A Question out of Curiosity

[brandon1965]

First, as I stated in another thread I absolutely love this mod. There is, however, one thing that greatly confuses me that maybe the mod-makers could shed some light on. There is also the possibility that this has already been asked and answered in which case I would appreciate a link to the appropriate thread.
For almost all the civilizations included in this mod the civilization name is in English: Italy, Brazil, Albania ..., all English names even though the English language is not he major language of any of those countries. I believe this makes perfect sense considering that most of the people who download this mod are probably English speakers and those that are not can always edit the game themselves into whichever language they prefer.
Then we come to the native North American civilizations and the above practice is completely discarded in favor of the native names, and to make it more complicated, they aren't even the native names of the individual tribes but of language groups which combine as one several tribes that spent the vast majority of their history slaughtering one another. Is it really appropriate to combine the Apache with the Navajo and have their UU be a code talker? Is Osceola really a good choice to lead the Cherokee or the Chickasaw. In the case of the Iroquois, it is appropriate since those six tribes did form an official confederation. It would also be appropriate to have a Creek civilization as the Creek were an official union of several tribes (though less formal than the Iroquois), but none of the tribes that formed the Creek Confederacy were Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, or Chickasaw. Wouldn't it be better, and far more accurate to have seperate (in English) civilizations for the major tribes, including:

Cherokee
Seminole
Creek
Navajo
Apache
Comanche
Nez Perce
Kiowa
Chippewa
Catawba
Cheyenne
And any others you would care to include.

Again, this is a great mod but the way the native North American tribes are depicted is (imho) just a complication of the Firaxis blunder with their "Native American Empire" further compounded by using names few people have ever heard of. I can only speak for myself but I would be far more likely to play a game as the Cherokee or the Seminole than as an Aniyonega tribe that never existed.

 

[Agent327]

I think you have a point, but any further subdivisions of Native Americans would only be practical on a North America map. (And I agree with your observed inconsistency in naming.)

 

[Wyz_sub10]

Hi brandon,

I'm the one who made the original First Peoples of North America mod, which was used as the basis for the inclusions in Gold.

I don't disagree with anything you said. The rationale for this was more of a "what if" approach. I really wanted to cover as much territory as possible and still maintain a manageable number of civs. I did separate the Sioux and Iroquois, but made some larger groupings as you note.

I will say, though, that the Aniyonega or Dinnehih *did* exist, in so far as that is how they referred to themselves. Many tribal names that we use today we actually naming conventions of Europeans or other tribes.

In any case, reorganizing things as you suggest is something I've thought about for some time. But it's not an easy job. I would need a lot of help, and if you willing to commit, then maybe we can give it a go.

the native North American tribes are depicted is (imho) just a complication of the Firaxis blunder with their "Native American Empire"

Methinks it was the other way around.