Please let us name the world's features

[EmpireOfCats]

While we're all wishing for ponies, I'd like to request a feature that I have been hoping, nay, yearning for since the vary first Civ installment: The ability to tag the major geographic features with names.

You see, Civ is based on a map. Maps show stuff like lakes and oceans and mountain ranges, deserts and plains. On real maps (and on fictional ones such as those in "The Lord of the Rings"), they have names, and the person who discovers them gets to name them. Unfortunately, what the Civ maps are missing is a way for the player to tag those features with a name of their choosing.

Why? It would be fun. It would add character to each individual game, the same way you get attached to city names after a few hundred turns (well, I do). It should be even more fun in multiplayer games, where suddenly your scout stumbles into a place that already has somebody's name attached to it. If you get the software clever enough, you can have your popups say things like "A barbarian as been spotted near the Mountains of Mike."

Obviously I don't know enough about the game to make detailed suggestions. My idea, based on Civ IV, would be that you can click on a feature such as an inland sea, and then type in its new name: Lake of Too Little Fish for example. Or Mountains of Monty, or The Fields of YASD. Modern graphics should be able to turn the writing in a sensible direction, with the nice little curves that real maps have, and autosize a fitting font.

Of course, it should be voluntary, so those blood-thirsty psychopaths who see Civ as a war simulator won't get distracted from smashing Monty to a pulp. And it would probably be nice if you could make the writing vanish when you need to take a good look at things, the way you can get other parts of the map out of the way in Civ IV.

Anyway, just an idea. Oh, and please make my pony black.

 

[Gre_Magus]

I second your request! I like this feature so much that in Civ 4 I occasionally use the "sign" feature (alt-S) to add a sign post with a name to significant features.

 

[Set]

that would be cool if little bit unneeded as long as, as you mentioned it is voluntary and you could take them away whaen you wanted to like you mentioned. also you might need parameters for what you can name so every tile on the map is not named (the ai might name every tile it finds).

 

[Ramanag]

The only question I have is about very large features (e.g. large inland seas and long rivers). Would you only get to name something large after discovering it in its entirety, or once you saw a little bit of it? Also, are we talking about 'the' name or 'your' name? So, I guess I had two questions.

 

[need my speed]

This is something I really want as well. There is a mod for Civilizations IV, but that doesn't work with Beyond the Sword (well, it doesn't work with me).

To Ramanag, I think you should be able to select how many tiles will share the same name, in order to overcome that problem. And in real life, the waters for example all have different parts with different names.

 

[GigaNerd]

In CivRev, whenever you came across a Great River, Great Forest, Great Plains, Great Mountain, etc., it'd give you three different options to name the feature based on your Civ.

For instance, if you were America, and you came across a Great Forest, you could call it either:

1. The Hudson Forest
2. The Mississippi Forest
3. The Appalachian Forest

These names are obviously based off of the Hudson Bay/River, the Mississippi River, and the Appalachian Mountains, but it was kind of cool in its own way!

The only problem was that you couldn't really tell whether a feature was "great" or not. Sometimes, my Legion would walk over a 1x2 strip of desert, and it would say, "You've discovered a Great Desert! What'cha gonna name it?"



If it was easier to tell which features were "great" and which weren't, I think this idea could really take off!

 

[need my speed]

No, in my opinion, you should be able to name anything you want whatever you want. From a 1 tile forest called 'Greentwig Woods' to an 103 by 19 combination of forests, grassland, plains, hills, waters, mountains, etc called 'Xhfjsk hdjs'. And not only squarish formations should work, any possible shape should.

That makes me think, areas could overlap each other (like, these are the Great Plains, with in them, the Big Forest, the High Hill, and the Snake Desert), although that may be too much work. Perhaps creating provinces could be another idea too, although again, that may be too much.

 

[Flying Pig]

Unless there's some practical use for provinces (governers?) I think that would be too much work for too little benefit

 

[Neo-Dar]

on subject i would like to see the ability to group cities into an area like if you want Rome, Ravenna, and Antium to pump out infantry then you could group them and a separate tag (exactly like a city tag) would pop up and you could choose the infrastructure of all three. Of course you should be allowed to separate them again.

 

[need my speed]

That was sort of my thoughts behind provinces, besides a name for the province, they could work together somehow. Like what you said for example. But then again, that would probably be too much work for something that we can already do in a few seconds.

 

[Ilkuul]

I couldn't agree more with the basic suggestion of being able to name map features! That's something I've wanted for a long time, too.

I do see the problems this might throw up, though, some of which have been mentioned here. These might complicate the game too much. For instance, to define the exact area a name covers, seems to me you'd need a 'selection tool' like in graphics programs. That would be carrying it a bit far. It would probably be enough just to be able to type in a label and let the game decide what it refers to and how far it extends.

But what if you have a couple of forested hill tiles and type a name over them... How would the game know whether you were naming the forest, or the hills? It gets pretty complicated!

So maybe the general map labels we currently have are the best we can realistically hope for...

 

[Joecoolyo]

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who wants this implemented!

 

[Osama Bin Davis]

I wanted this too see http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=360712

 

[qwerty25]

There are a couple ways to do this:

1. We make the Map generator make "Great" terrain which we can name when we discover it.
2. We make most of the world nameable as long as it meets some requirement.

For both 1 and 2 I would like the nameable terrain to be at least 4 or more tiles. (Letting people name a 1 tile forest would clog up the map pretty soon)
Also, should naming it first provide some bonus? (probably a cultural bonus if needed)

 

[Shurdus]

On the higher difficulty levels you will find everything is named for you since the AI has more scouts. Also it should never be allowed on multiplayer or every other mountain range will be called 'steamy mountains of poo' and every river 'we pee in it then you drink it haha.'

 

[Thormodr]

I'd like to see this added to ciV. I think it would add a lot to game immersion and would be great for people posting stories about their games.

Of course, it should be a game option as some people may not want to use it.

 

[Challs]

Sounds like a good idea. But there should be a limit of how many features you can name. And a limit of which features. I wouldn´t want to see the screen covered in all sorts of names. Of course there should be a button to disable the names too. But yeah it´s an interesting concept, which would be a nice addition to CiV.

 

[Gre_Magus]

on subject i would like to see the ability to group cities into an area like if you want Rome, Ravenna, and Antium to pump out infantry then you could group them and a separate tag (exactly like a city tag) would pop up and you could choose the infrastructure of all three. Of course you should be allowed to separate them again.

Although this is off-topic, I agree with this post and second the request!

 

[Flying Pig]

That's basically what I would use provinces for; they would work together with AI governors (for example; you might say 'produce troops in Wales, make money in England and focus on Research in Scotland)

 

[mboettcher]

wasn't there a feature similar to this in alpha centauri (which btw could use a sequel sometime soon)?