Change England to Britain

[SilverKnight]

Yes, please change it! A tiny little aethestic appeal, nothing more, but this game is too close to perfection to ignore it. England is only a part of Great Britain; there was never an English Empire to rival the British Empire, simple.

SilverKnight

 

[REDY]

I agree, voted yes.

 

[LuKo]

If there is Greece, not Athens, or Sparta so why should be England not Brtain? I voted "yes".

 

[Talkie_Toaster]

Glad to see we usually stay stable on around 75% yes mostly =]

 

[onedreamer]

This is obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of the Union - this isn't at all relevant. We were historically known as Great Britain, not the English Empire.

Even at the time the Civ starts at ?

Definitely wrong, I might venture. If you complain that Britain is too contemporary, then may I suggest we scrap Germany and replace it with the Holy Roman Empire as not to ignore the earlier half of the game?

That's what I already suggested. If you really want historical accuracy, then we should have HRE turning to Germany if certain conditions apply, and the same for England. Fact is, that the Civ (England) starts in ENGLAND with ENGLISH cities. The point that it can expand to Scotland and found Inverness or conquer Dublin looks completely silly to me, since any other civ can potentially do the same. You should look at how it starts not at what it can become.

Er, what? How is this relevant to anything at all, let alone Rhye's and Fall where the city list goes for accuracy rather than a random selection probably compiled in three minutes?

It's relevant because what you call city list is not a city list but a controlled script that will name a city "Inverness" if you found it in the area where the real Inverness is. Problem is that "you" can be England as well as Germany, so again saying that the civ should be called Great Britain or UK because it MAY have cities that IRL are part of UK is silly, because in the game these cities can be founded (or taken) by other nations too. What is so hard to understand about this ?

As for fact vs. impressions, your impression is that, because the British Empire was mostly run from London, we should take a detour from fact and reality so that we may give the largest empire the world has seen a different name.

My impression is that you don't want and don't try to understand my point and dismiss me with sarcastic comments like this one above.

 

[Spearthrower]

At the time the civ starts England would not apply either as it was probably around the 11th century that it became known as England. However, Brittania/ Britons /Bretons etc was the name of the original peoples of the place. The islands were called so and the people were referred to as such - something to do with the word for painted bodies I believe due to a habit of scarification and tattooing.

One thing I think you are not accepting onedreamer is that Inverness and all of Scotland is within the flip area of the civ-previously-known-as-England. It's not the simple case of "anyone can build there" or "you can expand there" - it is clearly treated in game as a possession of this civ.

We are splitting hairs really because whether or not they are English cities, it is moot considering the fact that it is a tiny piece of land in this game and the cultural borders of London cover most of Wales immediately.

And finally there never was an English empire and the time that the UHV focuses on in Rhye's is clearly within the scope of a unified Great Britain and a British Empire.


Let's not bother getting personal shall we, and just discuss the facts?

 

[Talkie_Toaster]

Even at the time the Civ starts at ?

Yes Actually

Historically, Britannia and Britons were there centuries before England and Angles

Another reason is that the name is closer to what the ancient inhabitants called themselves: Brettons.

"Britain" in both Latin and Brythonic, pre-dates the 9th century. Even in its most archaic form, "England" barely meets this deadline.

I don't mean to sound rude but please read the thread before posting?

EDIT: Thanks Spearthrower! Didn't see your post before I posted

 

[Phallus]

Even at the time the Civ starts at ?

What, when England looked like this?

and if you think Britain in the ninth century is bad, how do you feel about Germany?

That's what I already suggested. If you really want historical accuracy, then we should have HRE turning to Germany if certain conditions apply, and the same for England. Fact is, that the Civ (England) starts in ENGLAND with ENGLISH cities.

By the second turn, anything in Scotland and Wales becomes British. There England does not start in ENGLAND with ENGLISH cities - the spawning area is the whole of Britain.

The point that it can expand to Scotland and found Inverness or conquer Dublin looks completely silly to me,

The fact that it consistently does?

since any other civ can potentially do the same. You should look at how it starts not at what it can become.

Okay, let's scrap India, Greece, Egypt, Japan, China, Russia, Germany, France, the Inca, the Aztecs and the USA too.

