Grammar, Style and the Colopedia

[Kendon]

A larger pop-up for achievements would be nice to have, so that scrolling is less of an issue.

... there is still the open question what is to be done re capitalisation ... you started to re-cap all words in headlines which is for Europeans an unusual sight.

If we aren't going to translate to French that file is almost done. But there are still so many files which are still not finished...

I’ve taken a quick scan through Achievements and it’s really good. I’ll give it a more careful read but I agree this file is largely done.

As for the capitalization I like how you’re doing it now. Checking my newspaper I see just the first word in a phrase capitalized, unless it’s every letter of every word. What I tried didn’t really create the graphic effect I’d wanted. I’ll stick to how you’ve done it.

There’s one small change I was ready to make at lines 1524 and 1530, only because it hurts me to see my national rodent described as ugly. I was going to use a completely different scenario, one which is arguably more important historically. The header becomes ‟The Mad Hatter”. Here’s the body text.

Our furrier is turning into a mad hatter. His hands twitch, he talks fast and his words make even less sense than usual.[NEWLINE][NEWLINE]Hats more than coats are his business now, fashionable top hats for high society and dignitaries. He uses mercury to get a good stiff felted fabric.[NEWLINE][NEWLINE]Could fumes from the mercury explain his weird behaviour?[NEWLINE]

 

[Fürstbischof]

As for the capitalization I like how you’re doing it now. Checking my newspaper I see just the first word in a phrase capitalized, unless it’s every letter of every word. What I tried didn’t really create the graphic effect I’d wanted. I’ll stick to how you’ve done it.

Ok, let's do it this way. I leave the file in your hands.

Depending upon the size of the font full capitalisation doesn't really help the readability. While revising the event texts of VIP it took me quite some time to de-cap those...

There’s one small change I was ready to make at lines 1524 and 1530, only because it hurts me to see my national rodent described as ugly. I was going to use a completely different scenario, one which is arguably more important historically.

Ah, now I see where you were heading with that new headline... Please, go ahead.

ATM I'm revising the CIV4GameText_Colonization_DiplomacyText_utf8.xml file and its diplomacy texts. The supportive colouring is already done. Now I'm looking at the Royal diplomacy texts which will be fully translated (including Italian & Spanish). The Native diplomacy texts will probably follow soon.

Afterwards I'm planning to bring the text files related to founding fathers, leaders and civs up-to-date with your latest changes. Fixing the spelling of names was only the starting point for working on these files.

re Italian and Spanish texts the guiding line for me is to keep their English 'texts' if these are just names, e.g. buildings, units etc. Short sentences and longer texts are regularly deleted.

 

[Kendon]

2.9
The event about the whale butchers wife´s corset - do I understand it wrong or would it make better sense if her form is "as stimulating as it is unnatural"? The event text seems to be missing the 2nd as?

You're right. Thanks. I've changed it.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Kendon @Fürstbischof
Thanks a lot for taking care of the texts in such high quality and by self initiative.

 

[Fürstbischof]

@Kendon
TXT_KEY_ACHIEVE_ONE_WEAVERS_HOUSE_
Harvestman is actually the correct name of the insect which in German is called Weberknecht (wikipedia: Opiliones). It's a play on words which works nicely in German (Weberin vs Weberknecht), but not necessarily in English.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

@Kendon
TXT_KEY_ACHIEVE_ONE_WEAVERS_HOUSE_
Harvestman is actually the correct name of the insect which in German is called Weberknecht (wikipedia: Opiliones). It's a play on words which works nicely in German (Weberin vs Weberknecht), but not necessarily in English.

And if you rename it to a longlegged Daddy and play on the 5 half-orphans threading the loom who will not have their daddy return? ^^

 

[Kendon]

@Kendon
TXT_KEY_ACHIEVE_ONE_WEAVERS_HOUSE_
Harvestman is actually the correct name of the insect which in German is called Weberknecht (wikipedia: Opiliones). It's a play on words which works nicely in German (Weberin vs Weberknecht), but not necessarily in English.

I wondered about Harvestman. In English I couldn't make the connection. Piecework evokes poverty despite hard work, something that doesn't change until later in the Industrial Revolution and in many cases continues as a business model today. I still like Piecework as the English header. It's also there in the same scenario.

I see how the bug joke works in German but if we try it in English it's going to look forced.

 

[Kendon]

2.9 Cut off text in event
... and is now living...?

Spoiler :

View attachment 599602

I rewrote the last line. There were two final words. With luck it's all in the frame now.

 

[Kendon]

The asterik serves as a progress marker to avoid changing the text of the same tag over and over again. At times 2-3 people have been working on one file which made it difficult to keep track of changes ... you can use an editor like notepad++ to remove the * from these files in one go.)

While playing I was distracted by the asterisk, not too much, but as promised a single keystroke eliminated 170 of them once I saw extended characters had to be added to the search and replace.

So far in my game the English text looks good. I’ve done just one commit since the 3.01 release, ‟an” instead of ‟a” when the Native village educates a settler, usually with an Expert skill. It’s wrong now for Seasoned Scout but on balance it feels like an improvement.

