Most Unique Complaint I've Seen Yet

[Matth3w]

Since when did we start exporting video games to Iran.

//doesn't care.

Then why did you post? It never ceases to amaze me on message boards where people pop in a thread to proclaim their lack of caring. If you don't care, don't click the thread.

 

[vandyr]

Coming from the guy that tried to tell the rest of us that he put a lot of research into this topic (about the battle) and tried to tell us that there were just a few hundred people guarding the pass, when in fact there were thousands....

Obviously more than you have The Greek force started as 7000 or so, which is inconsequential compared to the numbers they were facing, but in the final two days there were roughly 1100 defenders, as Leonidas had sent the others back to warn the Greeks and help with the defense. He knew he couldn't hold the Persians back forever.

So for two days around 1100 men held off tens of thousands of Persians. The Persians got their brown pushed in by a fraction of their force, which is the entire point of this and which obviously escapes you.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I speak Farsi as a second language, I'll take a look when I get home...but if indeed their excuse is supposed to be Aramaic, salaam aleykum is Arabic (although we say it in Farsi as well).

You have to understand that Iranians are VERY proud of their language. That would be important to them.

And also, in 500BC, Persians were speaking Old Persian, not Aramaic. As early as 522BC they have examples of written Persian from Darius. So wrong there as well.

Yeah, I understand completely where they're going here. When I heard people say he was speaking Arabic, I was very upset (I compared it to having Hiawatha speak English). Then I found out it was Aramaic and was pleased. They didn't do this because they hate Iran. They did it because it happens to be historically accurate. Darius I made Aramaic the language of the Empire. It's the same as Charlemagne making Latin the language of his (as opposed to a Frankish or Germanic vernacular). If they chose Cyrus as the leader, I'd be arguing for Old Persian. But it's Darius. I realize he spoke Persian (of course), but official communication was done in Aramaic. This was a decision that was respectful of history. You can't fault Firaxis here.

It's debateble wether Darius spoke Arameic or Old Persian. Arameic, which is a semittic language like Arabic, was "lingua franca" at the time.. Spoken by the elites.

But even so, having Darius speak Arameic is silly. It's like having Catherine speak French (which the Russian elites at the time did).

Actually, here's the analogy I would use. Catherine spoke German by birth. Her most comfortable language was German. But her subjects spoke Russian, so she took pains to learn the language. If the game wanted to represent her natural language, she should be speaking German in the game. But the game wants to represent the language of her subjects. It's a bit more complicated with Darius because he has his "base people" and his subjects. His subjects spoke Aramaic. In the game, it's the equivalent of Catherine speaking Russian. And he probably did speak Aramaic too. Certainly, all his advisors did because it was the court language as well.

It is absolutlely obvious that the Persians should speak Iranian, and nothing else!

All the other nations use their current versions of languages, so should it be with the Iranians.

Actually, that's not true. Alexander speaks Classical Greek, not modern Greek. Augustus obviously speaks Latin, not Italian. Nebuchadnezzar speaks Akkadian, not Arabic. Montezuma speaks Nuahtl, not Spanish. Hiawatha speaks Haudenosanee, not English. The only one I can think of is Rammesses, who speaks Egyptian Arabic, and that's mostly because there are very few speakers of Egyptian alive in the world.

Or don't you think that Victoriy spoke a different version of English than the current one?

Victoria isn't in the game, but her English is mostly modern English. Elizabeth also spoke what is technically modern English. It would be entirely comprehensible to anyone who's at least read a Shakespeare play. Her accent isn't the modern accent, but that's a minor thing. Bismark spoke I presume something close to modern German. French during Napoleon's day was modern French. I don't know enough about Russian to comment, so maybe you're correct there.

Next time Washington speaks French.. One of their Generals during the independence war was french.. so who cares? Its all the same babling...

That's apples and oranges. Washington didn't make the official language of America French. He also probably never spoke French. Lafayette either spoke English or used a translator (I'm not sure which), but it would have been his personal translator, not one supplied by the United States.