Edit: and what are we doing starting with empires? There shouldn't be any empires in the game as they didn't start that way.

It's relevant because what you call city list is not a city list but a controlled script that will name a city "Inverness" if you found it in the area where the real Inverness is. Problem is that "you" can be England as well as Germany, so again saying that the civ should be called Great Britain or UK because it MAY have cities that IRL are part of UK is silly, because in the game these cities can be founded (or taken) by other nations too. What is so hard to understand about this ?

Nothing, you seem to miss the point that anybody can do anything, so why give the civs names at all? Inverness is in the English Empire's (?) home area, just as Mumbai is in India's.

My impression is that you don't want and don't try to understand my point and dismiss me with sarcastic comments like this one above.

That is your impression. Now let's get back to fact. I'm sorry if you feel I was being sarcastic, as I was in fact being entirely serious.

 

[McA123]

I don't understand why there's so much opposition to this... I voted yes, but if the majority of people had said "NO" then it wouldn't have really mattered to me.

 

[Talkie_Toaster]

I don't understand the opposition either. It's not as if the renaming would do and damage to gameplay =s

 

[Rhye]

I've got 3 things to say:

1 - Considering that most Englishmen support the change to Britain, while non-english don't, I think that English are right, because they know what we're talking about better than us. We italians for instance tend to generalise and call the Irish "English", call black people from africa "Moroccans", call Moroccans "Albanians", call Japanese "Chinese" etc.

2 - However I'd love to hear an opinion of a non-loyalist british. Such as someone from Glasgow, supporting Celtics.

3 - Don't understimate localization. Britain and British in some languages, again because of the generalization, sound silly.
In italian for instance, what is it? Britannia (the Roman name)? Bretagna (it's the French region)? Maybe Gran Bretagna (Great Britain)?
British is Britannico? or Bretone?
I'm sure there are other issues of this kind in other languages

 

[Elhoim]

In spanish it would be Gran Bretaña, but it is also known as Reino Unido (United Kingdom). Bretaña (without the great) would sound a little alien, but the adjective is Británico, without it.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

This whole debate is one reason why I have always advocated changing in-game civ names over time. Personally, I'd like to see both England and Britain (as the same civ) represented: it could start out as "England" to reflect that civ's small size and influence in the founding years, and as time goes by it would change into perhaps the "United Kingdom" and then the "British Empire" (I'm not sure which term technically came first.) The same goes for the other civs. BTW, I voted for British over English.

Most Americans use England and Britain interchangeably, but in reality they are not necessarily same thing. (Thomas Paine, for instance, used them interchangeably in his pamphlet Common Sense, but perhaps more for literary variety than for an actual distinction.) Since this is an American game, I suspect it is part of the reason we have 'English' instead of 'British.'

On a related note, I sometimes roll my eyes when I see Caesar appear as the leader of the "Roman Empire." Uh, technically it was still the Roman Republic at that point, though by the time of Augustus it was all over except in name. I have heard the phrase "American Empire" used to describe the U.S. only once or twice, and I think that was from a speech given in the late 19th or early 20th century.

So what I'd really like to see is an implementation of gradual name changes: Babylon grows into Iraq by modern times, Rome becomes Italy, England into Britain, Holy Roman Empire to Germany, and many other examples. But back to the topic: Yes, I think British makes more sense because it reflects a larger area and scope, even if England is more correct for the early stages.

 

[SWETBANG]

The British Empire was a English project more so than anything else.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony and Indian Company were English settlements, the British Empire started in the 17th century BEFORE the Act of the Union (1707) which merged Scotland with England.

New Foundland was the first colony under England. The English king Henry VII pioneering martime policies started it all off. The Royal Navy (English navy) built the British Empire.

The Act of the Union between Scotland and England (Wales was already part of England) saw the Scottish Parliament cease to exist, and "merged" with the English Parliament located in Westminster, England.

Scotland was a nation in it's own right, right up until 1707. With it's own kings and Queens, it's own language and it's own wars with England. Londonium was founded by the Romans in 43AD, and burnt to the ground by the Celts. The Romans never did manage to conquer Caledonia (Scotland).

