A polyglot option

[Henri Christophe]

I was wondering...
One very cool element of this game is each leader speaks it's own language.
But I think Fireaxis can do more, because the legend is always in English.
So, my idea is:
The leaders don't just speak in it's own language, but have subtitle using his language and alphabet.
It will be very cool to have Egypt, for example, writen his mensage in Hieroglyphs.
And this game don't will just teach us history, but also languages.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

It's not always in English. You can choose what language you want in the options on the main menu. I'm pretty sure Portuguese is also an option, if you would want that instead sense you are from Brazil.
The whole point is for you to understand what they are saying in your own language. What's the point of it also being written in hieroglyphics?

 

[Henri Christophe]

It's not always in English. You can choose what language you want in the options on the main menu. I'm pretty sure Portuguese is also an option, if you would want that instead sense you are from Brazil.
The whole point is for you to understand what they are saying in your own language. What's the point of it also being written in hieroglyphics?

Ohh you are right, it is possible to choice some languages to this game, I most of time played it in English, but also played once in Germany, I never played it in Portuguese.
But despite of that, I think should be cool to also have more options, maybe two legends one in English (or other language you choice) and another legend in the language of who are speaking off.

Because I'm not just a historian fan, but also a language fan, and I believe should be fun to also learn dead languages on this game, as Egyptian hieroglyphs or Sumerian cuneiform script.
I can learn regular languages at apps as Duolingo, but dead language there is no ludic way to learn it and I believe this game have potential to teach us languages as well

 

[Codeword Iroquois]

I fear the difficulty there would stem from the cost of localization - trying to get all the text in the game into a living language is hard enough, but getting the lines into dead or highly obscure languages would cause further problems - primarily with civilizations like the Inca, due to the lack of a written language (I have no idea how one would fit a quipu into a game), or for the inclusion of groups for whom their alphabet remains undeciphered - the Etruscans and Minoans come to mind. The one other problem I could see would be that it would be difficult to know what a leader was saying - Sejong would pop up, you'd see some Korean, and have little idea what was being said. While I like the idea, and love the concept of learning languages and alphabets, I'm not sure a grand strategy game is the best vehicle for delivering lessons in ancient languages.

 

[Henri Christophe]

primarily with civilizations like the Inca

Civilization who doesn't have a writen language, as Inca, could be used the Latin Alphabet. As Quechua are using today.

 

[Evie]

I mean the point of the written text is for the player to be able to *understand* what their diplomatic partner is telling them. We get a spoken version in the foreign language, and a translation so we know what's going on.

Which, since most of us don't real hieroglyphics or mayan glyphs, might be a little bit of a problem with that idea.

Immersion wise, any such meeting would involve one or more translator to make sure both rulers understand what the other is saying. So the text is the translator's translation.

 

[Henri Christophe]

I was wondering over this idea, maybe it should have 3 legends. One in the original alphabet, second the transliteration in Latin alphabet and for last the text in English to evebody may undestand what he is telling about.
The player may can enable and disable this option however he wants to don't have also so much information at the screen.
Maybe a side botton where the player can switch legends.

 

[Evie]

That's an awful lot of screen space for some flavor.