Very Important Fix For Foreigners

This is a request for Firaxis, or Atari, or whoever is gonna deal with local versions of the game.

I own both Civ3 and PTW in French, and my game is not 100% compatible with the US version : when I play a US game, it displays all key-words (such as resources, techs, units, civs...) in English but the sentences are based in French, so that you get eg. "La civilisation English a construit The Hanging Gardens". Quite annoying.
But what really upsets me is that I can't play any modded US game, because the new PediaIcons text file has links to English-written files (obviously) where my French version got those files' names translated into French (this adds nothing IMHO) !! I don't have a general view of the problem because I don't have the level to deal with this problem, but I can assure that the people I have contacted so far say it's not a matter of a few hours to fix this. And so there might be more than I talk about to completely get rid of this.

What I really want for C3C, is that the French version of C3C includes all that can fix this problem for ever when I install it. This leads me to think that there might be differences between those who have PTW and those who don't have it. But there must be a solution, if not in C3C, then in a patch.

Thanks for reading, I apologize to everyone who had already heard about my problem (I think I talked about this in almost every subforum here). And I hope that you have a solution to give us.

Best regards, and I highly expect C3C coming
kryszcztov, a French customer

this actually is important isnt it

never thought about it being american.

I always buy Eng versions.

Foreign versions do too many work and are usual not mod-compatibles and give a lot of troubles.

i though all eurpeans knew at least 5 languages, which is quite amazing to me, I am sure you know english( you understand this) so buy the eng. version

I know 2 and can understand plus 3 more or less.
Eng versions are better (Busgs-almost free & compatibility with mods)

I totally agree with kryszcztov and my case is even worst : US Civ3 + French PTW. Difficult to sort things out.

The pb is you cannot always find the english-language version of the game in (say in this case) France and not everybody is supposed to read English fluently to play a correct game : it is still only a foreign language you know !

I don't know why, but it does seem like the French version has had more problems that the others. Maybe it's just because I haven't personally heard of others?

I do realize that in the French case, some of the problem at least is due to a partially translated file structure. For example, In (most?) of the actual file structure, "Settler" has been replaced by "Colon". But the internal search functions are still looking for directories/files named "Settler". Perhaps if the "translators" leave all the file structure stuff in English, and just translate the game-screen data that the player sees, it would work better.

Wow, I've just clicked on the link in my sig, because I wanted to re-read what I had written, so as to ask a question, and I see this little discussion going on, more than a month after my post ! Thanks a lot for taking it out of the graveyard !!

@ Hygro : Thanks, and I can tell you it IS important for us. You almost always find French versions for games in France (in stores, I mean). So I have both CDs in French. Now it can't run GOTM and other modded games... What I have done since my 1st post above is simple : download the US version for Civ3 + PTW and uninstall the French version. Now I can normally compete in GOTMs... No shame AT ALL.

@ EddyG17 : No, a European guy or girl hardly masters more than 2 foreign languages (and that is very good indeed, I mean speak fluently, not understand 10 words). As for me, the only language I master is English (I wouldn't come here otherwise). I once studied German, but I didn't like it. English IS the language. Without English, you're nothing (almost).

@ Portuguese : Maybe I should buy US versions, but I've never trusted commerce through the Internet so far, and it is relatively new to me...

@ LouLong : I would try to get both CDs in the same language, because it would me feel ill at ease to know "there's something wrong" in my installation.

@ Padma : Of course thanks, because you're a mod ! Maybe you've heard more of the French version because I complained a lot about it a few months ago ? You're right in your analysis, though I said I don't know what's wrong from the general point of view. I'll just add that the game (PediaIcons file and stuff) searches for "Settler" when the game is modded only (because if it's a US modded game, like GOTM, Settler is a Settler) ; in non-modded games (even US ones), the game searches for "Colon" (because text files aren't modified), but it will display "Settler" in the game if it's a US game. In my 1st SG (KRYS01, to end soon), I had to ask an American guy to actually set up my own game on his computer, so as to be sure it would be a "US game", and thus display words in English for people who have English-speaking versions (the greeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaat majority) ; I of course get text in both languages in that game, but that's better than to have French only, and the others English AND French !!!


OK. My question is, as the C3C shipping date is not so far away now : does anyone know where I could e-mail to tell about this problem, so as it can be fixed for the French version (at least) ? Atari, Firaxis, Breakaway Games ? In the US, in France ? Anyone knows an e-mail adress for this ? I hope it's not too late.

