Opinions on Voice acting

What do you guys think of the voice acting in Civ5? Good? Bad? Here are my opinions.


Alexander:
Language: Ancient Greek (not sure which form) VA: Miro de Monteseppia
Using Ancient Greek is a big step above using Modern Greek, which they did in Civ4. Alexander sounds effeminate in voice which isn’t accurate. Ancient accounts say that he had a rough voice. That certainly would have made him more intimidating. I’ve seen complaints about his pronunciation of Ancient Greek. It seems clear that this person is not fluent. His last name is not Greek, but maybe he does have Greek ancestry. I’m not sure if they have a lot of Greek people in Montreal.

Askia:
Language: best guess is Songhay which has several forms VA: Mori Majid
I know nothing of the voice actor other than that he seems to be Muslim. He could be from Mali or West Africa but I am no expert. His voice does fit Askia’s portrayal in the game as a kind of warlord. I wonder how they got someone to write lines in Songhay and if it is grammatically correct. I wish I could translate them but I prolly need to visit Mali.

Augustus Caesar:
Language: Latin (Classical) VA: Emile Khordoc
Augustus has a bit of an Italian accent. He gives off the impression of a bored leader. I’ll say that he did a good job. I think the VA is Quebecois but he learned Latin before.

Bismarck:
Language: Modern German VA: Heinz Becker
It seems like fluent German to me. Others say that he sounds awkward in speech.

Catherine:
Language: Modern Russian VA: Svetlana Migdissova
The VA is apparently a university professor that teaches Russian. I think she did a fine job in making Catherine sound flirty. People say that she should have a German accent when speaking Russian. It doesn’t matter to me.

Darius:
Language: Aramaic VA: Yassin Alsalman
Many people were upset at the choice of Aramaic over a form of Persian. I know Aramaic was used in the Achaemenid Empire. I would have preferred Persian. Darius’ VA seems to be a young Middle Eastern man. His voice does something get on my nerves.

Elizabeth:
Language: Modern English VA: Julia Lenardon
Not really like Elizabethan English, isn’t it. Her VA is a voice coach. Her lines tend to be too simple for my taste. She also can be annoying. Some people say her voice sounds like a recording.

Gandhi:
Language: Modern Hindi VA: Avtar Sandhu
People say it’s definitely an Indian living in Canada or America who’s doing his voice. I can’t tell the difference. Gandhi’s first language was Gujarati, but he definitely knew Hindi. The voice suits his character. His Declare War line is hilarious and out of character.

Genghis Khan:
Language: Modern Mongolian VA: unknown
Though fluent, the VA for Khan is not terrifying or fearsome. He sounds like he needs a hug. Genghis requires a more fearsome voice. It must be hard to find fluent Mongolian speakers here.

Harald Bluetooth:
Language: Modern Danish VA: unknown
One of the funniest voice actors. He also seems to be a bit psycho. That might make him seem like a stereotypical Viking but I’m fine with that. The Historical Harald doesn’t seem to have much of a personality to begin with. Next time, they could try Old Norse.

Harun Al Rashid:
Language: Modern Arabic VA: Laith Marouf
A very dreary voice, like he’s falling asleep. Maybe it does match his appearance and location in a nice garden. People say he’s fluent, so no problem.

Hiawatha:
Language: Modern Mohawk VA: Kanentokon Hemlock
The Mohawks are the closest tribe to Montreal and thus really easy to use. Even Civ4 used it as the language of the Native Americans. Hiawatha sounds like what I expect him to sound like. I hope they add another North American tribe so I can hear another native language.

Isabella:
Language: Modern Castilian Spanish VA: unknown
People said her voice sounds too young. I agree ,but it’s fluent Spanish. Maybe they have trouble finding Spanish speakers who are not Mexican.

Kamehameha:
Language: Modern Hawaiian VA: University of Hawaii scholar
A powerful voice, fits Kamehameha perfectly.

Montezuma:
Language: Modern Nahuatl VA: Alfredo Camacho
His VA was recorded in Mexico, I’ve heard. They didn’t rid the language of Spanish influenced words. His voice fits Monty. I like his Shimicacan line.

Napoleon:
Language: Modern French VA: Greg Gobbi
People said his voice should have a Corsican/Italian accent. I’m fine with the VA, whom works for Firaxis.

Nebuchadnezzar II:
Language: Akkadian VA: unknown
Really rough sounding dude. Sentences are short due to Akkadian being an extinct language. Wonder who did his voice, a scholar specializing in Mesopotamia or a guy from the Middle East?

Oda Nobunaga:
Language: Modern Japanese VA: Ryosuke Aoike
Sounds fluent and very formal. I have no problem with this VA.