It's a real relief to do fine tuning instead of wholesale changes.

 

[Kendon]

I’ve been proofreading the popups as I play. There have been only three corrections needed since I loaded 3.0.1.As a doublecheck I’ll start reading through the XML_AUTO_UTF8 text files but I don’t expect many changes there either.

For my own games I’ve rewritten several of the twenty Diplomacy comments triggered by entering a new Native village. Some of what’s currently there is great but a few make the Native nations sound like primitive clowns.

They’re out of character with the earlier writing style from R&R or TAC. Jokes are good but they should go both ways. If I were an Indigenous player, and I know we have Indigenous players because I saw Civilization mentioned in a Redwire magazine article, I might feel slightly miffed; not for the first time, of course.

It could have been hurried just to get text done before moving on to something more interesting. I hope not to step on toes but if I don’t hear otherwise I’ll commit my revisions after I finish play testing them.

 

[Kendon]

To increase variety I’ve changed fourteen of the twenty responses in DiplomacyText for the first encounter with a Native village.

When the chief offers to train a settler I added an adjective before the variable noun phrase. That way the indefinite article doesn’t change according to whether the skill begins with a vowel.

The new responses should show up when the next release is compiled. I’d be happy to know how people like the changes, particularly @Fürstbischof, who’s done most of the work on the Diplomacy text document.

 

[Kendon]

Here are descriptions for four new resources added to ‟plains”. I’ve also made changes to ‟develop” so when these two branches merge I’m hoping all goes smoothly.

Cassava

Cassava or yuca is a woody shrub native to South America where it is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates.

Cassava is the third-largest source of food carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice and maize.

It must be properly prepared before consumption, as improper preparation of cassava can leave enough residual cyanide to cause acute cyanide intoxication.

Apples

Apples originated in Central Asia, where their wild ancestor is still found today. After being grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe they were brought to North America by European colonists.

They were especially popular for making cider.

Johnny Appleseed was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Ontario, as well as the northern counties of present-day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive due to his leadership in conservation.

Apples grow in temperate climates.


Blueberries

Wild blueberries are native to North America. Canada consumed wild blueberries for millennia before North America was colonized by Europeans.

Blueberry bushes typically bear fruit in the middle of the growing season: fruiting times are affected by local conditions such as climate, altitude and latitude, so the time of harvest in the northern hemisphere can vary from May to August.


Cranberries

Cranberries, a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs, can be found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

In North America, the Narragansett people of the Algonquian nation in the regions of New England used cranberries in pemmican for food and also for dye.

In 1550 James White Norwood mentions Native Americans using cranberries. In James Rosier's book ‟The Land of Virginia” Europeans come ashore to be met by the local Indigenous people bearing bark cups full of cranberries.

In 1663 the Pilgrim cookbook has a recipe for cranberry sauce.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Kendon
Thanks for supporting again.

Since your commits in the 2 branches are related to totally different lines in the XMLs, problems when merging are extremely unlikely.
So do not worry, you can work on the new stuff without causing any issues to your old work.

Also @Nightinggale said, that he is going to do a merge of "develop" into "Plains", whenever he finds some time for it.
(He is currently also pretty busy with lots of other things in real life and also for the mod.)

 

[Kendon]

I’m making progress with Colopedia plains descriptions of the new animal and plant bonuses.

One surprise is the ibex. It’s not native to the Americas. The closest parallel would be the mountain goat, actually an antelope with suction cup hooves. Mountain goats are common in the Rocky Mountains but they have short horns and long white coats. The Andes have camelids like the alpaca, vicuna and llama; no goats or sheep.

I don’t know how the ibex would fit into gameplay. I wondered about parrots and toucans but I see after a quick search there’s a market for their feathers.

We’re all confident that there will a creative solution when it’s time to write the strategy advice for all the new minerals, plants and animals.

 

[raystuttgart]

The closest parallel would be the mountain goat, actually an antelope with suction cup hooves.

Yes you are correct, the Ibex is definitely not Native to New World.
(It was later introduced to the New World by the Europeans.)

Most likely I just googled or translated wrong.
(I somehow thought that it had made it as wild animal to Northern America itself.)

Explanation:

Originally I was considering "Goat Breeding" for some Terrains brought to Americas just like currently Cattle.
But since team and community do not want me to add new Yields that will not happen.

Later I was in fact thinking about Mountain Goats when I left it in, since I knew they existed in Northern America as well.
(But I thought that they were of the same species as the Ibex.)

Summary:

I will probalby have to remove it.
Thanks for noticing.

 

[raystuttgart]

@Kendon

I transformed the Ibex into Goat.

All those TXT_KEYs have been changed accordingly:
(Thus please do a pull to get the newest update from GIT.)

TXT_KEY_BONUS_IBEX...
TXT_KEY_BONUS_GOAT...

Could you please adjust the texts to fit to Goat?

--------

Once I am done with my other current todos, I will implement:

• Pig Breeding
  
• Chicken Breeding
  
• Goat Bredding

Similar to the way Cattle, Horses and Sheep already work.