BTW, Matth3w, I'm trying to track everything said by various leaders to make suggestions for modding voices. Do you speak Persian? Perhaps I could convince people to make a Cyrus leader mod and you could record the dialogue?

EDIT: This is a really long post, so I assume most will skip it. One final comment. Washington has a Virginian accent (listen when he says "that will teach you not to mess with the United States of America). I think it's pretty accurate, but I'm not a southerner. What he actually spoke was a lot closer to what he speaks in the game than modern RP British accent.

 

[Matth3w]

BTW, Matth3w, I'm trying to track everything said by various leaders to make suggestions for modding voices. Do you speak Persian? Perhaps I could convince people to make a Cyrus leader mod and you could record the dialogue?

I read, write, and speak Farsi at a high school equivalent level...with an American accent of course (as I am American by birth and no one in my family is Persian)...and also a Tehran-ian accent as all of my instructors were from Tehran or Isfahan.

At the very least, I would love to go ahead and record for you if you wanted me to. I'd just have to check and double check the translation of what you wanted and then we could try a couple of different recordings...not sure if I sound kingly enough.

Also as to your first comment, I couldn't watch the video until I got home from work (the military doesn't have Flash player installed on our computers at work ) but you are right in that they DEFINITELY are not speaking Arabic...at least judging by the way he greets the player. Shalom Alek is not Arabic. More like Asalaam Aleikum (which of course we also say in Farsi to an extent, although most Persians just go with "Salaam").

 

[bhavv]

they still have the mentality of a great and ancient nation, which they still are.

However, unfortunately for Iran, they completely lost their greatness since 1979

 

[Louis XXIV]

I read, write, and speak Farsi at a high school equivalent level...with an American accent of course (as I am American by birth and no one in my family is Persian)...and also a Tehran-ian accent as all of my instructors were from Tehran or Isfahan.

At the very least, I would love to go ahead and record for you if you wanted me to. I'd just have to check and double check the translation of what you wanted and then we could try a couple of different recordings...not sure if I sound kingly enough.

Translation help would be nice too. It's a long way off, since it doesn't add much (even getting someone to make a fully Cyrus leader might be difficult). It could also make it a Parthian or Sassanian leader and go for a full Civ mod. Haven't decided (I have other Civ priorities I'd like to work on). Maybe we could try and find an actual Iranian for the final voice recordings, but temporary ones would be nice. I'm planning on adding a Venetian Civ and I'll record temp sounds, but my American accent would make it sound terrible. Ideally, I'd love the guy who plays the narrator in the Italian translation to do it, but that doesn't seem likely

Also as to your first comment, I couldn't watch the video until I got home from work (the military doesn't have Flash player installed on our computers at work ) but you are right in that they DEFINITELY are not speaking Arabic...at least judging by the way he greets the player. Shalom Alek is not Arabic. More like Asalaam Aleikum (which of course we also say in Farsi to an extent, although most Persians just go with "Salaam").

Yeah, it's Aramaic. The people who thought it was Arabic didn't really know, they just said "it sounds Arabic" and got upset at Firaxis. I give Firaxis credit for it, it was actually probably easier to find someone speaking modern Persian, but they went the route that was less anachronistic. Between this and Nebuchadnezzar speaking Akkadian, I'm impressed, actually. The only complaint I have about any Civ is Rammesses, but I don't blame them (there are literally 500 people in the world who speak Coptic and modern Coptic isn't even all that similar to Egyptian spoken in the New Kingdom).

 

[MadRat]

Since when did we start exporting video games to Iran.

//doesn't care.

Since one of the ayatollah's started playing Prince of Persia? You know.. for "research purposes."

Rat

 

[MadRat]

So for two days around 1100 men held off tens of thousands of Persians. The Persians got their brown pushed in by a fraction of their force, which is the entire point of this and which obviously escapes you.