Pachacuti:
Language; Modern Quechua (many forms, possibly Cusco Quechua) VA: unknown
Is the VA from Peru? I hope so. Maybe he’s not really Quechua. I figure Modern Quechua would prolly also borrowed words from English. His voice sounds whiny at times.

Ramesses II:
Language: Modern Egyptian Arabic VA: George Saad
He has a great VA who captures the pharaoh’s arrogance. I wish it could be ancient Egyptian or Coptic. It’s not impossible and there should be scholars who know the language.

Ramkhamhaeng:
Language: Modern Thai VA: Thon Kongkaewpaisarn
People have pointed out that the VA’s Thai is not completely fluent. His voice is kind of wimpy and annoying at times.

Sejong:
Language: Modern Korean VA: unknown
His voice is said to be wimpy by Korean speakers. I guess it fits in with his book reading. Maybe this VA isn’t the greatest choice for Sejong, but all well.

Suleiman:
Language: Modern Turkish VA: Onur Aydemir
On Youtube, I’ve seen comments that the VA sounds too young and also hammy at times. I agree. Sully is a great ham in this game. Ben Suleiman! I wonder how he would sound if they used Ottoman Turkish.

Washington:
Language: Modern English VA: Marcel Jeanin
A lot of people say he sounds like Bill Clinton. Might be intentional. I’m not sure if Virginian accents back in the day sounded like this.

Wu Zetian:
Language: Modern Mandarin Chinese VA: Rachel Lei Xie
Since I’m Chinese American, I would like to know who the VA is. Is she a Chinese professor or just some Chinese-Canadian pulled from the street? Her pronunciation is prolly not perfect. Also, is Mandarin the most appropriate dialect to substitute for Tang Chinese? People say she sounds too young and her dialogue is too simple.

Future DLC voice actors speculation:
Celts:
If Boudica is in a DLC, I would like them to use Welsh, though their more likely to use Gaelic.
Dutch:
What else, Dutch. Make him Statesman like.
Portuguese:
Portuguese. Try to make him sound interesting.
Carthage:
Phoenician, ideally. If not, Tunisian Arabic. Should give a tough image.
Ethiopia:
Amharic. Should be very calm and such.
Zulu:
Zulu. Loud and obnoxious.
Maya:
Chol Maya. If not Yucatec Maya. Should evoke a king
Byzantine:
Greek would not fit Justinian. He is said to be the last emperor to use Latin. Choose a later emperor if you want Greek

The voice actress for Queen Elizabeth sounds like Elizabeth the II back in the 1950s or 60s. Definitely not like Elizabeth the 1st. The attitude is a bit more like Victoria

The voice actor for America could make a good living going around making Clinton imitations. No, Virginians near the coast 1770s thru 1790s would not sound like modern Arkansas.

Askia
I have no idea about the accuracy of dialog or accent, and his background is badly out of place compared to all the other leaders, but I think he is in the top 3 as far as the quality of the voice acting, model and animation. He really sells the character.

Augustus Caesar
Another good one, the bored demeanor is done well (much better then whatever Nebuchadnezzar II is doing) and the dull lit background with dust hanging in the air completes the picture.

Bismarck
German doesn't sound bad, but the delivery is stilted for some phrases. He gets a bit better when he's angry. I'm not sure if the delivery is supposed to show off his Prussian nobility, though if the Prussian kings all talked like that it's hard to understand why anyone took them seriously. The back of his coat is low poly but at least we only see that once.

Darius
I don't have any problem with him, he passes himself off as a bit arrogant in speech and animation and it plays well.

Elizabeth
Yeah, the voice has a really strange accent for royalty of that period, and the delivery sounds like she's speaking in front of the mirror and not to another person.

Genghis Khan
He comes across as menacing enough for me. However I don't know any Mongolian speakers to go by, so he could just as well be like the Indians in Dances with Wolves speaking with feminine pronouns.

Hiawatha
Agreed on the good voice actor and delivery, and on the merit of adding a contrasting native American civ (maybe one of the Sioux tribes, they've been in Civ before)

Isabella
Sounds like a shy teenage girl trying to be big.

Oda Nobunaga
Another top one, he made a good character: Noble in peace, wicked in war, indignant when attacked and humble in defeat. The setting is a good match, but the swords always throw me off. 2 main swords is probably not incorrect, but the proportions and thickness of the scabbard just seem off.

Sejong
Sounds like a 15 year old Korean momma's boy. He's also too small on the screen compared to the other leaders which only makes him seem even more timid (the use of screen presence and camera angles is really well done for most leaders - notice how in war there is a subtle move to bring them closer to the camera with a more upward angle to make them menacing)

Suleiman
Big ham. If it where not for the real Suleiman sharing some of the qualities seen I'd label him a naked stereotype.

