Leaders speaking their own tongues: a good feature?

[Anony1200]

Here's a random kind of off topic trivia fact:

The guy who did the voice for Otto von Bismarck is the son of the man who played Bismarck in the only "official"(as approved by the government) Video Biography of him. That's why he fits the bill so perfectly...

Besides him,I dunno,Most of the actors sound a little too disinterested-Darius and Naples in particular-but it's overall okay...That's,again,more with the voice actors than the language...

 

[effexop]

Also, why does Ramesses II speak Egyptian Arabic? Couldn't they use Coptic (a dead language, but quite well preserved for linguists/actors)?.

Nah, it could be worse. We could have montezuma speaking spanish. (nothing against spanish, btw, I'm a speaker of it, its just that it doesn't fit the leader).

They could translate things better though, to match more with what they are actually saying. And perhaps add some more different lines. I'm tired of hearing "would you like a trade agreement with england" or some french about A "proposicion excepcionelle" or whatever that napoleon says.

 

[Earende]

They could had used the resources for this to make... the game better? The Chinese voice acting is so bad (I'm Chinese) that after I saw it on the website, I immediately sent it to my cousin as joke of the day. Also, the Japanese voice feels off; they probably didn't hire a proper Japanese voice actor...

 

[uplift17]

They could had used the resources for this to make... the game better? The Chinese voice acting is so bad (I'm Chinese) that after I saw it on the website, I immediately sent it to my cousin as joke of the day. Also, the Japanese voice feels off; they probably didn't hire a proper Japanese voice actor...

I actually think it's pretty good! His intro speech is mad formal (as befits him meeting the leader of another empire), and he starts macho-ly clipping his syllables later on, I think it really fits him.

I don't speak Chinese, but even I can tell Wu's voice acting is pretty laughable, it makes it hard for me to conduct diplomacy with her sometimes

Overall tho, I love the languages. I know a little French and Thai, so it's always a pleasure to both get a little practice in and pick out the words I know...

I just wish that all the actors had recorded in a better sound studio, sometimes their speech sounds pretty hollow

 

[el_hidalgo]

I think this will make life much more difficult for modders, and that's my biggest beef about it. I'd prefer it if they had kept things a little simpler in general so mods wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. Now I have to go find someone who speaks Khazar, which unfortunately is extinct and has almost no written record.

 

[dannythefool]

They could translate things better though, to match more with what they are actually saying.

Definitely. I only speak a handful of languages well enough to understand them as spoken in game, but it's almost annoying when they say something completely different from what the text reads. I think they only have one set of written dialogue but all the leaders say completely different things.

 

[need my speed]

It was and is a great feature, but the stupid, stupid, stupid guys who made it decided to add some text which we can read, which however completely doesn't correspond with what the leaders actually say. If they fix that, it's great. If they don't, I prefer English.

 

[Dozmonic]

Couldn't care less about this feature. I don't listen to what they say, I read what the text says. I'd rather they gave us some actual diplomatic information to go by instead of having squeaky voiced Romans and Greeks piping away at us.

 

[Gorey]

I would have preffered them speak accented english.

That way i could look at them while they speak instead of reading the text.

Montezuma telling me to go F myself in some gibberish language just doesn't quite have the "screw you factor" it would have had could i understand it.

You can tell alot about how someone feels about you by the way they say it.. but if you can't understand it who cares. Even with a translator present it loses some of its effect because of slight nuances and choice of words you could pick up on.

 

[jjkrause84]

I would have preffered them speak accented english.

That way i could look at them while they speak instead of reading the text.

Montezuma telling me to go F myself in some gibberish language just doesn't quite have the "screw you factor" it would have had could i understand it.

You can tell alot about how someone feels about you by the way they say it.. but if you can't understand it who cares. Even with a translator present it loses some of its effect because of slight nuances and choice of words you could pick up on.

Yeah....

BUT


I do like how EVERYTHING Monty says sounds like he's about to rips your heart out and start eating it in front of you......

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It was easy for me to pick up on the fact that the text and speech don't match (Alexander, Montezuma, and Augustus all pronounce their own names even though their written text doesn't have the names) but I still like it. Since I can't understand what they're saying, the difference never jumps out at me and never bothers me, and hearing these foreign leaders speak a foreign language feels right.

 

[Buccaneer]

I'm sure it's a cool feature but since I purposely turn the sound off, they are irrelevant. Methinks they should have hired less artists and voice actors and more AI programmers?

 

[Danielion]

I don't know about you, but that Montezuma actually scares the hell out of me. He definately has the most successful leader graphics.

 

[HannibalBarca]

I don't know about you, but that Montezuma actually scares the hell out of me. He definately has the most successful leader graphics.

I agree that Monty feels much more alive than all the other leaders in this game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I like it, but I am not sure if the effort to get do this "feature" would have been better spent elsewhere... you know, like fixing bugs and creating a better UI.

To be fair, they're entirely different resources spent. You can't convert the effort spent to find some guy to read lines into the effort spent designing a UI (although I would imagine the UI is not an issue of resources, but of styles anyway.

 

[RX2000]

I feel they're all but guaranteed to have (most likely) Isabella showing up at some point. To keep the thread completely on topic, I would hope that she will be speaking Castilian Spanish. I have nothing against Latin American Spanish dialects (some sound quite beautiful, actually), but there's a noticeable difference even to my American ears.

Yea I agree. If you noticed in Civ IV though with the units that spoke, they were speaking Spanish Spanish (Castilian), not Latin American Spanish. I'm sure they would do the same for Isabella.

Actually though, I hope they pick a male leader of Spain & do away with Izzy. I never really cared much for her.

 

[Danielion]

Actually though, I hope they pick a male leader of Spain & do away with Izzy. I never really cared much for her.

Who do you have in mind? Philip II? Would be great for a scenario also. Also include the Dutch under Willem van Oranje and make an Eighty Years' War-scenario.

 

[stormerne]

What seems to have been missed in this discussion so far is that Firaxis evidently included these voices as a commercial decision. It was all about ROI (Return On Investment). They had four choices:

1. Have no voices at all and make the dialogue text based only.
2. Have only English voices.
3. Have 'native' voices (or approximations).
4. Have a suite of voices, English for gamers who are English, French for for gamers who are French etc.

1 would have been no good. No advertising kudos. It would have given the impression that the game had stayed still. Whether or not you like it when you're playing it, the promo clips that include voice do look cool. No voices would be the cheap option during development - no actors to hire - but that's balanced against having cool promos that mean much more potential money for Firaxis.

2 could have been really annoying for non-native English speakers. Bad press of possible Anglo/Americo-centricity is not a good advance money earner. You hire the actors but you introduce risk.

3 is what we got. Looks good in promos. You have to hire the same number of actors as option 2 but without the risk and with the extra coolness. If you don't like what you've bought, too late: we already have your money!

4 would be very expensive to do. You have to hire a different bunch of actors for each target audience. Would it sell better or worse than option 3? Difficult to say, but why take the risk (would be the corporate answer)?

So what we have was not driven by what feels right during game play. What we have was driven by a straightforward commercial ROI marketing decision. In fact, when you consider the options, what we have is neither a good feature nor a bad feature - it was just an inevitable feature.

 

[JoshMay94]

This is a fantastic feature, I felt very pleased when I could understand Napoleon and Bismarck without having to read the subtitles. Any game that can make you feel smarter is OK in my book

 

[WastedEfforts]

I like that the leaders speak their native languages ( or at least they trying to lol ), but 2 things wrong with it. First, text doesn't match what they say. Second, voice acting of some leaders sounds bad. I think Firaxis should rework leaders voices, I really do.