If anything, Scotland deserves it's own civilization in the game. Since it was very different to England, it had it's very own unique culture that was basically overtaken by Englands. i.e only a few speak Gaelic now.

 

[SWETBANG]

In italian for instance, what is it? Britannia (the Roman name)? Bretagna (it's the French region)? Maybe Gran Bretagna (Great Britain)?
British is Britannico? or Bretone?
I'm sure there are other issues of this kind in other languages

Funnily, Britannia was given to the area of England, the Romans actually called Scotland Caledonia, and Ireland was called Hibernia. So maybe it might be historically accurate to call the English (British). And London was founded by the Romans.

 

[Rhye]

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Bretagna

wiki confirms what I said about italian language:
Bretagna is Brittany
Gran Bretagna is Britain
so it should be translated as Gran Bretagna.

Same for French (Grande Bretagne and Bretagne), same for Spain.
German has the name "Brittanien" instead, but it is used to refer Britannia, the roman province
I don't know about Russian Британия

 

[Phallus]

2 - However I'd love to hear an opinion of a non-loyalist british. Such as someone from Glasgow, supporting Celtics.

You'd be pretty lucky to find a non-loyalist Scot on these forums, but I doubt they'd be of a "look, it's Scotland or nothing" persuasion, because nothing would mean "100% English" and that would be a Celtic nationalist's nightmare. The union wasn't a great deal for Scotland when it was first established (it was marginally better later on), but the British Empire can't exactly be brushed under the carpet no matter how shameful we (I?) may find it.

The British Empire was a English project more so than anything else.

England couldn't have established the Union without Scottish cooperation, regardless of England's obvious dominance. It was also more about everyone submitting to London rather than the other nations submitting to England.

New Foundland was the first colony under England. The English king Henry VII pioneering martime policies started it all off. The Royal Navy (English navy) built the British Empire.

Not the English Empire.

The Act of the Union between Scotland and England (Wales was already part of England) saw the Scottish Parliament cease to exist, and "merged" with the English Parliament located in Westminster, England.

Scotland was a nation in it's own right, right up until 1707. With it's own kings and Queens, it's own language and it's own wars with England. Londonium was founded by the Romans in 43AD, and burnt to the ground by the Celts. The Romans never did manage to conquer Caledonia (Scotland).

I'm sorry, I fail to see how this is relevant to either side. Also, Londinium was founded by Romans but the majority of the population were Romano-Britons - the Celts who sacked London weren't some alien race.

If anything, Scotland deserves it's own civilization in the game. Since it was very different to England, it had it's very own unique culture that was basically overtaken by Englands. i.e only a few speak Gaelic now.

It wasn't as simple as that. Scotland and England weren't two isolated cultures that suddenly clashed - they were both formed after invasion and colonisation from across the Irish and North seas respectively, and you completely forget Lowland Scots which shows how English and Scottish blended perfectly.

Your statement would actually make a lot more sense with Wales, but in a way this is even more impossible to do well. An Independent Scotland and Wales would make sense if this were a huge map representing medieval Europe, but it isn't. There's hardly enough room for another civilization in mainland Europe, let alone a collection of tiles on the coast. We have Greece, India, Japan, etcetera, so why not Britain?

Funnily, Britannia was given to the area of England,

Then inhabited by Britons rather than Angles.

 

[McA123]

Yeah, it's Grande Bretagne in French, and the United Kingdom is the "Royaume-Uni." I dunno if it's masculine or feminine though, and there's probably some accents in there.

 

[Abegweit]

Victoria can be considered both English and British, there's no need to argue.
City names are indeed British in this mod.
However, a British civ sounds too modern all through the medieval age, don't you think?

Agreed totally. The concept of Britain didn't exist until somewhere between Mary, Queen of Scots and Victoria, Queen of the Waves. As the Scots fought their independence for several centuries between Mary and the Bonnie Prince, it's obvious that 'Britain' is a modern invention. I actually am quite astonished to see the number of votes for it. Do these people know their history?

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, and there´s a civ that calls itself after a continent... I think that´s more innacurate than the "modern" (1700) Britain...