Washington
So everyone else thinks he sounds like Clinton too? Not accurate in the least, but he does at least manage to sell a very fictionalized and rosy colored portrayal of Washington.

Wu Zetian
Sounds like a Chinese-Canadian girl from the UoT reading from a script.

I think the voice actors are wonderful. All the effort to have the characters speak in their native languages (even those languages that are for all intents and purposes dead), is a nice immersive quality of the game. The fact that the developers went and hired professors and professional speakers in these languages says a lot about the care that went into this game, even if it's not as perfect as some would like it to be.

I love meeting and communicating with the characters in the game...I wish it was an option on multiplayer!

A few times you're saying the language is 'too simple', but this seems to go for a lot of them. Can't tell for sure without knowing the languages though. Most real historical leaders would have used more protocol, less informal chat.
I find the voice acting quite good on the whole. It's the writing that leaves something to be desired. Second rate writing is what you also see in the introduction of the several countries. Lots of repeated phrases and stereotypical sentences there.
It matters less if you don't know the words, though. Wu Zetian sounds really pleasant to me, I like the way she speaks, but it helps that I don't know a word of Chinese - any kind of Chinese.
Anyway, my point is that the writing isn't even that important, considering most fans won't understand most of the words. The acting is more important.

Bismarck is reaonably formal, my German is good enough to tell that. Slightly odd emphasis in his opening statement, but the rest is really good.

Sejong; one of his opening lines sounds like its been spoken in a phone cell - an old fashioned one, picture one of those old English red boxes, you get the idea - and the actor sounds nervous. They should've given the guy a couple of beers first.

Guandao said:

Dutch:
What else, Dutch. Make him Statesman like.

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Funny thing is that a Dutch contributor here noted that Willem van Oranje - and everybody here seems to think Firaxis should go with him - apparantly hardly spoke any Dutch.
But yeah, that's not relevant. Firaxis should just go with that German dialect called 'Dutch' that is commonly spoken in the Netherlands today. As long as it's something that people can associate with the country it's okay.

Elizabeth's voice is done by a Canadian. Probably explains why she sounds so stuffy.

Bismarck:
Language: Modern German VA: Heinz Becker
It seems like fluent German to me. Others say that he sounds awkward in speech.

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Well, it sounds uppish and arrogant. It does fit imho.

mutant-enemy said:

Well, it sounds uppish and arrogant. It does fit imho.

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I think Firaxis have always liked to portay Bismarck that way - somewhat self-consumed. I remember some hilarious statement from him in Civ III where he said something like "If we were friends, then the whole world would follow our example".

Lines were much better in Civ III, by the way, Gandhi offering you a nice curry, The Inca talking about the English and their 'oversized lama's', the Dutch leader saying "You're not exactly tip-toeing through our tulip fields" when he complained about your military presence, etc. I miss that stuff.

Sejong's Korean cadence is off at times. Particularly in his opening, he weirdly enunciates some of the syllables, such that it sounds like he's doing a sing-songy type reading. I don't think he appears too small (no smaller than Pachacuti or Isabella, etc), and I do like the surrounding throne room.

Elizabeth sounds like her voice was recorded. Which is a problem.

Wu's Mandarin is very basic and not very formal at all. Also, she doesn't sound formidable at all, which is disappointing.

Other than that, the voice actors seem fine to me.

Suleiman sounds so theatrical; he needs to have a more natural tone. And I agree that he uses modern Turkish; the words should be more like in Ottoman Turkish. They clearly didn't work with a professional translator; even I could've done a better job.

Harun Rashid uses perfect Arabic. I don't know if it's accurate, but if it is, they did a good job. Same as Rameses II; he's got a distinct Egyptian accent.

Jansay said:

Harun Rashid uses perfect Arabic. I don't know if it's accurate, but if it is, they did a good job.

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He does use perfect Arabic, with an air of poetry in his speech, especially when he accepts peace. I think his voice fits him perfectly.

Guandao said:

Augustus Caesar:
Language: Latin (Classical) VA: Emile Khordoc
Augustus has a bit of an Italian accent. He gives off the impression of a bored leader. I’ll say that he did a good job. I think the VA is Quebecois but he learned Latin before.

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The actor posted on a Latin forum describing the whole process. He admits he made a few mistakes according to recent scholarship (certain sounds should be more nasal). Overall, I think he did a good job for Classical Latin. Plus, he put some effort into acting as well (he does a good job as someone acting superior and is bored with you).

