Why devs didn't provided optional subtitles... this is beyond myself. And why don't they all speak english ? All this work of research... for something I never cared about.
subtitles would be stupid because they'll make the dialog seem as repetitive as it really is
and would lose the ability to conveigh messages flexibly depending on correct.
There's absolutely no point having them speak English. The languages are for flavor. Otherwise, they could just use subtitles without any voice actors.
Well, good for you, and congrats on your open mind.
So what is the point of this topic ?
No, I think that as repetitive as the speaches seem to be for you, subtitles would have interested a lot of people.
Let's use Washington as an example because you can already understand what he says. Let's assume they now just translate or transcribe what the voice actor says, instead of displaying a message independent of the speech. Therefore, instead of getting useful information like "don't spy on me," Washington will merely tell you that you mistook his love of peace for weakness. That's not very helpful.
Or let's use a different example. Nebuchadnezzar's text at the bottom of the screen portrays a king descending into madness. But his speech is usually one word sentences (my guess is the voice actor didn't grow up speaking Akkadian ). So rather than quotes like "are you a figment of my imagination," you'll just get something closer to "hello." I'm not sure why that'll be better.
As for having them speak English? What does that actually do? It no longer adds flavor. It increases the chance that you'll find what they say repetitive and annoying because you can understand it, and it's just an unnecessary expense? Why have them speak English instead of just have written English like in previous civ games?
Well, the fact that their speech is schizophrenic is questionnable in the first place. Shouldn't they say one thing at a time ? It's a design choice, but nothing prevents to have schizophrenic but intelligible speaches. Like, just like in the video posted here, having two subtitles, the one for "gameplay", the other one for flavor. It's only one possible suggestion among others, even if i would prefer them to have one speach at a time, tied to gameplay preferably, like it seems to be the case for peace declarations.
As to flavor, It doesn't add any if we can't understand them. It makes the leaders purely annoying with all their grandiloquent gesticulations out of the topic, as if we hadn't enough reasons to hate them all as it is.
You could say that foreign languages have a charm even if you don't understand them, I would agree except that in the case of Civ, I just do not even pay attention, probably because the leaders take an annoying tone, or an official one that particularly lacks charm. For example, I like hearing chinese talking in the street, but the chinese leader I just want smash her face because of her intonation. I like japanese too, african languages, etc... in reality, but in Civ this is just out of place. Probably because I know that what they say is offensive, and vastly due to their rigourous intonation, partly due the developers' zeal.
About them speaking english, indeed I don't care, because I don't understand speaked english more than chinese. (a little more, granted) So anyway subtitles would be necessary for me. Or French voice acting, but I stop dreaming.
All this is a dramatic proof of futile zeal from the developers. Did they want a prize for it ? It's beyond me that they did so many efforts in order to match the real languages of all those nations, instead of working on the gameplay conception, like making AI intentions matching with their speaches and not looking for gameplay systems that magnificate this like denounciations, that are useless excepted in annoying the player greatly.
This I disagree. It just wouldn't make sense for Alexander to speak English. It's like having Washington speaking French.
As to flavor, It doesn't add any if we can't understand them. It makes the leaders purely annoying with all their grandiloquent gesticulations out of the topic, as if we hadn't enough reasons to hate them all as it is.
You may not be accustomed to it in your galaxy far far away, but there's something called "translation", and in the case of talks, "adaptation", we see it everyday in France particularly with american movies, and it wroks pretty well.
I even already saw the term "french" being employed in place of the term "english" or else, because the original works were english or else and that the context needed something like that. (I.E. "you don't speak english correctly" replaced by "you don't speak french correctly". But I saw it also for less obvious needs)
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First off, I'm not sure there's a contradiction between flavor and being annoyed. Second, there absolutely is flavor. It lets you experience a bit of their culture you wouldn't experience otherwise. Just like the city list lets you feel like it's an empire of that civilization and the last lets you see their clothing, scenery, and name of one of their leaders. If you find it annoying, it's either on you or a problem with voice actors/directing. It's not a comment on the language that is spoken.
But either way, I fail to see why it would make sense to have them speak the same language that's not their own. Why go to the bother of hiring voice actors?
@naokaukodem
I really don't see what's the big deal. You don't like the leaders talking? You just want to see the subtitles. Go to your settings and turn it off. Maybe subtitles would've been nice, but really since they aren't there, I don't see the point of making a big stink about it. If you don't care for it, then good for you, sir. Personally I do, and I can't speak for anybody else, but I'd say I'm pretty sure there is other people who's liking it the same as me do. They gave you the option for a reason.
But I like that the leaders are speaking in their own languages; It's cool hearing Ramkhamhaeng call me an arrogant git, Enrico offering his proposals like an salesman, or having Gustav threaten me with his cavalry.
It really helps add flavor IMHO.
I have to agree that the leaders own languages should be spoken. I quite enjoy the glimpse into the civ's culture that is given with leader screens, and the language is part of that.
I don't understand you... Leaders speaking their native language is a huge plus in this kind of game. Serioulsy, imagine Ramses or the Siamese king-I-can't-spell speaking in English? I would call a such game a brain-less game.
About the movies: yes, in France we translate (dubb?) almost all the foreign movies. And no, it doesn't work very well. Personnaly I hate it, all the movies, Tv shows, etc I can watch are in original version with subtitles.
Why? Because I just can't imagine a American character speaking with a parisian slang accent. In the translation, you lose almost all the essence of the movie, and all the works made by the actors.
Even if the movie is in russian, siamese, hungarian, I would watch it with subtitles. Last time I saw "A touch of sin" in chinese in original version. Even if I didn't understand a single word, I enjoyed it. A chinese guy speaking french because I'm lazy to open my mind to other culture? Non merci.
With the translation, you erase a huge part of the work, and it doesn't make the audience smarter. Think about one thing: the countries that translate their movies (France, Italy, Spain for exemple) are very bad speaking foreign languages. But countries where films are shown with subtitles have their people that can handle few languages