Civilization 7 Leaders Dialogue Translations

[Zaarin]

But you are supposed to identify as the leader you are playing as, right? So they are "talking to the player"?

I've never considered the leader I'm playing as relevant, only the leaders I'm interacting with. The Civ7 diplomacy screen is so badly designed it boggles my mind.

 

[Siptah]

I've never considered the leader I'm playing as relevant, only the leaders I'm interacting with. The Civ7 diplomacy screen is so badly designed it boggles my mind.

Yeah, I also have troubles to identify with a character in civ or humankind. Somehow it doesn't click with me to role-play these characters. It's for some reason easier to role-play civilizations, although this is theoretically much harder, as civilizations often are very complex with dozens of aspects while leaders are easier to dumb down to a few key aspects. Yet, in games like CK3 I have no trouble at all to identify with my character - maybe because the game actually takes characters, their abilities and traits more seriously?

Diplomacy in civ has always looked like an afterthought to me, so the screen was the least issue (while horrible). At least now, there is no more of this stupid give and take diplomacy.

 

[Zaarin]

Diplomacy in civ has always looked like an afterthought to me, so the screen was the least issue (while horrible). At least now, there is no more of this stupid give and take diplomacy.

Diplomacy itself looks promising, but the way the screen is mostly negative space with the characters staring at each other...I can't fathom someone with eyes approved that design.

 

[Guandao]

Are we sure they're final and not temporary placeholders?
American VAs did have that big strike not long ago and the guy doing Augustus is unable to roll his Rs, which obviously doesn't fit well for a character who's supposed to be a high-class native speaker of Latin.

Trajan's VA wasn't American, but Italian. Augustus' VA in Civ5 was Emile Khordoc, who is Canadian. I can't tell if Khordoc returned to voice Augustus again.

If Ashoka is the leader of all Indian civs and Hatshepsut the leader of all Egyptian/Arabian civs, it might be an intended compromise.

I'm not quite sure how much a downgrade it actually is. Civ 6 had around 10 line per leader and it became stale very quickly. For me, leaders have always been one of the more boring aspects of civ V and VI, and especially with these screens that pull you out of the game to a dark place where you are forced to listen to a comical monologue. The new leaders seem a tad more interesting, at least for the first 2 games. But now, what if they actually really interact? I.e., the lines that Hatshepsut throws at Augustus differ from the ones that she throws at Ashoka? In this case, I would take a load of Hindi or Arabic lines by good voice actors instead of 10 more authentic but stale voice lines any day.

Just because ancient Egyptian is an Afro-Asiatic language, doesn't mean Arabic is an appropriate choice for Hatshepsut to speak. Let's make the Aztec, Inca, Maya leaders speak in Latin American Spanish then. I'm the opposite of you, leaders are what drew me into the Civ franchise in the first place. If Civ5 stuck to the voiceless Civ4 styled leaders, I wouldn't have played the game. I doubt there's gonna be a lot of special dialogue between the leaders in this game if they aren't focused on them.

Hatshepsut being the leader of the Abbasids would make me hate Firaxis for a long time. There's gotta be a real Arab leader in the game, probably Harun al Rashid again.

 

[Guandao]

Now that Himiko's been confirmed. I guess they will just use Modern Japanese for her dialogue, even though Old Japanese was significantly different from modern, based on what little linguists know.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Ashoka is speaking Maghadi Pakrit!

 

[notNamed]

Ashoka is speaking Maghadi Pakrit!

Proof or it didn't happen.

Since you're here, I can always shoot a question into the void of "Good luck, I'm behind 7 NDAs!"
Should we expect a next iteration of the deliveries in accurate old languages? Since Civ6's release, I believe the record holder right now is AoE4 with its extensive repertoire of Middle English and Middle Chinese lines even changing through the ages into Early Modern English and Ming period Mandarin, respectively. Though of course it was spotty. Persian got no such treatment and neither did Japanese.
Or are we going to lean more into\ artistic interpretation of the dialogues between leaders? Like with the civilisation drawings (Are these final or still a WIP, by the way? Ironically maybe a question you are more likely to be able to answer ).

 

[Lord Lakely]

Diplomacy itself looks promising, but the way the screen is mostly negative space with the characters staring at each other...I can't fathom someone with eyes approved that design.

But you can have EPIC showdowns between historical leaders!!! Just add lightning bolts and rock riffs from the scrapped theological combat and rock bands, and you'll have this ICONIC staredown between these famous figures of mankind. Exactly what anyone buying a game like this wants!!!

(I personally prefer games that function well and do not come with bloatware that bricks my PC, but hey maybe that's just me)

 

[notNamed]

But you can have EPIC showdowns between historical leaders!!! Just add lightning bolts and rock riffs from the scrapped theological combat and rock bands, and you'll have this ICONIC staredown between these famous figures of mankind.

You joke about it, but it works wonderfully when pulled off with a straight face.