The Italian rhythm (not really an accent so much, but the "music" of it) caught me by surprise, but it doesn't strike me as being inherently inaccurate. Since he's not Italian, he probably thought it was more accurate. I like it because it makes the language feel more "real."

Heh, I was 100% sure he was speaking Italian when I first met him.

Isabel of Spain (Isabella) has a TERRIBLE voice acting. She sounds like a ******ed teenager. It improves a little when she's angry, though. We have plenty of great spanish voice actors (check RE6 or Metal Gear Solid for good examples in videogames). No need to search in South America (by the way, latin spanish sounds awful to us). Why Firaxis?

Guandao said:

Alexander:
Language: Ancient Greek (not sure which form) VA: Miro de Monteseppia
Using Ancient Greek is a big step above using Modern Greek, which they did in Civ4. Alexander sounds effeminate in voice which isn’t accurate. Ancient accounts say that he had a rough voice. That certainly would have made him more intimidating. I’ve seen complaints about his pronunciation of Ancient Greek. It seems clear that this person is not fluent. His last name is not Greek, but maybe he does have Greek ancestry. I’m not sure if they have a lot of Greek people in Montreal.

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We're a population of over 60,000 Greeks in Montreal, and the majority speak modern Greek rather fluently. I'm not sure how many of us are able of speaking Ancient Greek, but the local universities do offer classes in it. I don't know much Ancient Greek myself, but it's obvious that this VA isn't a native Greek speaker, whether it be ancient or modern Greek, and I constantly notice a struggle on his part with much of the words.

Catherine:
Language: Modern Russian VA: Svetlana Migdissova
The VA is apparently a university professor that teaches Russian. I think she did a fine job in making Catherine sound flirty. People say that she should have a German accent when speaking Russian. It doesn’t matter to me.

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Her intonations are odd. If the VA indeed teaches Russian I`ll assume that she is new to voice acting, and her inexperience made the lines sound unnatural.

Wu Zetian:
Language: Modern Mandarin Chinese VA: Rachel Lei Xie
Since I’m Chinese American, I would like to know who the VA is. Is she a Chinese professor or just some Chinese-Canadian pulled from the street? Her pronunciation is prolly not perfect. Also, is Mandarin the most appropriate dialect to substitute for Tang Chinese? People say she sounds too young and her dialogue is too simple.

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Pretty much. Modern Mandarin is a bad choice of language for an ancient Chinese character. They should have at least used some archaic phrases seen in so many Chinese TV series about ancient times. Hard to get it right unless you ask for help from a Chinese literature professor.

Dido is annoying as ----. I have to push mute on my keyboard if I want to trade with her.

I just realized that this thread is 3 years old.

I can't beleive the pacal maya voice is still a mystery. Even hiawatha had a voice recognition.

I have to say I was surprised and pleased to see that Firaxis actually attempted to make each leader have a foreign language. It would`ve been easy for them just to do accented English. For me it really adds to the realism.

My take on some of the languages... I`m no expert or anything.

1. Napoleon. sounds fine.

2. Germans. Sounds fine.

3. Nebuchadnezzar II. Unusually harsh sounding persion which puts me on my guard. realistic in my opinion.

4. Washington. Is that voice authentic? Wasn`t Washington English? And wouldn`t he have sounded more English than American?

5. Boudica: One of the least convincing, least realistic leader ever to me. I`m English so I know almost for certain she`s talking in Welsh, just next door to us (met a few Welsh people too). We don`t know what the Iceni language was, so I guess it can`t be helped, but ishe`s still hard to believe, because, flipping a sword (ridiculous) makes her even less believable. Chances are she never even held a sword only led her men (more likely a spear to point with) . The real boudicca would`ve acted far less showy and energised the men to war. All the other women in the game are by far more realistic compared to her.

6. Montezuma sounds pretty good.

7. Venice sounds weak.

8. The Shoshon guy sounds ok.

9. I like the Japanese guy. When he sounds angry he sounds like he means business.

10. The Chinese girl is disarmingly nice to listen to.

11. The Spanish woman has a very srene way about her that I like.

12. Elizabeth speaks fine modern English, but it isn`t authentic to her time.

13. I find Kamehame really boring, but it sounds ok.

14. Bluetooth I like because he actually sounds like a fun-loving, honest viking type. Your best friend with a beer or your worst enemy with a sword, no pretensions.

15, caesar`s demeanor and speech is very good imho.

16, Alexander seems fine, if a bit young, but he did do most things while quite young, didn`t he?

My only other whine is they could`ve addded more voice recordings for the other extra dialogue choices in the game and enhanced the characters more. After a while they seem quite wooden and not really alive.