--------

Also thanks to @MightyToad they are now fully animated.

 

[Kendon]

@Kendon:
For the next 2 weeks I will support you with writing Pedia texts - my focus will be a bit more on German texts though.
I will start with writing German Pedia texts for the English Pedia texts you have already written.
(Of course you can not write the German texts as well because they have to be done by a German speaker - ideally a Native German speaker.)

There’s a Colopedia entry now in English for each of the BonusInfo names. Most don’t have Strategy entries yet. Particularly for fruits I wonder whether a health bonus would be appropriate but that requires coding. Otherwise writing Strategy shouldn’t take long.

The sole exception is bog ore, because I’m not sure how it differs from regular ore. In German the word for each is ‟Eisenerz” which DeepL translates as ‟iron ore”. There might be an explanation earlier in the forum but I couldn’t bring it up with a search.

I see the unacceptable characters are more than just quotes and apostrophes. I’ll expand my ‟to avoid” list.

My next task is a quick look at formatting but for now the Colopedia English is ready to be checked and translated.

If there’s another priority text file, I can do that first.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

There’s a Colopedia entry now in English for each of the BonusInfo names. Most don’t have Strategy entries yet. Particularly for fruits I wonder whether a health bonus would be appropriate but that requires coding. Otherwise writing Strategy shouldn’t take long.

The sole exception is bog ore, because I’m not sure how it differs from regular ore. In German the word for each is ‟Eisenerz” which DeepL translates as ‟iron ore”. There might be an explanation earlier in the forum but I couldn’t bring it up with a search.
...

"Raseneisenstein" or colloquially "Sumpferz"
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raseneisenstein

 

[Kendon]

"Raseneisenstein" or colloquially "Sumpferz"
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raseneisenstein

Live and learn! DeepL translates Raseneisenstein as ironstone. The German Wikipedia entry is far more detailed than the English one. Perhaps this phrase from the English explains why.

‟Ironstone, although widespread, is a limited source of iron. Historically, most British iron originated from ironstone, but it is now rarely used for this purpose because it is far too limited in quantity to be an economic source of iron ore.”

Here’s a longer passage from the German, again through DeepL.

‟For Brandenburg-Prussia, turf ironstone was of considerable importance for several hundred years. The Great Elector had the ironworks in Zehdenick, which had already been documented in the 15th century, rebuilt in 1664-1666, mainly to have cannonballs cast there.
In the 19th century, the regional lawn ironstone deposits on the Lower Rhine were used for iron production in the absence of other sources.
The heavy industry in the Ruhr area used regional grass-ironstone deposits in the Emscher lowlands as a substitute for the richer iron ores otherwise used, most recently during the Second World War.”

and

‟Lawn ironstone or lawn iron ore is the name given to particularly high iron content in recent and fossil groundwater soils, which occur in the form of rock fragments as concretions or bank-like soil horizons.
Turf ironstones are sedimentary fractions of the soil consolidated by iron minerals. Mostly these are sand, clay and silt, sometimes gravel, and possibly organic substrates (especially peat) with high metal contents.”

From a gameplay perspective I can see the advantage of having some iron located outside the mountains. The first settlers were looking for a material to make better tools. They didn’t need industrial output.

I’ll update the English Colopedia entry.

 

[Kendon]

List of Planned Achievements:

• 100 Goods sold on Domestic Market
• 2 Native Traders
• First Famous Nobleman
• ...

The actual list is much longer. Let's start with three scenarios:

100 Goods sold on Domestic Market

“We're not just farmers now. Our finished goods are top quality.”
“True. But I'm tired of waiting to get paid while the cargo ship takes its time crossing the ocean,” says the merchant. “It's faster to trade here. Time is money.”
The governor sits back and thinks, chin in hand. “You mean with our other settlements? With the Native people? With the colonies from other nations, all those different religions and strange habits?”
“With everybody,” says the merchant. “We may be different, but don't we all use the same money?”

2 Native Traders

“We've got to get more furs,” the Native trader announces. “I'll increase the payment for each fur.”
“We tried that with the Cree up north,” says the returning scout. “It didn't turn out like we expected.”
“Don't they want our goods? The equipment and supplies we have to trade?”
“They want what we have, all right,” says the scout. “But once they get what they need they pack up and go on their way. If it takes fewer furs to pay for what they want, we get fewer furs, not more.”
“Look at all the things we have to offer. Why wouldn't they want that?” asks the trader.
“I guess,” says the scout, “they know when they've got enough.”

First Famous Nobleman

The mayor and counselors watch nervously as the fast ship glides into their harbour.
“He may be an educated aristocrat but he's also a younger son. Only the eldest son inherits. The governor paid for this one to come here to make a new start.”
“He'll still be rich enough to cause trouble.”
“I hear this nobleman is a fan of the Enlightenment that's all the rage now in Europe. Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Newton, Linnaeus, Liebniz, troublemakers every one. Thomas Hobbes even says that the King's power doesn't come from God, but from the people.”
“In the old days working people came here looking for freedom of religion. These days scientists and philosophers want freedom from religion.”