[CONCEPT] Ethnically Diverse Great People

[Grave]

Tired of seeing Benjamin Franklin born in the Mongol kingdom, and Shakespeare born in the Incan kingdom? I am, too!


What this mod should attempt to do is make Great People "civ specific", or "ethnic specific" so that certain names of Great People will only be born to certain civs.

Let's use the Great Engineer as an example...

Currently in the XML file ther is one Great Engineer, with all the different names for the GE's in a list. The computer selects the name of the great person at the top of the list and works it's way down. All civs share this list.

With this mod, there would need to be a Great Engineer for each civ, sort of like a UU, *or* for each ethnic division (Asian, European, Arab, etc).

They would be generated the same way, so everybody still has the exact same chances of generating a Great Person as with the vanilla version... the only difference is, when a GP is actually generated, the computer will generate the GP for that specific civ, which will have it's own unique name listing for the Great People. Following me so far?

I'm not looking at the XML right now, but I would guess that this could be accomplished by simply copy and pasting the GP tags in the XML file to create duplicates, then just changing the names listed in the GP tags, and coding them to be civ specific, like a UU. Repeat the process until every civ or ethnicity has their own GP's.

Now... While I'm not that proficient with XML, Python, or SDK... I do have plenty of great ideas. I'm willing to give this a shot and see what happens. If I can't get the job done, if any of you good modders that read this would like to take over the idea, I'm game. Just give me credit for the original concept.

For me to do this....

What I'd need help with are names. Names of real-life Great People from each of the civs represented in the game for all categories. So I would need names for Great Engineers, Great Artists, Great Generals, etc for each civ.

Coming up with names for civs like the Americans, Germans, English are easy... the hard part is compiling GP names for civs like the Zulu, Mongolians, etc. A great Zulu Artist doesn't come to mind! This is where I think "ethnic" GP would be more feasable than "UU" style GP. It would allow for more generalizing, making the job much easier.



If you think this is a worthwhile project, shoot me some ideas.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

It's interesting... in Civ3, the Great Leader names were taken from banks assigned to each civilization... why they didn't go with something like that in Civ4 is beyond me.

The only reason I might think is because they couldn't come up with people to fill all the gaps for each of the civilizations. I mean, how many medieval Malinese scientists of distinction can one think of??

But I agree it should be changed.

 

[Jeckel]

Well, I'm glad to say Wyz_sub10 and I are makeing this naming mod as we speak. About half or so of the Civ name lists are compiled and we are going with a tentative release date of XMas, but depending on our RLs it could verywell be earlyer then that.. or maybe a little later.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Im sure the reason the concept wast brought over was because of what Dom Pedro said.

for some civs' finding scientists/merchants/enginneers, etc... would be a task.

 

[Grave]

Well, I'm glad to say Wyz_sub10 and I are makeing this naming mod as we speak. About half or so of the Civ name lists are compiled and we are going with a tentative release date of XMas, but depending on our RLs it could verywell be earlyer then that.. or maybe a little later.

Well shoot... if you guys are already in progress with this, no sense in me making another one! It is a daunting task... however, if you read this, and would like any research help with names, give me a PM.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

The best thing to do though in the event of an inability to come up with names of real historical people from respective civilizations would be to:

1. Take the names of current people who would roughly fit the description in the present-day countries where the old nations once were, or...

2. Failing the first suggestion, create a list of authentic generic names from that time period so it will create a fictional great person with a realistic name... because a newly spawned GP with a fictional Malinese name would be better than Benjamin Franklin being born in Timbuktu.

 

[Mexico]

heh- never found this before, but i've got same idea
now it is working!
right now i posted my own modification to SDK which allow this
(at least set unique GP with unique names to civilization)

still can get GP which is not correct by time(era)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=189123

 

[Wyz_sub10]

The best thing to do though in the event of an inability to come up with names of real historical people from respective civilizations would be to:

1. Take the names of current people who would roughly fit the description in the present-day countries where the old nations once were, or...

2. Failing the first suggestion, create a list of authentic generic names from that time period so it will create a fictional great person with a realistic name... because a newly spawned GP with a fictional Malinese name would be better than Benjamin Franklin being born in Timbuktu.

It's not really too bad, to be honest. You simply have to dig a lot. There are a couple of rules to "break", though:

1 - In my lists, I've sometimes used kings as Great Engineers or Great Prophets. Ruler names are always the easiest to find.

2 - Used some modern equivalents. The Malinese GP list, for instance, includes present-day Malinese and Seneglese.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Love your idea, GraveEatr! (Particularly since I've also been trying to develop this for about three months now, with some success. ) I'm happy to see that other people like this idea and want to see it happen. While I haven't been able to tackle the programming aspect of it yet, I have managed to develop a big list with civ-specific names. You can read it here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=179662

As you pointed out, the hard part is coming up with names of civs like Mongolia or Mali. If we can't find anything substantial, I suppose we can always just use general ethnic names for these few civs. But I've tried to shy away from that, in order to keep it as specific and unique as possible. Alternatively, we could do what Dom Pedro II suggested and use modern names, if we just can't find enough. Like Wyz_sub10, I've also had to fudge the names a little bit, sometimes using kings as great artists or prophets, just to make things come out even.