No one is disagreeing about the importance of the battle or the odds. The bone of contention is in the composition of the rear guard on the third day. I gave you a direct primary source citation that refuted your assertion that it was 300 spartans and 800 slaves; significantly more so. It was force composed of several city states. I also pointed out no sane greek of the period would have armed slaves/helots.

For some one so self proclaimed as well read you sure get a lot of basic info wrong - Leionidas' force held the pas son the THIRD day not for two days, Seriously Read Herodotus "the Histories" Book 7. he exaggerates the size of the persian army but it is likely he more accurate with the greek forces - even potentially understrengthening them. Modern historians from Bury onwards are pretty much in agreement with the Greek army at about 10k+ and the rear guard somewhere well over 1000. The 7,100 total is from a few victorian sources (thompson) based likely on some references by Gibbon who tended to make up a few numbers.,. There is no absolute number; hence why i give my totals in ranges.

That being said, I think the confusion stems probably from language. I think the spartans likely did have some slaves with them as servants and retainers but the other greek troops were likely auxiliaries, oath bound or simply loyal allies. I can see these relationships misrepresented as being dependencies like slaves.

Bottom line I think we can agree on - MORE THAN JUST 300 SPARTANS held the pass on day 3.

Rat

 

[mamba]

wow, your argumentation is so idiotic I'm ashamed for humanity as a whole.

relax, and learn reading. I never made an argument, I made a statement.

I've allways thought this game was an instrument for all players to get a nice look at cultures and civilizationt somebody would otherwise probaply never heard of before..
But that is only possible if those civilizations are representet correctly.

Civ will never represent any culture correctly, for that it is just way too shallow, even thinking so is certainly way more stupid than anything I will ever say / write.

'Getting a life' when discussing the identity of your whole country is so blatantly stupid, that it amazes me how a person like you could even handle such a thing as a pc.

we discussed the language a leader uses, not the identity of a country.

I haven't met Washington in game yet, but is he speaking propper Brittish English from his time?

I even think that the people in 1900 used different grammar in their language, so I'm not so sure if Bismark would have used that version of german. It seems to be prussian, but is it the correct version of that time? Or just an intellectual sounding version of our time?

No, they are all wrong, no one cares. That is why the original complainer should get a life.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Since there seems to be two arguments and an implication that there are two camps, I'll point out that I'm for the historically accurate camp, not any kind of "nationalistic" (although how a bunch of Lakedaemonians get associated as being the same side from what I believe are predominantly American posters, I won't know).

First debate - Aramaic vs. Old Persian for Darius I. I feel the answer clearly should be in favor of Aramaic as the official administrative and local language of the Persian Empire

Second debate - the size of troops at Thermopylae (300 Spartans vs. 10k or so). The answer is the latter. Even the Greek sources back me up on this. I realize there's a romantic notion of 300 vs. a million, but it's not close to that. The Spartans themselves brought 700 or so Helots for logistical support and they were supported by many Poleis as allies. The whole thing was a coordinated effort to let the Athenian navy destroy the Persian fleet at sea, which did not entire succeed until after Athens ended up being burned to the ground.

At a minimum, an army of Thespians stayed out of loyalty to the cause to fight to the death with the Spartans and an army of Thebans stayed as well (allegedly because Leonidas felt that, if they were allowed to withdraw, they would change sides and support Persia). BTW, once the Theban army at Thermopylae was killed with everyone else and Xerxes advanced beyond, they did indeed change sides. Loyalty was to the Polis, not to the overall Greek world.

 

[themaelstorm]

On a serious note, Suleiman speaks modern Turkish, which is quite different from the Ottoman language

 

[Lebowski89]

LOL - legendary troll is legendary.

 

[Louis XXIV]

On a serious note, Suleiman speaks modern Turkish, which is quite different from the Ottoman language

There are a couple like that, but they're in the minority, so I think it balances out. Plus, Ottoman Turkish is bound to be much similar to modern Turkish than Ancient Persian is to Modern Persian.

 

[themaelstorm]

Could be, could be. Just saying in case anyone was interested in the topic