of India, they match well with the locations available for colonization in 600AD scenario.

7) No city name for the Philippines. Manila should be ok since the British held it for a short while and didn't change the name.

Windhoek and Batavia are Dutch names, and need to br founded by the Dutch if it is build, why would the Enlish give their cities a Dutch name, same for Goa, it was Portugese. There are real names only in the historical area of the civ building the city, in other areas, there is a random name.

Sofala should not change to Durban because the area around Sofala was Portuguese, not British. It's part of Mozambique now and was never part of the British colony in South Africa.

Also, there shouldn't be British names in the Philippines because they never colonized the Philippines. As you said they occupied Manila for two years during the Seven Years' War but occupying a city for 2 years doesn't qualify as being colonized by it.

What about Fort Albany? I managed to found it both with British and French.

I have no problem with Sofala. What I don't like is founding Cambridge in South Africa, or anywhere else other than England for that matter.

What I don't like is founding Cambridge in South Africa, or anywhere else other than England for that matter. I agree with you, there should be default names for every civ for each square on the map. I hate founding Murcia in the Congo as Spain, or taking the Philippines from a collapsed Japan and having the city names be Nara and Satsuma.

There thing is, it is quite difficult to invent English names for, say, cities in Kamchatka.
Now, if the AI often founds cities with no unique names, them these names must be added regardless of anything. (Japan should have "Manila" and "Davao", IMO). But if the AI rarely goes for the spots for which it has no name, I don't see it necessary. You can rename your cities anyway.

expect another update in the new patch

What about giving every tile a default name, and if a civ founds a city without a name for that tile, it takes the default one? SO if the Rnglish, or Romans, or Germans found a city in the same location in the Phillipines, it will always be Manilla.

It does work for Phillipines, more or less, but the thing is, what to do with such locations such as New Orleans?

Unless the civ has its own name for the area (i.e. French), use the modern one. Apply this to every tile in the world.

But why would, say, Incas, if they found a city at the place of modern New Orleans, call their city in the honor of a European one?

How about in the random list just adding the prefix "new" to a lot of the european cities? for example instead of building Cambridge you would build "New Cambridge". You wouldn't have to do this to all of them though cos then it would be tireing seeing that many "new"s (plus the is a St Petersburg in america ;))

I think the best solution is in between. Most of us have never heard about most Incan cities, so if Incas build one in place of New Orleans (highly unlikely), just give it the name of some Incan archaeological location that you couldn't include in real Incan territory. If a city is founded by a European civ, it would look nice if it has its modern name or a new "something" name like say1988 and kairob suggested.

Or how about we call the cities what their translations in the appropriate language are? I know this won't work for civs where they died out before the city was built, but to be honest they probably won't build the city then.

f Incas build one in place of New Orleans (highly unlikely), just give it the name of some Incan archaeological location that you couldn't include in real Incan territory.

Exactly the same system works now.


Or how about we call the cities what their translations in the appropriate language are?

What is the translation of "Houston" or "Caracas"* in Indian? Does it sound any different from the English spelling?

*Possible in case of Indians getting the Conquerors event. It happens very rarely, but I've seen it.

Exactly the same system works now.



What is the translation of "Houston" or "Caracas"* in Indian? Does it sound any different from the English spelling?

*Possible in case of Indians getting the Conquerors event. It happens very rarely, but I've seen it.

Well, probably you could slightly "Indianise" the spelling. For aesthetics.

Qaraqas? :)

I like the 'New ...' idea. In an earlier civ, when the name list was used up, the new build cities were named 'New ...' with the names of the cities the civ controlled in chronological order. So, you'll get New London and not Oxford, and New Plymouth and not...

I like the 'New ...' idea. In an earlier civ, when the name list was used up, the new build cities were named 'New ...' with the names of the cities the civ controlled in chronological order. So, you'll get New London and not Oxford, and New Plymouth and not...

As long as France is...nouville?...or whatever, not new.

I think there is a logical problem here. You're assuming all civs can be colonial powers. True, it can happen in the game. But in real life it didn't happen. This is why we have a city named after Orleans near Aztecs lands. So you can either assume Aztecs would have called it New Tenochtitlan, or New whatever, or just use a standard city list for all civs that were not colonial powers in real life.

I think there is a logical problem here. You're assuming all civs can be colonial powers. True, it can happen in the game. But in real life it didn't happen. This is why we have a city named after Orleans near Aztecs lands. So you can either assume Aztecs would have called it New Tenochtitlan, or New whatever, or just use a standard city list for all civs that were not colonial powers in real life. I think the idea is more for colonial civs colonizing outside their historical colonization zones. Such as, currently in my game as the Netherlands I colonized a tile in western Venezuela and the city was called Maastricht. Now that just doesn't sound right to me, and I'm sure to many other people as well. Same with Germany colonizing the tile where Arguin is, and the city being called Essen. The suggestions here of using generic colony names for the cities outside historical areas or having a standard for each tile would solve this problem altogether.

nope it would only create more problems, for example in defining what is "standard". Using a normal city list can be standard in someone's view but not in yours. IMO the best solution is have a city list, and if a city is founded outside spawn areas or historical areas, just call them "New cityname".