Originally posted by kryszcztov
@ LouLong : I would try to get both CDs in the same language, because it would me feel ill at ease to know "there's something wrong" in my installation.

Click to expand...

Well, it was not exactly a choice. I did not even think about it. I was living in Hong Kong when Civ3 came out so I bought the US version there (actually my girlfriend did, gosh I am sure she resents it now ). Now I was back in France when PTW came out and I just ordered it from Amazon France and I admit I did not pay attention to the fact it was a French version. Now they did not sell the US version (commercial limits coming from now-Atari I heard) in France anyway and I still think it is troublesome ordering the US version from overseas.

Actually, kryszcztov, yours was one of the posts in Tech support I referred to while posting my repy. (But not the only one.)


As for who to talk to, that would be (I assume) Atari. Jeff_ATARI, who posts here, is in marketing, but he might be able to point you to the correct people.

Alright, I'll PM so. I hope he can understand and do something about it.

i alway see in the movies a english guy taking a fligth to paris the anther to belguim drive to germany and taking a train to poland and spending a week or so in each location, i have to say the guy was a spy agent but i though that was normal.

Just to jump out of the thread for a minute:
Europe is kind of divided in the matter of language. To make it simple, the south masters, as kryszcztov said, two languages. The northern parts of Europe often masters their neighbour's languages plus english and french, german or spanish. The former soviets often master their mother tongue, russian and either german or french (Bulgaria, Romania).

Back to the issue here:
I think it is indeed very bad of the producers to make half-decent products for the European market, they should and must make products which can make the cut against the US version, not just throw it out hopin no one will complain (as with PTW, but people complained...

Strange enough I got the US version, even I don't live in the US... Might have been pure luck, considering the problems with the European language versions.

Hello to all of you, and especially Feff_Atari hoping he is reading this.....

back to the Compatibility problems, I have a US Version of CIV 3 bought in Germany were they sold it for months before the release of the German version. Actually, one could say thanks about it, but since PTW was only available in a non Compatible German version, and I had to order it in the states.... well, I wasn't so happy..
I think I read somewhere that Conquest will ship out on a CD with all languages on, and that there will therefor be no more problems about which verion one has, does anybody know wether this is true or have some information about wether we'll need to go hunting down a US Version of conquest to have a nice game?

@aeldrik: they will probably be better off including all languages on one cd -> cheaper for them as this is an xp.


Before I ruined my civ2 cd by accident and had to get the not so cool "best of infogrames" version, I remember switching from english to french to practice my language skills...

I read somewhere while searching for it that Atari was trying to put them all on one CD, but might have to make one European and One UK/US CD because of the large Data, however, one could play anyversion of Conquest with any of CIV3 because they solved the CD Protection problem... but since there isn't anything official about this yet....

The best idea is having all the languages in one CD, because some day I will love to play the game with a different language. It must be really cool.

Yes indeed, it is very cool to play games in English ! I remember the days where games in French were so rare... that I got to use them in English... Really worth the effort. So many words and sentences I learnt while playing SimCity, Civilization and other games...

@ aeldrik : I want to know if this is true !!! Where did you hear that ? Also, Jeff_ATARI never answered to my PM. I guess France isn't important...

If anyone at Firaxis or Atari or whatever can answer to my request, please let me know !

Well, I do know that the German version has exctly the same problem like the French one...Luckily I bought the International version month before the localisation come out, so I for one have no problems here. And PTW contained a CD for the German as well as the International version here (but not on the Swiss Market) anyway.

But, AFAIK, isn't the problem "only" in the localised folder names for the units? Like there is no Settler folder in the ...\Art\units direction but a Siedler folder, with exactly the same content, and you can fix it yourself by copy/ rename all folders, and put them bach in the original direction? May require some time, but at least, it seems possible..

Well, to answer you...

As I have already said, I don't know the limits of this problem, so I don't know if this concerns folders' names only (in French, settlers are called "colons" : then you have the verb "coloniser" and at that point, I'm sure it reminds you of a game (almost never played it though)). It seems it's more complicated, some folks have already told me it was quite an effort. So I just guess it's beyond my skills...

As for C3C... as my sig says, I won't buy the CD if it appears it doesn't solve the problem at all. At least I want a US version inside and the possibility to convert US games into French games and vice-versa. The best will be that all versions are 100% compatible (it requires 2 things IMO, see 1st post). What my sig doesn't say is that I really want to play C3C, so if I don't buy it... what could it mean ? (answer : that I'd be mean ?? )