 

[Zaarin]

But you can have EPIC showdowns between historical leaders!!! Just add lightning bolts and rock riffs from the scrapped theological combat and rock bands, and you'll have this ICONIC staredown between these famous figures of mankind. Exactly what anyone buying a game like this wants!!!

Thanks, I hate it.

(I personally prefer games that function well and do not come with bloatware that bricks my PC, but hey maybe that's just me)

Optimization is important, too.

 

[Ryansinbela]

But you can have EPIC showdowns between historical leaders!!! Just add lightning bolts and rock riffs from the scrapped theological combat and rock bands, and you'll have this ICONIC staredown between these famous figures of mankind. Exactly what anyone buying a game like this wants!!!

(I personally prefer games that function well and do not come with bloatware that bricks my PC, but hey maybe that's just me)

According to some data that I definitely got permission to have

Pressing a series of buttons when you go to war with someone else you activate a fighting game minigame

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Proof or it didn't happen.

Sorry - you’ll have to wait for the release!

Since you're here, I can always shoot a question into the void of "Good luck, I'm behind 7 NDAs!"

just one, but it’s comprehensive

Should we expect a next iteration of the deliveries in accurate old languages?

We really try for this, or at least to get as close as we can. There are always unexpected hurdles - some languages are just lost in time so we have to go with what we can best fit. At times, really ancient dialects can even sound rude or offensive to modern day speakers (IIRC Ramkhamhaeng uses the pronoun กู, which is overly familiar/rude to modern ears), or simply unexpected - we are used to historical dramas where people speak with upper class modern British accents, have good hair and teeth, and no pox scars.

But we did get a professional translator - usually an academic and an expert on that particular person - for each of these leaders. I can’t always evaluate it myself - I am not going to have the ears for church Latin versus “real” Latin, and I always double checked my assumptions with the scholar.

There’s always a chance that something slips through - if the script comes back and we’re assured it’s correct, we double check it, and later people notice anachronisms - that could happen! But we did some due diligence here.

Since Civ6's release, I believe the record holder right now is AoE4 with its extensive repertoire of Middle English and Middle Chinese lines even changing through the ages into Early Modern English and Ming period Mandarin, respectively. Though of course it was spotty. Persian got no such treatment and neither did Japanese.
Or are we going to lean more into\ artistic interpretation of the dialogues between leaders? Like with the civilisation drawings (Are these final or still a WIP, by the way? Ironically maybe a question you are more likely to be able to answer ).

So I wrote both these leaders that you see here (and ones you’ve yet to see), and I ALSO wrote the Leader Pass leaders. So that’s kind of the feel. More playful than, say, the quotes, but still trying to be accurate as much as we can.

 

[notNamed]

Thaks a lot for the answer! Looking forward to nerding out and nitpicking things to no end once the time comes.

 

[Guandao]

Ashoka is speaking Maghadi Pakrit!

Good to here! I guess to Razpor, Magadhi Prakrit sounds very similar to modern Hindi.

Since you're an expert on Southeast Asian history, I wonder if any leader from that region made it to the vanilla game. Ashoka doesn't count since he's South Asian. Though you probably can't answer that.

 

[The_J]

Please don't bother the good man that much . I am sure he's already answering all the questions he can.
He's tomorrow on the PAX West dev panel (see here), so maybe we'll get some historic details .

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

Good to here! I guess to Razpor, Magadhi Prakrit sounds very similar to modern Hindi.

Since you're an expert on Southeast Asian history, I wonder if any leader from that region made it to the vanilla game. Ashoka doesn't count since he's South Asian. Though you probably can't answer that.

Information reveal belongs to people other than me! I’ll be happy to talk about why I or we liked this or that person or Civ once it’s out!

 

[Zecon365]

Does anyone know the process Firaxis goes through to find people who can translate English into the languages each leader speaks, and how they find people to record leader voice lines? It's always fascinated me as someone with an interest in linguistics and translation, but I definitely share in people's frustrations when the translations are bad, or the accent/dialect/time period of the language isn't right. I know there has to be some compromises, especially with the older and rarer ones, but I think each culture deserves as proper of a representation as possible..

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

COMPLETELY agree with you. I don’t know how much of the mechanics I can go into, but we find experts, usually academics who specialize in linguistics or history (occasionally native speakers who work as translators, if it’s something more recent) for translation, and nearly always someone from the region for performance (it’s complicated when it’s a long-dead language, and especially hard - or impossible to do perfectly - when it’s something very old).

For instance, I wouldn’t do a script translation even for one of the languages I’m confident in; I’d always find a native speaker - it just sounds better - or a linguist (my PhD is in cultural anthro).

 

[Zaarin]

I have no qualifications except being a passionate amateur, but I once again proffer my services with Phoenician.

 

[Andrew Johnson [FXS]]

I’ve read enough of your posts here to glean that, @Zaarin !

But yeah, each language has a professional translator, cultural consultant (often), and actor - three separate people from outside. Even Ben Franklin had a historian (who wasn’t me) look over the script!

I wanted him in a Flyers jersey and saying “that’s my jawn” when you made a deal with him but they said no.