Then I propose a situation similar to how colonies were done in EU2. While there were some cities that only were named such in specific provinces for specific countries (such as New Orleans for France in Bayou and New Amsterdam for the Netherlands in Manhattan), others, be they ahistorical colonizers or colonizers going out of their historical territory would have city names that could be for any province in the continent or just any province (such as Malabo for Portugal in West Africa or San Felipe for Spain in any province). I think this would really help add to the flavor of the game and it would be much better than the current system.

that's cool if everyone contributes, or we may just take EU2 list, I think it shouldnt be hard.

Why not a city name for any tile for any civs?
New York = Nova Eburacum
Ankor = Angkoria
Chicago = Cicagum
Caracas = Caracum
Berlin = Berolinum ecc.:crazyeye:

I'm trying to avoid invented names

New York = Nova Eburacum
Ankor = Angkoria
Chicago = Cicagum
Caracas = Caracum

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - Petropavlovskum-Kamchatskia. How's that for a change? ;)

I'd prefer New XXXX instead of invented names.

"<-_Danny_->"@ Your sig is way too long, you should make it shorter.

Except not "New", except for England :p. I wouldn't mind seeing "Nova Roma" though :)

Except not "New", except for England
What if the US starts colonizing the Old World? :)

What if the US starts colonizing the Old World? :)

New New York, of course!

My point was that the US would use the english "New" as well as England, but New New York is a great city name.

Well, you can always use a king or governor's name for a new colony. Look up "Georgetown" anywhere; I was surprised at how often that name was used ;)

Well, you can always use a king or governor's name for a new colony. Look up "Georgetown" anywhere; I was surprised at how often that name was used ;)

Don't get me started on how many Alexandrias there are in Alexander's former empire. ;)

Was it necessary to bump this thread just to post that? :D

Maybe not, this thread was on the first page though. :P Didn't realize how old the other posts were until now. Should my point be ignored then? :D This thread had been dead for half a year anyway.

dunno, using a default or modern name in lack of a localized version sounds pretty good to me, and if you want you could still rename it new/novo/nouvelle/nueva "capitallname" or whatever.
if there were the modern name at leat i wouldnt have to look up where a big city in the approximate vicinity of the said location is to determine its name.

An easy solution is to put suffixes behind city names, that point to the civ's language. For example, in (East) India many cities have suffixes as -nagar, -abad or -pur which mean simply -town as in Jamestown or Louisville respectivly. So Hyderabad means Hyder's town. Same with Persian: -abad and -pur are originally Persian words, so there is Nishapur. In Arabic you could put an article before the name, as in al-Qahira. In German you could use -burg, -hausen, -heim and so on.

So if the Indians controlled Houston it could be Houstonabad or Houstonabad. There could be a Bataviaheim or an al-Chikagu. Not necessarily historical but closer to the flavor...

Madridabad!
Berlinapur!
Moscowabad!
Romanagar!
Milanabad!
Barcelonapur!

Sounds fun. :D

An easy solution is to put suffixes behind city names, that point to the civ's language. For example, in (East) India many cities have suffixes as -nagar, -abad or -pur which mean simply -town as in Jamestown or Louisville respectivly. So Hyderabad means Hyder's town. Same with Persian: -abad and -pur are originally Persian words, so there is Nishapur. In Arabic you could put an article before the name, as in al-Qahira. In German you could use -burg, -hausen, -heim and so on.

So if the Indians controlled Houston it could be Houstonabad or Houstonabad. There could be a Bataviaheim or an al-Chikagu. Not necessarily historical but closer to the flavor...

This is actually a good idea, although Jamesabad and Nishatown to name a few sound humorous. :crazyeye:

My point was that the US would use the english "New" as well as England, but New New York is a great city name.

I'd love to see York become "Old York," if the Americans took it over.

Translating "new" for each civ shouldn't be too hard, should it...?

France: "Nouvelle X" / "Nouveau" / "Nouvel Y" hmmm...
Spain: "Nueva Z"
Greece: "Neos A"
Holland: "Nieuw B"
China: "Xin C"
Japan: "Shin D"
Vikings: "Ny E"
etc

spanish would be "nueva" though

and i would love to see york be called "old new york"
nah, thats just silly

Changing it to Old York would be cool...

I would sincerely suggest that areas that were not occupied by any Great Power in history should get their current name.

So if anybody founds a colony in lets say Africa then it should get the current name.

Btw. some city spots in India should get English (or Portugese and French) names not because the English settled them first , but because the English encouraged cities in these spots.

Bombay and Calcutta come to mind.

Certainly Bombay (Mumbai) was inhabited by Indians before the British, but it was nothing but a bunch of fishermen villages. Moreover it was marshland.

Only under British rule the city developed. The swamps got filled up and out of seven small island the core of Bombay got created by land gaining.

In this sense you can say that the English, but not the Indians founded Bombay. And this is just one example.
(don't forget before the British arrived India had fallen back into stone age,thanks to numerous conquests and raids undertaken by the various neighbours to the west (Arabs, Persians and Afghans). Not to mention the neverending wars between the local lords among themselves. Only with the Pax Brittanica India started to redevelop. If you so want most of the cities in India were razed, India collapsed and improvements were gone )

Hence it makes sense to have European names in India as the English, Portugese and French started efforts to build cities again .

There are some. I've founded New Delhi and Madras as English. The AI doesn't anyway. :(

This really sounds way too complicated to implement in the game for such minor details.
Then again, I love attention to detail. When I'm not doing it, that is....